Bhagwan’s Followers Rush to Sell Commune

Banana did not want to go. “Ha yee yee!” one of the red-clad Rajneeshee cowgirls yelled at the Holstein cow. The girls flailed their arms, kicked and shoved, yet each time Banana got close to the stock trailer she bolted.

“The cows here are too tame,” a crew member said. He passed an electric prod into the pen. “You can’t get them to do anything. They are like pets.”

Banana’s instincts, sadly enough, were correct. A rush is on to sell everything not nailed down at this rapidly dissolving commune. Most of the milk cows were bought by an outside dairyman. Banana and seven other less productive cows have been sold to a slaughterhouse.

“Going to the slaughterhouse is just normal in the life of cows,” Ma Anand Salila explained after finally coercing Banana aboard for the one-way trip.

Still, selling cows to meatpackers seemed a curious expediency for a commune abundantly proud of its collective vegetarianism. But this apparently is not the time to linger over such higher questions. With their guru and sole source of income gone, apparently for good, followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh are in full retreat. And retreats are rarely pretty.

‘New Adventures’

All day long, cars loaded down with boxes and luggage and buses bulging with people--bound, they all insist with arresting uniformity, “for new adventures”--pull slowly up the narrow dirt road leading out of the fashionably appointed meditation camp built on what used to be a cattle ranch called the Big Muddy.

In two weeks, the population has dwindled from 3,000 to a few hundred, and by year’s end it should all be shut down. The city and surrounding 64,000 acres are on the market, and so far the range of potential future occupants extends from Boy Scouts to state prisoners.

Most of the followers, called sannyasins, had invested four years of hard labor and, in some cases, tens of thousands of dollars into the bankrupt dream. With it no longer certain that the money will ever be seen again, they must console themselves by finding other returns on the investment. The place fairly resounds with rationalization.

“As Bhagwan would have us see, this is a new opportunity,” said Mary Catherine, who edited the now defunct commune newspaper, the Rajneesh Times, and will leave $20,000 behind when she departs to embark on a free-lance photojournalism career. “Bhagwan has said that everything is both a beginning and an ending.

“It’s what you choose to focus on.”

Right now the focus is on pulling out, fast.

“I don’t think anybody gives a (expletive) about this place anymore, as far as having our hearts in it,” said Swami Samarpan, a follower involved in the sale of commune property, including truck fleets, greenhouses, trailers, crop seeds, heavy equipment and the like. “All we are trying to do is have a clean slate when we leave.”

The end--or the new beginning--began last month when the 53-year-old Rajneesh pleaded guilty to immigration violations and was allowed to leave the country.

The charges were the product of one of several investigations into commune activities. Rajneesh himself attracted police interest last fall when he unleashed a series of accusations about several of his former top aides, claiming that they had attempted murder, sabotage and other crimes. Investigations into those allegations are not complete.

A native of India, Rajneesh has taken up residence in a hotel in the Himalayas and has sent word that he does not want rank-and-file sannyasins to follow him there.

With his departure, the need to dismantle the city was obvious.

Rolls-Royces Sold

The fleet of nearly 90 Rolls-Royces has been sold to a Texan and hauled away on trucks.

The disco has been closed. The boutiques this week offered 75% discounts.

Food supplies are running low. Hot meals are rare at the commune cafeteria, and the more fashionable Zorba the Buddha restaurant now serves only three dishes--Oriental vegetarian, Italian vegetarian and omelets. It is still possible to buy a martini.

Only the Hotel Rajneesh is thriving, filled with prospective buyers of commune property and the truckers needed to haul the stuff out. Not all are happy, and it’s not just their grim distaste for soybean cheeseburgers.

“You can’t tell who you are dealing with here,” complained a buyer from Seattle who made a million-dollar offer on the commune’s car fleet. “You’ll get one guy to agree to something and then find out he’s got to go talk to eight more of them. It just drags on and on.”

‘Something for Nothing’

Samarpan said many buyers have come seeking “something for nothing.” He said the commune has sold “a few million” dollars’ worth of equipment and has a “few million” left to go.

Deep in debt to both outside creditors and sannyasins who invested in commune bonds, Rajneeshpuram officials have admitted that they are examining the possibility of filing for bankruptcy. The debt has been estimated by some Rajneesh officials to be as high as $35 million.

The strategy is to peddle as many movable goods as possible--an auction will be held soon--and then sell the property as a unit. Commune officials think it would make a fine camp for Boy Scouts or elderly people.

They said the hope is to generate enough money to repay investors, including sannyasins. Commune residents from the start had been encouraged to turn over their money and open accounts that would allow them to, as signs on all the shops say, “celebrate with Rajneesh currency cards--cash-free shopping in the city of Rajneeshpuram.”

Run on Bank

When the end was announced, there was what amounted to a run on the bank. Sannyasins were told they could only withdraw 10% of their currency accounts. For some, that meant more than $100,000 would remain tied up until the various lawsuits and related financial troubles can be sorted out.

There are still some grumblers, but most sannyasins accept the freezing of the accounts and believe that they eventually will be repaid. This attitude amazed the state troopers brought in, at the request of commune officials, to keep an eye on things during the dismantling.

“I would think in a normal community,” said Sgt. Jim Edwards, “if someone closed the bank and said no one could get their money out there would be a problem. People would be upset. But these people just accept it.”

Edwards had just purchased a pair of slippers at the boutique.

Some Alternatives

For commune residents stuck without money there are alternatives. One sannyasin was given several thousand dollars to hand out “to make people happy.” He can be seen all day long, riding buses, strolling the mall, hanging out in the hotel lobby.

“Whoever cannot get their trip together are getting helped by the commune,” a spokeswoman said. “Nobody is going to be stranded.”

But late Thursday night, a federal bankruptcy judge in Portland threw a wrench into such activity by freezing all payments to creditors of the commune and prohibited for at least five days the use of communal funds to help people leave.

Judge Elizabeth Perris granted a limited temporary restraining order in a suit that seeks to force the commune into involuntary bankruptcy. The suit was brought by the state and creditors who claim they are owed a total of $820,877 by Rajneesh Neo-Sannyas International Commune.

Perris halted payments to all creditors of the commune until another hearing on the bankruptcy suit Monday. She froze the use of the commune’s credit cards except for purchases of food and other personal items. She also prohibited any cash transfers from the commune and told those remaining at Rajneeshpuram that they cannot use ranch assets to buy tickets to leave.

Could Continue Sales

But she ruled that the managers of the commune could continue sales aimed at liquidating property as long as they asked a fair price.

Her order was conditioned on the posting of a $50,000 bond today by the parties in the suit.

The last stop for most outbound sannyasins is what used to be the reception center. They wait for a couple of hours and then board buses to Portland. Some have difficulty deciding where they will go beyond there.

“This is my fourth plan,” said Ma Dhyan Anshu, a 35-year-old former theater press agent from Los Angeles, where she was known as Paula Reiskin. “At first I was going to go to Seattle and dance and make money. Then I was going to toodle down the coast to California with friends and then go to Hawaii. Then I was going to go direct to Hawaii.

“But my latest plan is my best plan.”

She is bound, she said, for a vacation in Bali. After that, she is not sure.

It’s a winding road out for several miles, and the first stop is Antelope. This is the tiny cow town that became a big part of the Rajneeshee struggle in Oregon, and perhaps represents their biggest strategic blunder.

Bought Up Property

Commune members were moved into the city, bought up property, took over the City Council and changed the town’s name to Rajneesh. Before long, the commune was seen around the state as a threat to take over all of Oregon.

One of the guru’s last orders before departing was to restore the town’s original name. Now each day the 16 residents left--there once were more than 100--can watch the sannyasin exodus roll through town.

“I feel relief, of course, but also a little bit of pity,” said Margaret Hill, who was mayor before the Rajneesh followers moved in. “I also feel a little bit of contempt. But it’s sad such a large group of people find it impossible to cope with their own lives.”

The fight has taken its toll of the few Antelope residents who weathered the Rajneesh regime. Hill said one of her neighbors said it best. “She said that the damage has been done. The Rajneesh people came into an open, friendly community and left us suspicious and weary and bitter, and nothing can change that.”

Hill’s husband has been named to the new City Council, and he said one of its first tasks will be to consider a petition to disincorporate the town. That way, he said, there will be no town to take over, and “this could never happen again.”