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The Ridiculous
Teachings of Wrong Way
Rajneesh
Here are some of the
lies and absurd teachings of "Acharya
Rajneesh," alias "Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh," alias "Osho."
Rajneesh once claimed to have the ability to materialize objects
through the power of will, but he said he chose not to use this ability
as it represented a "lower state of consciousness." Rajneesh was
a man who conned his disciples out of millions of dollars, who owned 91
Rolls-Royce automobiles, who had sex with hundreds of young women half
his age, and who ended up taking 60 milligrams of Valium a day and
inhaling enough nitrous oxide to inflate a dirigible. If the
exquisitely self-indulgent Rajneesh had the power to materialize gold
and diamonds, you can be sure he would have used it. No human
being can materialize matter out of thin air because of the laws of
physics, i.e., E=MC2. Just one ounce of matter contains the
equivalent energy of approximately 610 kilotons of TNT, which is 46.9
times the power of the "Little Boy" atomic bomb (13 kilotons) that
destroyed the city of Hiroshima in 1945. No human being has that
kind of power. If the ancient Indian myth that materialization is
an attainable mystic power were true, then India would be the richest
nation in the world, not one of the poorest.
Rajneesh once stated that it was possible to push objects around by
willpower alone (psychokinesis), and he published an article in his
Neo-Sannyas Magazine about how this ability could be
demonstrated. Rajneesh stated that one should take a bowl of
water and pour a layer of cooking oil on top of the water, then place a
metal pin on top of the oil and the oil would somehow make the metal
pin float. The next step was to concentrate on the pin with your
mind and order the pin to move around the bowl like a little
motorboat. The first obvious problem with this experiment is that
a metal pin will not float on either water or oil under normal
conditions as steel is heavier than both water and oil. I tried
this experiment myself and the pin sinks to the bottom of the bowl
immediately. Adding oil to the water does not help the pin
float. The second and most important problem is that
psychokinesis is not possible, and those pretending to have that
capability have been exposed as frauds. Rajneesh never even tried
the experiment himself, and this was just another example of him giving
false teaching without caring if what he said was true. For him,
it was all about getting attention.
In the
book, Lives in the Shadow with J. Krishnamurti, it is stated that when
J. Krishnamurti was a young man he went with friends to a casino to see
if he could win a fortune by using the power of psychokinesis.
The scheme failed and Krishnamurti lost all of his money. J.
Krishnamurti was regarded by many famous yogis and monks as having the
same high level of psychic energy as Rajneesh, yet Krishnamurti failed
at moving objects via the power of his mind. The explanation for
this natural limitation of the mind/brain is that consciousness evolved
to control our bodies, not outside objects. For moving external
objects, nature provided us with arms, hands, legs, and feet.
Rajneesh once stated that "India does not need high technology."
India today is a world leader in computer programming, and high
technology is India's biggest money-making industry. Rajneesh
once said that someone should "shoot" Mikael Gorbachev for leading the
Soviet Union to capitalism instead of "spiritual
communism." Rajneesh often had kind words for Adolph Hitler, but
he had few positive comments about Mahatma Gandhi, whom he considered
too passive to be a good leader. Rajneesh was no pacifist and
often spoke of the beneficial effects of war.
Rajneesh was an advocate of the ancient Hindu myths of "Tantra," and in
a lecture, he defended the ancient Tantric practice of parents having
sex with their children. At his Oregon commune, Rajneesh allowed
middle-aged men to have sex with prepubescent girls. Rajneesh
used the myths of Tantra to rationalize all of his dishonest and
illegal behavior, as well as his exorbitant drug use. If he
walked out on a hotel bill, cheated a real estate agent out of a
commission, or conned you out of your home, it was not theft, it was
"Tantra."
In the early days Rajneesh handed
out bad advice on "Tantric sex," such as having intercourse with zero
movements and concentrating on the "third eye" (Ajana chakra).
When he started having sex himself he realized his errors and stopped
giving out this advice. Rajneesh failed to understand that he had
a responsibility to know what he was talking about before teaching
others. He also did not appreciate that it is unethical for
teachers to have sex with their students, and he used his young female
disciples as his own personal harem.
Rajneesh once stated that all wars would end by the year 2000 as the
world would become so interdependent that war would be politically
unacceptable. Rajneesh later hired an advertising agency to
advise him on how to gain more disciples. He was told that
prophecies of the end of the world sold best. After hearing that
he started to predict worldwide nuclear war and suggested that he and
his sannyasins (initiated disciples) could survive in caves and then
reemerge to save the world. Rajneesh claimed that the AIDS
epidemic would kill three-quarters of the world's population, and he
had his disciples spray their hands with alcohol before eating and wear
rubber gloves during sex to avoid AIDS transmission.
Rajneesh once stated that one could produce a Buddha by having sexual
intercourse with a woman for three hours straight, then nine months
later out pops a Buddha baby due to the long and blissful
copulation. Rajneesh stated this theory at a time when he had
little experience with sex. In addition to the absurdity of his
basic premise, Rajneesh did not understand that if sexual intercourse
sessions last too long, women tend to lose vaginal lubrication and men
are subject to friction blisters.
Though
his parents were alive and well, Rajneesh was brought up by his
grandparents. Throughout his life, Rajneesh was not only
anti-marriage but also anti-family. Rajneesh said that the mother
was the cause of many neuroses and therefore children were better off
living away from their mothers. At the Rajneeshpuram commune in
Oregon, children were brought up in herds, and Rajneesh suggested that
it would be better if they did not know the identity of their
fathers. Rajneesh's plan to control the world population was that
no one should have children for 20 years and after that only through
genetic engineering. Rajneesh forcefully encouraged his disciples
to undergo sexual reproduction sterilization procedures.
Left - See picture of Rajneesh as a boy.
In 1971 I gave Rajneesh a crackpot paperback book, Psychic Discoveries
Behind the Iron Curtain, and two weeks later he used it as the basis
for a series of lectures he gave in Bombay. In the early days,
Rajneesh did not publish hardcover books, only pamphlets that contained
the transcript of a single lecture. His first English hardcover
book (not a translation from Hindi) was The Silent Explosion, which was
a collection of lectures that I hand-picked and combined into a single
book. I came up with the title and wrote the introduction for the
first edition. Several of Rajneesh's other early English
hardcover books, published at a later date, were ghost-written for him
by Satya Bharti Franklin, a female disciple from New York City.
Much of Rajneesh's best material came from other authors, as was the
theme and title for my favorite lecture, Flight of the Alone to the
Alone. Rajneesh did an excellent job of combining words and
information from other authors, which is a common and accepted
practice. The issue I have with his teachings is that he often
pretended to have first-hand knowledge of facts he obtained
second-hand, and he taught many things that he knew were false just to
gain attention and expand his guru business. Rajneesh used words
to manipulate people, not to tell the truth.
Rajneesh bragged on many occasions that he had the power of astral
projection. He stated that if you had a powerfully focused mind,
all you had to do was say "out" and you were out of your body.
Astral projection first came to my attention while reading one of his
early Hindi books that had been translated into English. Rajneesh
spoke of his first out-of-body experience as a young man while
meditating in a tree. He said he looked down and saw his own body
lying on the ground near the base of the tree while his soul remained
sitting in the tree, still meditating. Can a bodyless soul sit in
a tree? Along came an Indian woman who touched his forehead, and
that brought his soul back to his physical body and he opened his
eyes. I think the logical genesis
of this story is that he simply fell out of the tree and knocked
himself unconscious. When people are knocked out, they often have
ultra-vivid, light-filled dreams. Rajneesh must have dreamed that
he was still meditating in the tree while in a semi-conscious state and
then woke up when the woman touched his forehead.
The problem with astral projection as an explanation is that we know
that consciousness requires specific chemicals and sufficient blood
pressure to exist. Even Rajneesh's extra-large consciousness was
dependent on the glucose and oxygen carried by his bloodstream.
If an immaterial soul creates consciousness, then why would something
immaterial need something material, namely glucose, and oxygen, to fuel
itself? Chemicals can only bond with other chemicals to release
energy, so how could chemicals bond with something immaterial?
Rajneesh took many sleeping pills during his lifetime, and he often
became lightheaded upon standing up. This indicates that his
consciousness was dependent on chemistry and blood pressure. Even
his giant consciousness could be altered and reduced by chemical
reactions and reduced blood flow. Rajneesh's consciousness was a
physical entity that could not fly through space without the need for
chemical reactions and the brain's neural-cellular structure.
If human beings had souls with separable consciousness, ask yourself
why would humans need a brain at all. If your soul can see,
think, and move about at will, then why would you need a body?
What would power an astrally projecting soul on its journey through
space, ...an astral propeller? How can a soul see without eyes,
hear without ears, or navigate through space without a map? What
if an astrally projecting soul got lost? How would it find its
way back to its host body? The Harry Potter-style myth of a
silver cord connecting the soul to the body, reeling in and out like a
fishing line, is so fanciful that I won't even bother stating its
obvious flaws. I believe Rajneesh felt he had to lie about astral
projection to convince the world that he had transcended his body and
was no longer governed by the laws of physics and the biological laws
of life and death.
Rajneesh once said
that if he sat down next to a plant, the plant would become so blessed
that it would be born as a human being in its next lifetime. He
also stated that you could talk to plants and ask them what medicinal
value they have. Scientists and anthropologists have found that
traditional herbal remedies were discovered by accident, or through
trial and error experimentation over centuries of experience, not by
having conversations with bushes, flowers, and weeds.
Rajneesh's lifelong teaching was that all human beings have souls which
reincarnate from one lifetime to the next, and we are all trapped in a
continuous cycle of birth and death until enlightenment sets us
free. He claimed to remember all of his own past lives and that
he was once a great Indian guru as well as one of the early Dalai
Lamas. In his last drug-dazed years, he suddenly and briefly
reversed himself and stated that there was no reincarnation and that
the very idea of reincarnation was a "misinterpretation" of other
phenomena. I think his drug-taking experiences made him realize
that he was just a human brain, as the drugs he indulged in, nitrous
oxide and LSD, clearly reveal the neural-cellular nature of
consciousness. Rajneesh thus briefly admitted in essence that his
entire life's teaching was false, based on myths and lies, and that he
had no first-hand experience of souls, reincarnation, ghosts, or
"bodyless masters,"...all the attention-grabbing headlines of his fairy
tale philosophy. His words were just a regurgitation of ancient
myths, books he had read, and his own vivid imagination. Rajneesh
wanted to be known as the greatest teacher since Buddha, and he was
willing to lie day after day and year after year to gain that
reputation.
Rajneesh had a problem with
keeping his lies and fantasies straight. In his early years, he
taught that souls evolved upward and downward. He said that if
you did not meditate, your soul would devolve downward as your
spiritual condition degraded. In later years he declared that
souls only evolved upward because "How can you forget what you have
learned?" If you know something as fact you can state it clearly
and consistently. For example, you know where your house is, and
you can describe to anyone its location and how to get there. If
you don't own a house, and you are lying about owning a home, then you
can make up directions to a house that does not exist and change those
directions as the mood strikes you. As a con man, you can even
sell people houses that don't exist. That was Rajneesh in a
nutshell.
Ask yourself this
question. What does the average Mafia crime boss or corrupt
dictator want most? The answer is millions of dollars, absolute
power, a harem of women, and a daily supply of booze or drugs.
Now ask yourself what did Rajneesh want and get? The answer is
millions of dollars, absolute power, a harem of women, and a daily
supply of drugs. Rajneesh used myths of the occult and his
natural ability to influence people to achieve the same goals. He
could look you directly in the eye and lie without flinching, and that
helped him become a financially successful guru. Lies and fantasy
sell better than telling the simple truth, so Rajneesh decided to sell
spiritual consumers what they wanted to hear.
Rajneesh's own words and life history prove that he had no great wisdom
and that he was subnormal in his understanding of science, mathematics,
ethics, simple logic, and common sense. What Rajneesh did have
was a tremendous power of presence and the gift of hypnotic
oratory. He fooled himself into equating his own raw
consciousness with intelligence and wisdom. Intelligence and
consciousness are not the same things, and those with the most
consciousness are not necessarily the most honest and wise. Even
common street drugs like LSD can induce a kind of distorted state of
superconsciousness, and hallucinogenic drug users are not known for
great wisdom, balance, and virtue.
Opinions and Possible Explanations
It is my unproven theory that Rajneesh's vast consciousness was the
result of the unique structure of his unusually large brain, which was
created through his DNA code, not through practicing meditation
techniques in this life or past lives, which I do not believe
exist. If you look at his photos you can easily see how
incredibly big his skull was in proportion to the rest of his
body. That skull was filled with an extra large brain, not thin
air. [See
picture
of Rajneesh's giant skull]
Magnetic resonance imaging studies have shown that people with large
brains, on average, are more intelligent than humans with smaller
brains. My theory is unrelated to the issue of intelligence
because I believe that 'enlightenment' in the Eastern esoteric meaning
of the word is unrelated to intelligence. My position is that you
can be enlightened and highly intelligent, or you can become fully
enlightened with just average intelligence, and you can find examples
of both situations. It is also entirely possible to be very wise
and not even be a student of meditation at all. Consciousness is
just a brain function, like memory. Having a great memory by
itself does not make anyone a genius. [See picture of George Ivanovich Gurdjieff''s huge skull]
People often become fooled into thinking they are great geniuses
because meditation makes them feel marvelous and full of light. I
am pro-meditation because I enjoy feeling good as much as anyone, but I
oppose the false teaching that wisdom is possessed only by those who
live in a constant state of superconsciousness. World history
backs up the position that yogis, monks, and famous mystical gurus are
not the sole owners of human intelligence. They are often unwise
and make major mistakes that do great harm to
others.
The enlightened heroes of Buddhism and Taoism are often depicted in old
paintings with extra large skulls and enormous piercing eyes. The
evidence shows that a large skull and brain are far more common in the
enlightened elite than in the general population, and this is just one
of many indicators that suggest that enlightenment is a physical,
DNA-based phenomenon. Some of the enlightened, such as J.
Krishnamurti and Ramakrishna, probably had a form of temporal lobe
epilepsy as an aid to their expanded consciousness. Temporal lobe epilepsy is known to cause hyperreligiosity and mystical experiences.
Science has proven that DNA forms the human brain, not some immaterial
soul. Rajneesh, Ramana Maharshi, J. Krishnamurti, and many other
sages became enlightened between the ages of 17 and 21, just when their
brains and the central nervous system became fully developed. The
great spiritual teachers were destined to become enlightened due to
their rare DNA, not because of any extraordinary effort at
meditation. Most humans who become full Buddhas become
enlightened within 7 years of beginning meditative practice, which is
an incredibly short period to achieve such an unusual and grand
result. Some Buddhas never even had to practice anything at all;
it just happened to them without any apparent cause.
If you can comprehend that consciousness is a physical attribute that
is the result of the formation of complex patterns of brain cells, then
you can understand that enlightenment is a mathematically predictable
probability. For example, there are tall people, short people,
geniuses, and fools. There are people with unusually accurate
eyesight and supersensitive hearing, and there are people who are blind
and deaf. Human beings are subject to a wide range of genetic
expressions and capabilities. Consciousness is a brain function,
and thus the mathematics of the grand genetics crapshoot demands that a
tiny percentage of the population will have just the right DNA code
structure to produce a continuous state of superconsciousness.
Meditation techniques do work, and with effort average individuals can
increase their consciousness substantially, but not to the level of an
individual who was born destined to become enlightened. Tibetan
Buddhists put four and five-year-old boys into monasteries to grow
their brains to become more enlightened like so many hothouse
tomatoes. This strategy works to some degree due to the
neuroplastic nature of the brain. If you start early enough,
while the central nervous system is still forming, you can grow the
brain to function in a way that is conducive to meditation, but not
much else. There is a trade-off in loss of practical brain
function when you devote your entire life to the vegetative state of
meditation. This was part of the reason the Chinese had such an
easy time when they waltzed into Tibet in 1950. Tibetans had
dedicated too much of their cultural energy to their religion to
survive in a hostile world.
Tibet has
produced many semi-Buddhas through the wholesale grooming of children
to become Buddhist monks, but India has always been the powerhouse for
producing full Buddhas, not just half Buddhas or near Buddhas.
Indian sages are almost always lone individuals who are born destined
to become enlightened. They are not part of any theocracy or army
of monks, and they usually become enlightened completely alone.
Their enlightenment does not come from virtue or past life experience,
but from the Indian brain structure which is the most suited to the
superconscious state. History shows that the genetic oddity of
enlightenment is most prevalent in Indian males. Tibetan,
Chinese, and Japanese have practiced meditation for centuries, but on
average they have had to work twice as hard to achieve half the
results. In the West, aside from George Gurdjieff, full dramatic
enlightenment is almost in total absence. To date, the West has
produced many great scientists, philosophers, artists, and scholars,
but very few living Buddhas. It is clear that the vast majority of religious
heroes the world has deemed enlightened have at least one of three
genetically created characteristics: 1) they are Indian; 2) they have
an abnormally large skull and brain. 3) They have a family history of
epilepsy.
The realms of the
occult and mysticism are a misinterpretation of brain phenomena that
all humans experience to one degree or another at different times in
our lives, either spontaneously, through the practice of meditation
techniques, or the use of psychoactive drugs. It's all in the
brain, and none of us know any world outside of the human brain because
that is what we are.
Christopher Calder
calderconnection@gmail.com
Note Opinions
expressed on this
page must be viewed as the ideas of an ordinary student of
meditation.
While I truly believe everything I say, you should not believe
anything
unless you see it, feel it, and know it for yourself. I make no
claims
of infallibility.
Copyright notice: Please
feel free
to copy, repost, or publish The
Ridiculous Teachings of Wrong
Way
Rajneesh (© 2004 Christopher Calder)
for educational, noncommercial use.
You may repost or publish
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were written by Christopher Calder. No one has been granted permission to use my
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