Did Osho Try Behaving Like A White’s Only Guru At Oregon?

I’ll republish some of my own posts hereafter, which were made at another Osho-forum to keep this blog running.

Today’s Stolen Entry

First of all, it would be much appreciated, if the participants taking part in this debate revealed some kind of their web identity. That will help in developing a notion, they were serious about this whole issue.

As regards this book itself, the first few pages sounded very interesting, that is where I stopped due to a time crunch. It would be inappropriate to make any judgments, until I had a complete look at it.

I’d like to make a couple of general observations (or rather questions), though, based on my initial reactions.

Is there anything like White Westerns vs Indians also working behind this whole “controversy” saga? There can be no denying, it is always a major cultural shock for anybody visiting India for the very first time from the West. I have spoken with several of them until now, who spent months living in my town, so I know it first hand. Many of the Indians would not defend their own state of affairs either. I deeply enjoy, as an Indian, whatever this country presents to my whole self, but I also hate, at the same time, watching people taking out processions – drumming, shouting and bursting firecrackers – whenever they felt the need of doing it, performing Pujaas (prayers) in the very middle of roads, expecting the whole world to bear with their nonsense if they felt they should protest or celebrate about anything….and I have not yet spoken about the 70% of India. This all just about the middle and very rich class. The rest of 70% poor and sub-human India will require another several paragraphs.

But how much ever I might hate it, there can be no alternative for the space India enjoys in my life. That is how I was raised up, and it sunk deep inside each molecule formulating me. The same can be spoken about the rest of my fellow countrymen and women as well. Even those who might have immigrated from India to the lavish West, can be seen rushing back to the same dusty and noisy backyards of theirs own even at the slightest of any chance.

Arguably, one can speak the same about the White West as well. They might have fallen in love with Osho, but could never acclimatise with the eastern background he belonged to. The West had its own set of values, and the world can see it guarding them hard with each passing day. I can clearly visualize this while reading the anti-Osho outbursts by Calder and his fellow observers. They keep harping about ethics, and this was to be their own, the Western one. First of all, it’s simply impossible to define any absolute way of living and behaving in this world. All those trying to do so will make a fool out of themselves, after some effort.

The question that can be raised at this point is, did the white Oshoite try to transform Osho into a Whites Only Phenomenon when deciding to move over to Oregon? Osho’s Indian secretary at Oregon can be left aside in this conversation, since she was merely one in many other mainly white Oshoites, who had obviously gone overboard, with or without the tacit support of their master.

Then again, did Osho also try to behave like a White’s Only Guru by accepting to or formulating the idea of Oregon? He must have failed miserably, if he did so, since his eastern self was bound to contradict sooner or later. The ensuing contradiction did give rise to the cult like situation at Oregon in the form of Sheela et all, as the events told later, and Osho perhaps also became a silent player in the whole affair (by that time he must have lost the whole plot). The move to accept traveling to Oregon was foolish in the end, one can say now. But, that is how things came to be, and we (Osho-believers) must try to live with that fact – taking it as one of his own Mulla Nasruddin gimmicks.

I’ll read the rest of this book soon (it provides a good first hand, second opinion, about this whole saga), though I suspect it might soon get heavily infested with the same rhetoric about ethics etc, and that will end my appetite too.

PS – Kindly take my whites vs non-whites reference in the right context. It has been made for those only who were directly involved with Osho in the past, and who might be carrying a very critical opinion about him now, as we know many others, including the whites and Indians both, might think I was doing a great disservice by introducing a racial dimension of this story now.