The O-Show!

So everyone seems to have an opinion on Wild Wild Country these days. The Netflix documentary on the original sex guru Rajneesh, his cult and the one woman who was instrumental in its rise and fall, and fall again.

Mahesh Bhatt called it the “spiritual whorehouse cult” in a recent article, speaking from his memories of the Pune ashram as an inmate. Former Rajeenishis are creeping out of the woodwork, sounding a bit sanctimonious, I must say, about how they let better sense prevail. And everyone seems to have rediscovered Ma Anand Sheela — Rajneesh powerful personal secretary, the petite woman with “tough titties”.

It is easier perhaps to be critical of that era, when the world’s most creative, rich and powerful were flocking to Rajneesh for spiritual and sexual liberation. One of the reasons why Rajneesh caught the fancy of the generation of wealthy, bored and privileged people from Australia to America via India, was his approach to sambhog.

Money was as important as sex and unless you had an abundance of both you could not achieve salvation. Most importantly, he told people that they must not be apologetic for wanting an excess of either. He was a living example of how you can never have enough of sex or money as an enlightened soul.

Bashing Rajneesh is fashionable this season. Just as it was fashionable to join his cult at that time. The godman who was a magnet for the wealthy, appealed to those who knew no better than the conservative church or culture. But I also wonder whether his fantastic rise and popularity had more to do with the fact that he knew what people really, really wanted — to embrace a life where sex is not a sin and certainly not a hindrance to spirituality.

It was a dangerously attractive idea. One that struck at the heart of our social, moral and ethical structure. Renunciation was about giving up your wife so that she could pleasure someone else. Salvation was in not feeling jealous when you watch her having sex with a group of other men and women. A never-ending orgy with a tinge of spirituality that would take the edge off the guilt.

Everything thing about the cult, the system was meant to shock you. And seduce you. Salvation was the promised land. And for the illustrious and entitled Indian men and women who flocked to his ashram, he was everything that our regressive and austere culture was not. No wonder the renegades of the era such as Vinod Khanna and Mahesh Bhatt were such fans.

There is perhaps a Rajneesh in all of us — and the canny godman knew it. He knew which buttons to press for his fans to release their inner Osho. No matter how much we try to cloak our carnal desires, all it would take is a man in a flowing robe and long beard to come and fix us with that gaze. The image of an orgasmic Anand Sheela lifting her face to her master, who massages her forehead pressure point rather sensuously, is erotica at its finest.

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