Word: guru
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...guru to such American composers as Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland and Virgil Thomson was correct about Schuyler Chapin. She was also right when she suggested that he might do well in music management. Chapin became road manager for Violinist Jascha Heifetz. He held Vladimir Horowitz's hand when the volatile pianist returned to the recording studios in 1962, and to the concert stage in 1965. For three turbulent years he occupied the most prestigious chair in opera, general manager of the Metropolitan...
Those teachings are mostly pop-Hinduism and anything-goes homilies. "I don't profess anything," Rajneesh says. The charm seems to lie in the guru's dramatic presence and the hope of an easy way to Eastern enlightenment. In ancient Hindu tradition, a sanyasi is a holy man who studies and meditates for years before he renounces the world. The Poona guru offers the blissful state of sanyas immediately, and calls it "neo-sanyas." Says he: "Westerners want things quickly, so we give it to them right away...
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...
Lawrence Malkin, the screened initiates are placed in the lotus position on the hard terrazzo veranda. Rajneesh enters in a floor-length white robe. One by one, the candidates for instant sanyas prostrate themselves before him and receive a 108-bead mala (necklace) with the guru's plastic-covered picture dangling like a locket, and a personalized tidbit of wisdom from the guru's lips. (To a psychotherapist: "You will need much work because a psychiatrist is more puzzled in a way than a psychotic. Lose control. Let it happen.") Each apostle also receives a new name. Henceforth...
...sanyas is so that you go on hanging around, so that a single sound from me, or just a look, will bring you that moment of enlightenment." So potent is that effect that most of the ashram's 200 permanent residents no longer bother to listen to the guru's words. "It's the presence that matters," says...