BBC defames Osho: Alok John reports
BBC defames Osho
An ex-sannyasin, Michael Lyons, also known as Mohan Singh, has recently been sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment for rape and sexual assault by a London court.
This has been widely reported in the press. However BBC “journalist” Clive Coleman embellished his report about Mohan with the following words…
“It also emerged that in the late 1970s Lyons had been a follower of Osho, the spiritual leader otherwise known as the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, who taught his devotees that promiscuity was the path to enlightenment. Osho’s followers famously vowed to buy him a Rolls Royce for every day of the year, but ran out of money after 93 days.” (Article here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10770395.)
This is of course false. Osho never taught that promiscuity was the path to enlightenment. It is true that in Pune 1, a few people were encouraged by Osho to indulge their sexuality in a promiscuous manner. I think Clare Solloway, a well known ex -sannyasin, says in a video that Osho told her partner, then Teertha, this. However Osho’s central teaching has always been meditation and awareness, and it is for each person to find his own way.
Osho’s Rolls Royces were purchased and donated to the Commune by rich individuals. Here is a quotation from Osho “Just the other day Anando was showing me one book published against me in Australia by a couple who have been sannyasins for three years and have been in the commune. But just looking at their ideas, it seems they have never seen me. They are saying that they were working, working hard, and with their work I was purchasing Rolls Royces.
You can see the absurdity: their work was not bringing any money. Their work was making their own houses to live in, the roads - which were needing money, not producing money. But in their mind - and for all those three years also - they must have been resentful.
Those Rolls Royces were not produced by the commune. They were presents from outside, from all over the world. And I was not their owner - I had given them to the commune. They were commune property, and I have not brought any of them with me; I have left them with the commune.” Osho, Beyond Psychology, chapter 24.
Do have a look at the article which is here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10770395
It includes a little video of a little man, presumably Clive Coleman, interviewing an ex-member of Mohan’s cult. I love Coleman’s feigned expression of concern in the video.
According to the BBC website “Trust is the foundation of the BBC: we are independent, impartial and honest.” What a laugh!