Osho's Travelling, Controversies

The hectic travelling schedule that followed from 1960 onwards, shows the rajas phase of his life. This activity, according to Osho, is possible only when one has thoroughly lived out or transcended the inactivity phase. Then it develops automatically and flows naturally from within. Osho explains that this sort of activity is tangentially different from the anxiety-ridden or the tense kind that, for example, a politician experiences. Unlike the latter’s, this activity is

1970. In the book, Dimensions Beyond the Known, Osho describes this phase of his life: ‘When this second phase—that of rajas—began, I moved throughout the country. As much as I have travelled within the span of those ten to fifteen years, no one can, even in two or three lives (births). As much as I have spoken during those ten to fifteen years, would ordinarily require (someone else) ten to fifteen lives. From morning till night, I was on the move, travelling everywhere.’ Stating the purpose and nature of this phase in the same book, Osho adds: ‘With or without reason, I was creating controversies, because more the controversies, quicker this

transition through the second phase of activity is. I therefore began to criticise Gandhiji. I began to criticise socialism. Neither did I have any relationship with these subjects, nor was there any attachment to politics. I had no interest whatsoever in these. But when the entire population of the country was absorbed in these tensions, there seemed, even if just for fun, a necessity to create controversies. Therefore, during the transition of my second phase of activity, I engineered a number of controversies and enjoyed them. ‘If those controversies had been created due to tension-filled actions motivated by desire, it would have brought me unhappiness. But as all this was just to develop the rajas guna, just for its expression, there was fun and interest in it. These controversies were

just like the acting of an actor.’ Osho’s travels were hectic, where he was on the go from three weeks out of a month. Osho had spoken very little, when he was passing through the phase of inactivity. But he says: ‘During the period of activity, I myself went up to people just to speak, and my language was full of fire…That fire was not mine. It came out of the rajas guna. That was the only way to burn out the fire of the rajas guna. It must burn in full ferocity so that it can quickly turn to ashes. The milder the fire, the longer it takes to burn out.’