Rajneesh

Rajneesh (born Chandra Mohan Jain; 11 December 193119 January 1990), also known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, Acharya Rajneesh, and commonly known as Osho (), was an Indian godman, philosopher, mystic, and founder of the Rajneesh movement. He was a controversial new religious movement leader during his life. He rejected institutional religions, insisting that spiritual experience could not be organized into any one system of religious dogma. As a guru, he advocated meditation and taught a unique form called dynamic meditation. Rejecting traditional ascetic practices, he encouraged his followers to embrace life fully while remaining unattached to worldly desires.

Rajneesh said he experienced a spiritual awakening in 1953 at the age of 21. Following several years in academia, in 1966 Rajneesh resigned his post at the University of Jabalpur as a lecturer in philosophy, and began traveling throughout India, becoming known for his criticism of the orthodoxy of mainstream religions, as well as of mainstream political ideologies and of Mahatma Gandhi. In 1970, Rajneesh spent time in Mumbai initiating followers referred to as "neo-sannyasins". During this period, he expanded his spiritual teachings and commented extensively in discourses on the writings of religious traditions, mystics, bhakti poets, and philosophers from around the world. In 1974, Rajneesh relocated to Pune, where an ashram was established and a variety of therapies, incorporating methods first developed by the Human Potential Movement, were offered to a growing Western following. By the late 1970s, the tension between the ruling Janata Party government of Morarji Desai and the movement led to a curbing of the ashram's development and a back tax claim estimated at $5 million.