Word: ashram
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...human potential" movement who felt that the movement's potential-and their own-had reached a dead end. Refugee experts from encounter groups, Rolfing massage and other please-touch techniques began making the pilgrimage and offering Rajneesh their talents. Since 1974, when the lushly gardened Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh Ashram opened in the sedate city of Poona, more than 50,000 seekers have gone, mostly from the U.S., Britain and West Germany. Among recent visitors: Actor Terence Stamp, Singer Diana Ross and the Marquis of Bath. Now the guru is instructing his best-connected disciple yet: Richard Price, co-founder...
Esalen's Price received his neo-sanyas by cable to California. But all others must undergo the elaborate ceremony led by Rajneesh himself. They buy orange robes at the ashram's boutique, then wash thoroughly. No one may approach the asthmatic guru with any trace of dust, perfume or hair oil. Two tall blonde vestals at the gate carefully sniff at all who seek entrance. A single cough during the rite can be the cause for ejection. Then, reports TIME'S New Delhi bureau chief...
Less visible than the cymbal-clanging Hare Krishnas, the 3HO disciples rival them in devotion. Men and women alike follow the Sikh traditions of not cutting their hair and bearing symbolic daggers, combs and bracelets. Ashram members rise at 3:30 a.m. to practice yoga and meditate, sometimes while staring at a picture of Bhajan. They often work twelve hours a day on low salaries and skimpy diets at 3HO small businesses, such as landscaping companies, shoe stores, and quality vegetarian restaurants. Full-fledged initiates follow Bhajan's every dictum on diet, medical nostrums, child rearing, even orders...
...adherents are flushed with the rosy beauty of new faith. "We got involved in Sikhism so we could re-establish a direction in our lives based on real principles," a young Jewish woman at a Los Angeles ashram told TIME Correspondent James Wilde...
Chimed in an ex-Catholic who misses the Latin Mass: "The demystification of the church turned me off." Even a Massachusetts girl who has broken with the movement says wistfully, "At the ashram we had the nucleus of a real family. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever experienced...