Move to America (1981)
In the spring of 1981, Osho had been diagnosed with a prolapsed disc and had been treated by several doctors, including James Cyriax, a leading orthopedic surgeon from London.[74][75][76] On 1 June, Osho travelled to the United States on a tourist visa, for medical purposes, and spent several months at Kip's Castle in Montclair, New Jersey.[77] According to Susan J. Palmer, "the move appears to have been a unilateral decision on the part of Sheela."[78] Sheela stated that Osho was in grave danger if he remained in India but would receive appropriate medical treatment in America if he were to require surgery.[74][75][79] Osho's previous secretary, Laxmi, reported to Frances FitzGerald that "she had failed to find a property in India adequate to [Osho's] needs, and thus, when the medical emergency came, the initiative had passed to Sheela."[76]
Other commentators believe that mounting tension around the Pune ashram, increasing criticism of its activities and threatened punitive action by the Indian authorities, created the impetus for Osho to relocate operations to America.[80][81][82] Gordon (1987) notes that Sheela and Osho had discussed the idea of establishing a new commune in the U.S. in late 1980,[74] although he did not agree to travel there until May 1981. During his time in America Osho never sought outside medical treatment, leading the Immigration and Naturalization Service to believe that he had a preconceived intent to remain there.[76] Osho later pleaded guilty to immigration fraud, including making false statements on his initial visa application.[nb 1][nb 2][nb 3]
[edit] The Oregon commune (1981–1985)
Further information: Rajneeshpuram
On 13 June 1981, Sheela's husband bought, for US$5.75 million, a 64,229-acre (260 km2) ranch located across two Oregon counties (Wasco and Jefferson), previously known as "The Big Muddy Ranch".[83] The following month, work began on setting up the so-called Rancho Rajneesh commune; Osho moved there on 29 August.[84] The initial reactions of the host community ranged from hostility to tolerance, depending on the observer's distance from the ranch.[85] Within a year of arriving, Osho's followers had become embroiled in a series of legal battles with their neighbours, the principal conflict relating to land use.[86] In May 1982, the residents of Rancho Rajneesh voted to incorporate the city of Rajneeshpuram on the ranch.[86] The conflict with local residents escalated, with increasingly bitter hostility on both sides, and over the following years, the commune was subject to constant and coordinated pressures from various coalitions of Oregon residents.[86][87] For its own part, the commune leadership took an uncompromising and confrontational stance and behaved impatiently with locals.[88] Its behaviour was implicitly threatening, and the repeated changes in the commune's stated plans looked like conscious deception, whether they were or not.[88]
Osho greeted by sannyasins on one of his daily "drive-bys" in Rajneeshpuram, 1982.
Osho resided at Rajneeshpuram, living in a purpose-built trailer complex with an indoor swimming pool and other amenities. He did not lecture and only saw the majority of his followers on his daily drive-bys, when he would slowly drive past the long line of sannyasins waiting for him by the side of the road.[89] In this period, he gained notoriety for the large number of Rolls-Royce luxury cars[90] that his followers bought for his use, eventually numbering 93 vehicles.[91][92]
As part of his withdrawal from public life, Osho had given Ma Anand Sheela limited power of attorney in 1981, and removed the limits in 1982.[93] In 1983, Sheela announced that he would henceforth speak only with her.[94] He would later claim that she kept him in ignorance.[93] Many sannyasins expressed doubts about whether Sheela truly represented Osho.[95] An increasing number of dissidents left Rajneeshpuram, citing disagreements with Sheela's autocratic leadership style.[95]
Sannyasins who were not U.S. citizens found themselves in visa difficulties, which many tried to overcome by entering into marriages of convenience with American followers.[96] Osho himself had similar problems, which the commune tried to solve by declaring him the head of a religion called "Rajneeshism".[89] In November 1981, Osho applied for permission to reside in the country as a religious worker.[97] The application was refused on the grounds that he could not be leading a religion if he was unwell, and in a state of silence.[89][97] But the decision was later withdrawn, due to procedural violations.[98] The application for leave to stay as a religious leader was finally granted three years later, in 1984.[89]
The Oregon years saw an increased emphasis on Osho's prediction that the conventional world would destroy itself by nuclear war or other disasters sometime in the 1990s.[99] Osho had said as early as 1964 that "the third and last war is now on the way", and had commented in the intervening years on the need to create a "new humanity" to avoid global suicide.[100] By the early 1980s, this had become the basis for a new exclusivism, with a 1983 article in the Rajneesh Foundation Newsletter announcing that "Rajneeshism is creating a Noah's Ark of consciousness ... I say to you that except this there is no other way".[100] These warnings contributed to an increased sense of urgency in getting the Oregon commune established.[100] In March 1984, Sheela announced that Osho had predicted the death of two-thirds of humanity from AIDS.[100][101] As a precaution, sannyasins were required to wear rubber gloves and condoms while making love and to refrain from kissing.[102][103] The measures were widely seen as an extreme overreaction; AIDS was not considered a heterosexual disease at the time, and the use of condoms was not yet widely recommended for AIDS prevention.[104]
Osho ended his period of public silence on 30 October 1984, having announced that it was time for him to "speak his own truths."[105][106] In July 1985, he resumed his daily public discourses in the commune's 2-acre (8,100 m2) meditation hall. According to statements he made to the press, he did so against Sheela's wishes.[107] On 16 September 1985, a few days after Sheela and her entire management team had suddenly left the commune for Europe, Osho held a press conference in which he labelled Sheela and her associates a "gang of fascists."[108] He accused them of having committed a number of serious crimes, most of these dating back to 1984, and invited the authorities to investigate.[108] The alleged crimes, which he stated had been committed without his knowledge or consent, included the attempted murder of his personal physician, poisonings of public officials, wiretapping and bugging within the commune and within his own home, and a bioterror attack on the citizens of The Dalles, Oregon, using salmonella.[108] While his allegations were initially greeted with skepticism by outside observers,[109] the subsequent investigation by the U.S. authorities confirmed these accusations and resulted in the conviction of Sheela and several of her lieutenants.[110]
The salmonella attack was noted as the first confirmed instance of chemical or biological terrorism to have occurred in the United States.[111] Osho stated that because he was in silence and isolation, meeting only with Sheela, he was unaware of the crimes committed by the Rajneeshpuram leadership until Sheela and her "gang" left and sannyasins came forward to inform him.[112] A number of commentators have stated that in their view Sheela was being used as a convenient scapegoat.[112][113][114] Others have pointed to the fact that although Sheela had bugged Osho's living quarters and made her tapes available to the U.S. authorities as part of her own plea bargain, no evidence has ever come to light that Osho had any part in her crimes.[115][116][117]
Even though there was not enough evidence to bring charges against Osho, Gordon (1987) reports that Charles Turner, David Frohnmayer and other law enforcement officials who had surveyed affidavits that were never released publicly, and who had listened to the hundreds of hours of tape recordings that were retrieved from the ranch, insinuated to him that Osho was guilty of more crimes than those he was eventually prosecuted for.[118] Frohnmayer, who had written his Harvard honours thesis on Nietzsche and Lenin,[nb 4] asserted that Osho's philosophy was not "disapproving of poisoning", and that he felt he and Sheela had been "genuinely evil".[118] Turner, identifying himself as a born-again Christian, was no less emphatic, describing Osho's eyes as "luminous, almost with a satanic glow in them."[118]
During his residence in Rajneeshpuram, Osho dictated three books while undergoing dental treatment under the influence of nitrous oxide (laughing gas): Glimpses of a Golden Childhood, Notes of a Madman, and Books I Have Loved.[119] Following her departure from Rajneeshpuram, Sheela stated in media interviews that Osho took sixty milligrams of Valium each day and was addicted to nitrous oxide.[120][121][122] Osho denied these charges when questioned about them by journalists.[120][123]
[edit] Arrest (1985)
On 23 October 1985, a federal grand jury issued a thirty-five-count indictment charging Osho and several other disciples with conspiracy to evade immigration laws.[124] The indictment was returned in camera, but word was leaked to Osho's lawyer.[124] Negotiations to allow Osho to surrender to authorities in Portland if a warrant were issued failed.[124][125] Tension peaked amid rumours of a National Guard takeover, a planned violent arrest of Osho and fears of shooting.[126] Having listened to hundreds of hours of tape recordings that Sheela had made, law enforcement authorities later came to believe there was a plan to create a human wall of sannyasin women and children should authorities attempt to arrest their guru.[118] On 28 October 1985, Osho, his personal physician and a small number of sannyasins accompanying them were arrested without a warrant aboard a rented Learjet at a North Carolina airstrip; the group were en route to Bermuda ($58,000 in cash and 35 watches and bracelets worth $1 million were also found on the aircraft).[126][127][128] Osho had by all accounts been neither informed of the impending arrest nor of the reasons for the journey.[125]
Osho's imprisonment and transfer across the country took the form of a public spectacle – he was displayed in chains, held first in North Carolina, then Oklahoma, and finally in Portland.[129] Officials took the full ten days legally available to them to transfer him from North Carolina to Portland for arraignment.[129] After initially pleading not guilty to all charges and being released on bail, Osho, on the advice of his lawyers, entered an "Alford plea" – a type of guilty plea through which a suspect does not admit guilt, but does concede there is enough evidence to convict him – to one count of having concealed his intent to remain permanently in the U.S. at the time of his original visa application in 1981, and one count of conspiracy to have followers stay in the country illegally by having them enter into sham marriages.[130] Under the deal his lawyers made with the United States Attorney's office, he was given a 10-year suspended sentence and placed on five years' probation; in addition, he agreed to pay $400,000 in fines and prosecution costs, to leave the United States and not to return for at least five years without the permission of the United States Attorney General.