THE CHILDHOOD YEARS 

1931 
Born in Kuchwada, Madhya Pradesh, in the center of India, on December 11, Osho quickly demonstrated a fearlessly independent spirit. "Rajneesh", as he was called – "King of the Night" – jumped off 100-foot 
railway bridges and swam across monsoon-swollen rivers.With uncanny wit and persistence, he exposed the stupidities and hipocrisies of priests, saints, teachers and others pretending knowledge beyond their own experience. Osho followed his own counsel. 

THE UNIVERSITY YEARS 

1953 
On March 21, while majoring in philosophy at college in Jabalpur, Osho realized his enlightenment. He was twenty-one years old. Describing the experience, Osho said: “I was becoming loose from my past, I was being uprooted from my history; I was losing my autobiography.”. 

1957 
He continued his studies, graduating at the head of his year with First Class Honors and the Gold Medal, receiving his M.A. in philosophy at the University of Sagar in 1957. Two years later he became a professor of philosophy at the University of Jabalpur. He was tremendously popular with the students for his humorous and unpretentious honesty and his uncompromising insistence on freedom and truth. 
During his nine-year university career, Osho traveled around India, frequently on the road fifteen days out of every month. Always a powerful and passionate debater, he repeatedly challenged orthodox religious leaders. 
Often addressing audiences of 100,000, Osho spoke with an authority derived from his own enlightenment. Just as Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher, could say he was destroying reason to make room for faith, Osho was destroying faith to make room for true religiousness. 

1966 
Osho abandoned his university career to devote himself entirely to sharing the art of meditation and his vision of the New Man, Zorba the Buddha – the distillation of the best of East and West, a man capable of celebrating a full, physical life and also capable of sitting silently in meditation, a man rich materially and spiritually. 
 
 

THE MUMBAY YEARS 

1968 
Osho settled in Mumbay, and in 1970 the first Western seekers began to arrive. Among them were many therapists from the human potential movement who were looking for the next step in their own growth. The next step, Osho said, was meditation. 
In the same year, Osho began initiating disciples into neo-sannyas, a path of self exploration which ultimately leads towards the disciple’s enlightenment. 
 

THE EARLY PUNE YEARS 

1974 
 Osho and his sannyasins moved to Pune to open his first ashram. Over the next seven years, hundreds of thousands of seekers came from around the world to experience Osho’s meditations, take sannyas, and listen to him speak. His profound insights and original contribution to understanding the basic dynamic behind figures and events in history, through to the present day, are awesome. A combination of Eastern meditation techniques and Western psychological growth groups attracted thousands more, and established the Pune ashram as the greatest spiritual center in the world. 
 

A NEW PHASE – RAJNEESHPURAM, USA 

1981 
After suffering for years from asthma and diabetes, Osho developed a degenerative back condition and, in the Spring, went into a period of silence. At the recommendation of his doctors, he was taken to the United States in June of the same year for possible surgery. Eventually, surgery proved unnecessary. 
Osho’s U.S. disciples purchased a 64,000-acre ranch in central Oregon to which they invited him in August. During the four years that Osho lived there, Rajneeshpuram became history’s most ambitious experiment in creating a spiritually-based, transnational commune. Each annual summer festival brought up to 15,000 visitors from Europe, Asia, South America, and Australia. Eventually, the commune became a thriving city with a year-round population of five thousand people. 

1984 
Just as suddenly as he had stopped, in October Osho began speaking again. He spoke about love, meditation, and the human predicament in a mad, heavily conditioned world. He targeted priests and politicians as corrupters of the human soul, as destroyers of human freedom, and called God the first and biggest lie. 
From the very beginning of the communal experiment, federal, state, and local governments strove to destroy it in any way possible. Documentation later revealed that this effort involved the White House. 
Charles Turner, the U. S. attorney in Portland who was the government’s instrument in this process, stated in a private interview in February, 1989, that at the time Rajneeshpuram was becoming established, the government was saying: “What are we going to do with these people? How are we going to get them out of here? They’re totally entrenched. They’re a political entity. They have money, they have power, they have organization. They’re sophisticated, they have people who are absolutely, completely, totally commited to what they are doing, zealous beyond anything that I’ve ever encountered before in my life. So what are we going to do about it? Let’s use the U. S. attorney’s office to charge them with immigration fraud.”. He added: “We were using the criminal process to solve, I suppose [what] was really a political problem.”. 

1985 
In October the U. S. government accused Osho of immigration violations. Without any arrest warrant being produced or rights being read, Osho was taken into custody at gunpoint. Handcuffed and shacked in chains wherever he went, Osho was denied bail and kept in confinement for twelve days. He was transported cross-country to Portland, Oregon. A journey which normally takes five hours took eight days. 
During Osho’s time in jail, he was physically mistreated by federal officers. According to subsequent medical evidence, while in Oklahoma County Jail he was exposed to life-threatening doses of radiation, and poisoned with thallium. In Multnomah Jail in Portland he was subjected to an attempted bombing. 
Fearing for Osho’s life in the hands of U. S. agents, his lawyers agreed to a “deal” proposed by government attorneys. Under the deal, Osho could maintain his innocence on the charges through an “Alford Plea”, but be sentenced on two of them. The government had what it wanted: apparent “guilt” of Osho and justification for all the actions it had taken and would take against him and his commune. 
Osho left America on November 14. In the wake of this massive government assault, the commune was disbanded. 
 

THE RETURN TO INDIA 

The U. S. government was not content with this flagrant violation of due process as assured by its own Constitution. Using a well-orchestrated smear campaign, it proceeded to influence, threaten and cajole other governments around the world into disrupting Osho’s work wherever he went. 
This harassment began on Osho’s return to India in November of 1985. The visas of his Western personal attendants were summarily canceled, and Western jounalists and other visitors wishing to see him were also refused visas. He journeyed to Nepal. Even though the king of Nepal had been personally interested in Osho and his work for dacades, Osho was not allowed to stay. The American, who give substantial aid to that small country, were against all hospitality being extended to Osho – again attempting to separate him from his disciples. 
 

THE WORLD TOUR 

1986 
In February, Osho set off on a world tour which began with a visit to the Greek island of Crete. 
However, as a result of this U. S. pressure, a total of twenty one countries either deported Osho or refused him entry. Among these so-called free, democratic nations were Greece, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, U.K. West Germany, Holland, Canada, Jamaica, and Spain. 
Although condemned almost universally by power elites an opinion makers, Osho’s arguments and challenges have never been directly answered by anyone. 
In July, Osho went back to Mumbay, and immediately his disciples began gathering around him once more. 
 

OSHO COMMUNE INTERNATIONAL 

1987 
In January, to accommodate the rapidly growing number of seekers, he returned to Pune to the Osho Commune Intenational. Despite the public slander and clamor, Osho has since attracted an ever-increasing number of talented, intelligent, and creative people from around the world. 

1990 
Today, in the presence of this remarkable mystic, thousands and thousands are participating in the creation of an oasis of consciousness, which is envolving into the most powerful center of meditation on the globe. 
 

Along with condemnation from people in power, every where, has come much lavish praise from the intelligentsia. 
 

“A great man... the most dangerous man since Jesus Christ.”, said Tom Robbins, a best-selling American author. 
 

“Osho is one of the most important educators and philosophic and religious leaders in the late 20th century.”, declared Robert Rimmer, another famous American writer. 

Kazuyoushi Kino, Professor of Buddhist Studies in Japan, has called Osho, “the rarest and most talented religiounist to appear in this century.”

Perhaps M. V. Kamath, the noted Indian literary figure, speaks for millions of Osho’s admires around the world when he says: “There has never been anyone like him before. It is doubtful whether there will be anyone like him again. Anyone who can turn over two dozen governments against him must have something in him. One suspects it is intellectual honesty of a rare kind.
“There have been others like him at different times. A Walt Whitman, a Bernard Shaw, a Bertrand Russell, iconoclasts in their own way and with an abundance of talent. But they, even while they paid a certain price, knew where to stop.
“Osho pulls all stops. He is freedom without end.”.