Feet of Clay. Anthony Storr
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were in search of it. The main thrust of his teaching was what he called a ‘religionless religiousness’; by which he meant a religious attitude to life without commitment to any particular creed or church. Jung shared the same outlook. However, Rajneesh regarded religion as a luxury available only to those who had fulfilled their material needs and who could therefore afford to think about the meaning of life. ‘In a poor society religion cannot be meaningful because people have not yet failed’:7 that is, they have not yet discovered that getting a house or becoming rich or whatever material advantage they have set their hearts on will not bring happiness. Rajneesh always hated and despised poverty, and unashamedly claimed to be the rich man’s guru. On the other hand, in one of his discourses on the sayings of Jesus, he said: ‘The more things accumulate the more life is wasted because they have to be purchased at the cost of life.’8 He signally failed to follow his own teaching in this respect.
He divided people into three types: those who collect things and were outward-orientated; those who collect knowledge and who are less outward-orientated; those who cultivate awareness and who are inner-orientated. Their goal is to become more and more conscious. He announced that he wanted those aspects of human beings personified by Gautama the Buddha and Zorba the Greek to come closer to one another in his followers. The most basic requirement was to cast off the shackles of the past, live in the moment, and obey the most fundamental commandment; to love oneself. ‘You are not sent as beggars into the world, you are sent as emperors.’9
Drawing on Tantric doctrines which give spiritual significance to sex, Rajneesh affirmed that sex was a way to enlightenment. All inhibitions and possessiveness must be discarded and sexual experimentation and free love with different partners should be encouraged. The sexual act should be prolonged as long as possible in order to reach what he called ‘valley orgasm’ as opposed to ‘peak orgasm’. Orgasm of the whole body was incompatible with thinking, and so was one valuable experience in which the subject just existed, without thought for the morrow. This is one example of intense living in the here-and-now to which reference was made in the chapter on Gurdjieff. Sexuality could be a path to the divine, and religions which exalted celibacy and tried to suppress sexuality were, in his view, merely producing frustration and neurosis. Rajneesh once said that, of all the problems which people brought to him, 99% were sexual. But his teaching only applied to heterosexual encounters, since he regarded homosexuality as a disease. This seems a curiously old-fashioned attitude in one who was so intolerant of sexual restrictions. It was also possible to transcend sexuality by looking for the opposite within – for a man, the inner woman – but this could be done only under the guidance of a Master.10 This closely resembles Jung’s notion of the anima.
Rajneesh had no hesitation in asserting his own identity as a Master, although in one passage he denies being a guru. I think he meant by this that he was aware that he didn’t preach a coherent body of doctrine.
I have only devices – only psychological answers. And the answer does not depend on me; it depends on you. Because of you, I have to give a particular answer.
That is why I cannot be a guru – never! Buddha can become one, but I never can. Because you are so inconsistent, every individual is so different, how can I become consistent? I cannot. And I cannot create a sect because for this consistency is very needed …
So I am less a guru and more like a psychiatrist (plus something). 11
Some of his remarks echo those attributed to Jesus. ‘While I am here, a little while more, don’t miss the opportunity.’12 Repeatedly, he advises his hearers to be empty, loose, and natural. They must distinguish between action and activity. Action is goal-orientated and fulfils needs. It is comparable with Gurdjieff’s ability to do. Activity is a restless inability to be without engaging in futile pursuits like re-reading the same newspaper. Morality and religion must be separated, for morality is concerned with denial and fighting against impulses, whereas religion is concerned with increasing consciousness and awaking the light within. A man possessed with anger is no longer aware. Full consciousness and anger are incompatible. People should be able to detach themselves from their thoughts through increased consciousness, just as they can distance themselves from their emotions. It is possible to become a witness to one’s own thoughts if the right degree of consciousness is attained. A notice at the entrance of the hall in which he spoke read: ‘Shoes and minds to be left here.’ Conventional ways of thinking must be abandoned if the subject is to become open to God.
According to Rajneesh, there are three main approaches to reality: the scientific, based on experiment; the logical, based on reasoning; and the metaphorical, manifesting itself in poetry and religion. ‘Poetry is a golden bridge, it bridges the object with the subject.’13 Religion is essentially poetry. The Tantric teaching is always to say ‘Yes’ to life. ‘The real atheist is one who goes on saying “No” to life.’14 ‘Man is the only unnatural animal – that’s why religion is needed.’15 Rajneesh resembled Jung in thinking that some varieties of neurotic symptoms were valuable because they compelled the individual to look within, to face his real problems.
Rajneesh did not claim that his teaching was original, although he did say that his way of expressing it was modem. However, he introduced a technique of meditation based on hyperventilation which I have not encountered elsewhere. ‘Dynamic Meditation’ consisted of ten minutes of rapid, irregular overbreathing to repetitive music. This is followed by ten minutes of catharsis in which the subject is required to release tension by shouting, weeping, dancing – expressing whatever comes to mind in the most uninhibited way possible. Dr. Gordon found himself screaming abuse and obscenities against hated figures from the past; teachers, parents, nurses, playmates. The third ten minute stage is occupied by jumping as high as possible whilst shouting the Sufi mantra ‘Hoo, hoo, hoo’. Rajneesh described this. ‘As you jump, land hard on the souls (sic) of your feet so that the sound reaches deep into the sex center. Exhaust yourself completely.’16 Following this, the subject stops doing anything at all for another ten minutes during which physical cramps and pains induced by the overbreathing and violent exercise begin to subside. The last stage is dancing to more music until the mind becomes quiet and the body relaxed.
In 1971 Rajneesh adopted the title of Bhagwan. This alienated some of his Indian followers, because the appellation means The Blessed One and implies an incarnation of God. His disciple Laxmi told Bernard Levin that many of the sannyasins regarded Rajneesh as God, but that he himself only claimed to be a conduit transferring divine energy. I think it possible that Rajneesh came to believe in his own divinity. He used to give out boxes containing cuttings from his hair or nail clippings in case carrying his photograph was not enough to persuade his disciples that he was always with them. His narcissism also manifested itself in his insistent concern that any photographs of himself should be carefully posed and lit in order to bring out his best features.
In early 1974, Rajneesh sent some thirty or forty sannyasins to work on a farm belonging to his family in Kailash. This was an appalling place, overrun with rats and scorpions, extremely hot, and almost infertile. Gurdjieff’s technique of persuading disciples that exhausting, futile work was a path to enlightenment was employed and used as a test of commitment to Rajneesh. The sannyasins were grossly underfed and overworked. They were forbidden to leave the farm or take time off and many became ill with amoebic dysentery and other diseases, including hepatitis, tuberculosis, and dengue fever. Some suffered permanent impairment of their health. After some months the experiment was abandoned.
As more and more disciples joined the movement, more space was needed. Some Indian business men set up a trust which became the Rajneesh Foundation. They bought a six acre estate at 17 Koregaon Park, Poona, in which the Shree Rajneesh Ashram grew and flourished. From 1974 onward, around six thousand followers of Rajneesh would be living there at any one time. The ashram became so famous that thirty thousand people a year from all over the world came as visitors. Large donations had launched the ashram; charges for rooms and meals, sales of books, fees for admission to discourses, and fees for group and individual therapy generated a regular income of somewhere between $100,000 and $200,000 per month which served to sustain it.
The ashram day started with