Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)

Osho was born Chandra Mohan Jain on 11 December 1931 in Kuchwada, Madhya Pradesh, India, the eldest of eleven children in a family that practised Jainism. After university studies and a career as a philosophy lecturer, he began teaching publicly and, around 1970, introduced “dynamic meditation,” an active technique using vigorous movement and catharsis to reach inner stillness.

Known then as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, he attracted a large following with a teaching that drew freely on Zen, Tantra, Advaita and other Eastern sources while incorporating Western psychology and philosophy, and that emphasised awareness in the present moment, the dropping of the ego, and a frank, contrarian attitude toward sexuality and social convention.

In 1981 Rajneesh moved with thousands of followers to a large ranch in central Oregon, establishing the commune of Rajneeshpuram. The Oregon period ended in serious criminality and collapse: members of the commune’s leadership were responsible for a 1984 mass salmonella poisoning that sickened more than 700 people, along with wiretapping and other crimes.

Rajneesh himself was arrested in 1985 on immigration charges, pleaded guilty, and was deported to India. In his final years, back in Pune, he took the name Osho. He died there of heart failure on 19 January 1990. He remains a genuinely influential and genuinely controversial figure: his meditation methods and prolific talks continue to reach a wide audience, and any honest treatment must hold both his contribution and the documented harms of the Rajneeshpuram years in view together.