Osho: A Spiritually Incorrect Mystic

Long back I had read a book by Rajneesh Osho. Normally all of his books are versions taken from the discourses given by him. What I liked about that book was, the clarity with which he explains things. Language is simple, straight forward and laced with humor. And when every other person either embraces or denounces spirituality, Osho opens a new path. His spirituality is bound to the world, giving all the importance to meditation, without renouncing the world and on the contrary embracing all the comforts of it.  He was against poverty of any kind. 

Last week I happened to read his autobiography, aptly titled Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic. It is again not a written one, but collected parts from 5000 hours of his talks. The biography part is a bit less and more are his explanations of his seemingly insane philosophy. 

Osho is not for any religion. He is against all kind of conditioning, that comes with any religion. He continuously urges his disciples to stop being his followers. He is against the miracles and magical powers of so called prophets. He claims he got enlightened at a young age, but then he says you need not believe it. He spend his childhood with his grandparents without any friends and without attending an school. After years, his grand father died and then he returned to his father's home. By then his character was totally different. He shown good skill in arguing, rather profound self confidence, found pleasure in questioning any religious authority  and would never obey any one or do anything against his will. 

His book From Sex To Super consciousness that was released in the end of seventies, was the most controversial and well read book of that time. His complaint was that people were annoyed when he heard a mystic speaking openly praising sex, but totally ignored the part about super consciousness. Later he came to USA and started a community called Rajneeshpuram, but was later deported following allegations of several crimes. But he got a cult following due to the effectiveness of his meditation style that was a mix of West and East. In USA, he owned 90 Rolls Royce cars, which he claims made him famous, by shocking the American community.