Today marks the 31st death anniversary of "Bhagwan" Rajneesh also known as Osho. Incidentally, Osho is a Buddhist term that means "the one on whom heavens shower flowers."
It is as good a time as any to re-reminisce about my two meetings with him in 1985-1986.
My first meeting with Rajneesh was at the Bombay airport as he was being wheeled out by one of his aides. Rajneesh had become a huge story in the US having been slapped with a 35-count indictment by a federal grand jury accusing him and his disciples of violating immigration laws. He was arrested on October 28, 1985 on board a private jet in North Carolina and then paraded in chains. There are several sordid details to the whole case but they are not germane to this post.
The case against Rajneesh concluded with him having agreed to what is known as the Alford plea, which essentially means the defendant not pleading guilty and maintaining innocence even while conceding to the existence of enough evidence with the prosecution to convict should the case go to trial. I am mentioning the basic details because they are relevant to my meeting. Rajneesh received a suspended sentence of 10 years, a fine of $400,000 and was asked to leave the country.
As Rajneesh was coming out of the Bombay airport I quickly introduced myself. The word AP did the trick because by then he was very familiar with it.
I was told sternly by the aide that unless I addressed him as “Bhagwan Rajneesh” he would not respond. I kept calling him Mr. Rajneesh. He relented after a while. One of the questions I asked was whether his commune in Oregon was seen as a threat to the local Christian community. He looked at me with mild amusement and replied in his trademark nasal tone, “If a religion, which is nearly 2000 years old, can be destroyed by an old, unarmed man (namely Rajneesh), then that religion deserves to be destroyed.”
For the record Rajneesh was not that old then. He was 54 but managed to look much older. He told me he had been administered a slow acting poison during his incarceration.
A day or two later my second meeting took place, this time at a bungalow in Juhu Vile Parle Development Scheme or JVPD. The bungalow belonged to the owners of Patel Roadways, then a well-known trucking and transport company. I remember I was ushered into a large living space which had just two chairs in it—one that looked like a throne of some kind and the other a regular chair. It turned out that the throne was the one that his entourage brought from America. The pecking order of the morning told me where I would be seated—on the regular chair. The throne was for “Bhagwan”. To my surprise there were more than 20 or so followers of him sitting on the floor in worshipful anticipation.
Their presence should have told me that what was being planned was not a news interview but a sermon of some sort.
Rajneesh was brought in his wheelchair and then he changed over to the throne. He looked around with his absolutely still eyes. He then turned to me and said nothing. His aide, I think it was Ma Neelam Dhal if memory serves, said to me, “Bhagwan is interested in doing a spiritual interview this morning.” That surprised me because I had specifically mentioned the day before that I was looking for a news interview about the circumstances of his being thrown out of the US.
I said so as much to which the aide said, “But Bhagwan would like to focus on spiritual aspects this morning.” Even as she was saying that many of his followers nodded in agreement.
“Well, the AP is not interested in spiritual matters right now. I suppose we have to end this,” I said. I got up and left.
That is how abruptly my second meeting with Rajneesh ended.