Sexual abuse in the sannyas world

This page is under construction

Rumours of sexual abuse of children by adult sannyasins have swirled about for many years but a real airing of the subject has not happened. Thus, the extent of it has not been investigated, nor the damage acknowledged or addressed. In Sep 2021, some survivors of this abuse began telling their stories in semi-private Facebook groups.

Wiki editors managed to get access to some of the stories and discussions posted in Fb but were unable to get those involved to share directly with us and so, since the groups are not really accessible by everyone and permission to use the material would have been dodgy, we decided to wait until more public sources became available which was in September 2022 with the Times article.

the Times article

The first more public source arrived a year later in Sep 2022, when the Times of London put together a major article on the subject. While the over-riding tone of the article is anti-cult, ie condemning every aspect of Osho and his people, it will still be useful to refer to this article, to at least get the ball rolling on this long-overdue reckoning ....

In the Times article, four girls, now women, tell their stories. All four describe conditions in general in sannyasin communes as very lax and permissive regarding anything to do with sex, and thereby conducive to abuse. Students and staff in the two British schools were said to have showered together, and so on. The Times claims sexual abuse of children in all these sannyasin commune situations was "rife".

The testimony of two of the women goes into their personal experience, at times involving particular men, two of whom are named, and one who is only described, though he was named in the Facebook group. The two who WERE named offered apologies, acknowledging their own inappropriate actions, the harm they caused and their regrets. They were Sw Anand Milarepa and Sw Deva Mutribo. It must be said that their apologies have been deemed inadequate by some in the former kid community, details of this still to be sorted out.

Besides pointing to particular men, these two women also explore their personal suffering and some of the circumstances of the sannyas milieu which they felt contributed to the climate of abuse. Sarito Carroll was ten years old the first time she was abused. The Times article says that she "believes that the wider community is still in denial", saying that "Each individual was responsible for their behaviour, but the culture certainly made it permissible". She is now writing a book about it all. Other survivors are said to be creating a documentary directed by Maroesja Perizonius, herself a "sannyas kid", who also made an earlier film about her own life as a child with Osho, see below.

Some of the most shocking testimony is given by Rosalind Keefe, who was fourteen at the time of her abuse at the hands of "a respected leader at the ashram". She says that he asked her whether she had started menstruating yet. This might appear to be the question of a man concerned whether she might be "too young" for him, but -- alas! -- the question is the hinge for a more contemptible decision, in exactly the opposite direction. When she replies that she hasn't started her menses, he is happy that he can go ahead and not get her pregnant. She is young ENOUGH.

Keefe's words also appear in the last paragraph of the article:

Keefe says it has taken her years to recognise what happened to her as rape. “You have to understand the impact of all the psychological coercion,” she says. Bhagwan taught his disciples to act on impulse and the children internalised that. It was an atmosphere where people were constantly violating physical boundaries, she says. If she didn’t enjoy what was being done to her, Keefe says, “I assumed that was just my problem.”

There is much to consider in this. "Bhagwan taught his disciples to act on impulse" is the Times' assertion, ostensibly if not explicitly attributed to Keefe. As a distillation of Osho's teaching it has little merit, though many sannyasins may have believed something like that. Thus, the sannyas culture needs also to be considered. It is possible for example that such beliefs could have pushed some men harboring predatory impulses over the edge into acting on them.

As in the larger societies sannyasins come from, the ability of children to protect themselves from predators is limited, by social norms and status and a kid's less developed autonomy, emotional maturity and just plain size. As well, there may have been circumstances unique to sannyas that contributed to their vulnerability. What protections actually found in mainstream cultures may have been disabled? Etc etc.

We in the Wiki want to explore this phenomenon in some depth, as many sannyasins who have participated in communal life where kids were around may have been at least passively complicit in what does appear to have been widespread abuse. This is the downside of the rare freedom sannyasins were given by Osho to explore life beyond social strictures. So let's explore. Readers are invited to send relevant material to the editors. And please be patient.

other media

A number of books have already been published from (former) sannyas kids that either mention this pattern of abuse or go deeply into it. Here are some:

My Life in Orange, subtitled "Growing Up with the Guru", by Tim Guest, first published in 2005, one of the earliest of the books from former sannyas kids. It was republished in 2018, after Wild Wild Country came out.

Insektenglück, by Leela Goldmund, available in German only, published in 2020

Insektenpech, also by Leela Goldmund, available in German only, published in 2021

Sins of My Father, subtitled "A Daughter, a Cult, a Wild Unravelling", by Lily Dunn, published in 2022

De droom van mijn moeder, ("the dream of my mother"), subtitled "Leven in de Bhagwan commune" ("life in the Bhagwan commune") by Maroesja Perizonius, published in 2006, in Dutch, translated into German as

Der Traum meiner Mutter, published in 2008, subtitled "Meine Kindheit in einer Bhagwan-Kommune" ("my childhood in a Bhagwan-commune")

more will be coming .... And these books were preceded by a film on an apparently similar theme, Communekind ("child of the commune"), released in 2004 by Maroesja Perizonius. It too was in Dutch but with French and English subtitles to make it more accessible. It won two Dutch film awards and was shown in a number of film festivals.

background

Osho was called "the sex guru" by many outsiders, for his unusual approach to sexual matters. Without getting too elaborate, we might say that Osho's path of transcendence does not involve denial, renunciation or repression, the stock-in-trade of organized religions. These traditional practices have in fact created most of the sexual perversions and obsessions which pervade all our societies. So Osho teaches acceptance of everything that comes: enjoy it AND go beyond it by passing through it with awareness and love, as much as possible.

For many sannyasins and friends, this open-hearted "Yes!" has been an eye-opener and a life-changing benediction. But it has also led to some problems, however, which have not been much acknowledged up to now. In this atmosphere, and in the name of freedom and trust, many sannyasin kids were relatively unsupervised, some to the point of neglect. So some pedophiles and predatory men wandered in and found a paradise. And possibly some whose intentions were not necessarily knowingly in those directions when they came grew to be that way. The relatively free and open exploration of sex in sannyas attracted a few opportunists, some possibly even believing they were there to raise their consciousness.

And even with the best intentions, everyone brought their sexual baggage, wounds and conditioning to this experiment, so it was messy, for everyone, but those who stayed with Osho were and are glad for the clearing-out of that baggage. Those who didn't stay left for many reasons, often unrelated to sexual matters, but it must be acknowledged that abused former sannyas kids are among the most disenchanted, and many other sannyas kids who were not abused themselves had close friends who were and became similarly disenchanted. A whole generation of potential carriers of Osho's legacy -- those who SHOULD have been among the most enthusiastic carriers, having been brought up in "ideal" circumstances -- are among the most alienated.

The former sannyas kids have waited a long time to tell their stories publicly, beyond whispering to a few friends. Now the stories are out there, in the Times article, in books, and potentially many more areas, firing up the public imagination and being used by guardians of the status quo to invalidate Osho's vision and legacy. Thus, the exploration, airing and processing of this dark side of sannyas is essential if Osho's legacy is to continue.

explorations

Given the atmosphere of sexual exploration in Osho's communes, a broad range of behaviour inevitably occurred, and when it included children, depending on the physical and emotional maturity of the child and the aggressiveness of the adult, it could well be thought of and experienced as abusive. In this regard it is likely useful to note that few complaints of adult victimization of young boys are known as yet, so this page for now will concern itself with young girls and women. Below we have created a few thematic areas to organize ideas, though they unavoidably overlap and flow into each other ....

the child

In many countries, it is customary to specify particular ages as marking boundaries and levels of appropriate / inappropriate sexual behaviour, commonly called the "age of consent". Humans are much too variable to fit comfortably into these categories, but this is mainly how the law works, if at all. For us in the wiki, there is only one well-defined boundary that seems worthwhile, not a number of years lived but puberty. There are various outward signs of readiness for sexual activity, which reflect a flow of hormones, and first menstruation is precise and useful in this regard. After that event, other considerations also apply, but before it, any sexual activity with a significantly older male must be regarded as premature and inappropriate, something for any responsible male to avoid and self-examine regarding impulses in that direction. See "consent" below for a deeper consideration of "age of consent" and its ramifications.

With kids the same age, sexual play is natural, even before puberty, but where to draw the line between "same age" and "significantly older"? And the children's innocent play may become confused by parents' expectations and judgments. How much parents should be "guiding" their kids regarding all this is another tricky question, how to find the "sensible middle path" between too much guidance (conditioning, control) and not enough (neglect, below). Osho's sannyasins tended to explore (and err) on the side of not enough. Some of this was worthwhile and some of it damaging.

And how well is a young girl prepared for the emotional entanglements that inevitably come with the simple physical act? One woman writing in a group on Facebook exploring these issues acknowledged that her parents had explained the mechanics of sex very early, but she was woefully unprepared to deal with what she called relationships, eg expectations of closeness, caring, etc. A common thread in the group discussions was feeling used, their youth, inexperience and relative innocence mere commodities, their individuality and self-worth unimportant.

The resilient and/or emotionally mature may be able to bounce back from abuse, learn from it and move on. But not all were so well prepared or endowed. Some were also neglected, and had less support. Thus, the first sexual experiences of some less fortunate kids were violations that they have not recovered from forty years later. And "violation" is the right word for many of the sexual incidents between an adult male and an early-to-sub-teenage girl, unsure of what she wants and who she might want it with. Even if there was apparent consent, and even if there was no threat or violence involved.

One cannot easily shrug off such violations, as in "Just get over it". Osho has equated sexual energy with life energy enough that it should not be difficult to imagine that a violation in this area on one's first experiences might be deeply injurious, especially when accompanied by a smorgasbord of secrecy, humiliation, threats, cajoling, invalidation, half-truths and blame. And in fact, long-term psychological damage happens more often than some of us might like to think. We'll be developing a damage section below as we learn more from survivors.

And finally, it must be asked, why did Osho allow children in the commune at all? In hindsight, it was obviously dangerous for the children. And it undermines a basic assumption underlying all that we did: you are responsible for yourself. Obviously, that does not go for kids. Further discussion of this question will be found at a new page for deeper exploration of particular issues, still in progress, Abuse issues discussion.

consent

The first thing to understand about this term "age of consent" is that it is a legal term, with precise definitions varying from country to country and in a few countries (US, Australia and Mexico), even varying from state to state. What it specifies, in whatever jurisdiction, is the minimum age the younger partner in any sexual event must be in order for that event not to be illegal, "statutory rape". Those under that age are deemed legally incapable of consenting to sex.

Wikipedia's page on age of consent is fairly thorough and wide-ranging, linking to other pages dealing with the various aspects of the matter in vast detail, such as ages of consent by country. In most countries, this age is around 16, with some as low as 13 and some up to 18.Laws in about half of the world's countries consider only this one age, regardless of other circumstances.

The other half further qualify their basic age of consent according to one or two other conditions that may apply. These are:

a) When the older sexual partner is only slightly older (specified), the age of consent will be lowered, since there is no older predator and their sexual event will tend to be more "innocent" and mutual.

b) When the older sexual partner is in a position of trust and/or authority, such as a priest, teacher, doctor, etc, then the age of consent will be raised, as the child's undeveloped judgment and autonomy, etc will be further compromised by this relationship.

There is a basic psychological soundness behind enshrining such protection in law, in that:

a) a child cannot easily and fully understand the consequences of this event,

b) a child cannot say "no" so easily to an importuning adult who is pressuring and manipulating them,

c) a sense of what the child herself might want can often be lost in a surge of competing impulses and feelings,

d) never mind getting pregnant, though birth control was probably better taken care of among sannyasins than in most mainstream societies.

Additionally, the culture of casualness around sex among sannyasins undoubtedly led to assumptions in some (many?) that everyone else was ready and also looking for it, and that of course the other standing right there might be one's next partner, tonight if not right now. Such sannyasins would likely have believed that, even if the other was a child, she would have been around the block enough that her "yes" could be considered valid, and so on. This culture is said by survivors to have put additional pressure and expectations on them.

It must be said that there IS one aspect of the age of consent concept that does not work well, does not serve the interests of all those it is supposed to be protecting. The laws just about everywhere make no distinction between a minor who is importuned by an older suitor and one in whom desire and energy are there without any pressure from the other. Puberty just hits some children hard. Thus sannyas at least gave some young teenagers an opportunity for which the law can only conceive punishment.

Certainly this freedom for kids to experiment could be said to have "enabled" or provided cover / justification for adults to "experiment" with kids as sexual partners, rationalizing that they were psychologically mature and wanted it. One way a useful distinction might (should?) have been drawn would be to consider, where is the impetus for this sexual encounter coming from? If from the young girl, then maybe okay; if from the adult, then alarm bells should have been ringing, in the abusers themselves and in the parents, their stand-ins and other bystanders. Especially in a community ostensibly devoted to raising consciousness.

For beyond all grey areas, there were more than a few unambiguous, egregious serial abusers, for whom alarm bells did not ring. A correspondent has written, "I know for a fact that there were a few adult men in the [location redacted] commune hunting us girls (age 12-16) because they specifically wanted to 'deflower' us. The fact that we said yes (because we were flattered, confused, lonely, looking for a father figure, curious, intimidated, thinking we had to be a good sannyasin and a good sannyasin has lots of sex, etc) seemed to give them the idea that they had permission. 'But you agreed' would be their argument".

Our correspondent refers to these sexual events as "rape". This may seem harsh to some, especially as there was (usually) no coercion involved, but we have to at least hear this, especially in the light of currently evolving views and laws. Old definitions of rape all included some element of force. New definitions, already codified in law in many European countries, focus rather on the absence of consent. A key influencer in that shift has been Amnesty International, who declare baldly that, "Sex without consent is rape. It’s that straightforward – there are no 'grey' areas".

Amnesty's campaign has been concerned with rape and harassment targeting adult women, but it can be applied to sub-adults too, inasmuch as they cannot legally consent if under the age of consent as defined in their country.

This section will be further developed as we hear, discuss and learn more ....

youth

In mainstream societies in the west and perhaps everywhere, there is a tendency to elevate the attractiveness of youth. It is often advertising-driven, to sell stuff to make you feel or look younger, but goes much deeper than that, as there is much unconscious resonance: younger means stronger, more potent, more alive, more innocent and less "damaged" by disease, injuries, malnutrition and lifestyle choices and impositions.

In our deliberations here, innocence is the quality that is the trickiest. Is innocence a possible factor in the attractiveness of the (very) young to those who prey on them, and if so, how? This needs to be studied more. Feedback needed! See also below in the abuser section for a consideration of how power might intersect with innocence.

prevalence

As yet, we do not know how widespread or damaging child sexual abuse in sannyas has been. That is still to be explored and brought to light, but rumour plus the semi-public sharings on Facebook suggest incidents were far from isolated, with some very damaging outcomes including suicide attempts, drug addictions and other long-term mental health issues.

In the Times article all four of the women speak broadly of widespread incidents, while two of them are very specific about "authorities" knowing it was happening. Caroll says that after several instances of abuse at the Ranch, she was sent to a clinic to be fitted with a diaphragm, meeting two other girls her age in the same situation. Keefe mentions going to the main office to see about working in the ashram, to be met with "Do you fuck?", supplemented with a list of men who had had vasectomies.

One might argue that Keefe may have misconstrued the possibility of a joke and that Carroll's experience in the Ranch clinic reflected nothing more than taking care the girls didn't get pregnant but both arguments would be in our opinion grossly brushing aside the girls' emotional needs and their need for help rather than the opposite. Such rationalizations would be mental exercises in the service of denial, not affirmations of the strengths of the sannyas community.

It may be interesting to note that some mainstream societies, at least in the West, have been ahead -- perhaps far ahead -- of the sannyas world in recognising the extent of the problems and have started to address them. Some studies have found a startling prevalence of abuse in their societies.

The Badgley Report of 1984 was the first national systematic effort in Canada -- perhaps in the world(?) -- to explore what it called "sexual offenses against children". It was thorough and dense, and as such, perhaps not so accessible, but it found a lot of abuse: Major findings of the report included that 1/2 of females and 1/3 of males have at some time in their lives been the victim of unwanted sexual acts, with 4/5 of these acts having taken place during childhood or adolescence.

More accessible may be a survey published in Alberta Canada just in 2020, commissioned by the Association of Alberta Sexual Assault Services, an umbrella organization of groups dealing with issues of sexual abuse and assault. It found 44% of female and 24% of male adults in the province reported they had been the victims of some sort of sexual abuse while they were children, results in the same order of magnitude as those of Badgley.

That's a lot, and on that basis we might expect to find a lot among sannyasins as well. At best, we might hope that it is/was rather less, for reasons that will be explored below ...

neglect

Sannyas kids had much more freedom than almost any similar age cohort in the world, and that certainly had its upside. But basic levels of guidance and mentoring were often lacking, to the point of an unhealthy neglect. Osho's frequent condemnation of the nuclear family model -- which of course does have its problems -- and promotion of the commune model led to a lot of collective assumptions about how his commune/buddhafield would operate differently from normal societies and therefore not produce the same pathologies. These assumptions included:

assumption	what really happened
a) Osho would take care that no harm would come to us	Many DID feel protected from harm and have "miraculous" stories to back up that notion, but Osho did not promise any such thing and told us repeatedly that he was a very dangerous man
b) in the commune, a child would have not just one mother and father but hundreds, and could go to any of them for help or nurturing	Possibly the most misleading and least examined of these assumptions ... parents were there to grow and were happy to have a thousand baby-sitters, but few of those thousand baby-sitters actually picked up the slack, and few specific alt-parenting arrangements were actually made. See also schools below.
c) our spiritual journey and choice of Osho as our Master was a supreme commonality that would transcend all issues	This last one sort of includes all the above but it has one very specific aspect which has not been examined: Most former sannyas kids did not come to Osho by choice but were brought to him by their seeker-parents. In that respect their position was like that of kids born into any other religion. They took sannyas to blend in but some now reject Osho as much as the most fervent ex-Catholics reject their parents' religion.

schools

Schools are the most significant alt-parenting arrangements made in any civilized society. Their stated purpose is something loftier of course, but "child-care" is one of their prime functions, esp. when both parents are tied up in part- or full-time jobs. And pedophiles go where the kids are, especially residential schools, where kids are separated from their parents for lengthy periods. In sannyas, four main schools came into being, functioned for a while and disappeared. They had different styles and served different child-care and educational needs in different eras.

"Hemhira" in Pune One was a day-care-type school taking care of kids from about five to ten years of age. It was about education in part, if the kids wanted that, and play, lots of it, with direction coming from the kids themselves as much as anyone. It seemed fairly idyllic from the outside, but there were already sinister currents.

One name came up again and again in the Fb discussions, and the wiki will probably not violate any sacred principles by naming him here, as he has long since disappeared, leaving only his sannyas name behind as a signature on water. This was Sw Sharna^(*1), already active, sometimes aggressively and nastily so, with girls as young as nine in Hemhira. One of the posters in Fb recalls her horror when seeing him again in Medina, one of the sannyas schools in England.

There were two sannyas schools operating during the Ranch era. One was for Ranch kids of a wider age range, say five to fifteen. It was a day school (?), where kids went back to their parents or some kind of work after classes. The school itself was in Antelope, outside the Ranch property. Antelope shortly got "taken over" by an influx of sannyasin residents, who soon outnumbered the original inhabitants and changed its name to "City of Rajneesh", giving sannyasins an incontestable legal base from which to run municipal-type operations.

The other Ranch-era school was Medina, about 100 km NE of London, not far from Cambridge, run by Poonam. Medina was more than a school. It was one of the biggest sannyasin centers in Europe, providing work and communal living for hundreds of sannyasins. As a school, it attracted kids from all over Europe, since English was the international language of sannyas and in fact the world.

And it was a residential school. Parents were not usually in a position to go there but wanted a safe place for their kids to get educated and live a good sannyas-style life. Kids as young as ten years old report traveling alone to get there and not knowing anyone, so they were particularly vulnerable.

The schools in Antelope and Medina collapsed when Osho left the Ranch, and the World Tour era kept sannyasins from organizing and settling anywhere on any large scale. Still, at some point during the Tour, "Ko Hsuan" came into being in Chulmleigh, a market town in Devon, in SW England. Ko Hsuan was another residential school. Perhaps these happen more easily in England because of their long private school tradition.

All the schools except Hemhira were "official" schools, in that they were registered according to the laws of the land and offered some kind of "standard" educational curriculum in addition to sannyasin programs. In those days, information about sexual abuse of children was not widely available; conventional notions about it revolved around cliches like a guy in a trenchcoat hustling little girls outside schools. Few knew that it happened in homes, in churches, in boy scout troops, in residential schools. Parents and leaders with access to children were trusted figures in any community.

That is, no one knew except the kids, and they were encouraged to keep quiet about it, by the abusers especially and by those with an investment in the "system", whatever system one happened to be in. In abusive situations in homes, such encouragement was often strongly coercive, to the point where memories of abuse could be completely submerged and repressed. And moral judgments might be projected back onto the child. It's all her fault, she's so bad, etc. A child with such a burden will not readily insist on the truth or may not even remember it.

the commune

In the West, abuse is endemic, both in nuclear families, and in other situations, where (step-)fathers, older brothers and care-takers are by far the most common perpetrators. It is easy to see that in this situation a power relationship is already established and is easily maintained, along with an omerta-like secrecy. And even with abuse occurring outside the family, an anti-sexual morality coupled with male-dominant "values" -- both derived from the organized religions that still hold considerable sway -- ensure that secrecy prevails in many abusive situations. In this way is the child isolated and disempowered. We might suspect that this holds not just in the Christian West but wherever there are significant moral judgments about sex and where women's status is significantly lower than men's. In other words, just about everywhere.

With the nuclear family setup somewhat sidelined in sannyasin communes and women in charge of almost everything, the dynamics that might lead to sexual abuse were different, though we have heard that there was some old-fashioned nuclear-style abuse too. And there were other elements that one might think would rather reduce such incidents. One, that our greater freedom of sexual expression might channel the biological imperative of sex in healthier ways.Two, that our practice of self-examination, however flawed, might reduce the tendency to fixate on "the other", either as a source of happiness or misery, leading to less blame, less expectation and less sense of entitlement. Three, that our practices of honest communication, also however flawed, might reduce the damaging effects of secrecy. And four, that the explicit and constant reminder of love in Osho's work might reduce tendencies to "use" another person.

But the flaws in this "system" seem to have been too much for it to function "ideally". Freedom of sexual expression expanded beyond simple sex between consenting adults to include what we might call "semi-consenting" minors, as described by Keefe in the Times article. And even some plainly non-consenting sub-teens, according to rumour. To some extent, non-self-examining men were bound to come and join the party and assert their "rights" to certain kinds of freedom, even at the expense of their victims' rights. The wiki will be considering:

a) Were there more of these kinds of men in sannyas than in other subgroups of "normal" societies? the same? less? / Were there aspects of sannyas that allowed them to flourish more than they might have in "normal" societies?

b) What about this grey area of "semi-consenting" minors? While there were plenty of young girls who felt and understood the need to explore this important aspect of life, and were able to choose their partners and the context of their early sexual encounters, it is clear that for many girls, these ideal conditions did not apply.

This last area of inquiry is potentially vast. We will try to include experience and position statements from victims/survivors as well as from those who believe that Osho's sannyas did not do too badly compared to "normal". We will NOT adopt sociological, argumentative nor preachy approaches but rather just hear, listen, consider and absorb. NOR will we insist on coming to a conclusion. In this approach we believe some healing may be found.

the abuser

We will not speculate much about the qualities possibly inherent in the abusers at this point, but one feature of the predator/prey relationship may be worthy of comment: the dynamic of power. In men with power issues, younger women may be more attractive because they are less "worldly-wise", or, in the case of adult males with sub-adult females, just smaller and/or more deferential to the supposedly wiser and just plain bigger adult. These men may be more likely to be serial abusers, not just in one or two cases. And kids are innocent and, for some men, attractive for that reason alone. Here is someone that can easily be dominated. We'll leave it at that for now but this is a rich area with lots of potential to explore. And we are open to suggestions.

In fact, the abusers, named and unnamed, in the sannyas community might yet perform some valuable service to the community, the victims and even humanity as a whole, if they were to use their presumed by now long experience in meditation to go inside and explore this issue and what was it in them that drove them to this, especially the serial abusers. WHY WERE THEY ATTRACTED again and again to powerless subteens who didn't really want this when easy and blame-free adult sex was available all around them? Etc etc.

And as in any other society, culture or subculture, it can be noted that probably opportunities played a role in abuse in the sannyas world too. Musicians, therapists, teachers, etc would have had more opportunity for sex with minors. However, this should not be taken to mean that anyone given such an "opportunity" would act on it, or even feel to act on it. It might be instructive to hear from anyone who felt that urge and did NOT act on it. What might have been the process there?, etc.

Osho's teachings

Osho appears to have said very little about child sexual abuse directly, offering two reasons for its existence. Briefly, in a few places, he blames monasteries and their repression of normal healthy sexuality, without further elaboration. The only occasion when he considers it in any depth is in From Death to Deathlessness, ch 32, where he says that "children are kept in the dark" and should be informed and empowered about sex by letting them be around while the parents are making love.

While these two ideas may shed some light on how child abuse arises, they are far from the whole story. And they are not useful in addressing the question of abuse in Osho's communes. There is, however, one occasion when he does address this question. Much can be learned and inferred from his brief answer, so we reproduce it here in toto. The question was from Tracy Berry, of KEZI TV in Eugene OR, and the Q&A appear in The Last Testament, Vol 1, ch 28, part of his series of interviews with the world's press.

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.

"Charges regarding childrearing tactics" evidently refers to sannyasins' communal lifestyle and apparent failure to protect children from abuse, as this is what Osho addresses. There are some glaring omissions in his answer which may shed some light on this failure. First, though, it must be pointed out that Osho is quite correct that the case was thrown out, and that 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.

Regarding Osho’s omissions, 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. We will explore the implications of this apparent unawareness on the Abuse issues discussion page, which already has a timeline of news clippings from that era about the abuse case above.

Second, 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 then complicates that by going on about a fourteen-year-old boy as if fourteen IS old enough.

And third, after "We don't prevent them, but first let them be ready", everything he says is about the sexual potency and drive of boys and young men. Not one word concerns the fate or interests of girls-becoming-women. Just prior to that, he mentions "every contraceptive, pills", and that's it for anything that might remotely concern females.

The take-away from all this may be too multifaceted to express concisely on this page, so please see Abuse issues discussion, where we consider the various ways of looking at it that might be useful.

That's all that we can find so far that he has said explicitly about abuse. What might we gather from other aspects of his teachings?

The strongest messages coming from Osho again and again concern love, freedom and awareness. There is also a lot about sex too of course but it mostly comes as a sub-category of freedom, which freedom does not include freedom of or encouragement to adults to abuse children. When he talks about children coming into sexuality, the message usually revolves around doing it with others their age, as an essential exploration. And with birth control.

on selfishness

Looking around though, we eventually come across a frequent teaching related to freedom with broad application which turns out to be highly relevant to this issue: "Be selfish".

"Be selfish" is a stark message most often given in Osho's talks as a sharp contrast to the prevailing service-oriented approach of organized religions. Especially when put as "Be absolutely selfish" or "Be totally selfish", it is intended to shock minds used to platitudes, but it was not always understood. Osho explains what he means by this, its implications and subtleties in varying ways, but sometimes not at all, and so there were possibly many sannyasins who could not absorb those subtleties and took it as a carte blanche to be as self-indulgent as they wanted, without self-examination and often at others' expense. All long-time sannyasins know people like this and have learned to accept that they will show up from time to time. As "thorns in sides" they could even be rationalized as great goads to awakening, but the potential for such people to prey on children (and not just on adults) appears to have been largely overlooked.

The parallel with the Times article's "Bhagwan taught his disciples to act on impulse" purported teaching cited above can be seen too. They are not the same or even similar, but both have the potential to enable ignoble tendencies if not understood. And there can be no doubt that misunderstanding did happen. We explore this teaching in greater depth and detail in a separate page, to see how easily misunderstanding might have arisen and the teaching misused. The version on this page is shorter. Let's start with:

"I want you to be absolutely selfish ... First try to know who you are: this is the first principle of selfishness. First try to love: this is the second principle of selfishness. Love yourself so that you can love others. And the third principle of selfishness: live the moment delightfully, celebrating". ~ from The Path of Love, ch 2.

This is one of the most succinct expressions of what he means by selfishness, while clearly indicating how his version of selfishness differs from the normal meaning. The spiritual quest is an exploration of who we are, or in other words, an inquiry into the nature of self, and is thereby more or less tautologically "selfish", and a handy way for Osho to use and rebrand as his own a highly loaded word. Moreover, by questioning assumptions normally unquestioned by society and organized religion, any sincere seeker will also be labelled as "selfish". We "should" be taking these assumptions seriously, worrying about starving children, God's Commandments and so on. One more:

"Reduce the worries first to the minimum. That is, confine your worries to yourself, that's enough. Be absolutely selfish. Yes, that's what I say -- be absolutely selfish if someday you want to help others. If someday you want to be really altruistic, be selfish. First change your being. First create a light within your heart, become luminous. Then you can help others. ~ from The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 1, ch 2.

All in all, his position on selfishness is a strong one, relatively consistent and in contrast to any and all mainstream religions, except there are koans and paradoxes to navigate, such as:

"YOU HAVE TOLD US MANY TIMES: BE SELFISH. WHAT IS IT TO BE SELFISH?

"Drop the self. Because that is the most beautiful thing that can happen to you. That will be the greatest contentment that can come to you. Drop the self, if you really are selfish. If you really want to be blissful, drop the self -- because self is creating all your miseries and all your hells". ~ from The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 1, ch 10.

And elsewhere:

"To be selfish simply means to be yourself. I say to you: don't consider anybody else in the world, just consider yourself; and in that very consideration you will have considered the whole world". ~ from From Darkness to Light, ch 22.

quotes on sex

About sex, Osho has said so much, there is no way to consider it all here. Even to create a separate, somewhat thorough page as we did for selfishness would be difficult. So here we will just sample a couple of quotes. The first explains how and why strictures on sexual expression are so universal in organized societies. The second outlines Osho's simple and relaxed approach to dealing with the baggage of repression, which must be dealt with if we are to inquire deeply into ourselves.

"[Sex] is so powerful that if you don't repress it you won't know what to do with it. It will lead you into dangerous paths. And it is such a forceful energy that the whole society will become chaotic if it is allowed completely. No marriage could exist, no love could exist, everything could be just a chaos if it was allowed total freedom -- because then man would behave like an animal. If there were no marriage, no family, the whole society would be destroyed. Society depends on the unity of the family; the family depends on marriage; marriage depends on sex-suppression. Everything that is natural, forceful, has been inhibited, tabooed -- so forcibly that you feel guilty about it and you go on fighting with it. Society has not only created policemen outside, it has created inner policemen, your conscience -- a double arrangement so that you don't go astray so that you cannot be natural, you have to be unnatural. Now modern psychologists say that insanity is part of civilization -- no civilization can be without madness". ~ from Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Second Series, ch 38.

"No need to suppress, no need to try any methods to cripple the body -- no need. Be natural and go on working for your Buddhahood. Be natural and become more and more alert and aware. A moment will come when sex simply disappears. When it disappears on its own, it leaves behind it such a glow, such grace, such beauty. Don't force it to disappear otherwise it will leave behind many wounds and you will always remain with those wounds. Let it go by itself. Simply be a watcher and don't be in a hurry. Nature is good, nature is beautiful; you be natural. Unless you become supernatural, don't fight with nature. Let the higher come in. ~ from Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 4, ch 6.

the dark side

Any deep inquiry into our nature will come with difficulties. This section attempts to explore those which arise from Osho's emphasis on selfishness, especially as related to abuse.

Osho often said he was a dangerous man. And he wanted his sannyasins to live dangerously. A typical quote:

"As you live more dangerously, you really live. A few moments of dangerous living, as if you are walking on a razor's edge, are more precious than a long life without any danger, without any risk, comfortable and cozy, everything insured, everything secure. The way of the sannyasin is really the way to live life dangerously". ~ from The Golden Future, ch 38

For adults who understood what they were getting into, at least somewhat, and in theory, this was all very well. Osho made a good case for this life being an attractive one, and one could still choose to a large extent how much to risk and in what circumstances. And for those adults who didn't understand but jumped in anyway, they were already risk-takers. This covered a large proportion of those who came and said "Yes, I want some of that".

The same cannot be said of the children who were brought by their parents. Whatever choices they made were without full autonomy and without the full set of life-tools for understanding the possible risks and consequences of their choices. In that, they were in a position similar to those born into any religion, and many certainly got some positives out of their sannyas experience, but ....

But some of them did not fare well under Osho's open approach to sexual transcendence. Here we consider how his teaching of selfishness might have been a factor in that, looking at two broad areas: First, how in general sannyasins processed their dark sides, which would inevitably have to be dealt with somehow, and what might Osho have said about the dark side in connection with his teaching about selfishness? And second, what safeguards might there have been to prevent "excesses" in which real damage might have happened. What other teachings may have acted to balance or otherwise keep excesses in check? eg be conscious / respect others' rights, etc.

processing the dark side

This word "selfish" covers a lot of ground in how it might be understood, starting with its highly negative mainstream version, but the only "negative" variety of selfishness that Osho has actually addressed in his words on being totally selfish is the conventional opposite of the unselfishness that religions and do-gooder organizations promote, ie where one is thinking only of oneself and failing to make the world a better place to live in in some way. Many examples can be found. There are other, more egregious forms of selfishness which he does not address, where one is thinking of oneself in more aggressive ways that come at the expense of others.

In one's journey of being selfish, some nasty examples can arise, where one can be fairly vicious or exploitive with someone else, even a lover. Osho does address many examples of this, but mostly in the earlier Darshan Diaries, not in his discourses on being selfish. Basically, these events too are phases of one's growth cycle that must be passed through. One expresses one's ignoble thoughts and passions and then, having done so relatively consciously, or at least in an atmosphere of consciousness, the "Buddhafield", one rises above or goes beyond them.

This is the theory, and any older sannyasin can testify to the basic truth of it. Many did much of their processing of such things in Osho's therapy groups, in which relative strangers would serve as stimuli, catalysts and foils for the other group members' (often unconscious) psychic sore spots. Or many threw out their psychic garbage without interpersonal interaction, in Dynamic Meditation. For the ones who came early and could talk to Osho about, say, their relationship problems, he would just chuckle and say "very good" when a couple would describe their mutual abuses, and perhaps assign some process to finish it off.

But there may have been many sannyasins who did not get past this stage, remaining selfish in a parasitic or egoistic sense, possibly due to their incomplete understanding, laziness, or determination to "be true to themselves". It is entirely believable that some such people could have been among the child abusers, or at least that the teaching of selfishness could have been supportive for their unconscious desires, even in those examining themselves in other parts of their lives.

checks and balances

Here we look at 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. A couple of clear angles emerge easily:

1. All sannyasins would agree that one of Osho's most important teachings could be put as "Be conscious", ie be as alert and aware as possible at all times, especially of one's interiority. There were of course exceptions, when Osho might guide individuals to lose themselves in some activity or other, particularly dancing. But for the most part, one could almost say that "It goes without saying that" Osho champions awareness, consciousness .... Not that this is unique to him; many teachers offer the same advice.

But the "goes without saying" part may have been literally so when Osho spoke on selfishness. There are precious few instances of this important guidance when Osho is recommending selfishness to all of us. It is so noticeably absent that one might even think it was by design. Of course we cannot speculate on Osho's intentions, but we wonder ... this is one key teaching that could have had more of a balancing effect on excesses of selfishness, or at least after some excess had occurred, provided some insight or empathy. Its absence may be conspicuous, something to look at.

This is not a universally held view of course. Most of the time, Osho speaks totally, giving full power to whatever theme he is expounding, so “checks and balances” are not often found in individual talks. Similarly, the message to “be aware” is so prominent in so many other talks that its absence in conjunction with “be selfish” may not be so noteworthy. One might even say it could be taken for granted. For a more thorough exploration of these matters, see Abuse issues discussion, a spin-off page for this kind of stuff, still in progress.

2. Individual freedom is a paramount principle in Osho's iconography. Many are the times when he pronounces freedom to have a higher value than love. Though there are exceptions, they are fairly limited in their scope and context. Freedom is not identical with selfishness but they have much in common and no significant conflicts, so much so that we can look at what he says about freedom and find it fairly applicable to his guidance on selfishness.

One of the key "checks and balances" in his messages about freedom is that a respect for others' freedom is also implied. Which SOUNDS like it should have been helpful in regard to sannyas kids getting preyed on, especially by serial abusers. Here is one that is both relevant and universal in its scope:

"A man of understanding will respect his freedom as much as he will respect others' freedom, because if nobody respects your freedom, your freedom will be destroyed. It is a mutual understanding: 'I respect your freedom, you respect my freedom, then we both can be free'. But it is a compromise. I have not to interfere with your being, I am not free to trespass on you". ~ from The Dhammapada, Series 9, ch 4

A similar example notes that his freedom to sing loudly in the shower at night ends with the neighbour's freedom to sleep. It is good that Osho establishes some general practical boundaries for an otherwise unlimited freedom. But he doesn't do this much. In fact, there are significant gaps in the applicability of Osho's words on respect in this situation which would be good to understand.

Most of the rest of what he is saying about respecting others' freedom is not useful to children being hit on. This happens in two ways. The commonest, largest gap stems from the usual context of such guidance, that of a couple in a long-term relationship, with one or both being told to allow the other more freedom to wander sexually. While great advice in its context, this is of no use whatsoever to our unfortunate children's freedom to be left alone.

The other gap is more subtle: The context is not so limiting, and Osho's words clearly have general applicability, but, his words lack the practicality of the Dhammapada quote above; they are not actually guidance but just comments based on an assumption. For example:

An intelligent person can never use another person as a means; he will respect the other. An intelligent person will be able to see the equality of all. Yes, he will see the differences too, but differences make no difference as far as equality is concerned. He will have tremendous respect for others' freedom -- he cannot exploit them, he cannot reduce them into things, he cannot make them stepping stones to the fulfillment of some absurd desire to be the first. ~ from Tao: The Golden Gate, Vol 1, ch 7.

This may be so, but a number of horny guys appear not to have taken heed, and did use and exploit the other, and literally and precisely for the fulfillment of some absurd desire to be the first! And there was no lack of willing adult outlets for the expression and fulfillment of normal, healthy sexual needs. Were they just unintelligent? Insincere? Etc etc. We cannot know unless they share more than they have. But somehow, the concept of respecting the children's freedom seems not to have been an effective antidote to the exercise of the abusing adult's "freedom". This MAY be partly because Osho has not made it sufficiently clear that respect for others' freedom is a MUST, not just something that happens to the intelligent or advanced seeker. Mostly he leaves it to our own intelligence and/or caring to work it out for ourselves. And more than a few of us failed to do so.

Yes, there have also been those who came to Osho's caravan only to prey on sannyasins, who were definitely not sincere, for example those who would steal money and passports from prostrated sannyasins after White Robe in Osho's final months in the body. Some similarly insincere people may have also been involved in some of the child abuse. Regarding them, we can only ask why we were not more aware of them, more alert about the possibility of their moving among us.

But we are mainly concerned with less peripheral characters, those who came as sincere seekers and appeared motivated to "do the work", meditate, grow, and be part of the community. That some of the abusers were sannyasins we know (knew) and love(d) must compel us to consider deeper questions, including whether part of Osho's guidance may have been a factor, or at least inadequate in this area.

To be continued, and don't forget to look at the other page of his teachings on selfishness for further depth on that and |the other other page for discussion of more complex issues that arise.

legal matters

There are two main reasons we will not be featuring many details of particular abuse events here in the wiki, the who, what, when and where. One is that we don't know anything directly ourselves and publishing someone else's complaint would simply land us in libel and slander issues, where the alleged abuser might have every reason to complain. The other is that a detailed airing of these matters might lead to some serious legal issues for the alleged abuser and/or his associates.

We do not believe that a pursuit of punishment can be readily compatible with other goals such as healing, transparency, insight, etc, so we'll be discreet about details. These issues perhaps explain somewhat why most of the alleged abusers who have at least partially acknowledged and apologised have been somewhat half-hearted -- as seen at least by some of the survivors -- and why more alleged abusers have not acknowledged or apologised for anything. Such is the adverse effect that the Justice System may have on healing.

update history

Regular visitors to this page can follow our progress here! See what's new, if anything. We will be working at this for a good while .... Only significant updates will be noted, not minor ones

Oct 2 2021 page started in response to Facebook:

Sep 10 2022 response to Times of London's first major public story

Sep 13 2022 added books by former sannyas kids

Oct 25 2022 added many sections to look at what happened from different angles, the biggest single update

Mar 9 2023 added a section on consent, an area of great potential for further exploration, plus a few other small sections

Dec 9 2023 added a large section on Osho's teachings, plus two spin-off pages expanding on aspects of these teachings.

more to come!

More on consent, a section on the harm caused by abuse ...
and more!

outside links

Not many so far, but this section will also have more coming.

The Times' article, unfortunately now only available behind a paywall

Sarito Carroll's site on abuse in Osho's communes, especially the Ranch, including a deeply considered letter she wrote to Milarepa

footnotes

(*1) Sharna: Was lovers with Maneesha in Pune One, following Teertha. She wrote about him and his "extraordinary" way with kids -- though only much younger ones were mentioned -- in ch 20 of Bhagwan: The Buddha for the Future, the first volume of her classic trilogy as Osho's "chronicler". She closes the chapter with "Sharna was a delightful and nourishing person to be with, and years after having parted as lovers, we continue to be the very best of good friends". What would she say now, or even in the 90s after Ko Hsuan closed?