While Osho had worked on individuals in the sixties and on groups in the seventies, here in Oregon he was working on the collective unconscious, on the collective habits and patterns of our culture. These are the very impediments that have paralysed humanity and prevented this earth into turning into a living paradise. Osho’s work is precisely to help us make this possible. This miracle visible in Rajneeshpuram, financially however, had been an enormous undertaking. Millions of dollars had been lovingly poured by Osho’s disciples into humanity’s greatest experiment of the twentieth century. The resources, meanwhile, were also applied for developing an economic base in Portland, Oregon. Disciples acquired a hotel there and renovated it into a flourishing commercial enterprise. However, the sannyasins had to pay hugely for this. It was an endless struggle for survival. The efforts in Portland met with similar hurdles and hostility which climaxed in the bombing of the hotel by a religious fundamentalist.
Metaphorically speaking, the bombing of the Portland hotel was the last turning of the other cheek. The Rajneeshpuram administration now turned strict and used their legal rights, as an incorporated city, to create an armed force, normally called a police force but chosen to be called a peace force here. Several sannyasins earned special recognition for their accomplishments at the Oregon Police Academy.
The idea of ‘religious’ seekers being armed, caused a disconnect in the conventional American mind which incidentally is no different than the traditionalists who were disturbed seeing a neo-sannyasin of Osho living a worldly life. But the effect was dramatic. The armed peace force worked remarkably as a deterrent and not a single violent incident occurred after the hotel bombing.
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