Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
clause about entering the country under false pretences and not
leaving it when a visa has expired.
Roaming around chatting with various neo-sannyasis, I collected
an extraordinary amount of information with no effort. One girl told
me how the bhagwan had refused his mother's milk and not made a
single sound for three days after his birth. There was a reason for this
- not that such behaviour is particularly rare in newborns, anyway.
The reason, as the bhagwan himself had apparently explained, was
that in a previous life, lived some eight hundred years before he
embarked on his present one, he had vowed to undertake a twenty-
one-day fast as part of some significant Vedic ritual. He'd been
murdered three days before the fast was due to end. Thus, he'd had
to finish those remaining three days the moment he began his new
life.
California's contribution to human development in the ashram
seemed to be well represented, too, and doing a roaring trade.
Encounter groups, primal therapists, Reichians, gestalters,
bioenergeticists, Rolfers, even humble exponents of massage - all
were there, and many more exotic flowers besides. All had the
bhagwan's personal blessing and wholehearted endorsement. In
fact, therapy was another mandatory activity for the orange troopers.
Clearest of all, though, was the guru's intention to keep Westerners
happy. If it was therapy, sex, and rock music that did it, then therapy,
sex, and rock 'n' roll it would be. It's true he denounced drugs publicly,
but then it's also true that half the neo-sannyasis I came across were
stoned from dawn to dusk on whatever they could lay their hands
on. And there was much they could lay their hands on in Poona.
The bhagwan had let the genie out of the bottle, all right, but he had
not yet tried to put it back in.
A buzz of excitement suddenly seemed to flow through the
orange crowds. People started moving toward the giant roof on
pillars, the place housing the bhagwan's sacred chair. Now, I was
told, I was going to see the man himself. A good deal of shoving and
barely concealed aggression went on as orange legions packed
Chuang Tzu Auditorium, everyone wanting a piece of floor as near
the bhagwan's podium as possible.
The bhagwan's residence in the ashram was called Lao Tzu
