do you guys know that the rajneeshees were a cult? like do you get that? i know he had some pinterest-worthy quotes that sound deep and are fun to reblog but do you understand that he was a vile and exploitative man, that he targeted people at their lowest point and told them he was what they sought, that he exploited his followers for millions of dollars, used them as free labour, turned every act of their devotion into a way for him to profit? do you understand that he ordered his followers to get sterilised, that he encouraged them to abandon their children, that he wouldn’t allow drugs in his ashrams then became so addicted to valium and nitrous oxide that he gave his talks high? do you know how many women were assaulted as part of his idea of free love, how many children were abused and neglected because he told parents that ‘the self’ was more important? do you understand that changing his name did nothing to change him, and that Osho was a drug-addicted narcissist who pinned all his crimes on his most loyal followers, and felt no responsibility for the thousands of people who worshipped him as a god, allowing all that responsibility to fall on a girl he had groomed from her teens for the role? i need you to understand that this isn’t a cool sympathetic guru dude who accidentally had a ‘psycho’ second-in-command, this is a man who manipulated thousands of people into worshipping him and ruined lives without a second thought
