wild evening with sheela
If you are an average human in the present digital age of Netflix and global celebrity-dom, you have likely watched the Netflix documentary, "Wild Wild Country," and are probably familiar with the firebrand right-hand of the highly controversial "spiritual guru" Osho, Ma Anand Sheela.
This month, she is visiting India after 34 years, her birthplace, as something of a rockstar - she is releasing her memoir (Don't Kill Him - The Story of My Life with Bhagwan Rajneesh), followed around by the filming crew of what is the country's most famous film production house, giving talks, signing books, taking selfies and potentially carrying out the bulk of her filming for a submission to Netflix for her side of the story. And she received a welcome usually reserved for celebrated actors and talents, or retired cricketers that brought World Cup glory.
One balmy evening in October, I made my way to the outskirts of the national capital, at a venue which is equal parts mysterious and ordinary. In the depths of farmhouse country, behind modern tenets of development such as the metro, one finds their way through a meandering set of roads and lanes dotted with luxury cars, and security guards, into a side entrance for Zorba The Buddha. Zorba, founded by Ashwin Bharti who is a former Osho devotee, started this "largest free open spiritual space in Asia" once he had tasted material success and had finances to spare. Not much else is known about him publicly (aka Google), but when he emerges much later in the story, his haggard hair and simple appearance tell of a life probably devoted to this pursuit of spirituality, through all the trappings of wealth.
One wonders what to make of this space. It's truly a hermitage in the city. It is quiet, green, and people who work here wander about almost invisible (but also not, in their starkly saffron uniforms). Registration could have been a simple affair but was deeply interrogatory - a quick check, are you a real believer, or one of those Netflix ones? It only struck me then that there were people here non-ironically - and I suddenly felt out of place, as though I had trespassed on sacred ground. It led me to a fairly brief but deep moment of self inquiry pertaining to the ironic appreciation of certain art that only the much hated hipsters are accused of. But the minute I heard someone providing their email (osho, year of birth @ hotmail) plus the oldest sexist tech joke related to that obscure email service, I snapped out of that sort of reflection.
I think what was impressive about the crowd was its display of diversity - you couldn't put one person in a box, except the Netflix documentary watcher or not, and that's truly saying something of the kind of celebrity we were all there to experience. It begged the fundamental inquiry - who is Ma Anand Sheela? Based on the crowd she pulls, it's really hard to say.
The event proceeded as one could predict - there was a short sample of an Osho meditation (yes, like the one you saw in the documentary), and then it was followed by a slow, and largely boring conversation between her and Bharti. He transitioned suddenly between topics, meandering between the mostly known, and stalling on the provocative for effect. But it was really was the Q&A section which enabled some interesting revelations. Speaker after speaker showered admiration and love on her, equating her and Osho as their parents, declaring their love, inviting her to conferences as a panelist, which was followed by an extremely apologetic and disclaimer filled clarification on how much Rajneesh Osho knew of what went on in their utopian-dystopian world. She repeatedly declared her love for Osho and how all her actions were rooted in love for him. I started to recall an archived interview from decades ago with Rekha… Who hasn't done something crazy in love, I wondered to myself, minus of course introducing salmonella into an entire town to rig local elections.
A singular message emerged from everything she said - take responsibility for your own life. A fitting message to a group of misfits and voyeurs, but also to society in general today. She is witty, and in full grasp of reality - at one point joking about how spiritual leaders held nirvana like a carrot, and if she spoke truth to how people didn't actually need a guru for their journeys, she could shut down Bharti's faux god shop.
Ma Anand Sheela, showing a middle finger to the haters. Osho in frame on the side.
Because of her enigmatic aura, dark past, and displaced bursts and surges of confidence, you cannot dismiss her as the villain. She demands deeper reflection and understanding. I wonder what were the circumstances of the society she lived in and the time that enabled the creation of this personality, Ma Anand Sheela. She and her leader were ousted in Indira’s India, a time of much political instability and social regression. Many women have claimed to have found inspiration in her life, violence and crime aside, through her confidence. She seemed so.. male (for lack of a better word) for the time perhaps, although it can be argued even now - in her actions, decisiveness, her lack of apology in doing what she believed in. What makes her evil, but someone like George Bush responsible for innumerable deaths and displacements in Iraq and Afghanistan, a contender to be Ellen’s BFF? I wonder what else she could have achieved had she applied her skills in corporate America - I can't help but think she'd make a killing in the oil and gas sector. Better yet, she could have been the British East India Company’s best employee.
When the Q&A started getting too chummy, I felt my right hand rising almost against my neurotransmitter's directions. A lump in my throat emerged, as I stood up to address the obvious saffron and maroon clad elephant in the room: Actions supposedly rooted in love couldn't be violent and harmful, could they? How was that love? I felt the words leave my mouth sooner than I could form sentences, struggling to reconcile the two extreme spaces the lady in front of me occupied. I sincerely sought to understand where her love for humanity and people began and ended, because it certainly didn’t reach people who were different from her, or believed in alternative spiritualities (a theme not uncommon with righteous religious and spiritually evolved types, as evident in society today). She made a swift maneuver to turn the heat back to me, with her doe-like eyes - "What about you - why do you look so sad?" which was followed with advisories to be positive, lest I turned suicidal. She clearly sough to side step, and turn the heat back on me. Although her take on mental health seemed a bit simplistic, the reply was predictable and expected - she acted in self-defense. Her response to this question, again made me count the number of alternative professions she'd have been a rockstar in - a military general, a dictator's right hand, or perhaps even the most eligible contender on HBO's Succession.
It was in that moment perhaps that I understood what the power of her life's work must have felt like for those who believed in her and her leader's message - as I stood there, thoroughly confused, waiting for sense to hit me back to cross question her (which I eventually did), I sensed in a darker way, her ability to kill, like a lioness protecting her own.
There are powerful parallel examples of religious groups creating homelands for their beliefs - eager to establish a society rooted in their culture and values. Where we have a Rajneeshpuram as a failed example, we also have an Auroville. Little is known perhaps of the locals and their views when the Mother established the land outside Pondicherry as their vision of a utopian city, but their efforts to integrate with the surrounding communities, and establish deep roots are very evident in their governance model, multi-lingual educational policies, socially minded enterprises, and ecological efforts. The United States is no stranger to various religious groups and factions setting up smaller communities fully rooted in their less moderate beliefs - from no use of modern technology, to polygamous families. Irrespective of the contemporary validity or relevance of these beliefs, evidence clearly suggests these exist on the fringe and not in the mainstream. They simply do not have the mandatory principles of inclusivity to govern, and maintain society and its economy for the benefit of people as they exist in the world. Moreover, they never quite gain the credibility to engage with others on an even footing. State-building is a long, arduous process - ask any Israeli.
Sheela is probably not the first, nor will she be the last, of the people who help execute larger than life visions for mesmerizing leaders, going to whatever lengths required, laws and moral codes be damned. Kingmakers like her, often function in the shadows, with sometimes far more power to wield than the face of the show themselves (I think also of a parallel in the Shah - Modi duo). She is a cautionary tale for our current political climate, interestingly so, because I can't imagine someone like her in our day and age, being able to freely and so publicly conduct dialogue on religion without getting silenced by the ultra sensitive right-wing Hindutva forces. But there's certainly no denying that her life's tale serves a powerful lesson in the folly of such conviction, the power of redemption, and if Bollywood can monetize it, a really convoluted love story ending in heartbreak. In a world thriving on controversial and provocative content, Ma Anand Sheela can deliver what no other social media influencer can, thus breaking down the frontiers of entertainment and news.
