There is a lot to reply to here! Some I will pm you about.

As for the documentary, I was only vaguely familiar with Osho before. The cult of personality is one of the things that caused so many problems. I blame that on his followers more than I blame it on him. But when one comes into so mich power, they need to realize how sheepish people can be when groupthink takes over. I know he tried to downplay himself but more could have been done.

The other thing is the inside outside mentality and the idea that you have the answers and others do not. For a group of people who seem so full of love, they certainly didn’t empathize with the locals very well, they just expected them to deal with this huge change in the neighborhood that they were imposing.

The commune does look pretty awesome, I’d love to spend a week somewhere like that, but only if I’m free to not participate in certain practices that don’t feel right to me without being kicked out.

I’m any case he sure gave a lot of people a lot of things to think about and so in that sense he was a great teacher. Perhaps all the bad stuff happened just so that this documentary could be made and reflect to us some of our own problems.

And yes, you are right, mainstream culture acts like a cult as much as the rabjanis did. Any time people feel they have all the answers or that someone they respect does, they will maintain this kind of cult mentality.