To Laguna Rajneeshees, Guru’s Disavowal of Stringent Rules Is an Answered Prayer

When Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh decreed last week that his disciples no longer need to wear shades of red and necklaces bearing his photo, Ma Prem Pratimo laughed with joy--and then went clothes shopping.

“I always wanted to wear white,” Pratimo, a follower of the Indian-born guru since 1977, said Sunday. “So I went to the flea market and bought a shirt for a quarter and a pair of pants for 50 cents. It was the first pair of blue jeans I’d worn in eight years. I loved it!”

There were similar expressions of feeling “liberated” and “cleansed” Sunday among the 200 disciples gathered at the Utsava Rajneesh Meditation Center in Laguna Canyon. Most of the worshipers seemed to have taken in stride their guru’s denouncement last week of “Rajneeshism” and anything connected with it, including the wearing of red-hued clothes and the necklaces known as malas , and other practices which have identified the religious sect for the past 15 years.

By early afternoon, the Rajneeshees, who refer to themselves as sannyasins (Hindi for disciples), were told to drop still another practice: They will no longer refer to ordinary labor, such as dishwashing and gardening, as worship; henceforth it will be called work.

The directive, sent down Sunday from the guru in his city/commune in central Oregon and delivered to the congregation over a microphone by “coordinator” Ma Prem Neera, was met with boisterous applause and laughter.

“One thing about Bhagwan is he contradicts himself; he’s spontaneous, and no one ever knows what’s going to happen,” Swami Anand Veetam, a 34-year-old construction worker, mused with a shrug. “It forces you to live moment-to-moment. And people who live with him ride that same wave.”

Amid the shrugs and laughs and applause on Sunday, however, were some outbursts of tears and grief. And small wonder, for it has been quite a month for the followers of Rajneesh, not only at the spiritual movement’s headquarters in Rajneeshpuram, Ore., but also in Laguna Canyon, the only other Rajneeshee commune in the country.

Last Monday, for example, the Bhagwan and his disciples burned the robes of his former personal secretary, Anand Sheela, and set fire to 5,000 copies of The Book of Rajneeshism, which he claims Sheela wrote. Many of the Laguna disciples said they had never even read the book, preferring the numerous writings by the guru.

Rajneesh, who in 1981 came to the United States with his followers from Poona, India, said he ordered the book-burning to rid the sect of the last traces of the influence of Sheela, whom he blames for turning his teachings into a religion during his recently broken three-year vow of silence.

He has accused Sheela and a small group of other followers that had formed the hierarchy of his international religious organization of creating a “fascist state” at the Oregon commune, alleging that they attempted murders, bugged telephones and fled Rajneeshpuram with millions of dollars--charges that are being investigated by a multiagency task force of local, state and federal authorities.

The 53-year-old so-called free sex guru has accused Sheela, who abruptly left the commune Sept. 14 and turned up in Europe a few days later, and the other top lieutenants, with trying to poison the three people closest to him--his physician, dentist and caretaker--the only people other than Sheela who had access to him during the silence he finally broke earlier this year.

Sheela, 35, the now-deposed president of Rajneesh Foundation International and the only person during the guru’s three-year silence to speak with him and relay his wishes to his followers, has denied Bhagwan’s charges that she ran up a $55-million deficit by diverting foundation funds to a Swiss bank account. In recent interviews in Germany, she has contended that the commune’s debts were the result of Rajneesh’s lavish tastes for Rolls-Royces and expensive jewelry.

In Laguna Canyon Sunday, a discussion of the state of affairs at “the ranch” in Oregon--where many in attendance had spent some time--was punctuated with outbursts of tears and anger, particularly as the subject of Sheela repeatedly arose.

“It’s sort of like we’re Frankenstein and (Sheela’s) our monster we created,” said one woman, who sat on the floor toward the back of the center’s cavernous meeting hall and wept.

“I’ve had a lot of love and anger come up because I wanted to go to the ranch, but they had the power to tell me I couldn’t. They had the power to tell me I couldn’t be with Bhagwan,” said another woman.

Others present encouraged their fellow followers to avoid dwelling on the negative and move on with what they called new and “exciting” changes in the spiritual movement, likening them to “spring cleaning.” The mood was decidedly upbeat as the disciples cracked jokes.

“There’s always gonna be someone whose gonna screw you, so squeeze somebody, go to the mall with somebody, give them a little love,” said Saytam Dan Crane, a blond warehouse storage salesman and five-year-follower of Bhagwan. His peppy comments were met with applause, laughter and shouts of “amen,” “hallelujah” and “pass the (tithings) basket.”

While many of the devotees seemed resigned, nonchalant--even forgiving--about Sheela’s alleged transgressions, a “cleansing session” was announced for this Friday for followers “who have some negative feelings about the ashram . . . and Sheela.”

Following what intermittently seemed like a huge group-encounter session, a combo band beneath a large photograph of the spiritual leader struck up lively tunes to which the sannyasins danced for a half-hour, singing and waving their arms overhead to songs like “We are the Wild Flowers of Love.”

As a Middle Eastern lunch was being prepared, most of the sannyasins flocked to picnic tables outside the meeting hall to sip herbal tea and coffee, hugging and kissing one another over animated conversations about the ranch. After the meal followers watched on a large screen a discourse video of the guru, taped Sept. 29, in which he repeated that he is not a religious leader and said he wants his disciples to be independant thinkers so they can “get it.”

Most of the Laguna sannyasins said they have either visited the commune for extended periods or lived there, “worshiping” at such chores as cooking, cleaning, construction and garbage-truck driving in addition to their daily chanting and meditations.

Some meditative activities, Laguna coordinator Ma Prem Neera said, include quiet sitting, graceful dancing and ordinary labor, while “dynamic meditation” involves rapid breathing “so you can freak out, ‘cathart,’ cry, laugh out, scream and repeat the mantra ‘ hoo ,’ which moves your sexual energy, which for most people has been pretty blocked.”

Regardless of the Sheela circumstances, Bhagwan followers said, they were largely content at the commune, and worship now at the Laguna meditation center because job or family commitments prevent them from living at the Oregon ranch with its population of about 2,000 sannyasins . The movement claims some 500,000 followers worldwide.

The Laguna meditation center dates from 1981, when members of the Church of Religious Science, which owned the site, followed the example of one of their leaders and converted to Rajneeshism.

The Church of Religious Science later filed a series of suits against Rajneesh and leaders of the movement in an effort to regain the property, but a judge last year threw out all but one of the church’s suits, which residents of the center consider to be “minor.”

The placid, five-acre property containing the Laguna center is maintained by about eight sannyasins who there. Like the Oregon commune, the Utsava compound hosts visiting Rajneeshees who come to stay for a few days or weeks.

In addition to three or four buildings that serve as living quarters, the commune has a boutique from which the guru’s books and pictures and other items, such as “sex kits,” are sold.

Until 10 days ago, Ma Prem Pratimo (Hindi for Blissful Image) had been a resident of the ranch, where she held a variety of jobs. Pratimo left, she said Sunday, not because she was unhappy with the state of the commune but simply because she finally felt she could do so and freely return. She said she likes the warm and open feeling about the Laguna sanctuary, and for now will worship there.

Ma Prem Pratimo, 35, spent a good deal of time Sunday telling other disciples what life was like in the months before Sheela and perhaps a dozen others left the ranch. Much of the information, she said, she has also told FBI agents investigating the guru’s charges.

“At first I couldn’t believe it. Then I started to hear (the Bhagwan’s accusations) and it became more real to me. See, before all this came out, no one questioned at the ranch,” she explained. “It was like people who did (question authority) didn’t stay around too long. Now it’s all out in the open.”

Echoing the confidence of her fellow disciples Sunday, Pratimo said the doing away with some of the movement’s long-held spiritual practices does not spell the end.

“It’s not going under; it’s not finished. It’s just changing. But I’m not sure if I want to go back to the ranch. I have a month to decide,” she said, sighing. “And who knows what will change by then.”