Speaking Up: A Crossroads
There is a moment in many lives, a crossroads, where the path of a life is radically altered. I would like to share one such moment with you …. a moment that shaped the last forty years of my life. And was why I began writing a book.
In the fall of 1985, there was a press conference in Rajneeshpuram Oregon. It was attended by around 7,000 people: residents of Rajneeshpuram, of which I was one, residents of rural Wasco County, and hundreds of national and international press.
Tension was high, as the people of Oregon were angry and afraid of the “red” people, the followers of a controversial spiritual guru, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. The air was electrified with four years of hateful rhetoric and death threats. The police force was on high alert, officers surrounding the massive auditorium, semi-automatic weapons ready.
It was the day after Sheela, Bhagwan’s secretary, and head of the commune, had left suddenly and unannounced.
Six months earlier, I had started working in Sheela’s house as her receptionist. I became familiar with her routines including her daily evening meetings with Bhagwan where they would discuss his vision and plan for the community. Sheela would return home to her waiting department heads (her think tank). These ‘moms,’ as they were called, would help her make and implement plans to incorporate whatever Bhagwan had asked for.
A few months before she left, Sheela stopped wanting to go to these meetings. She started being concerned about what outrageous things he would ask her to do next. For example, He would want another Rolls Royce, and how would she pay for it? The ‘moms’ would reassure her that they would be there when she got back and help her figure it out.
So when I heard that Sheela had left, I was not as surprised as most, but I was alarmed. If the head disciple and secretary had left, what did that mean for the rest of us? What was really going on?
Bhagwan started ranting from his chair on the podium “Sheela has done terrible things, things I knew nothing about. She was power hungry and took over my community when I was in silence, and I knew nothing about it…”
While most people there didn’t know he was lying, I knew. I went to stand up, to protest, outraged that a spiritual leader was lying, but my friends pulled me down to my seat, indicating the armed officers surrounding us.
Right then, in that moment, the defining moment, the crossroads, I stayed silent. And I felt like a coward, and a hypocrite, unable to stand for what I thought I stood for… integrity, honesty, and truth.
I became disillusioned and completely turned away from anything even hinting at spirituality. My husband and I left the Ranch a few months later and ended up on Kauai rebuilding an old boat. While sanding and varnishing day after day, year after year, my mind began to integrate what had happened to me.
And finally, in 1992, I had a revelation after seeing Spike Lee’s movie about Malcom X. His master tried to assassinate him! Mine had just lied and abandoned me.
Suddenly I knew the reality of how a true master must push you out of the nest. You will never be absolutely free until you let go of your master. And Bhagwan did that for me. He pushed me out of the nest.
The process of finding my way out of disillusionment was an surprizing adventure inside my own soul. An inner adventure I took part in simultaneously with the outer adventure of sailing across an ocean and facing my own mortality.
My hope is if others read this book, they can see an example, or a path, that may assist them in finding their own connection to themselves, as well as the Divine … all while still fully grounded on the earth and part of the material world.
This book is my way of speaking up, speaking up in a way that I couldn’t in that press conference nearly forty years ago. This book is my way of taking another path at the crossroads. This book is my way of ending my silence.
