In 1985, when Indian spiritual guru Osho Rajneesh was trying to expand his influence in Australia, an Australian television network had interviewed his then secretary, Ma Anand Sheela. Osho, or Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh as he liked to call himself, was a controversial figure by then. He was known for his liberal views on sex and there were rumours of orgies in his communes. He had also drawn infamy for his vast collection of Rolls-Royces and expensive watches. The interviewer, Ian Leslie of Nine Network’s 60 Minutes, somewhat alarmed at the expansion of the cult in Australia, had asked Sheela, why she was in the country when no one wanted her. She said, “What can I say, tough titties.”
That was how the second-in-command of the cult of Rajneeshism was. Feisty, possessing an acid tongue and, like her master, a flair for controversy. When she ran the infamous Rajneeshpuram commune in Oregon in the 1980s, she would carry a .357 Magnum handgun and even tried to rig the local county elections so that candidates favourably disposed to the commune could be elected. Asked to comment once by a television channel on Osho’s anti-Semitic remarks, she responded with a racist joke. She said, “How do you get four Germans and 500 Jews into a Volkswagen? Two Germans in front, two at the back, and 500 Jews in the ashtray.” A TV anchor got shown the middle finger on air. In another well-remembered TV appearance, she got into an altercation with an interviewer and called him “a worthless man who visits prostitutes and has pimps for friends.” While drawing parallels, during the interview, between the marketing aspect of Osho’s cult and those of the Vatican and Christianity, she said, “They (the Vatican clergy) are lousy businessmen… They are lousy lovers too. They only know the missionary position.”
Today, Sheela is a different person. Bespectacled and silver-haired, she always wears a smile when she speaks. There is no makeup and none of the gaudy jewellery of her past avatar. Reminis- cing about the past, Sheela, now a sober 63, ever so often arches her back in the chair, and not able to contain herself, emits a hearty laugh. She says, during a Skype conversation, that even in those days she was nothing like her media appearances. She was simply role-playing, being deliberately obnoxious on Osho’s say-so, because controversies were a sure way of nourishing the cult.
That was how the second-in-command of the cult of Rajneeshism was. Feisty, possessing an acid tongue and, like her master, a flair for controversy. When she ran the infamous Rajneeshpuram commune in Oregon in the 1980s, she would carry a .357 Magnum handgun and even tried to rig the local county elections so that candidates favourably disposed to the commune could be elected. Asked to comment once by a television channel on Osho’s anti-Semitic remarks, she responded with a racist joke. She said, “How do you get four Germans and 500 Jews into a Volkswagen? Two Germans in front, two at the back, and 500 Jews in the ashtray.” A TV anchor got shown the middle finger on air. In another well-remembered TV appearance, she got into an altercation with an interviewer and called him “a worthless man who visits prostitutes and has pimps for friends.” While drawing parallels, during the interview, between the marketing aspect of Osho’s cult and those of the Vatican and Christianity, she said, “They (the Vatican clergy) are lousy businessmen… They are lousy lovers too. They only know the missionary position.”
Today, Sheela is a different person. Bespectacled and silver-haired, she always wears a smile when she speaks. There is no makeup and none of the gaudy jewellery of her past avatar. Reminis- cing about the past, Sheela, now a sober 63, ever so often arches her back in the chair, and not able to contain herself, emits a hearty laugh. She says, during a Skype conversation, that even in those days she was nothing like her media appearances. She was simply role-playing, being deliberately obnoxious on Osho’s say-so, because controversies were a sure way of nourishing the cult.
