What Did Rajneesh Teach?
| By: Dr. John Ankerberg, Dr. John Weldon; ©1999 |
| Rajneesh promises realization of personal divinity through yoga meditation and kundalini yoga. |
What Did Rajneesh Teach?
Info at a Glance
Name: Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
Purpose: Realization of personal divinity through yoga meditation and kundalini yoga; experimentation upon and bringing forth of the “new man.” Rajneesh’s writings and lectures form the platform for “enlightenment.”
Founder: The late Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.
Source of authority: No absolute authority exists with the possible exception of personal experience.
Revealed teachings: Yes.
Claim: Rajneesh was one of the very few (if not only) fully enlightened masters in the world today.
Theology: Eclectic.
Examples of occult potential: Tantric yoga, spiritism.
Key literature: The writings of Rajneesh, such as The Rajneesh Bible, Vol. 1; Sannyas magazine.
Attitude toward Christianity: Rejecting.
Quote:
“To tell you the truth, Jesus is a mental case…. He carries the same kind of mind as Adolph Hitler. He is a fascist” (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, The Rajneesh Bible, Vol. 1, 1985, pp. 9-10).
“God is the greatest lie ever invented by man” (Rajneesh, personal interview, ABC’s “Good Morning America,” July 18, 1985).
“Obedience [to God] is the greatest sin.” (Rajneesh,The Rajneesh Bible, Vol. 1., p. 368).
“My ashram makes no difference between the Devil and the Divine…. I use all sorts of energies” (Rajneesh in Swami Anand Yarti, The Sound of Running Water: A Photo Biography of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and His Work 1974–1978 (1980), p. 382).
Doctrinal Summary
God: Impersonal pantheistic essence.
Jesus: A highly evolved man who taught Vedanta Hinduism, among other things.
The Christ: Higher consciousness; for example, Jesus became the Christ (God-realized).
Salvation: By personal effort through use of Rajneesh’s psychologized occult techniques.
Man: Inwardly divine.
Sin: Ignorance of personal divinity, mistakes.
Satan: The unenlightened mind, which deceives everyone.
The Fall: Symbolic; man’s fallen condition results from his animal ancestry.
The Bible: A document of analogies not to be taken literally.
Death: A spiritual advance.
Heaven and Hell: Temporary states of mind or experiences; God judges no one.
