OSHO COMMUNE, RAJNEESHPURAM, U.S.A.

MA ANAND SHEELA, Ex-Secretary of Osho

Sheela had no spiritual aspirations. Seeing that she has no potential, at least in this life.... And this was my impression on the very first day she entered my room in 1970 – that she was utterly materialistic, but very practical, very pragmatic, strong-willed, could be used in the beginning days of the commune... because the people who are spiritually-oriented are stargazers.    OSHO
Sheela was not a meditator and her influence on the commune was that work, and only work,mattered. Through work she could dominate people, because she had her grades of "good" workers and rewarded them accordingly. Meditation was considered a waste of time and even on the rare occasions that I did meditate, I sat with a book in front of me , in case someone came in the room and "caught" me. I had lost perspective of the importance of meditation, and all the years Osho had been talking of it were lost for a while. Having taken great flights into the sky in India, I now felt grounded and earthbound.

Sheela was getting a taste of stardom. She was asked to go on many TV programmes, I think because her gross behaviou, such as giving the finger as an answer to a question, helped the ratings. There were, by now, many new sannyasins from Europe who had never seen Osho. To them Sheela was The Pope. She was always surrounded by young people with adoring faces, fresh frm the communes in Europe, eager to clap their hands at anything she said. These meetings used to frighten me. I used to think how they must have been like Hitler's youth movement. As Sheela increased her fight with the "outside world', so a battle begain within. Vivek and Sheela gave a meeting together in Magdalena cafeteria one night to assure commune members that there was norift between them.

Vivek did not trust Sheela one inch, and she was not allowed a key to Sho's house. When she came to see Osho, Sheela first had to telephone Vivek, then the door would be unlocked for her at the exact right time and locked behind her. ….I was a matter of who had the power.

BELOVED MASTER,

I'M AMAZED TO SEE HOW MUCH FEAR AND HOW MANY WOUNDS FROM MY HEART EVAPORATED, LISTENING TO YOU TALKING ABOUT SHEELA AND HER GANG LEAVING THE COMMUNE. NOW NOBODY WILL THROW ME OUT, AWAY FROM YOU.
BELOVED MASTER, I'M SO HAPPY THAT I'M LAUGHING AND CRYING TOGETHER.
PLEASE, JUST TELL ME ONE THING: WHY DID THIS SHEELA-VIDYA GANG HATE YOUR INDIAN SANNYASINS SO MUCH?

I can see you all are immensely happy. I came to know just a little late that you were dancing in the streets; otherwise, I would have joined you. I myself am feeling for the first time at home. First the question, then a few more things.

I feel sad and sorry for Sheela and her gang. She has a certain hatred for Indians. The reason is she was raped when she was fifteen or sixteen years old by a man who was a friend of her father, and she had always thought of him as her uncle. Then she became pregnant.

And in India, in those days, pregnancy was a great problem. Abortion was not legal, so illegally, somehow, some physician managed the abortion.

That pain, that distrust, that ugly experience, and the trauma has remained as a wound in her. That is the root cause of her hatred for Indians. Perhaps I am the only person from India whom she did not hate. The reason is clear, that I may have been born in India, but I am not an Indian. I don't belong to any tradition, any religion, any race, any color. The moment she saw me, heard me, she felt tremendous joy, that at least in the whole of India, of eight hundred million people, she can love one Indian.

The same phenomenon has caused in her mind a deep hatred for men too. Because of that old man she has been taking revenge on all men.

You may have observed that around her there were only homosexuals. Homosexuals are not men, homosexuals are not women. You cannot categorize them as men or women.

First I was thinking, why does she continue to be surrounded by homosexuals? Then I saw the point, that instead of men she would like homosexuals to be around her. They have dropped out of manhood. They are no longer polar opposites to the woman.

In India, she was consistently, for nine years, persuading me to come to America. I would have never come to America, but my physical health was bad. And her persuasion was right, that perhaps in the clean air, in a dry and cool place, my health will recover.

But in her own mind, the basic reason for me to leave India was the rape that had happened there. She hated the whole country. Her excuse to bring me out of India was perfectly right, but behind the excuse was her psychology. She did not want to live in India herself. She did not want me to live in India. She did not want my people to live in India.

She still carried the same antagonism, and she found excuses to throw away Indians. Many Indians had come to the commune, and had gone back to India with tears in their eyes.

India is a poor country. To make arrangements to come to America, and then to be refused by the commune, is simply inhuman. These people had come by selling their houses, their lands, all their belongings – and they were not accepted.

But because I was in silence, I never came to know what was going on. She had sent away many Indian sannyasins in a very ugly way.

Now everybody can come, because nobody has raped me, nor have I raped anybody. I don't have any antagonism for anybody in the whole world. In fact, it was because of Sheela that Oregon became so hostile to the commune. I was silent. For five years I did not read any newspapers, did not listen to the radio, did not read any books.

It is all finished. I am keeping my eyes open only for you, just to see you and let you see in my eyes is enough. Whatever I had to achieve, I have achieved. I have loved enormously. I have been loved by millions of men and women. There is not any experience which was worth having that I have not passed through.

If death comes in this moment I will be going rejoicing, because it is not taking anything away from me. My life has been a complete contentment and fulfillment.

If I am still breathing, I am breathing for you, because before I leave I would like you to be in the same space in which I have lived.

So now nobody will be thrown out of the commune, and anybody who knocks on our doors has to be accepted.

Now there is no need for Oregonians to be hostile to us. Our hands will be always waiting for their hands, and our hearts will be always waiting for their hearts. Sheela created this ugly situation because her life has been misery, anger, hatred. She created an unnecessary hostility.

But now I am speaking again. That hostility will disappear just like a dewdrop on a lotus leaf disappears in the early morning sun.

We are Oregonians. Now it is for Oregonians to become red! Why should those poor people choose to be dead rather than be red? We will change the whole situation. The whole world is ours – Oregon included. They are simple human beings reacting in simple human ways. There was no need to create what Sheela did.

It is past history and we have to erase it.

Just the other day I came to know that Sheela, and the whole gang that has escaped from here, were trying to kill three people who are very close to me: Devaraj, my physician; Devageet, who was my dentist in India; and Vivek, who has taken care of me for all these fifteen years as lovingly as no other woman is capable of. Twenty-four hours a day she has been just like a shadow to me, thinking of such small things – about my dress, about my bath, about my food.

You will not have seen any kitchen where a doctor is sitting and weighing calories of everything. They are very miserly; they don't allow me more than three thousand calories per day. And I have to speak five hours, just on three thousand calories!

But they love me, and they don't want me to leave my body before my people are ready.

I may have died without Vivek, Devaraj, Devageet, anytime. They have taken every care to keep me alive as long as possible.

Now Sheela is gone and the whole gang is gone. Things were repressed out of fear. People who knew could not say, because saying meant they would be thrown out of the commune, and they did not want to leave me. Just to be with me they had to carry wounds in their hearts.

One sannyasin came immensely happy and told Vivek that there was a meeting a few months before.... Vivek, Devaraj and Devageet – all three should be killed by slow poisoning. And she could not understand, so she left the meeting. So she does not know what decision they came to.

But they must have decided to, because Vivek got one dose of slow poison and her heartbeat went absolutely berserk. It took three hours for doctors, medicine, to bring her heartbeat back to normal. This has never happened before. She had taken only one cup of tea at Jesus Grove, and immediately this happened.

In the meeting here, in the last ceremony, Devaraj was injected with poison. He is a doctor, has the highest qualifications from Britain. He immediately understood what had been done. He felt the prick. It happened when Shanti B. was by the side of him, telling him something, one hand on his shoulder, another hand near his body on the floor.

He immediately started saying that he had been poisoned, he had been injected. Nobody could believe it, but his situation was... he became pale as if he was dying. He had to be sent to Bend Hospital.

Hasya was there to take care of him. The doctors who were looking after him told Hasya that there seemed to be no reason for his sudden sickness, except that some poisoning had been done. They also said that the same case had happened with the attorney of Jefferson County last year, and they suspect it was exactly the same case of poisoning.

Now this gang was making it instead of a meditation camp, a concentration camp. And why did these three people have to be removed, to be killed? Just because they were close to me.

Sheela never wanted anybody to be close to me, for a simple reason: so I am never able to know what she is doing outside, what she is saying outside, in my name.

And you will be surprised and shocked, that even my room, my sitting room, my bedroom – they were all bugged. On the surface they were all saying that they love me and they are ready to die for me. What could be the reason to bug my room? And Vivek suspected it, because her room was also bugged. Hasya's house was bugged, and every telephone call was taped. Now, my people are not talking politics on telephones – perhaps with a friend, with a lover.

And when I suspected this, I asked her. She said, "No. We are simply tapping the phones of people whom we suspect are planted by the government."

I said, "In four years, how much information have you got? You show me."

They had not a single piece of information. So I said, "What is the point? For four years those thirty people were not phoning at all?"

And this is simply an excuse to listen to other people's conversations. And it is ugly, inhuman, undemocratic. It is a crime. It is interference in people's privacy.

I was not aware that they were even bugging my room. It will be difficult for you to believe – yesterday we discovered and disconnected a bugging device.

She was continuously insisting that my room should have a buzzer, an emergency buzzer, so that the guards know immediately if anything is wrong.

I said, "From inside what can be wrong? Guards are outside. If anything wrong is going to happen to me, it will come from outside. They should have a buzzer to inform me. I am living isolated. Nobody can even see me from the outside, and I cannot see anybody outside. The buzzer is pointless."

What she insisted was: in some emergency it may be needed. I said, "Okay, if you are so intent, it does me no harm." But the point was – just yesterday we came to know – when the buzzer was removed, there was a microphone. It was a bugging device.

I was seeing a few people once in a while. She never wanted for me to see anybody. But I said, "This is not possible. I have a certain message for somebody, certain instruction for somebody. And I don't think you are capable of doing it. So the person has to be called."

So that was the reason for bugging my room – what am I saying to people whom I have called?
She had created almost a fascist state. It was ugly. It was criminal. And the whole bunch has escaped. Knowing that once Sheela and the main people are gone, the others will be in trouble because soon these things will be discovered....

But we are not going to leave these criminals in the world. They will destroy other communes, other people. I am going to inform the government; I am going to inform the international police force; I am going to inform all the communes; I am going to inform the press media. These people should be treated as criminals.

One of our old sannyasins, Shunyo, has donated three hundred thousand dollars, after an attack on my life was made, to purchase a bulletproof car. Those three hundred thousand dollars were simply swallowed up by Sheela and her brother, Bipin. They went on saying, "The money will be returned, it will be returned within a month." Now almost eight years have passed, and not a single dollar has been returned to the commune. And I heard yesterday that, although Sheela and her whole gang has left, Bipin is still in Jesus house.

Geeta has proved a jewel. She was the secretary of Sheela. Sheela wanted her also to go with them; Geeta refused. She has seen the working of Sheela closely, and she did not want to be part of that criminal gang. She informed me that this Bipin is in the house. I told her, "Tell him to leave immediately – he has nothing to do here – because he may do more mischief."

These people could do all this harm, and much more about which we are not aware. But rumors are coming and soon people will start finding what else they have done.

It is just a rumor that they tried to poison the whole of The Dalles city by poisoning their water system. It is just a rumor right now. They did not succeed, but they made the attempt.

I am trying to make you absolutely apolitical, with no desire for power; and these people were using you and your strength for their own ambitions.

I have heard that some government office in The Dalles was burned, and it was the work of this group. These people could have done anything.

They could have killed me. Perhaps, after killing those three people who are taking care of my health, they would have started slowly poisoning me, so they become absolute dictators in the commune.

So it really feels fresh. The air seems to be totally different, and we are fortunate that they left by themselves. Perhaps they suspected that the time has come when they may be exposed.

Perhaps they have taken away money from the commune... because they have left the commune with a fifty-five-million-dollar debt. And strangely enough, three days before they left I asked Savita – because she was looking after the finances – "How much debt do you have?"

She said, "Nearabout two and a half million."

Just three days before, two and a half million. They became experts in lying. The night she was leaving, I asked her, "You tell me exactly how much debt, because anybody who is going to run the commune will have to take care of the debt."

She said, "It must be thirty to thirty-five million."
I said, "Strange. Just within two days, from two and a half million, to thirty to thirty-five million? What happened in these two days?"
She said, "I was not aware of the whole thing. Because you asked me, I looked into it."
I said, "But I have heard that you are leaving a fifty-five-million-dollar debt. And you are still saying thirty-five. Be true!"
Hearing the figure fifty-five million dollars, she said, "Perhaps it is fifty-five million dollars." Suddenly from thirty-five it becomes fifty-five – just there within two minutes. These people were lying to me. These people were lying to you.

Your letters were not reaching exactly – only those letters they wanted were coming. My answers were not reaching to you exactly as I had dictated them. They were edited. They managed the answers according to their ideas.

One thing has to be remembered, that such a thing should never happen again in this commune. For that reason, I am not going to be in silence again. Even if I die, just because of old habit I will go on speaking. Habits die hard; man dies very easily. But I am not going into silence. I have to keep completely acquainted with what is happening, so never again such a fascist thing happens to my people.

I love you so much. I could not conceive that anybody would do such criminal acts against you. And you have shown a great quality of trust, even in that group which was not trustworthy. I appreciate your trust. I condemn their acts, but I appreciate your trust.

But it is not going to happen again. And you all have to be aware that it should not happen again. And if you see anything like it happen – even the beginning of it – now I will be available to you directly. ( OSHO)

OSHO COMMUNE, PUNE- I

MA YOGA LAXMI,Ex- Secretary of Osho as per Shunyo

"In June, 1981 Osho with a group of Western sannyasins left to U.S.A.. Ma Anand Sheela was appointed as new secretary of Osho replacing Ma Yog Laxmi. In U.S.A. Sheela was well established as Osho's secretary and Laxmi, who had done this work in India was now on holiday and Osho told her to relax and do nothing. In fact, a year later He was to tell her that had she listened to Him she would by then would have been enlightened."

"Being no longer Osho' secretary, Laxmi ceased to be in lime light and was left as an ordinary sannyasin. This gave her a great shock which stirred her jealousy towards her successor as well as towards those western sannyasins who were now near to Osho and holding good position in the new commune."

"This was unfortunate. She failed to understood that around a Master when situations change there is nothing to be done except go with it, because everything is changing all the time in existence, and with Master the emphasis is on accepting change. A few people, who in Pune had jobs with a certain amount of power or prestige, were to find it impossible to adjust to their new position. Some went their own way and the group around Osho changed, just as great winds come and dead branches fall from the trees"

"Sheela was now well established as Osho's secretary and Laxmi, who had done this work in India, was now on holiday and Osho told her to relax and do nothing. In fact, a year later he was to tell her that had she listened to Him she would by now be enlightened. She tried to sing and dance with the musicians but could no succeed, then she decided to be a cook. It was unfortunate that by the time the lunch was prepared it was already evening. Therefore this was also a failure. Poor Laxmi. Then for the purpose of increasing acquaintance with the local people and show that just like others she was an ordinary person, she started drinking in park –parties. But being over-drunk slipped down from the table. Later on( she herself took another path) she had to collect few disciples and to make efforts to start a new commune for Osho."( These lines were published in Hindi Osho Times International, June, 1999 issue but were not there in Shunnyo's above book. Editor was Swami Chaitannya Kirti.)

"I understood from talking to Devraj that Sheela did not simply become Osho's secretary because of the convenience. Although she was Indian she had become an American citizen through her first marriage and had spent a lot of time in America. It was more involved than that, and had in fact begun four or five months before in Pune. Devraj has written a book and in it he says:-"


"…Sheela, with the active or passive help of us all, became the 'Boss'. It was not that Bhagwan said one day' You are the best person for the job'; He merely confirmed that she had in fact taken the job. Any other choice would have been imposition by Him on us. In the Buddhist context this is what is called 'choice less awareness'.

" To have simply 'selected' somebody would have been against the whole way He worked. He was living in the experimental community, and for it to remain alive it had to have an integrity of its own. To just select His choice against the flow of events was not His way. He always went with the flow, surrendered totally to what existence offered to Him, and gave it one-hundred percent of His support to help it work. If existence had brought Sheela to the top, there must have some reason for it; there must have been something we needed to learn from it--- and how!"

"The day before Vivek left for Delhi I heard her talking to Neelam, telling her that Osho had said that if we were all to be deported, then He would come too. Vivek was asking Neelam, "Please, don't let Him follow us, because at least in India He is safe."

"Hasya and Anando had been busy in Delhi making appointments to see officials there. Arun Nehru was the Minister for Internal Security then, the man at the root of this problem(cancellation of foreigners visas), but their appointments with him were continually cancelled. When they did see an official they were to be told "confidentially" that we should look within our group to see from where the trouble came. It appeared that Laxmi had written to the Home Office giving full details of all the foreign disciples and her words were to be repeated to us that " it was not necessary that Osho needs foreigners to see to His welfare." It was necessary actually, because more important to Osho than life itself was His work, and Westerners were needed for that. Osho was to say,"My Indian disciples meditate, but will not do anything for me. My Western disciples will do anything for me, but will not meditate." I did not understand this at the time, but was soon to learn."

"That afternoon, just before Osho was to take His walk along the river, there was a great commotion at the main gate of Span. I went to investigate , the staff of Span were in a desparate struggle with a busload of drunken Sikhs who had arrived and were shouting aggressively about Osho and wanting to see Him."

"… We went in side and I closed the curtains of the sitting room. Rain started to fall outside and the room darkened as I looked at Osho and He said:

"Sikhs! But I have never said anything against Sikhs. Such stupidity! What do these people want?" And then, as He sat at the edge of the sofa with His shoulders hunched He said, " This world is insane, what is the point in living?"

"Laxmi had confused the situation even more by spreading rumors with the sannyasins who lived in Delhi, that Hasya and Jayesh were trying to kidnap Osho. In a valiant attempt to save their master the Delhi sannyasins tried to snatch Osho back, but were thwarted by Anando. Osho took the plane to Nepal, just in time, just in time to avoid arrest by the Indian police. The Span property which I had heard Laxmi telling Osho about, had not been purchased by her, it was not even for sale."

"Some sannyasins arrived a couple of days later in Kathmandu with an offer of a palace in India in which Osho could live. They did not understand that at this point He could not go back to India, but Osho talked to them. A video of the palace had been made for Osho to see, so He agreed and to my surprise invited all of us to watch the video with Him."

"We sat at Osho's feet in his living room and the film began. After ten minutes of trees in the drive way of the palace, we saw a row of five or six stone huts with the roofs completely fallen in. These were the servants' quarters, and obviously a lot of work had to be done on them--- but that was nothing, we have worked before on buildings. The camera then scanned up and down a few more trees and I thought to myself that someone must have told the cameraman that Osho loved trees."

"Osho asked if there was any water in the palace. "Yes, Yes" was the reply from the bearer of the video. After five more minutes travelling up and down the trunks of the trees, we saw the" palace". It had only four rooms, and they were in the advanced stage of dilapidation. " Is there any water in the property?" asked Osho. "Yes, Yes", came the reply. The four room palace must not have lived in for at least fifty years. " What about the water?" began Osho… Aah! There it was! A thin trickle of water ran down some moss covered stones in the garden. " And do we have rights to this water?' asked Osho. " The water belongs to the girls' school, next door," was the reply, "but, no problem."

"Now I understood. This is why Osho wanted us all to watch the video with Him, so that we could have some idea of how difficult the situation was when trying to get done with some of His sannyasins. That their hearts are with Osho is without question, but they must be crazy to want to take Him back to India, and even crazier to think He could live in the remains of what was a four roomed house, and without water!" "Osho said to them that their asking Him to remain in India was out of love, but it was absurd. He said that it would create trouble for Him and trouble for themselves, and He told them to go back, think over it, and return after seven days. They never came back and Osho said that they must have understood the implications, and their insistence had been out of love, not out of reason."

Now let us see what Osho International Foundation has said in their circular dated 20th June, 2000 about the role of Ma Yoga Laxmi during Pune-II :-

"The Ex-Secretary Trap

With his characteristic insight into the unconscious of us all, Osho warned about the difficulty for ex-secretaries to get over being dropped from the secretarial function. He explains that a secretary's ego is very happy to be called to see him for this work and gets attached to its idea that it is special. And the ego is always angry with Osho when he decides that they are no longer useful in that function. He explains how these people have always demonstrated their anger and resentment at being dropped by trying to sabotage the work that their replacement has been asked to carry out.

Just as Ma Laxmi, Osho's secretary of the 70's, did this to her successors, and was eventually banned by Osho from the Commune for it, so Ma Sheela did the same, and now, like clockwork, Ma Neelam is repeating the identical pattern.

As Osho explains, when these secretaries are replaced, their egos naturally suffer, but this is an Opportunity for them to experience ordinariness. And that the continuing resentment at being dropped always leads to a sense of separation, which is ultimately destructive."