SUNY SERIES IN GURUS HINDU STUDIES M-endy Doniger, editor IN AMERICA EDITED BY THOMAS A. FORSTHOEFEL AND CYNTHIA ANN HUMES ttt'rb j STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS EIGHT OSHO, FROM SEX GURU TO GURU OF THE RICH The Spiritual Logic of Late Capitalism \ Ｍｾ »»'_ _ _ __ -"" Ｍｾ HUGH Ｍｾﾷ＠ ｾＬ＠ .. ._. ｾＭ Ｍﾷｾ B. URBAN I always spend before I get. Just the idea that some money is coming and I tell my people: Spend! Because who knows about tomorrow? Spend today.... And money keeps on coming .... I have started believing that existence takes care, even of an expensive man like me. -Osho, Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic FEW RELIGIOUS LEADERS of the last century have been as controversial, scandalous and yet also financially successful as the infamous "Sex Guru" and "Guru of the Rich," known in his early years as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and in his later life simply as "Osho." Born in India in 1931, Rajneesh developed a radically iconoclastic brand of spirituality that became enormously popular first in India and then in the United States beginning in 1981. Notorious for his crazy-wisdom shock tactics and his collection of ninety-three Rolls Royces, Rajneesh enjoyed a brief but extremely lucrative career in the United States until his arrest and deportation in 1986. Remarkably, however, Rajneesh Would become even more popular upon his return to India, where he was reborn as "Osho" and founded a new universal religious community for an affluent international audience. As such, ｏｳｨｯＭｒｾｮ･＠ is a striking example 169 I 70 GURUS IN AMERICA OSHO, FROM SEX GURU TO GURU OF THE RiCH 171 of the transnational flows and global circulation of religious ｩ､｣［ｌｾ＠ (as well as economic capital) throughout the planet at the turn of the millennium. In this chapter, I will examine the Bhagwan's complex global journey from ｅ｡Ｎｾｴ＠ to West and back again, tracing his rapid rise to international fame, ｲ｣｡Ｎｾｯｮ＠ his rapid fall into scandal and his new apotheosis as Osho. The ｰｾｩｭ｡ｲｹ＠ for his success, I will suggest, is that he created a spiritual message that is remarkably well in tunc with the current socioeconomic situation, which ｨ｡Ｎｾ＠ variously been dubbed postindustrial society, disorganized capitalism, or "late capitalism." As Paul ｈ｣･ｬ｡Ｎｾ＠ has argued, many New Age and new religious movements arc by no means opposed to the mainstream values of modern Western society; on the contrary, they often affirm and sanctify many central ideals of individualism, freedom, and progress, providing a kind of"celebration of the self and a sacralization of modernity." Many new religions-for example, the Church of Scicntology-are also quite compatible with modern capitalism and consumerism, easily adapting the corporate structures of other secular businesses in the services of a spiritual organization.l Nowhere is this more apparent than in the case of Osho-Rajncesh. Preaching an explicitly ｩ｣ｯｮｬ｡Ｎｾｴ＠ form of "rcligionless religion" that rejects all fixed institutions even as it borrows freely from a wide array of spiritual traditions, Osho-Rajnccsh offered a fluid, flexible form of spirituality that could be adapted easily to the shifting demands of his spiritual market. Thus, two of the most powerful themes running throughout his teachings are also two of the most central concerns of late capitalist consumer culture--namely, sex and money. And the genius of Osho-Rajneesh was precisely to create a religious path that could magically combine the enjoyment of sexuality, the pursuit of wealth, and the goal of spiritual transcendence. In his early teachings in India and the United States, Rajncesh had advocated a form of "Nco-Tantra"-a radically iconoclastic brand of spirituality that would liberate his followers from the prudish repression of modern society, by integrating the desire for sensual pleasure with the quest for spiritual experience. Indeed, we might say that Rajnccsh is a striking reflection of the ｩｮ｣ｲ｡Ｎｾｧ＠ preoccupation with sexuality in the twentieth century as a whole; he is a particularly clear illustration of what Michel Foucault ｨ｡Ｎｾ＠ called the "repressive hypothesis," or the belief that Western society has severely repressed and denied sexuality and that what is most needed now is an ecstatic liberation of our true sexual nature. 2 At the same time, Rajncesh also created a path that could integrate the urge to spiritual transcendence with the desire for material wealth and prosperity. Thus, his ideal of the perfect human state is"Zorba the Buddha," the person who weds the spirituality of the Buddha with the materialism of Zorba the Greek. ｾ｡ｴ｣ｲＬ＠ upon his return to India, Osho's ｩ｣ｯｮｬ｡Ｎｾｴ＠ brand of NeoTantra would gradually be transformed and combined with a wide array of other spiritual traditions-from Sufi dance to Jewish Kabbalah and Ze . al " reI'1g10 . nl ess reI'1g10n . " £or a transnational n pamt. d marketed as a umvers . mg-an audience of spiritual seekers. Under the auspices of the Osho Commune International, his once controversial ideas have been miraculously transformed into a powerful new message for a transnational age. Likewise, in its organizational form, the Rajneesh movement also developed an extremely effective and profitable corporate structure that was also well suited to the economic situation of late capitalism. Already by the 1980s, the movement had evolved into a complex, interlocking network of corporations, with an astonishing number of both spiritual and secular businesses worldwide, offering everything from yoga and psychological counseling to cleaning services. Meanwhile, the new Osho Commune International had emerged as an efficient transnational enterprise, with centers in more that one hundred countries linked through its "Global Communications Department." In sum, adapting Fredric Jameson's phrase, we might say that Osho-Rajneesh and his movement embody the "spiritual logic of late capitalism."3 Mter a brief review of Rajneesh's early career, I will then look more closely at his central doctrine of"Neo-Tantrism," with its unique combination of spirituality, sexuality, and capitalism. Finally, I will look at his surprising rebirth as Osho and the powerful new transnational movement that has emerged since his death. To conclude, I will suggest that the phenomenon of Osho raises some of the most difficult questions for the study of Indian Mahagurus and religious movements in our own uniquely transnational era. Above all, it raises the question, Is this simply another example of the Coca-colonization of the world and the McDonaldization of religion under the impact of American-style consumer capitalism? Or is this, rather, one more example of the ongoing, natural adaptation of religious traditions to new historical, social, and economic situations? THE EARLY CAREER OF BHAGWAN SHREE RAJNEESH I Am The Messiah America has Been Waiting For. -Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh Born in 1931 in the village of Kuchwada, Madhya Pradesh, to a family of twelve whose parents died at an early age, Rajneesh Chandra Mohan was raised by his grandparents, an elderly, wealthy Jain couple. From a very early age, Rajneesh reports having various ecstatic experiences, finally achieving "full enlightenment" at age twenty-one. While at college at Jabalpur, the young Rajneesh suffered a traumatic period of depression, anorexia, and attempted I72 GURUS IN AMERICA suicide; yet he finally emerged from his cns1s m an intense spiritual breakthrough to Sclf-rcalization-"an inner explosion," as he put it, in which he left his body and realized his true inner nature. 4 After receiving his master's degree in 1957, Rajncesh taught philosophy for nine years at the University of Jabalpur. In 1967, however, he decided he could no longer keep his enlightened knowledge to himself, and so he left the academic world to gather disciples and teach the spiritual life. His rather radical teachings quickly aroused enormous controversy in the Indian community, as he urged his disciples to indulge all their physical desires, even as he parodied national heroes such as Mahatma Gandhi (whom he ridiculed as a masochistic chauvinist pervert). s By 1971, Rajnecsh had begun to call himself "Bhagwan"-a variant of Bhagavan, Blessed One or God-and built himself an ashram in Punc, where he hoped to begin a new utopian community as the seed of a new civilization. Bhagwan's highly lucrative New Civilization, however, soon came into increasing financial and legal problems with the Indian government. In 1981, Bhagwan and his devotees were forced to flee the country, trailed by some five million dollars in debts and a host of police and tax collectors. Announcing himself as "the Messiah America has been waiting for," Rajnccsh took refuge in the United States-the land, as he described it, of freedom, opportunity, and unfettered capitalism. After a brief stay in a New Jersey mansion, he and his now large following bought a sixty-four thousand acre ranch at Big Muddy, Oregon, which they dubbed their own new city and ideal society, "Rajneeshpuram," or Rajncesh's town. Quickly growing into a remarkably lucrative financial complex, Rajnccshpuram amassed some $120 million in revenues in its short four-year existence. Meanwhile, Rajnecsh's following had spread throughout the United States, Europe and India, claiming more than twenty-five thousand members at its peak, and growing into an enormously diverse, multifaceted international business complex (sec bclow). 6 Ironically, as its numbers and wealth rapidly grew, this seemingly "antiauthoritarian" movement began to assume a fairly rigid institutional structure of its own. Particularly in the later years of the movement in Oregon, it developed a complex hierarchy under the control of Rajnecsh's secretary, Sheela, and her female inner circle (dubbed the "Ma-Archy"). Eventually, Sheela and her associates would largely displace Rajnccsh himself as the ruling force of the commune, transforming it into an increasingly rigid and profit-oriented movement. Under Sheela's guidance, Rajnccshpuram became an extremely tightly controlled and highly guarded community, with 'its own "Peace Force" officers, where members were divided hierarchically by colored armbands and surveillance cameras were set up to identifY potential dissidents. Meanwhile, ordinary members or sannyasis were often forced to work long hours with no pay and little food. As some observers concluded, Rajnccshpuram had become 0SHO. FROM SEX GURU TO GURU OF THE RICH 17 3 "the closest thing to an Eastern bloc experience in the United States." 7 Rajneesh himself would later claim that he had actually allowed Sheela to take command in order to give his disciples "a little taste of what fascism means" and thereby to contrast that with his own non totalitarian form of teaching. 8 Not surprisingly, the group soon also carne into conflict with its American neighbors. The more it grew, the more the Rajneesh community began to encroach upon the nearby retirement community of Antelope. Because of their overwhelming numbers, which eventually surpassed those of the local residents, the Rajneeshis were able to engineer the political takeover of Antelope through the election of ashram residents to nine of ten official posts in town. Eventually, as tensions with the local community grew, Rajneesh members would resort to more aggressive, even guerrilla warfare strategies, such as dumping animal parts on the lawns of local officials, mailing sexual devices to courthouse clerks, and distributing salmonella bacteria in local restaurants and grocery stores.9 By 1985, the community had also come under investigation by the U.S. government, specifically around the issue of the interlock of the Rajneesh Church and the city of Rajneeshpuram and its claim to tax exempt status. Finally in 1986, the State Attorney General decided that Rajneeshpuram violated the church-state separation clause of the Constitution. Rajneesh and his disciples, meanwhile, had also come under investigation for a shocking array of criminal charges, which included counts of electronic eavesdropping, immigration conspiracy, lying to federal officials, harboring fugitives, criminal conspiracy, first degree assault, attempted murder, burglary, racketeering, and arson. The movement, the attorney general concluded, had become "sociopathic."lO Deported from the United States and refused entry into virtually every country to which he applied, Rajneesh finally returned to Pune. NEO-TANTRISM AND RAJNEESH"S RELIGIONLESS RELIGION: EARLY TEACHINGS Tantra is not revolutionary; it is rebellious. Rebellion means individual ... it is just going beyond society.... It is for freedom-freedom to be. -Osho, The Tantric Transformation In itself, Rajneesh's early philosophy was an ingenious synthesis of philosophical and religious ideas drawn from an enormous array of sources. His vast body of writings is itself a kind of "postmodern pastiche," an eclectic melange of ideas drawn from a remarkable range of sources, from Plato to Shankara to Lao Tzu to Sartre; however, he had a special fondness for the more radical figures 174 GURUS IN AMERICA such as Nietzsche, Gurdjieff, and Crowley. As one observer put it, his teachings arc a "potpourri of counter-culturalist ideas: strive for love and freedom, live for the moment, self is important, you arc okay ... the fun ethic, God is within."' 1 An explicitly self-parodying, self-deconstructing ｧｵｾＬ＠ Rajnccsh claimed that his entire teaching was itself nothing more than a joke, a farce or a game--the ultimate game: "Nothing is serious. Even your disappointments are laughable. To become a Sannyasin is to enter the ultimate game .... [I!t is a play ... it is the ultimate game.... You have played at being a husband, wife, mother, being rich, poor.... This is the last game. Only you arc lcft." 12 Part of the remarkable success ofRajncesh's teaching, I would suggest, was precisely the fluidity and flexibility of his message, which could be adaptedlike upaya or "skillful means"-to the particular needs of particular audiences. The primary model of Rajneesh's style of guru-ship is that of the Proteus or shape shifter, who "defies identification thorough his power to change appearancc."13 As Rajneesh described himself: "I am consistently inconsistent ... I live in the moment and whatsoever I am saying right now is true for this moment. ... I don't think of the future at all." 14 As such, his uniquely protean, shifting message could freely be directed toward the specific desires of his spiritual consumers. As Lewis Carter observes, "Rajnccsh was unencumbered by tradition and willing to experiment with techniques till he found those which were most successful. ... The movement became dcmand-driven." 15 Rather than a religion in the conventional sense, Rajnccsh taught a radically iconoclastic brand of spirituality-"an antinomian philosophy and moral anarchism." 16 As a "rcligionless" religion or antireligion, his was a path beyond conventional morality, beyond good and evil, and founded on the explicit rejection of all traditions, doctrines, and values. "Morality is a false coin, it deceives people," he warns. "A man of real understanding is neither good nor bad. He transcends both." 17 For Rajncesh, the cause of all our suffering is the distorting socialization or "programming" of cultural institutions, such as family, schools, religion, and government. All mctanarratives or ovcrarching theories about the universe arc only so many fictions, imaginary creations used by those in power to dominate the masses. True freedom can be achieved only by deconstructing all mctanarratives, liberating oneself from the confining structures of the past. One must be dcprogrammcd and de-hypnotized: You arc programmed by family, acquaintances, institutions. Your mind is like a blackboard on which rules are written. Bhagwan writes new rules on the blackboard. He tells you one thing is true and next the opposite is true. He writes and writes on the blackboard of your mind until it is a whitebQard. Then you have no programming left. 18 In order to help his disciples achieve this state of dcprogramming and lib19 eration, Rajneesh taught a variety of yogic, meditative, and other disciplines. 0SHO, FROM SEX GURU TO GURU OF THE RICH 175 Most of these, we might note, came at some cost; at the Oregon Ranch, prices ranged from $50 for a one-day introduction to Rajneesh meditation to $7500 for a complete three-month rebalancing program. Among the most important of these spiritual techniques was Rajneesh's unique brand of"Neo-Tantra." As it is defined by most historians of religions today, Tantra or Tantrism is a highly complex and diverse body of traditions that spread throughout the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain communities since at least the fourth or fifth century. Above all, Tantra is characterized by its highly esoteric and deliberately transgressive form of practice, which involves consumption of normally prohibited substances (such as meat and wine) and, in some cases, sexual intercourse in violation of class. 20 Rajneesh, however, was one of the most important figures in the transmission ofTantra to the modern Western world, where it has been popularized, redefined, and quite radically transformed in a very different cultural context. As he defines it, Tantra is the ultimate nonreligion or antireligion, a spiritual practice that does not demand rigorous ritual or morality but instead frees the individual from all such constraints. "Tantra is freedom-freedom from all mind-constructs, from all mind-games .... Tantra is liberation. Tantra is not a religion .... Religion is a mind-game.... Religion gives you ... a discipline. Tantra takes all disciplines away." 21 In this sense, Tantra is the ultimate form of rebellion for an age in which political revolution is no longer practical or relevant; it is not the rebellion of the masses against the state, but rather of the individual against modern society as a whole: Tantra is a rebellion. I don't call it revolutionary because it has no politics in it .... It is individual rebellion. It is one individual slipping out of the structures and slavery.... The future is very hopeful. Tantra will become more and more important .... [N]o political revolution has proved revolutionary. All political revolutions finally turn into antirevolutions. Rebellion means individual .... It is for freedom-freedom to be. 22 In strong contrast to established social institutions, Tantra does not deny life or the body; rather, it is the ultimate affirmation of passion, physicality, and pleasure. It is the supreme "Just Do It!" religion, which celebrates life in all its transience and contingency: "Tantra accepts everything, lives everything," Rajneesh declares, "This is what Tantra says: the Royal Way-behave like a king, not like a soldier. . . . Why bother about tomorrow? This mo1pent is enough. Live it!" 2 3 Even the sinful and perverse side of life, even the most selfish and immoral sides of the ego, must be accepted as innately divine. Far from imposing moral restraints, Tantra celebrates human nature in all its most flawed, weak, even seemingly "evil" dimensions: "Tantra says-If you are greedy, be greedy; don't bother about greed"- ｾ＠ 176 GURUS IN AMERICA Tantric acceptance is total, it doesn't split you. All the religions of the world except Tantra have created split personalities, have created schizophrenia .... They say the good has to be achieved and the bad denied, the devil has to be denied and God accepted .... Tantra says a transfcJrmation is possible .... Transformation comes when you accept your total being. The anger is absorbed, the greed is absorbed.2 4 Above all, Tantra centers around the power of sex-a power that is at once the most intense force in human nature and also the one most severely distorted by Western society. Because the traditional Christian West has suppressed sexuality, Rajnccsh argues, it is sexuality that must be liberated if modern students arc to actualize their innermost Self fully: Freud ... stumbled only upon the repressed sexuality. He came across repressed people. Christian repression has made many blocks in man where energy has become coiled up within itself, has become stagnant, is no longer flowing. The society is against sex: it has created a block, just near the sex center. Whenever sex arises you feel restless, you feel guilty, you feel afraid .... That's why I teach dynamic ｭ･ｴｨｯ､ｾＺ＠ they will melt your blocks 2 5 As the strongest power in human nature, sex also becomes the strongest spiritual force when it is fully integrated and absorbed. "Sex has to be absorbed, then it becomes a tremendous force in you. A Buddha ... a Jesus, they have such a magnetic force around-what is that? Sex absorbcd."26 Thus, many of Rajnccsh's practices involved group sex-or "therapy intensives," which were "designed to bring about a catharsis followed by transformation of consciousness.''27 The ultimate aim ofTantric practice is precisely to achieve this full selfacceptance, to love ourselves wholly and completely, with all our sin, vice, greed, and sensual desires, and to realize that we already arc "Perfect." Once we accept our sensual, desiring nature, once we release the pent-up sexual side of ourselves, we discover that we are already divine. We already possess truth, freedom, and infinite power within ourselves. We already are "God"This is the most fundamental thing in Tantra, that it says you arc already perfect .... Perfection does not have to be achieved. It simply has to be realized that it is there. Tantra offers you enlightenment right here and now-no time, no postponement.28 " Ecstasy ｾ＠ your very nature. You arc truth. You are love. You arc freedom. ... You arc already there .... If you can stop all doing for a single moment the energy converges and explodes .... Then you become a god.29 OSHO. FROM SEX GURU TO GURU OF THE RICH 177 It is not difficult to see why Rajneesh's version ofTantra was so appealing to a Western audience of the 1970s and '80s. Promising absolute freedom and instant deification, even while allowing physical indulgence and sensual pleasure, Neo-Tantra would seem to be a spiritual expression of the "Me Generation" of the '70s and the "Power Generation" of the '80s. "Rajneesh offered everything Westerners imagined Tantra to be: a free love cult promising enlightenment, an exciting radical community. Rajneesh slipped comfortably into the role of 'Tantra Messiah' . . . . Largely because of Rajneesh, Tantra reemerged as a New Age Cult in the 1970s and 80s."30 In this sense Osho-Rajneesh is a striking example of a larger shift in Western attitudes toward sexuality in the latter half of the twentieth century. As Foucault has argued, it is a misconception to suppose that the history of sex in the West is a progressive narrative of liberation from Victorian repression and prudery. In fact, Foucault suggests we have not so much "liberated" sex in any radical way, but rather simply continued a long history of preoccupation with and discourse about sexuality, which has been described, debated, classified, and categorized in endless, titillating detail. "What is peculiar to modern societies," he writes, "is not that they consigned sex to a shadow existence, but that they dedicated themselves to speaking of it ad infinitum, while exploiting it as the secret."3 1 Thus, as Jeffrey Weeks observes, the late twentieth century has been characterized not so much by a sexual revolution; rather, what has happened is something more like a "commodification of sex," as part of the larger socioeconomic process of the expansion of capitalism to all domains of modern culture: "Sex had long been something you were. By the 1950s it was also something you could buy, not just in the traditional form of prostitution, but in the form of glossily marketed fantasy.... Not only was sex an area that could be colonized by capitalism, it was also one that could expand ever more exotically.''32 This is much the same kind of commodification of sex, I think, that we see in the case of Osho-Rajneesh, who was one of the key figures in the remarkable transformation of"Tantra" from a highly esoteric and elaborate ritual tradition into an extremely popular and widely marketed spiritual commodity for a Western audience. ZORBA THE BUDDHA I sell happiness. I sell enlightenment. -Rajneesh, Interview with Mike Wallace of Sixty Minutes As the ideal wedding of sensuality and spirituality, Rajneesh's neo-Tantric path also offered the perfect integration of this-worldly materialism and ｾ＠ 178 GURUS IN AMERICA OSHO. FROM SEX GURU TO GURU OF THE RICH 179 otherworldly transcendence. Indeed, not only was Rajneesh unopposed to the accumulation of wealth, but he even saw it as the natural manifestation of spiritual attainment. With his ideal of"Zorba the Buddha," he conceived of a new kind of perfect man or total being, who would combine the spirituality of the Buddha with the scnsuaJity and materialism of Zorha the Greek. a shameless flaunting of gold jewelry, expensive hats, and electronic gadgets. MateriaJ wealth did not detract from his status as spirituaJ leader; on the contrary, it was the naturaJ confirmation of his charismatic power. My concept of the new man is that he will he Zorha the Greek and he will aJso be Gautama the Buddha .... He will be sensuous and spiritual-physical ... in the senses, enjoying the body ... and still a great consciousness. He will be Christ and Epicurus together.33 SPIRITUAL CHARISMA AND DISORGANIZED CAPITALISM: THE CORPORATE STRUCTURE OF THE RAJNEESH MOVEMENT Indeed, Rajnccsh was an ardent defender of American-style capitalismwhich he saw as the expression of individual self-determination and free will-and an outspoken critic of socialism-which he saw as the symptom of laziness of the masses and the jeaJousy of the ｨ｡ｶ･ＭｮｯｴｾＺ＠ "[T]he creation of weaJth is the task of genius .... SociaJism is the jealousy of the masses, of the have-nots against the few who succeed in doing something for mankind."'4 As Rajnccsh put it, in his typically unapologetic style, "I don't condemn wealth. Wealth is a perfect means which can enhance people in every way and make life rich in all ways. The materiaJiy poor can never become spirituaJ."35 Moreover, "People are unequal and a fair world has to give people full freedom to be unequal. Capitalism has grown out of freedom. It is a natural phenomenon."% The Nco-Tantric path, for R.ajncesh, is the unique path that docs not separate, but actually integrates and synthesizes the quest for spiritual liberation with the desire for material wealth. Rather than denying the physical senses or even material greed, Tantra seeks the active wedding of worldly enjoyment and spirituaJ liberation: "Tantra has a very beautiful thing to say and that is: First, before you start serving anybody else, be absolutely selfish. How can you serve anyone else unless you have attained your inner being? Be absolutely sclfish!"-' 7 In the American media, Rajnecsh was most infamous and most widely criticized for his own rather rich tastes-above all, for his collection of Rolls Royccs, in which he was frequently seen riding comfortably past masses of adoring devotees. Yet Rajnccsh seemed quite unapologetic about his taste for the finer things of life and saw no contradiction, for the truly liberated and realized individual, between matcriaJ weaJth and spiritual freedom. As he later explained his penchant for expensive automobiles, "People arc sad, jealous and thinking that Rolls-Royccs don't fit with spirituality. I don't sec that there is any contradiction .... In fact, sitting in a bullock cart it is very difficult to be meditative; a Rolls Royce is the best for spirituaJ growth."38 Indeed, far from opposing spiritual authority to capitalist economics, Rajnccsh made the accumulation of material wcaJth the expression and manifestation of his charisma. As the American media never tired of pointing out, Rajnccsh was an extreme example of aonspicuous consumption-a gross display of material wealth and There is no organization around me. Whatever you see is no organization, it is simply functional; it is just like the post office. -Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh One of the most astonishing features of the early Rajneesh movement was its remarkable success as a business enterprise--or more accurately, as a complex network of interrelated enterprises spread throughout the world, operating on a variety of levels. The success of Rajneesh's enterprise, I would suggest, is based on the same eclectic principles as his spiritual teachings: first, radical pluralism and eclecticism, allowing a wide range of organizationaJ structures; and second, a kind of de-institutionalized, decentraJized authority, which at the same time paradoxically reasserts a new kind of hierarchical power. Thus, the Rajneesh movement might be called a kind of"charismatic variant of a multinationaJ corporation."39 The structure of the early Rajneesh movement appears to have been particularly well suited to the complex and volatile economic situation of the last decades of the twentieth century. Precisely because Rajneesh explicitly rejected all dogmatic authority and presented such a radically flexible, fluid form of spirituality, his teachings meshed seamlessly with the constantly fluctuating market of late capitalist society. Having effectively deconstructed all other institutional authority, this made possible a radicaJly fluid, flexible, and adaptable business structure, one based not on centraJized direction or fixed rules but rather on economic opportunism and organizational diversity. The only law, it seems, was what worked; the only constant is what makes money. "Sannyasins were encouraged to experiment with any business or organizationaJ form which offers convenience," Carter observed. "Sannyasins required no justification for their enterprises save that they be profitable."40 With the help of some sophisticated legaJ and business management, the movement established a complicated system of parent companies and subsidiaries.41 Three separate but mutually reinforcing organizations were formed, which supported one another in a complex interlocking structure. The parent organization, the Ranch Church or Rajneesh Foundation International (RFI), was managed through the Rajneesh Investment Corporation (RIC), and 180 GURUS IN AMERICA Rajneesh Neo-Sannyasin International Corporation (RNSIC). The RIC was a for-profit corporation to which ownership of the ranch was transferred and which then served as the depository for ｦｵｮ､ｾ＠ taken from other centers around the world. The RNSIC, or "commune" on the other hand, was established as an independent corporation to provide subsistence for members who donated their labor to the construction of the ranch. Through the interlocking of these three corporations, and through their skillful combination of religious (and tax exempt) and secular enterprises, the movement was able to maintain a uniquely fluid structure; it was thereby able to transfer funds rapidly and easily while maintaining the facade of a separation of church and state and paying as little tax as possible. For example, when Rajneesh's appetite for Rolls Royccs began to exceed the ordinary needs that a religious leader might be expected to have, the solution was to create an entity separate from the church called the "R.ajneesh Modern Car Trust" to hold the titles. And so it went-"not according to a grand scheme, but in an adaptive, expedient, ad hoc fashion."42 In a remarkably short time, the R.ajneesh center at Big Muddy became an immensely successful enterprise. Through its various meditation workshops, training seminars, lectures, and conferences, costing anywhere from $50 to $7500, the organization quickly accumulated a vast amount of wealth. Between 1981 and 1986 an estimated $120 million poured into the Ranch. As former disciple Hugh Milne recounts, "Money making, collecting domtions ... and legal work became the chief activities .... Bhagwan said that in the new commune we would grow money on trees .... Bhagwan was quite open about the fact that the primary object was to make money."43 By no means content to limit its operations to the United States, the Rajneesh Church soon began to spread worldwide, in a rapid proliferation of ancillary businesses, such as spiritual institutes, therapy and meditation centers, discotheques, restaurants, and a vast array of books, tapes, and videos. Twenty major corporations were created worldwide, with twenty-eight hank accounts, including twelve in Switzerland. As Carter suggests, this global network had charismatic organizational structure; rather than a fixed corporate organization with permanent structures, the Rajneesh corporation adapted quickly to the changing needs of different contexts. The individual businesses within the R.ajneesh Foundation served as "empty forms " or fluid structures that might he a discotheque one week, a yoga center the next, or a health food store the next, depending on the shifting needs of the market: "Corporate identities arc used as disposable devices ... created as a need of the moment arises and discarded ... specialized corporations of limited life span can be created to provide vehicles for new activities or transfers of ｡ｳ･ｴｾＮＢＴ＠ In sum, Rajneeshism as a business enterprise was ba.'lt:d on the same paradoxical yet remarkably effective principles as his spiritual teachings. Like his 0SHO, FROM SEX GURU TO GURU OF THE RICH 181 philosophy, his business enterprise was not a fixed, consistent system, but a protean, fluid, constantly shifting network, which could adapt easily to the shifting demands of his consumer market. OSHO-THE APOTHEOSIS OF A FALLEN NEW AGE GURU Why do I contradict myself? I am not teaching a philosophy here. The philosopher has to be very consistent-flawless, logical, rational .... I am not a philosopher. I am not here giving you a consistent dogma to which you can cling. My whole effort is to give you a no-mind. -Osho The most surpnsmg aspect of the Rajneesh phenomenon lies not so much in his scandalous career in America, but in his remarkable apotheosis upon his return to India. A truly global guru, ｒｾｮ･ｳｨ＠ made the journey from India to America and back to India again, now achieving even more success in his homeland, in large part because of his status as an international figure that had a massive U.S. and European following. His followers were not only able to rationalize the disastrous scandal in the United States, but even to make Rajneesh a heroic martyr who had been unjustly persecuted by the oppressive imperialist U.S. government: "[The Ranch] was crushed from without by the Attorney's General's office ... like the marines in Lebanon, the Ranch was hit by hardball opposition and driven out."45 As part of his transfiguration in India, he would also reject his former Hindu title of"Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh," an appellation that had asserted his divine, god-man status. "Enough is enough! The joke is over," he declared. 46 Instead, he adopted the more universal title of"Osho"-a title that, according to some, derives from the Japanese term for master, and according to others, from the "oceanic experience" described by William James. His message, too, became increasingly universal, more palatable and marketed to a global consumer audience. "My message is too new. India is too old, ancient, traditional. ... In fact, I am not an Indian .... I belong to no nation. My message is universal."47 As author Tom Robbins describes it, Osho's message is really a more simple, universal one of humor, irony, and laughter. Even his seemingly excessive consumption and crazy wisdom behavior in the United States were only his own form of"cosmic comedy" aimed at helping us to laugh at ourselves: "Jesus had his parables, Buddha his sutras ... Osho has something more appropriate for a species crippled by greed, fear, ignorance and superstition: he has GURUS 182 IN 0SHO. AMERICA SEX GURU TO GURU OF THE RICH I 8.3 The commune is thus promoted as a kind of spiritual oasis a.midst the growing confusion of modern life, a unique sacred space where one can discover one's own self and unite the desires of both body and mind in a beautiful resort environment. As Elle magazine put it, "Every year thousands of people visit this luxurious resort.... The atmosphere is really like a fairy tale. A paradise where all your emotional, bodily and spiritual needs are met." In sum, the character of Rajneesh has undergone an incredible apotheosis in his later years, particularly after his death: he has been transfigured from a shocking, scandalous Tantric sex guru into an international icon for a high tech global movement and business enterprise. cosmic comedy. What Osho is out to do, it seems to me, is pierce our disguises, shatter our illusions ... and demonstrate the ... tragic folly of taking ourselves too scriously." 4H Yet at the same time, interestingly enough, Osho also downplayed the more objectionable aspects of his earlier message, transforming his radical brand of Nco-Tantrism into a kind of universal global religion of Love. Thus, his Autobio:;traphy of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic makes only b,ricf reference to Tantra or sexual practices, and even then only in the most defensive terms: "I have never taught 'free sex.' What I have been teaching is the sacredness of sex .... This is the idiotic Indian yellow journalism that has confined my whole philosophy to two words .... What they have been doing all along is misinforming pcople."49 Osho died in 1990, after just a few years back in Punc. According to many devotees, he had actually been "poisoned in Ronald Reagan's America" (given thallium during his period of incarceration in the American prisons) because of his radical, threatening, and subversive teachings.so Remarkably, however, Osho ｨ｡Ｎｾ＠ only grown in popularity in the years since his death. Indeed, he seems to have published more books and received more acclaim ｡Ｎｾ＠ a disembodied photograph or video image than he ever did while still incarnate. The Punc center, meanwhile, has grown into a successful and now globalized spiritual organization, the "Osho Commune International." Linked through its "Global Connections Department," the Commune runs an intricate network of centers and activities worldwide, including "Osho International" in New York, which administers the ｲｩｧｨｴｾ＠ to Osho's works. Describing ｩｴｾ｣ｬｦ＠ as the "Esalen of the East," the Osho Multiversity in Punc teaches a dizzying array of spiritual techniques drawn from a ｳｭｯｲｧ｡Ｎｾ｢､＠ of traditions: Astrology Training, Feldcnkraus body work, Crystal Energy, Acupuncture, nco-Zen, Hypnosis Love and Relationship, Primal Dcconditioning, Pulsation-Reichian Biocncrgy, Primal Deconditioning, and Shamanic Energy Work arc but a few of the many courses offered. With an explicitly universal religious vision, the new Osho commune has taken Rajneesh's Nco-Tantric "rcligionless religion," combined it with a host of other more generic New Age ideals and marketed it to a global audience of spiritual consumers. As we read in a recent advertisement THE SPIRITUAL LOGIC OF LATE CAPITALISM The days of the nations are over, the days of divisions are over, the days of the politicians are over. We are moving in a tremendously new world, a new phase of humanity-and the phase is that there can only be one world now, only one single humanity. And then there will be a tremendous release of energies. -Osho, Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic The enigmatic figure of Osho-Rajneesh has thus brought us full circle, from East to West and back again, in a remarkable tra.nsnational exchange of spiritual ideas and economic capital. As such, he is a powerful illustration of what E Ma.x MUller more than a century ago called "that world-wide circle through which, like an electric current, Oriental thought could run to the West and Western thought return to the East." 52 For it appears that he was able to create a spiritual path that was remarkably well suited to the uniquely global socioeconomic situation at the close of the twentieth century-na.mely, the particular cultural and economic formation that has been variously dubbed "post-industrialism" (Bell), "post-Fordism" (Harvey), or "disorga.nized capitalism" (Offe).S3 Yet whatever its na.me, most observers agree, the contemporary global economic system is by no mea.ns "postcapitalist." On the contrary, it is hyper-capitalist, or, in Ernest Mandel's terms, a purer form of capitalism than a.ny seen before, one that allows for the most powerful application of capitalist principles to all aspects of hurna.n life. Since at least the early 1970s, there has been a shift from the "Fordist" economics of modern industrial capitalism, to a more pervasive process of"flexible accumulation." In the global marketplace of postmodernity, funds can be transferred a.nd exchanged instantaneously, from any point on the planet, through a network of constantly shifting, increasingly flexible corporate structures and modes of consumption. 54 for the commune, Osho Commune International ... continues to attract thousands of visitors per year from more than one hundred different countries around the world .... The resort meditation programs arc ｢｡Ｎｾ･､＠ on Osho's vision of a qualitatively new kind of human being who is able to participate joyously in everyday life and to relax into silence. Most programs take place in modern air-conditioned facilities and include QVerything from short to extended meditation courses, creative art, holistic health treatments, perand the "Zen" approach to sports and recreation. 5 1 sonal ｾｲｯｷｴｨ＠ FROM ): ｾ＠ J 184 GURUS IN AMERICA At the same time, late capitalism has gone hand in hand with a series of marked ｳｨｩｦｴｾ＠ on the cultural level. As Fredric Jameson summarizes it, the" cultural logic of late capitalism" is characterized by a general loss of faith in any grand, totalizing, or unifYing view of the world or human history (a death of "metanarrativcs," to usc Lyotard's phrase) and a concomitant sense of intense fragmentation, pluralism or "heteroglossia," which mirrors the bewildering diversification in consumer society itself. 55 Instead of the construction of any unifYing metanarrative, the dominant logic of late capitalism is thus one of "pastiche" and "bricolage"-the freewheeling syncretism of diverse clements drawn from disparate historical and cultural eras, patched together largely by the whim of the individual consumer. Today, we "no longer produce monumental works of the modernist type but ceaselessly reshuffie the ｦｲ｡ｧｭ･ｮｴｾ＠ ... of older cultural productions, in some new ... bricolage: metabooks which cannibalize other books."56 And instead of the ideal of unity, order, or harmony, the late capitalist aesthetic is that of physical intensity, shock value, immediate gratification, and ecstatic experience. As Terry Eagleton observes, "Its stance toward cultural tradition is one of irreverent pastiche and its contrived depthlessness undermines all metaphysical solemnities ... by a brutal aesthetics of squalor and shock."57 The final and most obvious ｡Ｎｾｰ･｣ｴ＠ of late capitalism, however, is the progressive extension of the logic of the marketplace to all ｡Ｎｾｰ･｣ｴｳ＠ of culture. In the "market-like conditions of modern life," as Jiirgen ｈ｡｢･ｲｭＮｾ＠ ｰｵｴｾ＠ it, everything tends to become a commodity that may be bought and sold, from art to politics to religion itself.58 Now forced to compete in the commercial marketplace alongside other secular businesses and industries, religion itself tends to become yet another consumer product within the supermarket of values. The religious believer, meanwhile, is free to choose from a wide array of possible ｢･ｬｩｦＮｾ＠ and to piece together his or her own personalized spiritual pastiche: Max Weber's metaphor ... of religion striding into the marketplace of worldly affairs and slamming the monastery door behind, becomes further transformed in modern society with religion placed very much in the consumer marketplace .... Individuals jarej able to select from a plurality of suitably packaged bodies ofknowledge in the super-market oflifestyles. ... The tendency in modern societies is f<)r religion to become a private leisure pursuit purchased in the market like any other consumer lifestyle. 59 Finally, ｡Ｎｾ＠ the logic of the marketplace has spread to all facets of human life, it has also brought with it some fundamental ｳｨｩｦｴｾ＠ in our attitudes toward the body, physical ｰｬ･｡ＮｾｵｲＬ＠ and desire. As Bryan S. Turner, Mike Featherstone, and others suggest, there has been a ｢｡Ｎｾｩ｣＠ shift from th{ early capitalist attitude ｢｡Ｎｾ･､＠ on the Protestant work ethic, thriftiness, and innerworldly asceticism, to a late capitalise attitude based on mass consumption, physical plca.mre, and 0SHO, FROM SEX GURU TO GURU OF THE RICH 185 hedonistic enjoyment. In consumer culture the human body ceases to be a vessel of sin or an unruly vessel of desires that must be disciplined and mastered-rather, the body is proclaimed as ultimate source of gratification, enjoyment, and fulfillment. As Turner puts it, "In the growth of a consumer society with its emphasis on the athletic/beautiful body we see a major transformation of values from an emphasis on the control of the body for ascetic reasons to the manipulation of the body for aesthetic purposes." 60 In short, as Featherstone concludes, "the new consumptive ethic ... taken over by the advertising industry, celebrates living for the moment, hedonism, self-expression, the body beautiful, freedom from social obligation."61 All of these general cultural aspects of late capitalism, I would argue, are strikingly apparent in both the teachings and the organizational structure of the Osho-Rajneesh movement. A spiritual Proteus and an incredibly eclectic thinker, he was capable of adapting his message to the particular needs of his followers in a fluid, flexible way. Rejecting all the great metanarratives of mainstream religion, society, and politics, he conceived his own kind of"postmodern bricolage," drawing freely on all the sacred traditions of the world, while at the same time catering it to the specific needs of his audience. At the same time, he was also able to create an expansive, largely decentralized but intricately interconnected network of spiritual enterprises, extending in an equally flexible web of both secular and religious centers throughout the world. He was, moreover, quite unashamed of the fact that his message had both a spiritual and material aim, and he saw no contradiction between the pursuit of the sacred and the pursuit of wealth. On the contrary, it was precisely his aim to unite the desire for transcendence and desire for economic capital in his ideal of the new Superman, Zorba the Buddha. And finally, Osho-Rajneesh is also a powerful example of the preoccupation with the body and sexuality in late capitalist consumer culture. In this repressive modern world, Osho tells us, the intense energy of sexual pleasure is precisely what is most in need of liberation; and it is the most powerful means to realizing our inherent Godhood, through the ecstatic sensual-spiritual experience of "Buddha's inner orgasm." Yet as Foucault points out, it is not so much the case that modern society has really "liberated" sexuality in any radical way; rather, we have only continued a long history of preoccupation with and discourse about sexuality, which has been described, debated, classified, and categorized in endless, titillating detail, while being exploited as "the secret."Yet what we have done is to push sex to the furthest possible extremes-to extremes of transgression and excess, not resting until we have shattered every law, violated every taboo: "The 20th century will undoubtedly have discovered the related categories of exhaustion, excess, the limit and transgression-the strange and unyielding form of these irrevocable movements which consume and consummate us."62 186 GURUS IN AMERICA CONCLUSIONS: INDIAN MAIIAGURUS-KARMA COLA OR COUNTER-I!EGEMON!C RESISTANCE? When East meets West all you get is the neo-Sannyasi, the instant Nirvana .... You have the karma, we'll take the Coca Cola, metaphysical soft drink for a physical one. -Gita Mehta, Karma Cold l thought when I first visited the Orient that l would find myself witnessing the West in conquest of the East, armies of its invaders bearing their cultural artifacts across the plains of Asia. Yet ... l began to suspect that none of the countries l had seen ... could ever be fully transformed by the West. Madonna and Rambo might rule the streets, and hearts might be occupied with dreams of Cadillacs ... but every Asian culture seemed ... too canny to be turned by passing trade winds from the West. -Pico lyer, Video Night i11 ｋ｡ｴｬｭｾ､ｵ＠ To close, I would like to suggest that the phenomenon of Osho-Rajneesh sheds some important light on a number of critical issues for the study of religions in the context of transnationalism and globalization at the turn of the millennium. Above all, he forces us to ask the difficult question of whether South Asian religious traditions are inevitably doomed to undergo the fate of westernization and commercialization as they move into the modern world system. Are they doomed, in a sense, to become Coca-colonized and McDonaldized into yet another franchise in the global marketplace of cultures? In his monumental study of the cross-cultural intellectual exchange between India and Europe, Wilhelm Halbfass seems to have arrived at a fairly pessimistic answer to these questions. What we have witnessed in the modern era, Halbfass believes, is the progressive "Europeanization of the world"-that is, the domination of the globe by Western culture, ideology, and discourse, to such a degree that other cultures can now only define themselves through the categories that have already been imposed by the West: In the modern planetary system, Eastern and Western cultures can no longer meet one another as equal partners. They meet in a Westernized world, under conditions shaped by Western ways of thinking. [F]or the time being there is no escape from the global network of Europeanization and no way to avoid the conceptual and technological ways ... of communication and interaction that the European tradition has produced.63 However, it seems to me that the real danger today is no longer the threat of thee'' Europeanization" of the world; indeed, it is no longer even the threat of"Americanization." Surely we arc now living in a very different sort 0SHO. FROM SEX GURU TO GURU OF THE RICH 187 of global economy where such boundaries no longer have much meaning. Rather, the real threat today is the spread of consumer capitalism and the domination of the global marketplace over all local economies, polities, and cultural forms-a process that is no longer dominated by the West, no longer a matter of either "occidentalization" or "orientalization," but a far more complex product of transnational capitalism. To many observers, we seem to be living more and more in "one McWorld tied together by communications, information, entertainment and commerce," that remains "caught between Babel and Disneyland."64 Thus, many authors are quite cynical about the encounter between East and West in the age of global capitalism. As Gita Mehta suggests, India has now been subjected to the complete penetration of American mass marketing, and now any encounter between East and West will only result in the worst of both worlds. While India seeks the materialism and technological power of the West, the West seeks the exoticism, eroticism, mysticism, and cheap drugs of the East. Both end up with empty distorted phantasms reflecting their own repressed desires: It is unlikely that either the Occidental or the Easterner has the stamina to survive the exchange of views, yet both insist on trying, and both use irrelevant language to camouflage the contradictions .... [T]he Easterner ... calls what fascinates him in the West economic necessity, technology, historical imperative .... The Occidental ... calls what fascinates him in the East the transcendence of economics and technology.... The Westerner is finding the dialectic of history less fascinating than the endless opportunities for narcissism provided by the wisdom of the East. 65 Tantra in the style of Osho-Rajneesh, Mehta concludes, is the epitome of this superficial cross-cultural exchange: The result is the neo-Tantric or "neosannyasin" who seeks instant nirvana (enlightenment) and soda-pop enlightenment. "The Tantrics would be surprised to learn that the taboos they believe should only be broken by the initiate, lest they boomerang against the practitioner, are now being used as a means of getting rid of one's hang ups."66 In contrast to these pessimistic visions of "global monoculture" and "Coca-colonization," however, others have suggested the more hopeful possibility of local resistance and indigenous critique. As Marshall Sahlins argues, indigenous peoples are never simply dupes ofWestern capitalism who passively absorb consumer ideology or the logic of the marketplace without reflection or agency; instead, they appropriate and transform them according to the logic of their own local culture: "Western capitalism has loosed on the world enormous forces of production, coercion and destruction. Yet precisely because they cannot be resisted, the goods of the larger system take on meaningful places in the local scheme of things."6 7 Hence, some, like Pico lyer, argue that what we are witnessing today is not so much the relentless imposition of global 188 GURUS IN 0SHO, AMERICA capitalism onto all aspects of human culture; rather, we find a more dynamic process of "the spread of America's pop-cultural imperialism throughout the world's ancient civilizations" and the simultaneous "resistances put up against the Coca-colonizing forces."68 My own view here is somewhat more complex and ambivalent-at once more optimistic than Halbfass's narrative of inevitable Europeanization of the earth, and yet also more pessimistic than Sahlins's narrative of valiant indigenous resistance against the onslaught of global capitalism. With Sahlins, I would like to highlight, even celebrate, the power of non-Western cultures to appropriate, transform, and deform the forces of global capitalism, to adapt them on their own terms, according to their own cultural logic. Yet it seems to me that the rules of the game arc still largely determined, conditioned, and structured by the logic of the global capitalist market. In contrast to HaJbfass, I would argue that this is no longer a simple matter of Orient versus Occident or the Europeanization of the world, but rather the more complex expansion of transnational capitalism-which is surely now no longer simply Western, but as much Japanese and Indian as American-to all points of the globe and all aspects of human interaction. 69 Thus, any resistance tends to become resistance to the market, a deformation of capitalism, and yet still largely ruled by the laws of the marketplace, still unable to imagine another space outside of global capitalism. And if "resistance" means nothing more than adding an Indian "curry" flavor of"Chicken McNuggets" to the McDonald's mcnu,7° it seems a fairly pathetic form of resistance. But perhaps the value of reflecting upon a radically deconstructive, ironic, and self-parodying figure such as Osho is that he might force us to rethink and deconstruct some of our own most basic assumptions. If Osho were alive today, he might well have challenged us to look more closely at ourselves and to critique the basic values of late capitalist consumer culture itself. After all, as Osho explained his own mission, his goal all along has been to try to shock us out of our comfortable slumbers and" self-contented illusions. This is possibly the greatest lesson to be learned from extreme, paradoxicaJ, and irreverent characters such as Osho-Rajnecsh; for they force us to reflect critically upon ourselves and to take seriously the strange spiritual logic and cultural contradictions that run through our own increasingly plural, fragmented, and yet strangely interconnected world. FROM SEX GURU TO GURU OF THE RICH 189 2. Foucault, History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction (New York: Vintage, 1978), 35. 3. Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism: Or, the Cultural Logic C!f Lote Capitalism (Durham: Duke University Press, 1991). 4. For Rajneesh's biography, see Urban, "Zorba the Buddha: Capitalism, Charisma, and the Cult ofBhagwan Shree Rajneesh," Religion 26 (1996): 161-82; and Susan J. Palmer and Arvind Sharma, The Rajneesh Papers: Studies in a New Religious Mo11ement (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas, 1993). More popular accounts by disciples and exdisciples include: Yati, The Sound C!f Running Water: A Photobiography of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Poona: RJ,jneesh Foundation, 1980); Milne, Bhagwan: The God that Failed; James Gordon, The Golden Guru: The Strange Journey of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (New York: Viking, 1987). 5. Georg Feuerstein, Holy Madness: The Shock Tactics and Radical Teachings C!f CrazyWise Adepts, Holy Fools, and Rascal Gurus (New York: Paragon House, 1990), 65. 6. See Lewis Carter, Charisma and Control in Rajneeshpuram: The Role C!f Shared Utlues in the Creation C!f a Community (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 77-78. 7.Judy and John Kaplan Mills, Spokane Spokesman Re11iew (1983). For a good discussion of Sheela's increasing control over the movement and her various criminal activities, see Carter, Charisma and Control, 94-96, 102-105, 132-35. For Osha's own retrospective views on Sheela, see Autobiography, 253-57. 8. Osho, Autobiography 2000), 255. if a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic (New York: St. Martin's, 9. See Hugh Milne, Bhagwan:The God that Failed (New York: St. Martin's, 1986), 221ff. 10. Carter, Charisma and Control, 225, 237. 11. Bob Mullan, Lifo as Laughter: Following Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Boston: Routledge, 1983), 44. 12. Rajneesh, The Art C![Dying. "I am not here to impose any religion on you. I am here to make you completely weightless-without religion, without ideology.... There is no need of any religion, there is no need of any God, there is no need of any priesthood ... I trust in the individual categorically." Quoted at the Osho.com Web site: (www.osho.com/Main.cfm? Area= Magazine). 13. Carter, Charisma and Control, 37. 14. Vasant Joshi, Awakened One: The Lifo and !Mlrk of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1982), 165. 15. Carter, Charisma and Control, 112-13. 16. Feuerstein, Holy Madness, 67. NOTES 17. Rajneesh, Tantra the Supreme Understanding (Poona: Rajneesh Foundation, 1975), 55, 6. 1. Hcclas, 'IIze New Age Mo11e111ent: 'I7ze Celebration C!f ｴｬｾ･＠ Self and the SacralizcttimJ of Modernity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996). On Scientology and its unique fit with capitalism, see Roy Wallis," Tlze Road to Jotal Freedom: A Sociological Analysis of Scientology (London: Heinemann: 1976). 18. A Sannyasin informant, cited in Carter, Charisma and Control, 48. As Osho puts it, "You are certainly brainwashed, I use a dry cleaning machine.... And what is wrong with being brainwashed? Wash it every day, keep it clean .... Everybody is afraid of brainwashing. I am in absolute favor of it .... It is just an up to date religious laundry." Osho, Autobiography, 133-34. GURUS 190 IN AMERICA 19. One of the most popular early techniques was "Dynamic" or "Chaotic Meditation." As a kind of"microcosm of Rajneesh's outlook," its explicit aim was to "shock habitual patterns of thought and behavior" and so open the individual to ecstatic freedom. After an initial stage of concentration and yogic breathing, the chaotic meditation would culminate in an ecstatic, uncontrolled state of "letting the body go,• without restrictions," through dancing, laughing, shrieking, or rolling on the ground. Rajncesh, '11te Mystic Experieru:e (Delhi: Harper and Row, 1977), 72ff. 20. For a general discussion ofTantra, David Gordon White, ed., 'Iimtra in Practice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000). 21. Osho, The 'J{mtric 'Irans(ormation, (Shaftesburg: Element, 1978), 4. On the transformation ofTantra in the modern Western context, sec Hugh B. Urban, "The Cult of Ecstasy: Tantra, the New Age, and the Spiritual Logic of Late Capitalism," I Iis tory o( Religions 39 (2000): 268-304. 22. Osho, The 1imtric 'Iransformation, 6-7. 23. Rajneesh, Tantra the Supreme Understanding, 93, 157. 24. Ibid., 190,98--99. 25. Rajneesh, Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega (Poona: Rajneesh Foundation, 1981 ), 157, 21. As Susan J. Palmer comments, "Rajneesh's philosophy and commune life validate the role of lover and present a sexually promiscuous lifestyle as a spiritual path. Rajncesh offers a highly elaborated theology of sexual love." "Lovers and Leaders in a Utopian Commune," in Palmer and Sharma, 'l11e Rajneesh Papers, 127. 26. Rajneesh, 1imtra the Supreme Understanding, 100. 27. Feuerstein, l-loly Madness, 70. "The Rajneesh therapy groups that aspiring initiates were obliged to participate in employed various techniques which encouraged members to release inhibitions .... Sexual feelings were interpreted as charismatic indications of Bhagwan's presence 'flowing' between his disciples." Palmer, "Lovers and Leaders in a Utopian Commune," 111. 28. Rajncesh, 'fimtra the Suprente Understanding, 100. 29. Rajnecsh, 'f1te Goose is Out (Poona: Rajneesh Foundation, 1982), 286. 30. Nik Douglas, Spiritual Sex: Secrets o('Iimtmfrom the Ice Age to the New Millenniulll (New York: Pocket Books, 1997), 15. 31. Foucault, I Iis tory of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction , 35; cf Foucault, Rclrj;ron and Culture, ed. Jeremy R. Carrette (New York: Routledge, 1999), 117. 32. Jeffery Weeks, Sexuality and its Discontents: Meanings, Myths, and Modem Sexuctlities (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985}, 23, 24. 33. Osho, Autobiography, 217. "I teach a sensuous religion. I want Gautama the Buddha and Zorba the Greek to come closer and closer; my disciple has to be Zorhathe-Buddha. Man is body-soul together. Both have to be satisfied." Rajnecsh, quoted in Joshi, Awakened One: 'I1te !.ife and Work of Blwguliln Sltree Rajnee.rlt, 1. 34. Mullan, Life as l.augltter, 48. 35. ｒ｡ｪｮ･ｳｨｾ＠ quoted in Laurence Graf.,tein, "Messianic Capitalism," Tlte NetV Repubbc 20 (1984). 36. Rajnecsh, Beware of Sociali.HIIf (Rajnecshpuram: Rajnccsh Foundation, 1984), 15, 19. OSHO, FROM SEX GURU TO GURU OF THE RICH 191 37. Ranjeesh, Tantra the Supreme Understanding, 109-10. "Tantra creates a totally new religion .... [I)ts God is so vast the world can be included .... If it is God who has created your body, your sexuality, your sensuality, then it cannot be against God." Osho, Tlze Tantric Transformation, 260. 38. Osho, Autobiography, 157. 39. Carter, Charisma and Control, 72. 40. Ibid., 283 n. 38. 41. Milne, Bhagwan: Tlze God that Failed, 245. 42. Gordon, Tlze Golden Guru, 116. 43. Milne, Bhagwan:Tize God that Failed, 245. 44. Carter, Charisma and Control, 77. 45. Swami Anand ]ina, "The Work of Osho Rajneesh: A Thematic Overview," in Palmer and Sharma, The Rajneesh Papers, 54. 46. Osho, Never Born, Never Died. Available from World Wide Web: (http://www. sannyas.net/ osho02.htm). 47. "The Laughing Swamis," 78. 48. Tom Robbins, quoted on the "Osho.com"Web site. 49. Osho, Autobiography, 132. 50. Ibid., 268-69. 51. Appendix to Osho, Autobiography, 294; see also Jina, "The Work of Osho Rajneesh," 55; Palmer and Sharma, "Epilogue" to Tlze Rajneesh Papers, 161. 52. Miiller, Biographical Essays (New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1884), 13. 53. On the concept of!ate capitalism, see Ernest Mandel, Late Capitalism (London: NLB, 1975}; Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism: Or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism; Daniel Bell, Tlze Coming cif Post-Industrial Society (New York: Basic Books, 1973}; Claus Offe, Disorganized Capitalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985); David Harvey, Tlze Condition of Postmodernity (London: Blackwell, 1989). 54. As Harvey summarizes, "modernist" or "organized capitalism," which predominated up to the 1970s, may be characterized as: profit-centered big business, centralization of industrial banking, and regulated national markets; complex managerial hierarchies; a concentration of capitalist relations with relatively few industries; and monopolistic corporate power. Late or disorganized capitalism, on the other hand, may be characterized as: a deconcentration of corporate power away from national markets; increasing internationalization of capital; increasing independence of large monopolies from state regulation; cultural fragmentation and pluralism; a decline of industrial cities and a deconcentration from city centers to peripheral areas; and entrepreneurial individualism. Harvey, Tlze Condition of Postmodernity, 291-98. 55. Jameson, "Postmodernism and Consumer Society," in The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture, ed. Hal Foster, (New York: New Press, 1998), 99. As Terry Eagleton comments, "We are now in the process of awakening from the nightmare of modernity, with its manipulative reason and fetish of totality, into the laid back pluralism of the postmodernism, that heterogeneous range of ... language games which has renounced the urge to totalize." "Awakening from Modernity," Times Literary Supplement February 20 1987, cited in Harvey, The Condition qf Postmodernity, 9. 192 GURUS IN AMERICA 56. Jameson, f>os11nodemis111: Or, the Cultural Logic of I Ate Capitalism, 96; cf. Harvey, '/he Condition of J>ostmodernity, 54. 57. Eagleton, "Awakening from Modernity"; cited in Harvey, The Condition vf f>ost1/lodernity, 7. Sec also Jameson, "Postmodcrnism and Consumer Society," 124. 58. Ji.irgen Haber mas, "Legitimation Problems in the Modern State," ｃ｡ｾｭｮｵｩ｣ﾭ tion and the Evolution of Society (Boston: Beacon Press, 1974). 59. Mike Featherstone, Consumer Culture and Postmodemism (Londoh: Sage, 1991), 112-13. 60. Bryan S. Turner, Regulatin:? Bodies: Essays in Medical Sociology (London: Routledge, 1992), 164-65, 47. 61. Featherstone, Consumer Culture and Jlostmodemis111, 114. NINE RIDING THE DAWN HORSE Adi Da and the Eros of Nonduality 62. Foucault, Religion and Culture, 69. 63. Halbf.m, India and Europe: An Essay on Understanding, 339-40, 441-42. 64. Benjamin Barber, .Jihad IJS. McWorld: I low Glo/Jalism and 'Iri/Jalism are Reshaping the World (New York: Ballantine, 1992), 4. See also Aijaz Ahmad, In '11leory: Classes, Nations, Literatures (New York: Verso, 1992); Mike Featherstone, Undoing Culture: Glo/Jalization, Jlostmodemism, and Identity (London: Sage, 1995), 8; Atjun Appadurai, Ｂｄｩｾｵｮ｣ﾭ ture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy," in 'f11e Globalization Reader, eds. Frank]. and John Boli Lechner (London: Blackwell, 2000), 322-30. As Aijaz Ahmad has argued, we are perhaps no longer divided into "Three Worlds," nor arc we even divided into simple binaries such as "capitalist/pre-capitalist" or "modern/pre-modern"; instead, there is now only one world-that of international capitalism: "One of the many contradictory consequences of decolonization within a largely capitalist framework was that it brought all zones of capital into a single integrated market, entirely dominated by this supreme imperialist power." In Theory: Classes, Nations, Litemtures, 21. 65. Gita Mehta, Karma Cola: Marketing the Mystic East (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979), 106. 66. Ibid., 157; cf. p. 107. Mehta cites Rajneesh, Muktananda, and various other nco-Tantric gurus as key examples of this cross-cultural confusion. 67. Sahlins, "Cosmologies of Capitalism: The Trans-Pacific Sector of 'The World System," Proceedings of the British Academy 74 (1988), 4. A similar argument is made by John and Jean Comaroff, eds., Modernity and its Malcontents: Ritual m1d Power in Postcolonial Africa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), xi-xii. 68. Pico Iyer, Video Night in Kathmandu and Other Reports .from the Not-so:firr I:ast (New York: Knopf, 1988), 5. 69. As Appadurai observes, "the United States is no longer the puppeteer of a world system of images but is only one node of a complex transnational construction of imaginary landscapes." Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Glo/Jalization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 31. 70. Some authors seem more hopeful about this sort of local adaptation of the global market: "regions respond to similar economic constraints in different ways. Countries still have great leeway in structuring their own"polities; the same television program means different things to different audiences; McDonald's adapts its menu and marketing to ｾｯ｣｡ｬ＠ tastes." Frank ]. and John Boli Lechner, 'l11e Globalization Reader (London: Blackwell, 2000). ｙｾ＠ ＭＢｷｾ＠ ,.. ,Ｍｾ＠ ＢｍＭＧＮﾷｎｾ＠ ·--• • ＢＧｾｷ＠ ·----· JEFFREY J. KRIPAL As certainly as God is, God will be known .... It is like the Dawn Horse vision that I have described to you. There was this Siddha [perfected master] whose Siddhi [superpower] was to manifest things from nothing. His disciples lined up before him, and he just sat there. At some point they all saw that he had done it, fundamentally, and they all left. But nothing had appeared yet. Franklin sat around for awhile, and all of a sudden this horse appeared in the middle of the room. -Bubba Free John, Garbage and the Goddess THE MOUNTAIN OF ATTENTION SANCTUARY is just down the road from Middletown, California, one of those small mountain communities that lay up the road a torturous two and a half hour drive from the Golden Gate Bridge. The Sanctuary is one of three ashrams belonging to Adidam, an American siddha guru tradition deeply influenced by Hindu and Buddhist systems of thought and practice, particularly in their Tantric nondual forms, and centered on the charismatic person and teaching of Ruchira Avatar Adi Da Samraj (born Franklin Jones, 1939, in Long Island, New York), whom I will refer to henceforth simply as Bubba, as Da, or as Adi Da, depending on the text or historical context I am discussing. 1 By 1997, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the guru's teaching work, the community could locate ten active communities (in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Ottawa, Boston, Washington, D.C., England, Holland, Australia, and New Zealand), three ashrams (The Mountain of 193