Wild Wild West – Netflix documentary

Back in 2003/early 2004, I remember arguing vehemently with my friend that “Bhagwan” Rajneesh wasn’t truly enlightened and was more half baked :). I was just too stubborn with my arguments and my friend had to agree with me just to end the argument. Come 2018 the documentary Wild Wild West on Netflix totally proved to me that I was right.

The documentary is a 6 part series starts from Poona ashram through Oregon experiment and ends with the death of Rajneesh. It is a great effort with capturing the story from a lot of perspectives including the followers, adversaries, interviews from those time and era, video clips from news casts in those days and so on. 

Overall I would say a well balanced view of the whole episode, worth a watch. It is disturbing at some levels specially if you are of spiritual oneself is an understatement.

Here are my n things

• Rajneesh (lets call him Mr. R for simplicity) didn’t leave India but was literally smuggled out of India in secret, no one knew where he went and all his visa applications were done in secret and flight also arranged in secret
• On the flight to USA, they celebrated with champagne, as a spiritual person I thought he would be aware that alcohol affects ones subconscious self 
• While his top aide Sheila was running the show in the Oregon Ranch by trying to rig elections, poisoning salad bars, plotting assassinations and so on, as her “guru” how come Mr. R wasn’t aware?
• His aide Sheila keeps repeating, I protected Mr. R while I was in charge of his safety, would an enlightened master really need protection and from what and who?
• Mr. R secluded himself in the ranch for almost 4 years and didn’t give a single public discourse during that time, Funny part that was the immigration case against him that he didn't do what he said he would be doing, giving discourses.. As a true master were you not interested in the growth of your disciples?
• Mr. R behaves as president or absentee CEO of a company who has the plausible deniability when all hell breaks loose and blame it on the underlings in this case Sheila. 
• Mr. R has fascination for finer things and the fascination doesn’t end till he owns it, the Rolls Royce, diamond watch and the list goes on. I am not saying he should not honor his devotees offerings but can he put forth a demand? I am not making this up it is one of the episodes “at one point the Hollywood people started showing up at the ashram and started showing Mr. R the different magazines with expensive things, Sheila had limited access to these for if Mr. R sees them he would want to have them”
• Towards the end when Sheila leaves the ranch after a series of failed experiments, Mr. R acts like a child who lost his favorite toy or as a scorned lover who is not able to handle the breakup gracefully. It is truly unbecoming of a spiritual master, to an extent one can argue he had a meltdown. Really, can a guru have a meltdown?
• In the end, when the law starts closing in on Mr. R, he does the same thing he did in India tries to fly away but USA is not India and they arrest him on his way out. I make fun of Saddam Hussein for hiding in a hole, our man as hiding behind the aircraft seat when they came to arrest him. Are you so afraid of death Mr. R?
• Mr. R while fighting the case in the court apparently said “if they fight fairly then I am willing to go to supreme court but I don’t think they will and (something about body can’t handle)”, wonderful I like that, if that were the case then why did you flee in your own personal aircraft?
• His death apparently was a case of slow-poisoning and no its not the American Government but his own network and himself are responsible     

I never had a great opinion of Mr. R and this documentary didn’t help the case in anyway. At a higher level, it was, as rightly pointed out was an experiment, that didn’t play out well. It was an experiment on how far one can push the envelope in the name of constitutional rights, an experiment on what happens when one only thinks of rights and forgets all about responsibilities, an experiment on what happens when you let the mind/ego dominate the entire process and not listen to the inner guidance.   

Science meets Spirituality

Ok, to put the disclaimer this is not the end and all is well but felt a great step. Other day I was driving home from lunch and on air was the program Think from Kera, Texas. I am usually not enthusiastic about this program but this time the interview was with Ian Roberstson, clinical psychologist turned scientist from Dallas TX.

At the time I tuned in they were talking about how people can perform better just by saying “I am very excited” to themselves even under extremely stressful situation, this truly caught my attention. For this was one of the mantras we had chosen almost more than a decade ago (when I had just finished my first Art of Living course), it went something like “Fake it, till you make it”. Essentially meant keep tricking your mind and retraining it to think positive and enable to achieve bigger things by keep telling it you like what you are doing. In those days it was usually related to Art of Living things. As I listened further it went on to how athletes can perform better by keeping the mind in present moment and not thinking about the very recent failure.

I was so excited with these snippets and tidbits and for the first time in my life I Googled the program and listened to the whole interview. he talks about importance of stretching out of our comfort zone, setting up small achievable goals and going at it and most importantly importance of breathing. People who have done Art of Living course will be able to relate to lot of things Dr. Robertson is saying.

I got so excited I even ordered the book in kindle edition. I am sure I will be posting one more post when I am done reading the book. 

http://think.kera.org/2017/01/10/stress-yourself/

Dear Delhi,

What’s happening to you or what has happened to you?, why are the women or children specially girls are not safe in the city?, One thing I always wondered is, if this is the same state of affairs across the country and Delhi being the capital of the country these incidents are coming to light more often?  

Why is it that the public have to enrage and then only the police get into action? and I do appreciate the police for their swift action in getting the arrests done. But the irony is that the Delhi police, on one hand refused to register a complaint of the missing child and once the child is found in semi conscious state, they manage to arrest the culprits in no time. That too the culprits had fled Delhi to a distant state. So, form what I can see the efficiency exists in the Delhi police, all they need is motivation either in form of a carrot or a stick.

One cannot blame the police alone for not preventing the incidents and making Delhi more safer, because the victims involved were a 5 year old and another one is a 10 year old. Both of whom were molested by their neighbors, people whom they and their parents trusted to an extent. Of course one can blame them for not registering a complaint of the missing kid when they were asked to and not showing sensitivity once the child was found.

One thing I would definitely blame is the fast track court, its been almost 4 months since the bus incident and one person has already apparently committed suicide. So, where is the judgment, I am waiting with baited breath. Or the fast track just means it would be a few years instead of the usual few decades. For me the bus incident is a open and shut case and a judgment can be passed in a day, let alone months. 

Of course the mouths of our leaders better be sealed, do they even know that the recent victims are not women or teens but children?. Our esteemed PM said he was deeply moved, then what? is there an action or law or some such sort or should I be satisfied by the fact that he was moved?  

The thing that is bothering me the most is that of the 3 incidents that came to light in the last few months, there are a few in their teens and some in their early 20s or so. It tells me that there is something wrong with the way we as a society are handling the younger generation. Where have we gone wrong? In the case of the 10 year old girl, what happened to the golden rule “do not do something to others that you do not want them to do”?  or what we call the sense of belongingness, the kid was your neighbors daughter for gods sake.

One thing that is common amongst the cases is, all the culprits were under the influence of alcohol, so if the government can do anything other than just saying “ we are moved” is to do something about alcohol availability and sales. Oh, sorry that will be impossible due to the lobbying groups.

On the last note, after the last two incidents, I am in agreement with Sri Sri Ravishankar when he says, for all these atrocities to stop we need to uplift people by educating them on the spiritual path.