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I've been reading a book about the Rajneeshees, a cult from the 70's and 80's founded by Swami Rajneesh, aka Osho, which finally met its downfall when the Swami was arrested trying to flee the country to avoid a grand jury indictment, and some of his top advisors were arrested and convicted of attempting to murder over 600 people through salmonella poisoning in order to take over the county government that presided over their 10,000 acre ranch in Oregon. You may remember Osho for the one hundred Rolls Royces he owned. (The book is The Rajneesh Chronicles, by Win McCormack)
What is amazing to some of the people quoted in the book is the socio-economic makeup of the Americans involved. A University of Oregon poll found over 64% of the members were college graduates, and over 81% were from white collar and professional families. These are people who ostensibly had a leg up in their start to life, the benefit of education and opportunity to do whatever they wanted to do; yet they ended up, many of them, giving over all of their money and much of the control of their life to people who it turns out did not at all have their best interests in mind.
When confronted with these statistics, the question arises just what is it these people are choosing against that allows them to choose such a path as this one? It seems obvious it is not the outside features of life. So then it must be the inner. The "brainwashing" that was done to bond followers to Rajneesh involved techniques that caused massive emotional upheaval and catharsis, at the apex of which a photo of Rajneesh was placed in front of them and they were called upon to "surrender to Bhagwan! He'll take care of all your needs!" What must these people have been escaping that they would be willing to surrender to a man many had never met, and who called himself a god?
I reference this here in order to give some idea of what many of us are trying to escape when we seek spiritual solution to our problems. It's the inside of our head. The negative voices. Not the facts of our life; rather the way our interior monologue speaks to us about those facts. Our intellect has been trained to put us down. Why? This is one of the great mysteries, isn't it? But really, for a multitude of reasons. Because it's what our parents were taught and they never learned any better. Because it is what society teaches us in order to keep us pliable and appropriately needy enough to continue our support of the economy. Because religions and religious leaders don't know any better, so they teach suffering as a virtue.
All of these are possible reasons, yes. But the real reason is perhaps simply that most people are suffering. Most people are miserable much of the time. And the job of the speculating mind is to explain our life to us. If my mind must explain to me why I am miserable, it will do so by showing me why I deserve this misery. It will take the language from all these various negative voices referenced above and use the concepts presented as its ammunition. When we know nothing other than these voices as who we are, escape becomes the only option. Whether through alcohol, drugs, food, sex, acquisition or Rajneesh.
Today I will put something in my thinking that explains to me why I must enjoy my life, rather than why I must suffer.
Fish, N. Carolina Aquarium, Emerald Isle, N. Carolina
Copyright © 2011 Jeff Kober
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