78 lines
4.1 KiB
Plaintext
78 lines
4.1 KiB
Plaintext
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WOULD YOU BUY A USED ROLLS FROM
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THIS BHAGWAN?
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It's not often that we are treated to the spectacle of a religion's founder
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declaring that religion dead. Political movements, occasionally. Fashion
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trends, of course. But religions are supposed to last for eternity or until
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eternity ends, whichever comes first.
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So the recent announcement by Guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, once of India but
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now of Oregon, that Rajneeshism is defunct has produced the same sort of
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magnetic curiousity we associate with news of bearded carnival ladies or gaudy
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public suicides.
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The opportunity this demise provides for public enlightenment is especially
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attractive because Rajneeshism apparently snuffed itself out for reasons other
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than its being difficult for Western tongues to pronounce.
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Guru Rajneesh has not had an easy go of it since folding his commune in Poona,
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India, in 1981 and setting up camp in the immediately overwhelmed tiny town of
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Antelope, Ore., now called Rajneeshpuram. The influx of red-bedecked disciples
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upset the locals, who grew almost instantly tired of red.
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The Bhagwan (it means the "blessed" or "enlightened" one, for reasons no
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longer, if ever, clear) had legal trouble, too, having to do with such
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unspiritual matters as divorce and whether Rajneeshpuram even existed legally.
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More recently, of course, the trouble has been a wholesale defection of his
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inner circle, police investigations, wire tapping, attempted murder, absconding
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with funds and plenty of other whatnot.
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To take his mind off such earthly inconveniences he would go for tranquilizing
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afternoon rides in one of his many Rolls-Royces and bathe in the adoring praise
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of his smitten followers. I have seen film footage of this ritual. It reveals
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the almost infinite capacity of people to grovel.
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It's not easy for an outsider like me to understand or give a detailed, fair
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account of the beliefs, if any, of Rajneeshism. Without going there to study
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the matter myself, I am forced by the press of time to rely at least in part on
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the media. And I conclude that the media are grossly biased in reporting on
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Rajneeshism, for the available clippings are full of quotes from the Bhagwan and
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his groupies that make the man out to be a perfect fool, a buffoon of almost
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unmatched magnificence.
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For instance:
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* He supposedly tells his disciples: "Do whatever you feel like doing."
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* One of his followers once described how, after coming to know him, she
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learned "it is better not to think than to go around hating yourself because you
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are thinking too much."
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* The Rajneesh Medical Corp. is reported to have advised in a late 1984
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edition of the "Rajneesh Times", "If you are smart, you will stop kissing."
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* After a self-imposed silence of several years, reports said the guru this
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summer urged Americans to "Stop giving praise to that criminal Mother Teresa,
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who is only increasing the poverty by saving the orphans."
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* "Anybody who is intelligent will be polygamous," he is reported to have said
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in almost the same breath as his denunciation of Mother Teresa. "You can't go
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on eating Italian food forever. Once in a while you want to try a Chinese
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restaurant. Marriage is a lifelong bondage.''
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Is it possible for one man, given but one lifetime, to be the source of so
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much addled thinking? It's hard to imagene.
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Which is why I say it's hard to gain a sympathetic understanding of the man
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based on such quotes. They have the ring not of verisimilitude but of having
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been composed by the pressured writing staff of NBC's "Saturday Night Live." It
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is as if the Monty Python version of Jesus Christ's Sermon on the Mount
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("Blessed are the cheesemakers," etc.) has reincarnated its full-tilt boogie
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sacrilege in the mouth of the great guru of Oregon and Points East.
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Still, if these media accounts are evenly remotely accurate, the cause of
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Rajneeshism's death is clear: It self-destructed because it relied for its
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insight and power on human wisdom. And human wisdom -- especially when its aim
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is to store up treasures on Earth -- is always poverty stricken.
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