The mystery of Osho's death

Osho Rajneesh was born in Kuchwada on 11 December 1931 and died in Pune on 19 January 1990. What happened between the two dates? Trying to summarize what exists between a date of birth and death is approximate and reductive for everyone, from the guru to the craftsman, from the nurse to the lifeguard and so on, beyond the role played in an existence ( which is rarely just one), it is complex in that it relates to a human being.

Born as Chandra Mohan Jain, he was Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh until 1970 and with his speeches he had already created havoc in the most rigid environments of Indian religious orthodoxy, after leaving the post of academic professor of philosophy. The nature of those who question, the tenacity of those who are able to develop a vision have always characterized it, to the point of having it adopted in January 1989 that name with a broad, large breadth: Osho ("oceanic") .

From 1969 to 1981 energy is created in the Pune ashram, the beating heart of what would have expanded as Osho International Meditation Resort. Here the first fields of meditation and the transmission of his techniques included that of dynamic meditation.

It is during an outdoor meditation that Osho initiates a disciple as a sannyasin. A speech every morning for 7 years. At the end of the 1970s, the ashram received 30, 000 visitors a year. The numbers involved, the nature of the teachings create contrasts with the Indian government and society.

When, in 1981, Osho retires in a silence that lasts 1315 days, the number of followers continues to grow: 250 meditation centers, 45 self-sufficient communities around the world. In America, and to be precise in the state of Oregon, the activities of the Rajneesh Foundation International are concentrated on a desolate land. More than 20, 000 people take part in the first festival in July 1982 .

An energy that condenses in an imposing way, a mammoth community. Public relations officer Veena explained it this way: "The ranch is a buddhafield, you can feel the energy. A field of energy around a living Buddha . There are no specific systems for making decisions. We work together and things happen spontaneously ". A community that builds dams, a lake, an auditorium, three restaurants, a huge farm, a nightclub, a hotel with 47 rooms and facilities to accommodate 15, 000 people during the festival.

A community that cultivates about fifty hectares of land, which has developed sophisticated water management systems and sewers, solar panels, post offices, refreshment points and various types of purchases. And the town hall, the fire brigade, places for hospital and dental care, bread ovens. A community that lives and throbs. And that is cluttered, especially with regard to the local population, with various episodes of open hostility.

Disagreements with the authorities intensify, Osho moves away from the commune and goes to stay with a disciple. There he is flushed out, arrested without even the shadow of an arrest warrant.

Practice active Osho meditations

Arrest, transfer to prisons, the epilogue

The arrest was spectacular, complete with a machine gun in plain sight. Accusations linked to facts of a purely administrative, non-violent nature, no criminal record, and the high bail figures proposed by his lawyers were not worth much and Osho was held for three days in Charlotte's jail. By agreements, he would then be taken to Portland, a 5-hour flight that Osho would never have done. It was November 6, 1985. Osho is not in Portland. His lawyer in Charlotte tries to get information, make phone calls, without giving up. Two journalists tell him that Osho was taken to the federal penitentiary in El Reno, 20 km from Oklahoma City and is registered under the false name of David Washington .

In a very sudden and sudden way Osho is put on November 7th on a flight to Seattle, a different decision from what the sheriff declared the day before to the local press. From Seattle it finally takes off in Oregon. It seems like a game to make the pawn disappear and in this case the pawn is a powerful spiritual leader, arrested without a warrant, held without real authorization to proceed. Prosecuted in Portland, expelled from the United States.

And here resound the words of Dr. Pronas, former head of the police department at the Foreign Ministry in Greece: "If the Americans want to kill Rajneesh, they have many ways to do it. They can kill him at any time and so that death occurs at a delayed outbreak, when he has left the country. "

His personal secretary, Ma Anand Sheela, who had been given the power of the commune, meanwhile, had already fled abroad for $ 43 million. Denounced to the FBI by the same Osho also for attempted murder of his personal doctor, the woman is sentenced to tens of years in prison and then released only after a couple. Osho goes to Kathmandu then to Crete, where he is expelled as a "public danger" according to the synod of bishops of the Greek Orthodox church. The manhunt of the Reagan government begins, or better, government actions to derail any attempt by Osho to find a place to settle, with refusals of entry visas in Ireland, Canada, England, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland.

In our country, thinkers and artists of Gaber, Fellini and some political exponents are mobilized to obtain an entry visa, but by 1988 Osho returned to India. His health is very bad. Thallium poisoning is assumed to have occurred in the dubious night of imprisonment in Oklahoma City. A poisoning that would have triggered a degenerative tissue process, judging from the clinical history traced by Dr. John Wally who went to London in October 1987 with blood samples, two liters of urine and beard hair.

The progressive decay of health affects mainly the cardiac tissues, considering the diabetes already diagnosed for years. Osho leaves the body on January 19th at 17.00; the medical certificate reports as the cause of death due to heart failure.

Uncomfortable. Discussed. illuminated

If you are passionate about history, we recommend a book "Operation Socrates", written by Majid Valcarenghi and Ida Porta (Tranchida Editori) published in first edition in February 1995. In this text you will find important testimonies, descriptions of the places of experience.

The second part is entirely dedicated to the gray halo around the alleged poisoning, complete with photocopies of diagnostic tests, documents from prisons, certificates of clinical analysis. The third part of the text is entirely dedicated to the last phase of Osho's life, literally put on the cross and in a state of escape from Reagan (look carefully at the letters on headed paper of the White House with lots of cancellations "for reasons of national security" ).

Many of our best pens - Michele Serra, Lidia Ravera, Max Brecher, Giovanni Negri - have strongly wanted this book and created a support committee (Gaber was part of it) so as not to forget the case of Osho Rajneesh and even integrate it into the international consciousness.

It is important to come up with your own idea, read the texts, understand the teaching, so as not to think you are facing the umpteenth guru and the usual conspiracy shouted at the four winds. Shared or not, Osho had a vision . Many have embraced, adored, challenged, betrayed, criticized, especially when they started to turn a lot of money. " I am not part of any movement . What I am doing is part of something eternal that has been happening since the first man appeared on earth and will continue to the last man. It is not a movement, it is the very essence of the evolution ".

Jokes, desecrating stories, invitations to a sex lived in awareness and freedom, uplifting parables, watches in plain sight, useful teachings, Osho summed up a lot in himself. And to those who followed his voice and his silences he left clear messages.

" My effort is to make you available to all possibilities, and make all the possibilities available to you; so that you can move, that you can change, that you can choose the right time and place. Thus one day an intuition will be born, and that intuition will be completely yours. It will have nothing to do with me ... One day, one morning, you will arise in your very being, attentive to your needs, attentive to your direction ".

And what he did in the meantime, before he abandoned his physical body, he really resembled what he had painted with his words, just as lucidly: " Once the direction is understood, recognized, there will be no more problems. But you have to wait; it takes time. And before that happens, I'll have to toss you around, turn around, I'll have to drag you to this place . "

On the bed where he died he gave the final clear instructions: " Bring me to the audience for ten minutes, and then directly to the crematorium; and remember to put on my cap and socks ". When Jayesh, the disciple responsible for the administrative part, approached the bed, Osho said:" Never speak to me in the past, my presence here, without the weight of a tortured body, will be a thousand times bigger. Now that I'm leaving this body, more people will come. I leave you my dream. "

Finally, we report some of his words during the historic interview with Enzo Biagi in the summer of 1989 : " I will remain a source of inspiration for my people and this is what most sannyasins will feel. I want them to cultivate qualities such as love on their behalf, around which it is not possible to create any church, like the awareness that it is no one's monopoly, such as celebration, the ability to be happy, to keep a child's gaze fresh . I want my people to know themselves, not to conform to someone else's ideas. And the way is to get inside yourself ".