New Delhi/Mangaluru: The incident of self-proclaimed, rape-accused Godman Nithyananda’s escape to a foreign land and the subsequent news on him having founded his own country named ‘Kailaasa’ has reminded many of yet another godman Rajneesh, the founder of Osho movement.
Many documentaries have been made on the rise and fall of Acharya Rajneesh or Osho as he was fondly called by his devotees. If one closely looks at the way Nithyananda has planned his life, there is a striking similarity between the two.
Rajneesh, after facing stiff opposition to his works in Pune in Maharashtra migrated to the United States and set up a city of his own in the isolated state of Oregon. The city disrupts the local settlements. With the Osho’s disciplines running a parallel government, often putting the local population to risk, fear engulfs the entire region of Antelope. The city of Antelope, Oregon becomes a focal point of conflicts, gradually leading to disintegration of the Rajneeshis.
Several decades later, yet another story comes up, very similar to the life and times of Osho. Born as Rajashekharan, Nithyananda builds an Ashram in Bengaluru in 2005 and many say that his teachings are loosely based on the teachings of Osho himself. In 2012, Nithyananda witnesses a fall from grace when a video of him and an actress in compromising situation surfaced. Last month, yet other scandal haunted the ashram when news of young girls being sexually abused at the Ahmedabad Ashram emerged.
When the cops started probing this case, they found out that Nithyananda had fled the country and has founded his own country-Kailaasa. The website of Kailaasa claims that “Kailaasa is a nation without borders created by dispossessed Hindus around the world who lost the right to practice Hinduism authentically in their own countries.” Kailaasa is also defined as the ‘greatest Hindu nation’ mean to revive the enlightened civilisation.
However, Osho and his Rajneeshpuram disintegrated gradually due to in-fights, deception, legal hurdles etc. Only time will tell what awaits for Nithyananda and his Kailaasa.
