Appendix. World Tour and Bombay
1. Introduction / Swami Satyam Anando. In: ‘Light on the Path’. 1988).
2. German resolution against Osho’s entry. Deutscher Bundestag. 18.10.1985.
3. England, Heathrow. Letter. Response from Home Office. 03.06.1986.
4. Canada. Letter. Office of the Deputy Minister and Chairman. Dated 10.03.1986.
5. European Communities. European Parliament. Working Documents. 1986.
6. Uruguay. Visa. La Direccion Nacional de Migracion. Visa. 23.01.1987.
7. Uruguay. Certification from Police Chief of Maldonado. 18.06.1986.
8. Handwritten note by Tom Casey , USINS. Osho being ‘removed’ from Jamaica.
9. Introduction by Ma Deva Sarito. In: ‘Beyond Enlightenment’ . Sumila.1986.
1. Introduction by Swami Satyam Anando. In: ‘Light on the Path. Talks in the Himalayas’ (1988).
“I am not so hard as Gautam Buddha… I am a totally different person. My compassion is not of somebody who is higher than you, my compassion is very human, because I understand the days of the dark nights. I have been through those dark nights – I know how you must be suffering in those dark nights. But it is up to you: you can prolong the dark night or you can end it and bring the sunrise immediately into your life. I have called you my friend. Remember that word. I promise you to be with you whenever you need me. Just need me.
In the winter of 1985-1986, when Bhagwan gave these discourses, first in the Kulu-Manali region of northern India and later in Kathmandu, Nepal, it was the dark night of the soul for sannyasins suddenly cut off from Him. Bhagwan was gone. Their commune in Oregon in America was closing down and the whole future was shrouded in uncertainty.
Along with some personal attendants, Bhagwan left America on November 14 and travelled by a rented Jetstar 731 back to New Delhi, India where He arrived shortly before 7 a.m. local time on November 17.
New Delhi’s international airport was jammed with about 3,000 people anxious to get a glimpse of the master who had been away from His homeland for four and a half year. Sannyasins with their entire families, and many who had never taken sannyas, had been camping out for two nights, waiting.
Step-by-step, a path was made through the throng, and Bhagwan was whisked away to the Hyatt Regency Hotel. While exhausted from His American ordeal, Bhagwan consented to meet with the press. “Good morning, India!” were His first words. He was happy to be back in the lands of the Buddhas.
The next day Bhagwan was on the front pages of all the major newspapers in the country. He Himself was already in a remote and magical Himalayan valley in northern Himachal Pradesh not far from the Chinese border.
There were snow-covered mountain peaks in the distance on both sides of the valley.
With His immediate family and some personal attendants, Bhagwan settled in at the Span Resort, a six-acre holiday complex equidistant between Kulu and Manali. Twice daily, He took brief walks down to the rocky, rushing river which flowed through the complex and sat there on a bench for ten or fifteen minutes at a time. Slowly, He was recovering His health.
Sannyasins and an increasing number of local people began to line up for these “walk-bys.” Eventually, even in the snow, over a hundred people attended.
From the very beginning, the atmosphere was both soft and sinister. Soft, because of the beauty of the landscape and the homely, intimate nature of life close to the master. Sinister because of the rumblings of distant political machinations from New Delhi and Washington.
According to Ma Yoga Neelam, a longtime Indian disciple then in close attendance on Bhagwan, the Indian press was more interested in Bhagwan than ever before. Television, radio and newspaper reporters flew up to ask questions and there were two or three press conferences daily.
Council members from ten local villages came to pay their respect to Bhagwan and have breakfast with Him one morning by the river. They wanted to help in every way possible.
The president, secretary and other representatives from the Himachal Pradesh Bar Association also came to visit. They had read many of His books and were also willing to help Bhagwan settle in.
But the Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh said land could not be purchased by the newcomers for two reasons. First, only residents of the state could own land there. Second, Bhagwan would be attracting many foreigners and all those travelling by land would have to cross the strife-torn Punjab.
Three weeks after their arrivals, the visas of Bhagwan’s Western disciples were summarily cancelled and they were forced to leave the country. While the directive came from New Delhi, many suspected that it stemmed from Washington D.C.
In the beginning of December, Bhagwan started giving discourses – at first outside and later, when the weather turned cold, indoors. In the background of those recorded discourses, one can hear the sound of the river running.
‘Don’t search for the home, because there is none’, Bhagwan said. ‘Search for yourself, because there is one! And finding that one, suddenly, miraculously the whole existence becomes your home’.
Given the context, the discourses have a real existential ring. Bhagwan talks about the collapse of the old commune and of repeated failure as being the way to success. He talks of old-style masters like Buddha, afraid of love and losing their respectability.
‘I am not afraid of anything – particularly of love’.
Towards the end of December it snowed for three days. “Let’s go for a walk,” Neelam suggested excitedly to Bhagwan on Christmas morning. “He was ready to do it! ‘Not with your flip flops,’ I said. ‘You can bring me some shoes,’ He said. He was ready to put on some shoes! But I didn’t have any new shoes for Him.”
When the snow came the electricity and telephones frequently went. Ma Prem Maneesha, who arrived after the other Western disciples left, was transcribing the discourses at this time. She remembers freezing in her dark room with a shawl around her shoulders, transcribing discourses on a clunky old typewriter by candlelight.
It was the dark night of the transcriber!
Kulu-Manali was too backwards for Bhagwan, Neelam said. “With Him you can’t live in the seventeenth century.”
Conjoined with the physical hardships and political bullying of Westerners, some bogus court cases against Bhagwan were initiated and there were even rumours of imminent arrest.
On the afternoon of January 3, Neelam and three other disciples accompanied Bhagwan to the local airport half an hour away from the resort and took a regularly scheduled flight to New Delhi. Arriving in Kathmandu the next day, they went to stay at the Soaltee Oberoi.
From a Himalayan valley with uncertain electricity to a “very glamorous five-star hotel with a swimming pool,” Maneesha said, was an extreme change of scenario. But what she noticed then, and again on the World Tour, was how constant Bhagwan remained against all those “different backdrops.”
In the sitting room of His suite, Bhagwan began almost immediately to give discourses which were attended by about ten disciples. “Outside the windows,” Maneesha said, “you could see an old man and an old woman plowing their field with oxen.”
Bhagwan talked about Buddha, enlightenment, and the cacophony of sounds He heard every night in the hotel itself – flushing toilets, opening and closing doors. He says some amazing things…
‘The experience of orgasm itself is always non-sexual. Even though you have achieved it through sex, it itself has no sexuality in it’.
There was a daily walk-by attended by about five hundred people, mostly non-sannyasin Nepalese. In the evenings there were press conferences in the hotel’s grand auditorium.
The King of Nepal sent an envoy to several discourses and even visited the Oberoi during Bhagwan’s stay. But he did not come to see Bhagwan himself. Some said political pressure was being put on him by the American government. Bhagwan had something else to say on the matter:
‘The king of this country recognizes me as an awakened being. But he thinks of himself as a man of great spiritual realization, which he is not’.
Bhagwan decided to go on a World Tour, “so I can talk to everybody and bring them out of unnecessary chaos. “Leaving Nepal in mid-February, He flew first to Bangkok and then to Dubai where He was met by sannyasins who had rented a Lear jet.
From there He was flown to Greece, the first stop on a World Tour which was to culminate almost six months later in His return to Poona, where He now lives.
In these discourses before you, Bhagwan advised His disciples to be lights on the path:
Meditation has to change you so much that you become a different species, that even in a crowd my sannyasins can be picked out. They will have a radiation of their own, a peace of their own. (Swami Satyam Anando. Poona, 1988).”
2. German resolution against Osho’s entry. Deutscher Bundestag. 18.10.1985.
Geschäftsbereich des Bundesministerium des Innern. Schriftliche Fragen. Drucksache 10/4051. 18.10.1985.
“12. Abgeordneter Dr. Meyer zu Bentrup (CDU/CSU):
Wie beurteilt die Bundesregierung die rechtlichen Möglichkeiten, die in der Öffentlichkeit erhobene Förderung nach einer Verweigerung der Einreise des Sektenführers Bhagwan in die Bundesrepublik Deutschland durchzusetzen?
Antwort des Staatssekretärs Neusel vom 14. Oktober 1985:
Die Bundesregierung hat veranlasst, dass dem Sektenführer Rajneesh, Chandra Mohan, genannt Bhagwan, kein Sichtvermerk für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland erteilt wird, weil seine Anwesenheit im Bundesgebiet Belange der Bundesrepublik Deutschland beeinträchtigen würde (vgl. § 2 Abs. 1 Satz 2 des Ausländergesetzens). Bei einem Versuch der Einreise ohne Sichtvermerk ist er zurückzuweisen.”
3. England, Heathrow. Response from Home Office. 03.06.1986. (Forman 2002)
“Home Office
Lunar House Wellesley Road Croydon Cr9 2BY
Mr A Parmartha
54 Classlyn Road Our reference
London W8R185491
3 June 1986
Dear Mr Parmartha
Thank you for your letter and petition of 25 March and 26 April to the Home Secretary about Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.
The Bhagwan arrived at Heathrow on 6 March but was refused leave to enter on the grounds that his exclusion was conducive to the public good. As required by the Immigration Rules this decision was taken in the light of what was known about the Bhagwan’s character, conduct and associations. We understand that the Bhagwan recently had to leave the United States after being convicted of immigration offenses for which he was also given a 10 year suspended sentence of imprisonment and a substantial fine was imposed. We understand that he may also have convictions in India. His activities have been investigated by the Indian police, and the police in the U.S.A. would like to interview several of his followers in connection with embezzlement. In the light of this the immigration officer decided to refuse leave to enter the United Kingdom. If the Bhagwan is unhappy about the refusal he may, of course, appeal to the independent appellate authorities.
Yours sincerely
Ward (Miss)”
4. Canada. Letter. Office of the Deputy Minister and Chairman. Source: Operations Branch – Intelligence. Dated 10.03.1986.
5. European Communities. European Parliament. Working Documents. Motion for a Resolution. 19.03.1986.
6. Uruguay. Visa. La Direccion Nacional de Migracion. Temporary resident’s visa. 23.01.1987.
7. Uruguay. Certification from Police Chief of Maldonado. 18.06.1986.
8. Handwritten note by Tom Casey, USINS, Portland. On Osho being ‘removed’ from Jamaica. No date. (Forman 2002)
9. Introduction by Ma Deva Sarito. In: Beyond Enlightenment (1986). Place: Sumila, Bombay. Dated November, 1986. Excerpts:
“Every effort to introduce one of Bhagwan’s books is in some way an effort to explain the unexplainable. It would be easy if Bhagwan were a teacher. He is not.
It would be difficult but not so hopelessly impossible if the Western world had anything like the vaguest idea of what an enlightened master is. It does not.
To the Western mind, enlightenment has something to do with the Age of Reason and a master has something to do with slaves. The very idea of relating these notions to what transpires in the presence of Bhagwan is ridiculous.
The thirty-two discourses in this book represent thirty-two evenings spent in Bhagwan’s presence. The lines on the page are full of poetry, full of insight, full of clarity, full of light. They are spiced with laughter and an occasional hit of the Zen stick. They are immensely beautiful, but they are not Bhagwan’s presence.
And the experience of being in Bhagwan’s presence belongs to the world of that which cannot be translated into words. Perhaps some indication can be given; some of the colors can be described, some of the fragrance, some of the taste. But if you want to codify it and put it in a research paper you will be in trouble…
Bhagwan is not an enlightened master as other enlightened masters have been. In this book he talks about it, and he uses the words “beyond enlightenment” to indicate it… Perhaps Bhagwan is the first enlightened master in history who has been capable of being a catalyst for transformation in the lives of so many, many different types of people.
He says, “To go beyond enlightenment is to go beyond individuality and become universal…” To be with other enlightened masters in the past, a person had to somehow fit with the master’s individuality. A disciple of Buddha had to be of Buddha’s type; a disciple of Jalaluddin Rumi had to be a Sufi type; a disciple of Sosan had to carry a seed of individuality that could blossom in an atmosphere of Zen.
Bhagwan is the universal gardener. Whether you are a roseflower or a marigold, his presence is rich enough to provide exactly the right kind of nourishment for your flowering. Whether you are a cherry tree or an oak, his absence is vast enough to allow you to spread your branches as high into the skies as you dare to go.” Beyond Enlightenment (1986)
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