Abuse issues discussion

This page is for discussions of issues that are too lengthy, complex and/or subtle to be concisely resolved on the main abuse page. It is expected that a number of explorations may end up here. What we have so far is a factual account of the proceedings of the court case regarding charges brought against Osho and the Ranch in 1985 based on rumours of sexual abuse and a lengthy and detailed look into the significant shortcomings of his answer to the question about this court case. A few other undeveloped possibilities are listed below in the Contents section.

Facts in the 1985 sexual abuse court case

These reports are taken from Oregon and US newspapers and other media of the time, via Roshani’s compilation of Ranch-related clippings. Particular citations can be found on the source doc page.

85.04.22 Diane McDonald of Madras petitions Wasco County Circuit Court (WCCC) judge to investigate allegations of child sexual abuse and neglect at Rajneeshpuram; she says her charges are based on her own belief, affidavits and an article in the May issue of Oregon magazine which quotes anonymous former disciples and Share-a-home program (SAHP) participants as saying most of the 12-14 year old girls at Rajneeshpuram have sexual relationships and a 10 year old was molested on a bus, that children do not live with parents and have inadequate winter clothing; Judge William Jackson seals the case file; State Children's Services Division (CSD) meets with Wasco County officials; Rajneeshpuram spokesperson says McDonald's charges have already prompted two CSD investigations which found no wrongdoing; Judge allows the petition to be filed, has agreed to sign a restraining order, but refuses to grant a request that all 150 children be taken into protective custody; preliminary hearing set for May 20 in Juvenile Court; Oregon magazine sends out advance copies of its May edition this date along with a press release; McDonald says she was approached by the authors of the magazine article and believed them.

85.04.23 Wasco County Sheriff's deputies' begin serving papers on Rajneeshpuram parents and children ordering them to appear at May 20 hearing on child abuse and restraining any children from leaving Wasco or Jefferson Counties before then; 6 named and 150 unnamed children are alleged to be involved; Rajneeshpuram spokesperson says all named children are girls and some are no longer at Rajneeshpuram.

85.04.24 More subpoenas served in alleged child abuse case, to 2 teenaged girls and the Rajneeshpuram Peace Force Chief; 37 are named in the summonses, but only 6 have been served.

85.04.28 Judge Jackson lifts temporary restraining order against Rajneeshees in alleged child abuse case and is considering holding a motion hearing this week where a Rajneeshee attorney will argue for dismissal of the petition and quashing of the 37 summonses issued for the May 20 hearing.

85.05.01 Oregon magazine "Rajneesh Watch" article prints allegations of child abuse at Rajneeshpuram, but also says CSD and University of Oregon psychologists report no evidence of abuse or neglect.

85.05.05 Feature article in Bend Bulletin on woman petitioning WCCC in child abuse case (Diane McDonald) describes her as "one of the most active critics of the sect.", appearing on TV, writing letters, participating in anti-Raneeshpuram organizations, running for Wasco County Commission, loaning a trailer to the Guardian Angels; article says the affidavits on which she based her allegations are from ex-Ranch foreman Robert Harvey and from Harvey's teen-age daughter.

85.05.15 Tigard, OR This Week columnist discusses child abuse charges against Rajneeshpuram parents and says suit will be heard in Portland.

85.05.20 Rajneesh Legal Services (RLS) attorneys, representing 2 Rajneeshpuram children, file an affidavit of prejudice disqualifying Judge William Jackson of Baker from hearing the alleged child abuse case (he was the Judge who accepted the petition in the case on Apr. 22); Judge John Jelderks has already disqualified himself; Judge Stephen B. Herrell of Portland will take over the case and set a new hearing date.

85.06.06 Judge Kristena A. LaMar of Multnomah County, the fourth Judge appointed, sets hearing date in alleged child abuse case against R residents for June 26; Judge Herell, the third Judge considered and also from Multnomah County, was removed after RLS filed a pleading against him; the case record is sealed because it involves juveniles.

85.06.26 The child abuse complaint against Rajneeshpuram residents brought by Diane McDonald is "thrown out... by a judge who said an extensive investigation found no evidence that any abuse occurred."; Judge Kristena A. LaMar says the petition will be dismissed in 30 days unless attorney for the petitioner "presents substantial evidence 'heavier than has been alleged to date.'"; she said her ruling was made "in light of the results of the investigations made, the fact information in the petition was old, that part of the allegations were based on hearsay and there was no evidence to back up the abuse charges and that the alleged victims had denied any abuse."; Wasco County DA says the state Children's Services Division spent 350 hours investigating and the county sheriff's office put in 200 hours and "said the abuse charges were unsubstantiated."; Judge denies "defendants' motion to assess court costs against McDonald, who failed to appear at an earlier deposition hearing."; McDonald's attorney, Charles Porter of Eugene, does not appear at the hearing; Rajneeshpuram spokesperson says the accused parents will study the possibility of charging McDonald and Porter with "malicious prosecution."

85.07.15 Diane McDonald says she is continuing "her fight to prove" Rajneeshpuram residents "abused their children" and is trying to gather evidence before July 25 suit dismissal date.

85.07.29 Diane McDonald, having asked for a 30 day extension on her time to produce more evidence of child-abuse at Rajneeshpuram, and RLS not having filed any objections to the request, is granted that time by MCCC Judge Kristena A. La Mar.

85.08.22 Diane McDonald says she probably will not be able to produce enough evidence by Aug. 26 court date to continue the charges of child abuse against Rajneeshpuram residents.

85.09.04 Judge Kristena A. LaMar dismisses the final motion in the child abuse case brought against Rajneeshpuram residents by Diane McDonald after hearing Wasco County DA arguments in an attempt to compel production of the alleged victims' names; main body of the case had been dismissed a week earlier and this dismissal ends all proceedings.

What can we understand from Osho's words on the abuse case in Oregon's court?

From the abuse main page, they are:

Q: THERE WERE THOSE CHARGES FILED SEVERAL MONTHS AGO REGARDING YOUR CHILDREARING TACTICS HERE IN THE COMMUNE. COULD YOU JUST BRIEFLY DEAL WITH THAT ISSUE?

A: That is absolutely wrong, and the court has completely cleaned us. The charges were invalid. And now we are going to sue the woman who had put the case for child abuse. She has never been here; she know nothing about what is happening here to the children -- and she puts a case against us. And now she is defeated. This is insulting and disgusting. There is no abuse.

Our children are the ones who cannot be abused. In the outside world, children can be abused, are abused. Here it is impossible because we are giving them all the information about sex -- not in a roundabout way. We are giving them actual facts -- that these are the facts of sex and these are the effects of sex, and until you are sexually mature don't get involved in any relationship which will destroy your whole life, may make you retarded, may make you perverted. And when you are of age, the medical center provides every contraceptive, pills. We don't prevent them, but first let them be ready.

If a boy is fourteen and has the energy now to make love -- he has the greatest power to make love between fourteen and twenty-one, and that is the time which is wasted in universities. After that, he is on decline. By the time he gets married after his Ph. D, he will be twenty-eight, twenty-seven; he has already declined. By thirty-five he is becoming older, he loses interest, he make love but he is a spent cartridge.

Osho's short answer to this question seems to have satisfied the questioner, as he did have some important facts on his side: the case was thrown out, and the woman who brought the case had no evidence. In fact, no evidence emerged justifying the case after considerable investigation, the allegations were found to have been based on hearsay and the alleged victims declared they had not been abused.

But in hindsight ... Below are three areas in which we feel there are significant inaccuracies or inadequacies in Osho's answer about the possibility of abuse in his commune.

unawareness

The first and most obvious is his flat-out denial of the abuses, and even the possibility of their occurrence. So at the very least, he is wrong. Clearly, he did not know about the abuse and believed that the kids were actually being given all they would need to prevent being abused. Even the idea that he was merely unaware of the abuse will be difficult for some sannyasins, but it is surely more palatable than that he did know and allowed it to happen. Whatever, here is a plausible scenario:

He used to say in Pune One that he was aware of and behind everything that happened in the ashram. The point of such assertions was not so much to instill a belief in his omniscience as to “take responsibility” for things people might complain about in letters or in darshan. They might say they trust and love him completely but Deeksha or some other commune authority was too much and out of line in some way and Osho should take care of it. Osho would back Deeksha completely and say if they wanted to surrender to him, they would have to surrender to Deeksha.

If you are here, this has to be understood -- that whatsoever is happening here, I am behind it. Nobody else is doing it.... I am behind it... about everything!

[ ... ]

If you have to be with me then you will have to follow everything that is here....

If you don't want to, then you are free. But never again bring this question. For everything that is happening here nobody is responsible except me. And this is the way I have chosen to be. I know why and I'm not responsible to anybody to have to answer for it. This is my way, my device for working. This is my way of choosing people. This is my way of dropping people who will not be of any worth.

Because this is just a beginning of surrender. If small things can disturb you then when I cut your head it will be very difficult. So if you want to be here with me, know it perfectly well and absolutely and once and for all, that whatsoever is happening here, about each and everything I am aware and I am behind it.

So never throw the responsibility on others, because that is a beautiful trick of the mind. You can think, "Osho is not behind it. These people -- this Maneesha, this Haridas -- these people are doing things". You can be angry at them and you can save me. That is not right. They are doing whatsoever I want....

Nobody is doing anything of which I'm not aware. And nothing is happening which is happening against me. This you have to understand. ~ from Only Losers Can Win in This Game, ch 6

It is very easy to surrender to me, difficult to surrender to Deeksha. So I will insist that you surrender to Deeksha; that is the way to surrender to me. Deeksha will be a harder thing to surrender to. To me you can surrender easily because I don't come into your day to day, moment to moment work. So this has to be learned by everybody. ~ from The Zero Experience, ch 13

The result of such declarations however WAS, in effect, that sannyasins collectively by and large did believe/trust that he was aware of and behind everything. This may have had a repressive effect on the resistance of the children to their abusers. Similarly, it may have had a repressive effect on bystanders' speaking out if they saw or suspected some form of abuse, as, in general in this atmosphere of surrender, speaking out or objecting to a situation could lead to ejection, especially at the Ranch.

There WAS some abuse going on in Pune One, but apparently far more at the Ranch, where a new model of the commune and our relation to Osho and the spiritual journey was launched. This model was based on long hours of work and Osho in silence, with most sannyasins implicitly trusting that he was aware of and behind everything, but the feedback/communication loops that might verify and validate this were much reduced now. Thus was the leash taken off his co-ordinators, the "moms", some of whom went pretty far in exploring what they could get away with. Sannyasins participated, without having been informed, in a mass psychological experiment with power structures, with only their surrender, rebelliousness and wisdom of the moment to guide them. We believe now that one of the consequences might have been a more widespread pattern of abuse.

This was not a good situation for pubescent and near-pubescent girls to be in. Now Osho was likely even more unaware of the abuse than he was in Pune One, as his communication channels were reduced and certainly, he was not as actively engaged. He even said famously, after Sheela and her gang of moms had left, that "Enlightenment simply means I know myself. It does not mean that I know that my room is bugged". (The Last Testament (Vol 3))

maturity

The second area ... The clear guidance that sannyas kids were supposedly given to wait until they were sexually mature does not deal with issues of either emotional or legal maturity; he reinforces that by going on about a fourteen-year-old boy as if fourteen IS old enough.

The impression from reading Osho here is that sexual maturity is the only criterion worth considering. This position likely derives in part from his visits with an Indian aboriginal people who at the time were living virtually as they had for millennia in the forested hills of Bastar far away from the civilized plains. He has spoken of them many times in the most praiseworthy terms, as innocent, guileless and completely non-neurotic. How do they manage this?

When the tumultuous, life-changing event of puberty comes along, each kid, now suddenly a sort-of-adult is sent to a special kids' hut in the center of the village to spend most of their time away from their parents' supervision and in the company of all the other village kids of that age. There, they begin to explore sex with each other, with the condition that they do not form long-term relationships until they explore all the possibilities. Then, he says, having explored sex with everyone, they can make intelligent decisions about long-term partnership and never even be interested in straying because they’ve already been with all the other possible partners in the village.

The assertion that Osho's approach to sexual maturity "likely derives in part" from seeing the innocence and emotional and psychic health of the people in Bastar cannot be adequately supported by just one Osho quote. Here we present one lengthy quote that supports some of these elements and for the rest, invite the reader to search through his words for "Bastar". A variety of elements can be found, with a remarkable consistency running through them.

In one aboriginal community of India in the very primitive parts of Madhya Pradesh, in Bastar, there lives a tribe -- aboriginals, very old people, primitive, almost three or four thousand years old. They are not contemporaries at all but something can be learned from them. One thing has happened in that community that has never happened before anywhere else, and that is: once a man marries a woman there is never any divorce. Divorce is allowed, but never has divorce happened. And once a man marries a woman, he remains truly with her, and the woman remains truly with him. He never becomes again interested in any other woman in any other way, and the woman never becomes interested in any other man. How have they managed this miracle? They have managed very psychologically.

The structure of their society is such that every boy and every girl is allowed to meet and mix with every other boy and girl. So every boy comes to know each girl of the community, and each girl comes to know each boy of the community. In fact, by the time boys and girls are getting interested in the other sex, they don't stay in their homes in the night. They have a small temple-like thing just in the middle of the village; they call it GHOTUL -- a youth house.

Once a boy becomes interested in girls he has to go to stay in the GHOTUL; once a girl starts becoming interested in the boys, she has to go to live in the GHOTUL. In the GHOTUL they live, all the boys of the village and all the girls of the village, and they make love to each other. Only one thing is insisted upon: the superintendent of the ghotul insists that no boy and girl should remain with each other more than three days. They should change, so that before their marriage time comes they have known everybody; then they can decide.

When you know all the women of your community and decide, that decision is totally different than the decision that is taken in civilized societies. You don't know other women; a better woman, a better man is always possible. Then what will you do? A more interesting personality can always be there; then there will be disruption, there will be distraction, there will be problems. These are small village communities: not many people -- two hundred, three hundred people, at the most, in one community. Every boy is allowed to know each girl. When he has known all the girls and all the girls have known all the boys, and then one girl and one boy decide to get married, before marriage happens they are given one more year to be together, to finally decide -- because to decide before knowing each other well is dangerous. The decision may be only because they want to know each other well. But once they have known each other well, then what will happen to their decision? So they have to know each other well for one year, two years; whatsoever time they need, they can be together. There is no interference on them by the society.

But once they decide to get married, of course that decision is very, very solid, absolute, unconditional -- because all conquering is gone, hunting is gone, chasing is gone. The honeymoon is before marriage in that community, and that seems to be more logical, psychological, more true to the human mind. The honeymoon is before the marriage. Marriage has to happen only when the honeymoon is over. When two persons, knowing each other well, decide to be together, now it is not a question of conquering. It is not a question of novelty. It is not that they decide for marriage because they want to know each other; they decide for marriage because they know each other. This is totally different.

~ from The Beloved, Vol 1, ch 2.

While there may be some worthy ideas in this system, it obviously cannot work unchanged for the global village that is our situation now, and was in the 80s as well. Besides that, Osho has evidently not considered the depredations of older sannyasins. Sannyas kids were not as empowered as he had thought, their simple "No" was often not respected. Without a lot of training in detecting and pushing away the wheedling, cajoling and just plain manipulating of a determined adult, they were simply not equipped well enough to deal with the predators they were encouraged to see as part of their family.

And many were unprepared, as the former sannyas kids observed in the Times article, to deal with the emotional upheavals of sex at an early age, never mind the abandonment by men who "scored" and moved on. Even the idea that there would be predatory men out there to watch out for was not communicated to most of them, according to one source. And as was said in the child section of the main abuse page, a common thread in the facebook discussions was feeling used, their youth, inexperience and relative innocence mere commodities, their individuality and self-worth unimportant. In the loving commune of the Master, they were unprepared for cynical users for whom they were just a number. They may have been informed about the mechanics of sex but not the emotional ramifications. For that, they had to fend for themselves; the parents and the hundreds of aunts and uncles did not come through. And to top it off, some of the uncles were their abusers.

male orientation

The third area ... beyond a brief mention of birth control, not one word concerns the needs or interests of girls-becoming-women. Everything Osho says in the last paragraph is about the sexual potency and drive of boys and young men, much of which just plain does not apply to most girls and women. This may suggest a failure of vision on his part. It appears that perhaps he did not adequately understand how different the female point of view can be, notwithstanding:

1. all his discourses and personal guidance that helped women to break free sexually from centuries of patriarchal oppression and double standards, including even a proactive encouragement of vasectomies,
2. putting women in charge of just about everything concerned with the practical details of managing the commune,
3. the different approaches signified by the "titles" he gave us, Swami, a master of himself, and Ma, one who gives birth to herself.

Osho's childhood was highly unusual in that for the first seven years or so he was raised not by his parents but by his grandparents on his mother's side. They were well off and afforded him every possible freedom and indulgence, so his penchants for freedom and a self-directed growing up were established early.

He moved to be with his parents at age seven, when his grandfather died, and religion became more of an imperative. Taran Panth is a relatively non-mainstream version of Jainism, but still with many traditional aspects and values. He asked many uncomfortable questions about it and challenged them on any part that couldn't meet his highest standards of truth. But still in the end he might have absorbed some male-centric ideas, since all the cultures he encountered everywhere were similar in that regard. It is likely that some areas of ignorance survived even the prodigious reading he did to educate himself beyond his experience, if for no other reason than that writings on whatever subject would have been mostly male and, even if from other cultures, conditioned by THOSE cultures. Women's perspectives and opportunities are occluded in every mainstream culture around the world, and they wouldn’t have appeared much in his reading.

Osho has declared many times that he was not infallible. We are learning that this area may provide a specific example. We may disagree on details, but the spectre of so many girls traumatized by so many men in such patterned ways is compelling. While sannyasins' sexual abuse of children may not be as rampant as in the mainstream cultures from which they have come, such comparison is little comfort to those disappointed that the sannyas culture has harboured it as much as it has, and no comfort at all to the abused ones who couldn’t "get over it".

"The Masters who will come after me will be speaking in a far more better way than I am speaking, obviously, because they would have learned more. As time passes better and better expressions will be available". ~ from I Am That, ch 4.

"Buddha is not the end of the world. There are going to be buddhas after Gautam Buddha. There will be buddhas after me, after you, and certainly they are going to continuously improve. It is not an effort, it is a spontaneous phenomenon". ~ from I Celebrate Myself: God Is No Where, Life Is Now Here, ch 2.

One area of likely improvement is that more women will become buddhas, and will speak from and about female experience, psychology and wisdom. We have heard so little from the few enlightened women in the past that we know of. Even when women have gone past all the barriers erected by men – including enlightened men – to become awakened, much of their recorded wisdom would have got lost or destroyed after they have left, except inasmuch as it could be made to fit with mainstream, mainly patriarchal norms. Now that we have, at least in the west, made a space available for women to speak and we have the technology to spread their words and images far and wide, we may hear something totally new, radical and liberating.

conclusions?

Osho's broad assertion of sannyas kids' preparedness is clearly off the mark. He seems to have been out of touch with this aspect of his commune. Why might this have been? We can of course only speculate here, but a few possibilities are suggested by his words above in answer to the question about the abuse court case:

unawareness of commune goings-on

There was some abuse even in Pune One, so his declared awareness of everything in the commune was evidently not 100%. Was this just a device, say to set up the situation to process our power trips collectively at the Ranch? Whatever was the case, the net effect on kids who wanted to fit in was probably compliance, especially as sex was such a big deal in sannyas (as it is everywhere but here more open).

ignorance about women

Osho has spoken many times about the many ways women differ from men in their psychology, but it is possible that even he didn't get the full extent of it. For all that was said in the Testimonial letters about his psychological insight, and how far behind he left all the previous giants of psychology, there may have been gaps. And for girls, this may have been even more so.

possible ignorance about raising children

The kind of freedom(s) Osho was promoting in his communes was mostly adult-oriented, toys for big boys and girls. Kids were included in this milieu but it wasn't designed for them or around them the way traditional nuclear or extended families were. And the complete abandonment of the nuclear and extended family models in favour of the commune was a leap into the unknown, and led to some problems for the kids who had not asked to come to him but had tagged along (perforce) with their parents. These problems have been mostly described in the main abuse page, but there is one we can elaborate on here:

over-emphasis on freedom

The lessons of freedom from Osho's unique childhood were a tremendous blessing for him. He came to this earth apparently prepared to blossom completely in this atmosphere. When he had to move back to live with his parents, some Jain disciplinary principles became stricter, and as an ordinary unenlightened kid, he could have been conditioned in various ways. A couple of specific conditionings he has mentioned were beliefs that it was a moral catastrophe to eat tomatoes and to eat at night. He reports that the first times he violated these Jain principles, in his late teens, he vomited.

He apparently came away from his upbringing feeling that freedom was the most important principle that trumped all others, not in all situations but in nearly all. This meant that many of his adult sannyasins would be championing a maximum freedom as well, but at times with less respect for others' freedom(s) – eg to say "no" -- than there should have been. Add to that an adult-centric view of the target’s "consent" and ... "Everyone's free here, what's the problem?"

Checks and balances

The "checks and balances" section in the abuse main page tries to consider what "processes, devices, systems, teachings, communal structures, etc may have been given by Osho to prevent or mitigate damage caused by potential abusers of his selfishness teaching, especially in regard to 'innocents' who had less ability to protect themselves from others' selfish depredations, ie children vs their potential abusers".

As far as his teachings go, one might expect that "be conscious" would provide an excellent barrier against the potential excesses and misunderstandings of his selfishness teachings. And undoubtedly it did, for those who took his definitions to heart and basically understood. But equally undoubtedly, this guidance was insufficient for some. Could this have been "improved"?

"Be conscious" is a near-ubiquitous message in Osho's oeuvre; was its absence in connection with "be selfish" significant? We batted this around on the main page and, unable to decide, have left it for readers to decide and/or suggest further angles or insights.

Might Osho's selfishness teaching have enabled or encouraged abusers?

The potential for damage or abuse arising from Osho's selfishness guidance can be seen as a consequence of the word's negative baggage. He has appropriated the word for his own distinctive teachings but in his expounding of this theme has not always indicated how his meaning differs from the standard, highly negative meaning. Thus is the door is open for misunderstanding and misinterpretation if the opportunity is there, especially by those predisposed to be less empathetic.

Should children have been allowed in Osho's communes?

And if so, under what conditions / precautions? Osho began initiating children as early as 1971 (see the group shot from Gujarat from May 1971). Indian kids would mostly have stayed with their parents, but sannyasins from the West were encouraged to drop the nuclear family model and let the whole commune take care of each other and the kids.

Osho made it clear he was not infallible

It certainly looks like having unsupervised or unmentored kids turned out quite badly for some girls. How might this outcome have been avoided by Osho and/or his sannyasins doing something differently? Without sacrificing the unparalleled positives created by his Buddhafield.