OSHO MADE THOUSANDS OF HIS FOLLOWERS NO LONGER CAN HAVE CHILDREN

One of his many barbarities, Osho decided that his followers should be sterilized, and below, I transcribe the texts that I have found about this issue:

Win McCormack's article

Win McCormack is a journalist who has extensively investigated Osho and his movement, and on this subject he wrote the following:

According to Sarah T. and numerous other former sannyasins, Rajneesh strongly discouraged his female disciples from having children and strongly encouraged women followers —especially his women administrators— to have themselves sterilized.

Sarah recalls that in 1980, the year before Rajneesh left India, nearly all the top women in the ashram hierarchy underwent sterilization at the ashram medical center. The method of sterilization used there, she says, was cauterization of the fallopian tubes.

(www.newrepublic.com/article/147871/bhagwans-sexism)

Satya Franklin's testimony

Satya Franklin was a close member of Osho.

Sheela (who was Osho's chief administrator) had a hysterectomy and I believe she was the first.

Bhagwan felt children were a distraction from the spiritual path. He said the nuclear family is a disease." He deterred one of Sheela's entourage from having a child by advising her to "borrow" a friend's for a week and see if she still wanted one.

But the idea of the sterilization was that if you didn't want to have kids anyway and people had multiple sexual partners, it was not unreasonable. Not every man, but scores had vasectomies. I know people who left became angry about the sterilizations. They were livid that their lives were ruined.

Were people forced to be sterilized?

People were told if you want to be on a spiritual path this is good to do. They were not forced, but if they didn't they were at risk of losing their ashram job or being asked to leave. People were not encouraged to be pregnant, that's for sure.

(www.newsweek.com/wild-wild-country-sex-cult-member-reveals-truth-about-orgies-sterilizations-876747)

Lily Dunn's testimony

Lily Dunn knew the Osho commune in England very well

Those families who raised their children within the ashram and at Rajneeshpuram were encouraged to give them up to the greater good of the multiparent family. It was forbidden, from the age of five, for children to sleep with their parents. Children were considered to obstruct their parent’s personal development. Many men, including my father, were encouraged to have a vasectomy on joining the movement; many women were sterilised, some when they were young.

In a recent series of articles for The New Republic, Win McCormack, author of The Rajneesh Chronicles (2010), writes that among the thousands of followers who lived and worked at Rajneeshpuram over the four years of its existence, not one baby was born within the commune.

There was a Facebook page dedicated to a young woman who had attempted to reverse her sterilisation, done at Poona, aged just 19. Years later, she’d fallen in love and wanted to have a baby. She was 33, the same age I was when I saw the posting and had my first child. It is a much more straightforward procedure for a man to reverse a vasectomy than for a woman to reverse sterilisation. The young woman had died.

(www.aeon.co/essays/lost-innocence-the-children-whose-parents-joined-an-ashram)

Win McCormack's second article

I found this Win McCormack article, and there he wrote:

Rajneesh did not want his followers to have children, a subject I wrote about in “Bhagwan’s Strange Eugenics.” Rajneesh made the following statement to the INS in an interview in Portland on October 14, 1982:

-      “Just as murder is considered by the society, so the birth of a child should be considered by the commune.”

He wasn’t kidding. Rajneesh required that all his top women officials have themselves sterilized, and he encouraged his other disciples to do the same. If a woman got pregnant at the Pune ashram in India or Rajneeshpuram in Oregon, she was given a stark choice: Agree to have an abortion, or leave the property forthwith. There were zero children born in Oregon to Rajneesh cult members during the time the commune was extant.

“Bhagwan told his followers that a woman could not become enlightened if she had a child,” a former disciple informed me, “because it would take away from her vital energy. It took so much energy to become enlightened that if you had a child, you wouldn’t have the energy to pursue that path.”

Actually, the reason Bhagwan did not want his followers to have children was the same reason he did not care for them to have stable, committed, loving relationships: Having a child might motivate its parents to forsake the commune for a more normal, adult lifestyle.

(Source: https://newrepublic.com/article/147657/outside-limits-human-imagination )

Discussion

I found this discussion in a sannyasins forum.

Parmartha commented:

When I worked in a big department in the then ashram, a number of “workers” both male and female got sterilised, and this procedure was given free to those who were seen as dedicated.

The ashram even gave reasons for workers to consider. I no longer believe these reasons came directly from Osho but they were sometimes enunciated as if they did.

One was a perfectly valid reason and still very true today: overpopulation is killing the planet.

Another common point coming from middle managers in the ashram was that children hindered personal growth and meditation: being a seeker one had to be one pointed and plan a life free from distraction. This reason seems more dubious: surely meditation needs to be tested amongst the noises and chaos of the world…

Another reason given to female workers who were considering sterilisation was that they could become more orgasmic and live without fear of pregnancy. Maybe so, but lets face it many people got sexually transmitted diseases, so even that is a mixed-up reason.

During my 40 years of sannyas and being addicted somewhat to networking, I have met a fair few female sannyasins who regretted, in hindsight, their sterilisations, and one does wonder about it. In the best conversation I had about the topic, the sannyasin concerned said that sterilisation should have been only for the very few. It should never have been a “fashion”.

Kavita said:

I have heard too many stories of Osho insisting on having sterilization and also encouraging abortions in his Commune. Well, if that’s true I am sure he had his reasons.

Madhu replied:

I could very well relate to your contribution, although ´my story´ is quite another one, having gone through abortion issues long ago, regret and much pain. It´s a scar in my case.

Lokesh replied:

There is nothing perfectly valid about this reasoning at all, if put in its correct context. Most of the sannyasins who underwent sterilization in Poona 1 were westerners. What does overpopulation have to do with countries like Scotland? Nothing. Same goes for a number of countries in Europe. A lack of young people is putting a strain on pension systems etc.

To believe that those sterilizations helped the world’s overpopulation in any way illustrates a time when people were undergoing the worst kind of brainwashing, because it is pure bullshit.

Another common point coming from middle managers in the ashram was that children hindered personal growth and meditation. More bullshit. The truth is quite the opposite. Many enlightened men and women in the past were also parents.

One of the main recruiters for sterilization in Poona 1 was Diksha. She later apologized for any damage done. Many young women of that time lost their capacity to bear children and later deeply regretted it. One of the more unsavoury aspects of Poona 1. It is history now. Perhaps some will learn from the mistakes we made during those times and then perhaps something good will come of it.

Bottom line is think for yourself and question all authority. Osho was seen as an authority during those times and so were people like Diksha, who actually coerced and encouraged people to have those ops. It was ridiculous and a good reflection of the downside of those crazy times, times when people were ready to give up everything, including their critical faculties and common sense…and for what exactly? Enlightenment?

Does anyone know of just one person who became enlightened due in part to undergoing a sterilization operation in Poona 1? Just the question frames the absurdity of the whole carry-on.

Simond commented:

Lokesh, you describe it well, how in one way or another, and in this case, in the matter of sterilisation, how we have all been duped or fooled by the ignorance and the authority of others.

We are born into an ignorant world, with parents who are themselves ignorant, and teachers who are lost. It is a wonder any of us learn. But some of do see through the veil, like Lokesh which makes you a delight to read.

The sterilisation issue seems a perfect example of how some were duped into an action they later regret and see was totally ignorant and unnecessary.

(www.sannyasnews.org/now/archives/5961)

OBSERVATIONS

Several Osho followers think that it was not he who gave those directives, but his administrators. But as you could verify, witnesses asserted that those directives were given by Osho himself, and he was also who claimed that having children was an obstacle to spiritual development.

Something that is totally false because all the true masters that I know, they assure that having children and raising them properly is one of the greatest teachings that life gives you, because children teach you to develop: patience, understanding, responsibility, affection, and many other qualities more.

And Osho was also the one who put the pretext of overpopulation so that his followers would be sterilized, check his books "Ultimate Philosophy" and "The Last Testament I".

And that is also a true fallacy, because what causes overpopulation is not procreating children, but procreating too many children. And if you don't believe me, ask the Europeans and the Japanese.

And there Osho was very hypocritical, because he says that he did not force anyone (see link).

But as the witnesses pointed out, the followers who did not want to abort or sterilize, they were threatened to have to leave the ashram, and fanatical as his followers were, they preferred to obey so as not to leave his guru. But later, when the brainwashing had faded, many of them were repentant.