Word: guru
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...someone wants to come close to me, he has to make the effort," says Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, 54, the guru of some 1,300 red-garbed disciples who live in the commune city of Rajneeshpuram in central Oregon. "Those who come to me, it is their joy. If they leave me, it is their joy. I am blissful anyway, whether anyone comes or anyone goes...
Last week some seemed to be going, and the guru was not exactly blissful about it. The Indian expatriate discovered that his personal secretary, Ma Anand Sheela, had taken off, along with Rajneeshpuram's mayor, a city-council member and a gaggle of other top Rajneesh functionaries. The bhagwan (revered one) called a succession of news conferences to denounce the nine or so who flew his coop as "fascists" and "criminals." He accused some of the defectors of an exotic miscellany of offenses. Offering nothing that authorities considered proof, Rajneesh asserted that there had been attempted poisonings of seven people...
Such signs of disharmony were surprising in a community sufficiently loyal to the guru to have enabled him to accumulate 90 Rolls-Royces and a private fleet of six aircraft. And it was downright shocking that the guru's allegations focused on the woman who had been his voice during a much publicized three-year silence that he undertook as a sign of spirituality. After he finally broke that silence last year, he warned his followers to guard against AIDS by using condoms and rubber gloves while engaging...
...bhagwan said, was to build a housing complex for AIDS victims in Rajneesh. His reaction was less than charitable: "I said this is not right. You would be putting the whole of Oregon in danger. I had to stop it." After Sheela and her followers fled, said the guru, "sannyasins started coming up and informed me of things about these people who had done all kinds of criminal acts...
...Being a successful singer is like being a guru,' he said. 'Everyone wants to talk to you, be near you, love...