From the Editor
Namasté,
In 1630 early Puritan and Massachusetts Bay Colony governor
John Winthrop gave a sermon in which he described the founding of the
American colonies as building a City upon a Hill:
“ee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill,
the eies of all people are uppon us.”
While the United States has largely taken this image as an ideal,
building a shining example of freedom and perfection for the world to
see, the reality has often been different.
Even the archetypal New England city of Winthrop’s vision, was
one based largely on rigidity and religious intolerance. Like most colonizing
peoples, assimilated American immigrants, from the Puritans forward, have
become increasing protective of “their land” especially as attitudes move
across the generations. It is perhaps the more tenuous and hard fought
the claim, the more obsessive the need to protect it is. The reaction to the attempt by a band of mostly
Western followers (sannyasins) of the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
to establish a permanent city-commune in the Oregonian desert is a marked
example of this xenophobia and defensive myopia.
The
U.S. stands as a superb experiment of modern democratic ideals. In practice,
however, the depth of religious tolerance often has managed to extend
only to small innocuous (unthreatening) religious groups. The larger the group, the less difference from the founding Puritan
notions is tolerated. Even major
faiths, such as Catholicism and Buddhism, had to acclimate the existing
populations over generations. When
the sannyasins came to Oregon they came up against this distrust—a misgiving
that had recently been sharpened by the events at Jonestown just a few
years earlier. Through a course
of successive small events, the increasingly gruff and later corrupt management
of the commune went head to head with the 40-or-so local residents and,
later, world public opinion. The
United States government at the highest levels took a disturbingly active
role in the eventual collusion against the sannyasins’ City upon a Hill,
Rajneeshpuram. Since the dissolution
of the Oregon commune, Rajneesh and his merry band have been all but forgotten
by those outside of Oregon. It
is now merely and element in the colorful local history of the place.
Now
that his 15 minutes are long over and almost twenty years have passed
sine the dénouement of the commune, perhaps Osho the philosopher will
re-emerge as the revolutionary thinker that he was.
It is with this in mind, and with the hope that from this distance
we may begin the process of objectively evaluating the experiment of Rajneeshpuram,
that I have collected the material that makes up a large portion of this
issue. It is my hope that I have included enough information
in my article about the commune, to provide background and display the
negative, and illegal (on all parties), aspects of the story. The rest of the material that we selected provides
insight, mini-windows, past-present-future, onto the people rather than
the process. Some look back, some
look in and some look forward. I
have chosen to begin the section with two articles by individuals who
grew up within the neo-sannyas movement.
The “kids” more than anything else are the true achievement, and
litmus test, of the movement.
In
a similar vein are the two pieces by Trebor Healey and Lawrence Schimel. Both speak of the visitor in a foreign land
and the mistrust/misconceptions that this generates.
This
original theme for this issue was to have been a look at various attempts
to build intentional communities, diverse “Cities upon a Hill.” As it progressed the theme naturally developed
into a more focused look at modern permutations of the ancient Indian
renunciate tradition of sannyas. The first section looks at permutations on
traditional Hindu sannyas: a Westerner goes to the great Hindu pilgrimage
of the Maha Khumba Mela and a Frenchman becomes a Shiva lover in India
and founds his own ashram. The
second section focuses on “neo-sannyas” the initiatory movement founded
by the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (later known as Osho).
The third section offers material on Orisha Consciousness, a modern
movement of the Americas that blends the traditional Afro-Cuban religion
of Santeria with devotional Hinduism to develop a next-phase postmodern
faith that is both progressive and traditional.
The fifth section examines the Indian tantrik sect of the Adi-Natha,
a practice at a crossroads between ancient practice and the new realities
of spiritual practice in a modern world.
I
hope that you enjoy this issue and that it brings Ashé (divine energy)
into your life and onto your Path.
Love
light laughter,
Sven