Controversy is not new to the Osho commune, earlier called the Rajneesh Ashram and now the Osho Meditation Resort. The latest has been triggered by a former sanyasin in a book released earlier this month by Pan Macmillan Australia.

From stories of bizarre lifestyles to the huge inflow of wealth to plots being hatched to kill district attorney Charles Turner, and the former sanyasin’s own attempt on the life of Rajneesh’s doctor with an adrenalin filled syringe, the book paints a sordid picture of the guru and his ways.

The author, Jane Stork, now 64, had served a two-year sentence for the attempted murder.

In the book, “Breaking the Spell: My Life as a Rajneeshee and the Long Journey Back to Freedom”, Stork, who lives in Germany, has attempted to retrace her journey with the commune. The book is already creating ripples amongst readers and Osho followers the world over.

This includes the meditation resort in Pune, where Ma Amrit Sadhana, part of the management team, dismissed it as “irrelevant to us”. The Delhi-based Osho World Foundation that has Swami Chaitanya Keerti as editor of the Osho World monthly magazine termed Stork’s writings the “outpourings of an embittered person”.

Stork alias Ma Shanti Bhadra came to Pune from Australia in 1978. She was soon followed by her husband and two young children. Stork rapidly rose in the ranks and became a member of the inner circle of Ma Sheela, who was one of the most powerful sanyasins in the ashram in the ’80s. When the ashram was shifted to Oregon in the US in 1981, Stork went along.

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