Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
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After graduating from college and claiming to have found enlightenment, in 1970, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh introduced the practice of “dynamic meditation” and became a spiritual teacher and began to attract a significant following. When his controversial teachings put him repeatedly in conflict with Indian authorities, Rajneesh and his followers fled to a ranch in Oregon, where they attempted to establish a commune. However, conflicts with the local community there resulted in Rajneesh and members of his group turning to crime to achieve their ends, and in 1985, Rajneesh was arrested for immigration fraud. After pleading guilty, he was deported to India. He died on January 19, 1990, in Pune, India.
Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (né Chandra Mohan Jain) was born on December 11, 1931, in Kuchwada, India. He lived with his grandparents during his early youth and then with his parents and was an intelligent but rebellious child. In 1951, Rajneesh graduated from high school and started attending Hitkarini College in Jabalpur but was forced to transfer to D.N. Jain College after his disruptive behavior put him at odds with one of his professors. In 1953, after taking a year off from his studies to soul search and meditate, Rajneesh claimed that he had achieved enlightenment. He returned to school, however, and after graduating with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, he went on to pursue a master’s in philosophy at Sagar University. Following his graduation in 1957, Rajneesh accepted a position as an assistant professor of philosophy at Raipur Sanskrit College, but his radical ideas soon put him at odds with the institution’s administration and he was forced to find work elsewhere, eventually becoming a professor at the University of Jabalpur.
Concurrent with his teaching at the University of Jabalpur, Rajneesh traveled throughout India, spreading his unconventional and controversial ideas about spirituality. Among his teachings was the notion that sex was the first step toward achieving “superconsciousness.” By 1964, he started conducting meditation camps and recruiting followers, and two years later he resigned from his professorship to focus more fully on spreading his spiritual teachings. In the process, he became something of a pariah and earned himself the nickname “the sex guru.”
In 1970, Rajneesh introduced the practice of “dynamic meditation,” which, he asserted, enables people to experience divinity. The prospect enticed young Westerners to come reside at his ashram in Pune, India, and become Rajneesh’s devout disciples, called sannyasins. In their quest for spiritual enlightenment, Rajneesh’s followers took new Indian names, dressed in orange and red clothes, and participated in group sessions that sometimes involved both violence and sexual promiscuity. By the late 1970s, the six-acre ashram was so overcrowded that Rajneesh sought a new site to relocate to. However, his movement had become so controversial that the local government threw up various roadblocks to make things difficult for him. Tensions came to a head in 1980, when a Hindu fundamentalist attempted to assassinate Rajneesh.
Facing ongoing pressure from government authorities and traditional religious groups, in 1981 Rajneesh fled to the United States with 2,000 of his disciples, settling on a 100-square-mile ranch in central Oregon, which he named Rancho Rajneesh. There, Rajneesh and the sannyasins started building their own city, called Rajneeshpuram. Disapproving neighbors contacted local officials in an attempt to close down Rajneeshpuram, asserting that it violated Oregon’s land-use laws, but Rajneesh was victorious in court and continued to expand the commune.
Content retrieved from: https://www.biography.com/religious-figures/a45875467/bhagwan-shree-rajneesh.
