Wild Wild Country - The Forgotten Story Of Osho's First Social Experiment, Beautifully Told
Since it's the beginning of a weekend I intend to fully enjoy - after a string of a few very crowded weeks at work - I thought to recommend a recent documentary I saw these days. It's called "Wild Wild Country", it was produced and aired by Netflix and it's the (very balanced, I must tell you) story of Rajneeshpuram, the social experiment created by Osho in the eighties, on the hills of Oregon.
I've been exposed to Oshos' work mainly by his books, to be honest. About 15-20 years ago it was a sort of an explosion of Osho's work and many of his books were translated in many languages, Romanian included. I never knew much about his life, though, because the publisher of the books, Osho foundation, was always keeping a low profile. Not much to be found about Osho on social media as well (at the first look) other than his ashram in Puna. I also had the chance to talk to a few friends who were there, in India, doing the immersion stage (if I remember well how it's called).
All in all, I liked Osho's work and outlook in life. I still like it. Now, after I studied more "first hand" spiritual texts, I can clearly see Buddhist influences in his approach, although some parts of his teachings are going beyond this. Also influences from Gurdjeff, especially in the way he dealt with daily challenges - seen as "devices", in Gurdjeff lingo - are now very obvious to me.
But I never knew that before being Osho, his was known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. And that he not only created a religious and mystic movement, called Rajneeshism, but even an entire town, called Rajneeshpuram, in Oregon, near Antelope.
I found all of this, and many, many other things, by watching the six episodes documentary I was telling about in the beginning of this post.
If you are interested in one of the following:
- spirituality and civilization, mainly the clashes between them
- intricacies, drama and story-telling
- Oshos's work
- human nature, with all the lights and shadows comprised within
then you should definitely watch this.
In my opinion, this is one of the few non-partisan descriptions of what really happened at the beginning of the eighties in and around the small town of Antelope, Oregon, including the good, the bad and the ugly. From all the sides involved, because it was good in Rajneeshes and it was bad in them. It was good in people of Oregon "fighting against them" and it was bad in them.
A full spectacle of human nature unfolding in a story that sometimes seems to have been sketched by a drunk Hollywood movie writer.
And yet, all of that was real, and the documentary tells it in an incredibly transparent and non-biased way.
So, if you want to binge on something this weekend, you may as well put aside a few hours and watch this six series documentary.
Enjoy!
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
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That's a perfect description of it @dragosroua.
Much of it I found jaw dropingly hard to believe. And I just couldn't get my head around what it must have been like to be an "ordinary" person going about your business in Antelope and have all that happen on your doorstep.
. . . I wrote a couple of other things but then realised that it would be a spoiler to anyone who came here and hadn't seen it so took them out.
Thanks for not spoiling it, as I will try to watch it this weekend.
@dragosroua Thanks for the recommendation.
You're welcome. It was a close thing @cutemachine. 😂
There were a couple of aspects that really left me speechless but I saw the error of my ways in time. 😁
I hate spoilers personally.
I saw it few days ago very food movie
hopefully you meant very good movie :)
hahahahaha :p
He mean to say he eat more food while watching this movie :p
I read him a lot during my university days and concluded that he had ability to argue from both sides and could convince his audience about his point . But I also learned in that process that he contradicted himself many times and I am sure if I could ask him that then he would have argued very convincingly in its defence
Seems like quite some information to bow over. Thanks for sharing.
Never been a fan of Osho and probably never will. Especially after watching this documentary about his teachings and life at his ashrams :
He had "something" in his talks, but don't consider him an "enlightened". I have read though Nisargadatta Maharaj's books( three of them) and were absolutely mind blowing. I am that, the most famous one, is translated in Romanian also and so are others. The way this man speaks and how he explains the "unexplained" is really unique. Somehow on the same "shore" with Poonja, Eckhart Tolle(who seems to have been inspired by Nisargadatta a lot) and Ramana Maharishi. Check him out when in mood for something beyond words.
I saw a different and much shorter documentary about it a while ago. Looked like a cult leader promising a new age, riding the wave of fetishization of eastern culture and mostly being centered around the abuse of those looking up to him. There was a big effort to bury the Rajneeshpuram incident, especially after rebranding himself as Osho. There still is. News bits of anything relating to it still get takedown requests on Youtube.
The documentary is free:
That's why I liked Netflix better. While everybody is entitled to his own opinion. the Netflix documentary doesn't take sides.
I hope it is as good as you said
It's already in the downloading phase and will see after some time
I hope it will be good
quite an interesting story, i will try to found some information about Osho's work and his life!
thanks for sharing.
In Italy Osho is actually a great and glorious Twitter satiric account :)
I have some books from Osho and i enjoyed reading them. I will certainly watch the documentary because i would like to know more about his life and how the movement was created. Netflix has some great shows and is betting big in movies, documentaries and tv shows... :)