Word: rajneeshpuram
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...holy man, it was a world of trouble. There, in a third-floor medical cell of the Mecklenburg County jail in Charlotte, N.C., sat Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh last week, facing 35 counts of conspiring to violate immigration laws. Back home in Rajneeshpuram, Ore., where he ran a 1,300-member commune that espouses free love and the good life, the Bhagwan (Revered One) was accustomed to more deferential treatment, not to mention a more elegant life- style that offered, among other amenities, no fewer than 90 Rolls-Royces...
...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...
Throughout the incorporated city of Rajneeshpuram in central Oregon's Wasco County, young followers of the Indian mystic Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh bustle about their business. The Bhagwan, who set up the community in 1981, has taken a vow of silence; he tours his 64,000-acre ranch in a $119,000 Rolls-Royce Silver Spur with armed guards. His followers, mostly middle-class refugees from urban living, smile frequently, embrace warmly, and enjoy poker and blackjack in their private casino...