- OSHO .. His Sprituality and his CRITICS -

Osho's basic beliefs were the central ones of the Hindu-Buddhist tradition: that God is in all things, "a living current of the energy flowing through the temporary and illusory world of forms, and that the Buddhas were those who saw through the illusion of self and of time to the great One-ness and Suchness of existence" (Fitzgerald, 1986a: 78). Christ, Lao-Tzu, and others were all considered by Bhagwan to be Enlightened Beings, and he would lecture on everything from the Upanishads to the New Testament to the Tantra. In Osho's view, "sexual energy was seen as the fundamental source of all human energy and repression of this energy as the source of most individual problems" (Carter: 3).

Osho felt that all religions were one and that "the differences among them were basically accidents of time and place and culture. All of them, in Rajneesh's reading, had the same basic message: Go inside; the kingdom of heaven is within; celebrate the divinity of your own ordinary lives" (Gordon).

The main emphasis of Rajneesh's approach is the discovery of the true self, rather than the worship of a higher power, and this was attained through self-knowledge. He preached the shaping of a "new man" in order to ensure the survival of humanity (religioustolerance.org). Rajneesh claimed that asceticism is a form of masochism and wealth is a precondition for spirituality (Gordon).

According to the booklet published by the commune at Rajneeshpuram, Rajneeshee worship is "meditation and the meditative attitude in work and play; the message of Rajneeshism was contained in the lectures of the guru; and Rajneeshee education was a lifelong process of learning self-awareness" (Fitzgerald, 1986a: 91). The booklet also gave the text of chants and the protocol for rituals concerning marriage and death.