THE VISION OF A NEW COMMUNE
In his discourses, Osho begins to talk about finding an isolated place where his work can take place without harassment and interference. A search is initiated for a large place in the Indian countryside, where a "new commune" can be built and the spiritual dimensions of the work can go deeper. Gurdjieff lived a life that was very mysterious; it was not public. His school was a hidden school. What was happening there, people were simply guessing. And that's what is going to happen in the new phase of my work. My commune will become hidden, underground. It will have a facade on the outside: the weavers and the carpenters and the potters . . . that will be the facade. People who will come as visitors, we will have a beautiful showroom for them; they can purchase things. They can see the creativity of the sannyasins— paintings, books, woodworking. They can be shown around—a beautiful lake, swimming pools, a five-star hotel for them—but they will not know what is really happening. That which will be happening will be almost all underground. It has to be underground, otherwise it cannot happen. I have a few secrets to impart to you, and I would not like to die before I have imparted them—because I don't know anybody else now alive in the world who can do that work. I have secrets from Taoism, secrets from Tantra, secrets from Yoga, secrets from Sufis, secrets from Zen people. I have lived in almost all the traditions of the world; I have been a wanderer in many lives. I have gathered much honey from many flowers. And the time, sooner or later, will come when I will have to depart—and I will not be able to enter again in the body. This is going to be my last life. All the honey that I have gathered I would like to share with you, so that you can share it with others, so that it does not disappear from the earth. This is going to be a very secret work; hence I cannot speak about it. I think I have already spoken too much! I should not have said even this. The work will be only for those who are utterly devoted. Right now, we have a big press office to make as many people as possible aware of the phenomenon that is happening here. But in the new commune the real work will simply disappear from the world's eyes. The press office will function—it will function for other purposes. People will go on coming, because from the visitors we have to choose; we have to invite people who can be participants, who can dissolve in the commune. But the real work is going to be absolutely secret. It is going to be only between me and you. And there will not be much talk between me and you either. More and more I will become silent, because the real communion is through energy, not through words. As you get ready to receive the energy in silence, I will become more and more silent. But I am keeping a great treasure for you. Be receptive. . . . All that is beautiful and all that is great in human history has happened only through a few people who put their energies together for the inner exploration. My commune is going to be a mystery school for inner exploration. It is the greatest adventure there is, and the greatest dance too.
SILENT SATSANGS AND COMMENTARIES ON BUDDHA'S DHAMMAPADA
In June 1979, Osho conducts a ten-day experiment in silent communion, or satsang. He appears in Buddha Hall and sits with the assembly for an hour of music and silent meditation in place of discourse. On June 21, Osho introduces his twelve-part series of commentaries on Gautam Buddha's Dhammapada. Words are becoming more and more difficult for me. They are becoming more and more of an effort. I have to say something so I go on saying something to you. But I would like you to get ready as soon as possible so that we can simply sit in silence . . . listening to the birds and their songs... or listening just to your own heartbeat. . .just being here, doing nothing. . . . Get ready as soon as possible, because I may stop speaking any day. And let the news be spread to all the nooks and corners of the world: those who want to understand me only through the words, they should come soon, because I may stop speaking any day. Unpredictably, any day, it may happen—it may happen even in the middle of a sentence. Then I am not going to complete the sentence! Then it will hang forever and forever . . . incomplete. But this time you have pulled me back. These sayings of Buddha are called the Dhammapada. . . . ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT
On May 22, 1980, Vilas Tupe, a member of a fundamentalist Hindu group, throws a knife at Osho during his morning discourse. The local police have been tipped off and are present in the hall when the incident occurs. After the police remove Tupe and take him into custody, Osho continues his talk. Because of subsequent manipulations of the legal proceedings by police officials and members of Vilas Tupe's group, the case is dropped and Tupe is released without being convicted of any crime. A few weeks later, Osho explains what has happened. The Pune magistrate has given his judgment concerning the case of one madman who had thrown a dagger at me, obviously intending to kill me. He has freed him, and the reason that he has freed him—the most basic reason that he has given—is really worth consideration. I laughed at it, I enjoyed it! The reason that he has freed him is that if it was an attempt to murder me, then I would not have continued my discourse! Who can continue talking when somebody is trying to murder you? But he does not know me. I would have continued even if I had died—I would not have finished before ten! But he cannot understand—and I can understand that he cannot understand. When somebody is trying to kill you, can you go on speaking the same way? His argument seems to be very valid. So what to say about the ordinary masses? Even an educated magistrate thinks in the same way.
WORLDWIDE EXPANSION
In late 1980 and early 1981, a center is set up in the United States to distribute Osho's books, audio tapes, and videotapes. Sannyasins overseas are encouraged to support their local meditation centers and communes. There are programs to train new group leaders. In London in the spring of 1981, a two-day sampling of Osho's meditations and group workshops called The March Event is organized and draws about five hundred participants through advertising that includes signs on London buses and underground trains. This is followed by similar events in other capitals in the world. My effort is not only to create a buddhafield here, but to create small oases all over the world. I would not like to confine this tremendous possibility only to this small commune. This commune will be the source, but it will have branches all over the world. It will be the root, but it is going to become a big tree. It is going to reach every country, it is going to reach every potential person. We will create small communes, centers, all over the world. Be in the world, but don't be of it. Live in the world, but don't allow the world to live in you. That's my message. There is a Zen saying: "The wild geese do not intend to cast their reflections. The water has no mind to receive their image." The wild goose has no desire to cast its reflection in the water, and the water has no desire or no mind to receive its image—although it happens! When the wild goose flies, the water reflects it. The reflection is there, the image is there, but the water has no mind to reflect and the wild geese do not hanker to be reflected either. This should be the way of my sannyasins. Be in the world, live in the world, live totally, without ambitions, without desires—because all desires distract you from living, all ambitions sacrifice your present. Don't be greedy, because greed takes you into the future; don't be possessive, because possessive-ness keeps you clinging to the past. A man who wants to live in the present has to be free of greed, of possessiveness, of ambitions, of desires. And that's what I call the whole art of meditation. Be aware, be alert, so all these thieves have no possibility to enter and contaminate you. Be meditative, but be in the world. And this is my experience: that the world helps immensely— it helps immensely to make you meditative. It gives you all the opportunities to be distracted, but if you don't get distracted then each success becomes a tremendous joy. You remain centered, you become the center of the cyclone. The cyclone goes on roaring around you, but your center remains unaffected.
That's the way of a true sannyasin: being in the world but remaining untouched, unaffected by it.
IN SILENCE
On April 10, 1981, Osho sends a message that he is entering the ultimate stage of his work, and that from this date he will speak only through silence. He continues to meet with his secretary but does not appear until three weeks later when the satsangs are resumed and Osho appears in the meditation hall to sit silently with his disciples and visitors.An ancient Buddhist chant is sung at the beginning of the meetings, and they end with music, singing, and dancing.
Meanwhile, Osho's health has become more and more fragile. In addition to his allergies, he now has severe back pains, and doctors are concerned that he might need surgery at some point. Their concern is heightened when a dangerous crisis arises related to a prolapsed disk and the potential for nerve damage if it is aggravated. The assistant to Osho's personal secretary, Ma Anand Sheela, arranges for him to go to the United States where he can be treated should another crisis arise. On June 1, 1981, he flies from Bombay to NewYork with his household and medical staff.
1981-1985: THE BIG MUDDY RANCH
A few weeks after Osho's arrival in the United States, Sheela finalizes the purchase of a one hundred and twenty-six-square-mile former cattle ranch in the high desert of eastern Oregon. Twenty miles away from the nearest town of Antelope, the Big Muddy Ranch, as it is called, is a severely overgrazed parcel fronting the John Day River and straddling two Oregon counties. It contains only a small farmhouse and a few outbuildings in a valley at the end of a steep and dusty unpaved road. By the end of August, a number of prefabricated houses have been installed on the land, including one for Osho's residence. He and his household staff are taken to the Ranch on August 29. Buddha committed mistakes, Mahavira committed mistakes; and I am sitting before you—in coming to Oregon, do you think I have not committed a mistake? I am proof enough that being enlightened does not mean you are infallible. You can fall into the Big Muddy Ranch! And now it is so difficult to get out of it. The more you try to get out of it, the more you are going into the mud. This is so clear that there is no need for me to quote what mistakes Buddha committed, what mistakes Mahavira committed: I have committed mistakes, and I go on committing them; but that does not endanger my enlightenment. It has nothing to do with it. I make the best possible use of my mistakes. That's what we are doing in the Big Muddy Ranch—trying—that's why I say, trying, in an enlightened way, to make something good out of it. If we have fallen into it, it may be our mistake—but it is fortunate for the Big Muddy Ranch, so let's make the best of it. And we are trying hard to make the best of it. But all these other people have been claiming infallibility. I am, in many ways, a crackpot. I should not be saying such things, that I commit mistakes. This is not in tune with my profession; it is against it. That's why people of my profession hate me, because they say, "These things you should not say. Even if you come to know that you have committed a mistake, try to cover it. Try to make it appear as if it is not a mistake." That's what they have been doing for centuries. But I cannot do it. I am simply helpless, I cannot deceive.
RAJNEESHPURAM: THE ILLEGAL CITY
Within a few months it becomes clear that Osho's sannyasins are hoping to create a self-sufficient community with facilities for housing up to jive thousand residents, hosting large festivals four times a year, and publishing Osho's books. The population grows quickly over the spring and summer and, while housing themselves in tents, the newcomers create a huge truck farm and dairy operation, begin to lay pipes and wiring for infrastructure, set about improving roads, restoring creekbeds, and revegetating barren hillsides. Local hostility toward the settlement quickly grows vocal and aggressive. Construction permits are denied, threats of violence against Osho and members of the community are made, and a hotel purchased by sannyasins in Portland is bombed. The governor of Oregon states that in his opinion, if the newcomers are not welcome by the surrounding community they should leave. In 1982, residents of the ranch vote to incorporate themselves as the City of Rajneeshpuram in Wasco County. This incorporation is approved by county commissioners, only to be challenged in court by a land-use watchdog group calling itself "WOO Friends of Oregon." The state's attorney general later challenges the incorporation of the city on constitutional grounds, claiming that it violates the separation of church and state. Fundamentalist Christian preachers suggest that Osho is the antichrist, and local ranchers use directional signs to Rajneeshpuram for target practice. T-shirts and baseball caps featuring the crosshairs of a rifle scope overlaid on Osho's image are sold at "anti-Rajneesh" rallies.
Osho applies for a residency permit as a religious teacher, but it is denied on the grounds that he is in silence and therefore cannot be a teacher—a decision later overturned on appeal. By 1984, the city's legal department has a staff of more than two hundred people and is engaged in dozens of court cases. Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that the highest levels of the Reagan administration are involved in pressuring federal and state agencies to find a way to dismantle the community and expel Osho from the country.
They want this city to be demolished because of their land-use laws. And none of those idiots has come to see how we are using the land. Can they use it more creatively than we are using it? And for fifty years nobody was using the land; they were happy, that was good use. Now we are creating out of it. We are a self-sufficient commune. We are producing our food, our vegetables, our fruits; we are making every effort to make it self-sufficient. This desert. . . somehow it seems to be a destiny of people like me. Moses ended up in a desert. I have ended up in a desert and we are trying to make it green. We have made it green. If you go around my house you cannot think it is Oregon; you will think it is Kashmir. There was not a single tree when I arrived. There was no greenery. I was simply shocked when Sheela brought me here; the house was standing naked. And I have always lived in beautiful gardens; wherever I have lived, I have created a beautiful garden. We have turned the place, with great effort, toward fertility. Our people are working twelve, fourteen hours a day; and they don't come to see what has happened here. Just sitting in the capitol they decide that it is against land-use laws. If this is against land-use laws, then your land-use laws are bogus and should be burned. But first come and see, and prove that this is against land-use laws. But they are afraid to come here. I have always respected America as a country of democracy. I have always appreciated the respect for the individual, for freedom, freedom of expression. I have always loved the American Constitution. And now I feel it would have been better if I had not come here, because now I am feeling absolutely disappointed. That Constitution is bogus. These words—individual, freedom, capitalism, freedom of expression—are all just words. Behind the screen it is the same politician, the same ugly face, the same mean mind—because in my opinion only the meanest people in the world are attracted to politics. The meanest, the lowest, because they know they can do something only if they have power. You need power only to do something harmful; otherwise love is enough, compassion is enough. your city is really unique in the whole history of human- ity. There have been cities and there have been no cities; but an illegal city? Never heard before. It is a city, but illegal. It is not recognized that you are. Ignored, you don't exist. I am here, and I am going to be here. There is no way to send me back . .. because I have my own arrangements. I persuaded the Indian government to reject me, so where are you going to send me? You can deport me only to India. India I persuaded beforehand; they are not going to accept me at all. Now I am stuck here in the Big Muddy Ranch. There is no way, no crane to get me out. But these fools are in power. They have removed even the name of Rajneeshpuram from the Wasco County master plan. In the Wasco County files, Rajneeshpuram does not exist. If five thousand people suddenly disappear, the Oregon government will not be able even to say that they have disappeared, because then they would have to first accept that we were here—and we are not here! But in a way it is perfectly good. If we are not in Oregon, then of course we are not in America. This seems to be the new birth of a new nation. Soon we will have to make our own constitution and declare our own independence. What else to do?