Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh ("Osho") was born Chandra Mohan Jain on Dec. 11, 1931–Jan. 19, 1990). He is was previously known as Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh [2], Acharya Rajneesh [3, 1], and is now commonly called "Osho."
He was an Indian "godman" [4], sadhu, philosopher, mystic [5], cult leader, corrupt "saint" with a messianic complex, comedian, scam capitalist, clever and funny speaker (whose talks were transcribed into books that are sometimes quite funny), and founder of the Rajneesh Movement [1].
He was a controversial new religious movement leader during his life. He rejected institutional religions [6, 1, 7], insisting that spiritual experience could not be organized into any one system of religious dogma [8], as Patanjali did with yoga and the historical Buddha did in outlining general Eightfold Paths.
As a scandal-ridden sex guru in America, he advocated meditation but taught a unique form of his own devising, which he called "dynamic meditation."
Rejecting traditional ascetic practices of all kinds, he encouraged his followers to [hedonistically] embrace life fully while remaining unattached to worldly desires.
Rajneesh claims he experienced a "spiritual awakening" in 1953 at the age of 21 [8].
Following several years in academia, in 1966 he resigned his post at the University of Jabalpur as a lecturer of philosophy and began traveling throughout India, becoming known for his criticism of the orthodoxy of mainstream religions [1, 9, 10, 11] as well as of mainstream political ideologies... More
Drukpa Kunley (1455–1529), also known as Kunga Legpai Zangpo, Drukpa Kunleg (Tibetan འབྲུག་པ་ཀུན་ལེགས་, brug pa kun legs), and Kunga Legpa, the Madman of the Dragon Lineage (Tibetan འབྲུག་སྨྱོན་ཀུན་དགའ་ལེགས་པ་, 'brug smyon kun dga' legs pa), was a Tibetan Buddhist lama, missionary, and poet in the Drukpa Kagyu lineage of the [Himalayan Bon sorcery-influenced] Vajrayana Buddhist Mahamudra tradition [1].
He was trained at Ralung Monastery under siddha Pema Lingpa. However, by the age of 25, he had returned his monastic [Vinaya] vows [2] to take a wife, whose name was Tsewang Dzom (tshe dbang 'dzom) [3]. He is often counted among the Nyönpa ("Mad Ones"). He is considered to have been a reincarnation of Saraha [4]. More
The Enlightenment Trap: Obsession, Madness and Death on Diamond Mountain
(Audiobook) Author Scott Carney has 4.3 out of 5 stars (with 137 reviews). The 2023 edition of The Enlightenment Trap includes two new chapters, photography, and updated total revision.
In 2012, 38-year-old Ian Thorson's search for spiritual transcendence ended in tragedy on a remote Arizona mountaintop. His wife, a woman anointed as a goddess by an eccentric Buddhist community, held him in her arms as he slowly died from dehydration and dysentery.
For Scott Carney, a journalist and anthropologist who lived in India for six years, Thorson's death was just the most recent iteration of an unspoken epidemic that connected intensive meditation and mental instability.
The Enlightenment Trap explores how Tibetan Buddhism in the West morphed from its roots in the Himalayan foothills into a fundamentally new American religion. For Thorson, the entry point into this new faith was Geshe Michael Roach, the supreme spiritual leader of Diamond Mountain University.
Carney unravels the cult-like practices of Diamond Mountain to illuminate the uniquely American tendency to mix and match Eastern religious traditions like LEGO pieces. The result is that for some, enlightenment is a synonym for almost god-like powers, and achieving it can become more important than life itself.
Aided by Thorson’s private papers and cutting-edge neurological research, the book reveals the profound impact of intensive meditation on the brain.
Carney exposes stories of miracles and black magic, sexualized rituals and tantric rites from former Diamond Mountain acolytes. The Enlightenment Trap is a gripping work of investigative journalism that reveals how the path to enlightenment can be riddled with danger.
(The Theory of Samsara) Avoid falling into spiritual delusion. We need to know this if we're on the spiritual path, particularly within Tibetan Buddhism, a form of Vajrayana [a kind of Mahayana Buddhist Hinduism with yoga and lots of ritual, magic, and siddhis]
Osho was Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh (born Chandra Mohan Jain, Dec. 11, 1931–Jan. 19, 1990), also called Acharya Rajneesh [2][1], now commonly referred to as Osho.
As a money and sex guru, he advocated meditation and taught a unique form called dynamic meditation.
Rejecting traditional ascetic practices, he encouraged his followers to embrace life fully [hedonism] while remaining unattached to worldly desires. More
Sex holyman Bikram on his cross
Those interested in Osho (Acarya Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh) may also be interested in other psuedo-holymen sex gurus selling easy enlightenment to the West:
(wocomoHUMANITY) April 16, 2024: The wild 1970s followed after the liberating 1960s. There was a quest for higher consciousness, spirituality, and sexual freedom. In his ashram (religious compound) in Poona, India, Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh (aka Osho) urges his disciples to meditate and practice tantric sex in order to reach a higher level of consciousness.
Hugh, the guru’s bodyguard, watches his ascent on people. Sheela becomes his [killer] secretary and the powerful boss of Bhagwan Rajneesh’s community in the mountains of Oregon.
Send money, and I will "initiate" you into tantric sex?
The guru, decried as "sex-guru” by the Western media in the 1970s, is now making headlines with his Rolls-Royces and Rolex watches. The dream turns into a nightmare, for Hugh it turns into a mental breakdown, for Sheela into a prison sentence. Where did it all go wrong?
ABOUT: Documentaries about people and cultures from around the globe, wocomoHUMANITY offers high-quality content which is produced by leading production companies. Check out other channels to watch high quality documentaries: ▷ wocomoDOCS: wocomodocs. ▷ wocomoWILDLIFE: wocomowildlife. ▷ wocomoHISTORY: wocomohistory.▷ wocomoTRAVEL: wocomotravel. ▷ wocomoCOOK: wocomocook. Wocomo HUMANITY is part of the Wocomo channel network by NIKITA VENTURES. Wocomo - wonderful content in motion.
The deepest meditation I’ve ever found (and I’ve tried 112)
(SoulArtist) May 14, 2025: After exploring over 100 different meditation techniques across the past seven years — from silent sitting to active movement, from vipassana (insight) to breathwork (pranayama) — I recently discovered a meditation so powerful, it went deeper than anything I’ve ever tried before: the OSHO Mahamudra Meditation™.
Might the Tibetan version be better than Osho's?
In this video, I share my honest experience with this practice, what makes it so different, and why I believe it may be one of the most transformative meditations available today. This is not a technique for the mind; it’s a surrender into something far greater.
🧘♂️ What is OSHO Mahamudra Meditation™? “This meditation is a meeting between you and the cosmos, between you and the whole of existence. It helps you to merge, melt, and let-go on the deepest level possible.”
– Osho, from “Tantra: The Supreme Understanding, #6”
The meditation has two stages (approx. 50 minutes) and is supported by specific music that mirrors and deepens the energetic flow of the practice. Instructions (from osho.com):
First Stage – 30 minutes: Stand with eyes closed and let the body move naturally. Allow spontaneous movements to arise — no control, just witnessing. This is Latihan. The body becomes an expression of pure energy.
Second Stage – 20 minutes: Kneel, raise both hands to the sky. Feel like a hollow bamboo. Let energy pour into you from above — then bow down and release it into the earth. Repeat at least 7 times.
“If you do this every day, soon, somewhere within three months, one day you will feel you are not there. Just the energy is pulsating with the universe – nobody is there, the ego is completely lost, the doer is not. The universe is there, and you are there, the wave pulsating with the ocean – that is Mahamudra. That is the final orgasm, the most blissful state of consciousness that is possible.”
If you’ve tried many meditations but still feel like something’s missing, this might be the one. ✨ Subscribe for more honest insights on presence, awareness, and embodied spiritual practice. #mahamudra #osho #meditation #powerfulmeditation
Saraha, Mahāsiddhas (British Museum)
Mahāmudrā (Sanskrit महामुद्रा, Tibetan ཕྱག་ཆེན་, phyag chen, chag-chen, contraction of Tibetan ཕྱག་རྒྱ་ཆེན་པོ་, phyag rgya chen po, chag-gya chen-po) literally means "great seal" or "great imprint."
It refers to the fact that "all phenomena inevitably are stamped by the fact [that] wisdom and emptiness [are] inseparable" [1]. (That is to say, the "perfection of wisdom" or prajnaparamita is that all things are ultimately impersonal).
Mahāmudrā is a multivalent term of great importance in later Indian Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism, which "also occurs occasionally in Hindu and East Asian Buddhist esotericism" [2].
The name also refers to a body of teachings representing the culmination of all the practices of the New Translation schools of Tibetan Buddhism that believe it to be the quintessential message of all of their sacred texts.
The practice of Mahāmudrā is also known as the teaching called "Sahaja Yoga" or "Co-emergence Yoga" [3].
In Tibetan Buddhism, particularly the Kagyu school, Sahaja Mahāmudrā is sometimes seen as a different Buddhist vehicle (yana), the "Sahajayana" (Tibetan lhen chig kye pa), also known as the vehicle of self-liberation [4].
Jamgon Kongtrul, a Tibetan nonsectarian (ri-mé) scholar, characterizes mahāmudrā as the path to realizing the "mind as it is" (sems nyid), which also stands at the core of all Kagyu paths. He states, "In general, Mahāmudrā and everything below it are the ‘mind path’" (sems lam).
Mahāmudrā traditionally refers to the quintessence of mind itself and the practice of meditation in relation to a true understanding of it [5].
History
The usage and meaning of the term mahāmudrā evolved over the course of hundreds of years of Indian and Tibetan history and, as a result, the term may refer variously to "a ritual hand-gesture, one of a sequence of 'seals' in Tantric practice, the nature of [ultimate] reality as emptiness [impersonal], a meditation procedure focusing on the nature of Mind, an innate blissful gnosis [knowing] cognizing emptiness nondually, or the supreme attainment of buddhahood at the culmination of the Tantric path" [2].
According to Jamgon Kongtrul, the Indian theoretical sources of the mahāmudrā tradition are Yogacara and tathagatagarbha ("buddha-nature") texts such as the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra and the Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra [6].
The actual practice and lineage of mahāmudrā can be traced back to wandering maha-siddhas ("great adepts") during the Indian Pala Dynasty (760-1142), beginning with the 8th century siddha Saraha [7].
Saraha's dohas ("songs" or "poems in rhyming couplets") are the earliest extant mahāmudrā literature and promote some of the unique features of mahāmudrā such as the importance of:
pointing-out instruction by a guru,
the non-dual nature of mind, and
the negation of the conventional means of achieving enlightenment such as calm-and-insight (samatha-vipasyana) meditation, monasticism, rituals, tantric practices, and doctrinal study in favor of more the direct methods of mahāmudrā "non-meditation" and "non-action" [8].
These teachings also became the wellspring for the body of instructions eventually known as the mind teachings of Tibet associated with mahāmudrā of the Kagyu lineages [9].
Later Indian and Tibetan masters such as Padmavajra, Tilopa, and Gampopa incorporated mahāmudrā into tantric, monastic, and traditional meditative frameworks [10]. More: Mahamudra
Osho's Mahamudra Meditation. How to practice. A Tibetan Vajrayana meditation
(The Rebirthing Journey) Feb. 20, 2022: Osho says of this meditation: “If you do this every day, soon, somewhere within three months, one day you will feel you are not there. Just the energy is pulsating with the universe – nobody is there, the ego is completely lost, the doer is not. The universe is there, and you are there, the wave pulsating with the ocean – that is Mahamudra. That is the final orgasm, the most blissful state of consciousness that is possible.” #osho #mahamudra #meditation
(WatchMojo.com) Oct. 12, 2022. Happy Halloween, spiritual seeker. These dangerous and disturbing religious cults may not be in the nightly news anymore, but they are still very real and active. For this list, Mojo looks at bizarre cults that are somehow still currently active. The countdown includes the American sex cult The Shri Bhagwan Rajneesh Movement (aka Osho), Twelve Tribes, NXIVM, and more! Which of these is the strangest? Leave a comment. #Cults#Crime#History
It is almost impossible to find a soulmate. [Why not create one?] The Earth is big — millions and millions of people — and life is very short. How are you going to find your soulmate? It rarely happens. Humans have seven centers. The lowest is the sex center, and the highest is the samadhi (purified concentration) center, and between these two there are five more centers. When all the seven centers of a man are in tune and in harmony with all the seven centers of a woman [not to exclude other pairings], you have found a soulmate. Whenever it happens, absolute oneness is felt — unity. Two persons utterly disappear into each other. There is no division at all. Two persons function as if they are one person — two bodies, but one soul. It is absolute harmony. It is love at its peak. More>>
WQ: Brahmin, as Swami Paramahamsa Nithyananda's personal friend, what can you say about his recent sex scandal?
Of course, it's embarrassing. But there's nothing wrong with sex.
WQ: No, but there is something very wrong with hypocrisy.
Yes, the ancient Vedas do not have anything good to say about that.
WQ: Nithyananda would have been wiser to be like your hero Osho. Did Osho have sex with his devotees?
He never did such things.
WQ: There were allegations, no videotape, but there were allegations.
Nithyanand is young. This indiscretion is a great mistake. Does Buddhism believe in sex as a natural thing?
WQ: Buddhism is fine with sex. It makes a distinction between sex and sexual misconduct. Sex is appropriate for independent, consenting adults. If one is not dependent or under the protection of one's parents, relatives, guardians, religious community, a spouse, or the government, then sex is fine. But under no circumstance is sex fine for a Buddhist monk, nun, novice (a monastic in training), an 8-precept holder, or someone in a meditation retreat where one has vowed to abstain from it.
We don't know what Nithyanand has vowed.
WQ: We do. He represents himself as a celibate saddhu, advocating celibacy, accepting money and property donations from devotees who believe he is a godma, a self-realized guru. That would be great: Let him be like Shri Rajneesh (Osho) and teach sex, because then he wouldn't be a hypocrite. Could you tell him to come out of hiding and start teaching Tantra, spiritual sexuality, and shaktipat. But to be a hypocrite or a deceiver of many good people wanting an honest teacher...
Nithyanand would be wiser to teach like Osho and not be closeted. He has made a mistake.
WQ: He is being accused of more than the one indiscretion caught on video. He is allegedly taking Viagra, drinking, and wasting time watching TV in a luxurious room or hotel by Indian standards. What this is really about is a millionaire and his money.
We all need money. His followers understand.
WQ: Sure. Yet his handlers (and his foundations) are worried about losing their cash cow. Look how they circle the wagons and call their lawyers for advice. How can his temples in America stay open? Who would defend a scoundrel?
WQ: I've seen the video. Have you seen the video? The excuse that it's a conspiracy or something taken out of context... Brahmin, please!
It's embarrassing. But your yoga is good?
WQ: My yoga is fine. Buddhism has eight limbs in the Noble Eightfold Path leading to enlightenment. Yoga has eight limbs (ashtanga) to the Brahma world, to see God, to abide in the Brahma Viharas. This is the Brahminical teaching now.
Yes, Patanjali's Yoga Sutras or aphorisms say there are eight limbs in Raja Yoga.
WQ: One of those limbs is the Restraints (Yamas). A big restraint is brahmacarya (celibacy), literally "the way to Brahma." Nithyananda has clearly attained jhana (dhyana) and is, or was, close to the Brahma World. Why would he fall back?
He is only human. Why do you think he fell?
WQ: I'll tell you why. This is ancient, something the Buddha explained to the Brahmins of his day. Jhana, samadhi, Oneness -- none of these is "enlightenment." They merely suppress the defilements. They don't eradicate them. When they fade, all the base impulses -- lust, anger, self-delusion -- are still there.
And Buddhism has a better answer?
WQ: It has an answer if you want to reach nirvana, complete liberation. If you just want to be liberated from this world and go to heaven(s), it also an answer like so many traditions do. If you want to be born in celestial worlds (in space), follow the Five Precepts or Eight Precepts. But to be born in the Brahma Worlds, celibacy (brahmacarya) is a prerequisite. If at the time of death lust is completely suppressed and only a latent tendency, enter jhana and you will be born among the brahmas ("gods"). Simply having led a good life, if at the time of death one dies peacefully and unconfused, one is reborn as a deva ("shining one," light being). But living for money made by wrong livelihood (Vanijja Sutra) or as a monastic violating the precepts, that won't have a good result.
No one is perfect.
WQ: The Path teaches the way to perfection -- to temporarily purify oneself by right-concentration (samma-samadhi) then to develop liberating-insight (vipassana) based on that temporary purity. It sounds like Nithyananda got to the first step then started selling books and calling himself "enlightened." It's a problem as old as India.
Lord Buddha came from India. His parents were Hindus. He was a Hindu.
WQ: There was no "Hinduism." India had every kind of spirituality. Siddhartha (before the great awakening that made him the Buddha, the "Awakened One") was born into Vedic Brahmanism, the corrupted temple religion of priests promoting superstitious beliefs, elaborate rituals, and Catholic-style indulgences.
Join the cult, spend some money, watch the sex tape, quit in disgust over the fraud. See FULL UNCENSORED VERSION of Nithyananda and actress Ragasudha.
If their lawyers haven't thought of it yet, the Nithyananda cult can start claiming this was all an enlightening wake up call by the omniscient guru to start paying attention to his message. Why not? It might work. People have been more gullible than that. And after all Americans (even Indian-Americans) don't care about sexual indiscretions. Hypocrisy they will not be crazy about. Why not take the approach of Osho (BhagwanSriRajneesh) and actually advocate "sacred" sex? When you claim celibacy, or a vow of poverty, or some higher spiritual morality, you're setting yourself up if all that's underneath is hypocrisy.
The sex itself doesn't bother anyone. It sure doesn't bother (or surprise) the staff at WQ. No one was mad at Bill Clinton, Tiger Woods, or [name the sports figure of your choice] for the SEX. It was the lying, the lack of character, the deception. That's why people get mad. That's why devotees in India vandalize ashrams.
For the Nithyananda's website to imply that this didn't happen -- but is instead only a case of "graphics, conspiracy and rumors" -- puts the cult in a bad position. Here's the video. Anyone can see: It's clearly him. It's clearly sexual. And is that alcohol? What are those pills? Is this how the holy guru spends his off-time, laying around like a pillow prince, watching TV, and being hand fed?
ABOUT THE FOUNDER - ParamahamsaNithyananda, "a renowned spiritual master of the modern age," was born in the famous spiritual town of Thiruvannamalai in the Southern part of India, which has been home for several enlightened masters... Swamiji, as his disciples and devotees lovingly call him...
"Sex guru" Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and Jane Stork, formerly "Ma Shanti Bhadra"
(WAtoday.com.au, April 10, 2009) For nine years Jane Stork was a devotee of "sex guru" Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, who in the 1970s and '80s led a cult known for their orange clothes and free love.
Along the way she surrendered her name and identity as a suburban West Australian housewife and mother to become Ma Shanti Bhadra — a woman prepared to do anything, even murder, for her master.
In her new book, Breaking the Spell: My Life as a Rajneeshee and the Long Journey Back to Freedom, Stork writes about how she got sucked into the cult and finally broke free after being jailed for an attempt to kill the Bhagwan's doctor.
She also provides an insight into the mind of the Bhagwan and his mouthpiece Ma Sheela — who famously pronounced "tough titties" in a 60 Minutes interview in 1985 when it was suggested the Orange People were not welcome in a local town.
Stork was introduced to the Bhagwan's teachings through a psychologist she was seeing because of personal and marital problems. The psychologist worked in the public health system but had just returned from Pune, India, where the Bhagwan had established an ashram, a place of religious retreat. "I didn't even notice that (the psychologist) was wearing a long orange robe and had a string of beads around his neck," she writes. He became her mentor, and in 1978 Stork followed his footsteps, and those of many other Australians, to Pune. She was later joined by her husband and children, Peter, 10, and Kylie, 8.
Stork says she was attracted to the Bhagwan as a reaction to the guilt of her Catholic upbringing and because of the lack of rules and regulations in his teachings.
But she soon found that the ashram was not all it was cracked up to be. Stork felt uncomfortable with many aspects of life there, including the group sex and partner swapping, as well as deliberate moves to fragment families and drive a wedge between husbands and wives, parents and children.
About 87 per cent of residents had a sexually transmitted disease and women who became pregnant were told by the Bhagwan to abort and sterilize, Stork says. She and her teenage daughter were both sterilized.... Continued
Cult leader and possible charlatan Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh (a.k.a., Osho) on finding the best meditation subject
Simple Hermit discusses Osho and other authors' "enlightenment"
Indian Masters on Meditation
Indian masters include teachers like Osho, Swami Sivananda, Krishnamurti, Gautama the Buddha, among other sources. They are each well known masters in the field of meditation and self realization. They all have something important to say when it comes to meditation. Here are a few interesting quotes and videos from these Indian masters enlightening us with their knowledge and wisdom regarding meditation and life.
Here is an interesting quote on meditation that mixes a psychological view with a more spiritual and abstract one:
“Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in the Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity” (Swami Sivananda)
This is the very essence of yoga and meditation: the cessation of thoughts out of which arises the experience of immaculate consciousness. All that is needed to master in life are our thoughts, our minds. When our discursive thinking settles out (as explained by Eckhart Tolle in Even the Sun May Die), we enter a new level of consciousness that can then begin to explore freely without the disturbance of thoughts (vrittis). Everything will be clear and at peace.
Indian masters state that meditation is the light (nimitta) that can show the way to this thought-free realm of pure consicousness:
“Meditation brings wisdom; lack of meditation leaves ignorance. Know well what leads you forward and what holds you back, and choose the path that leads to wisdom” (the Buddha)
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