Saturday, April 01, 2006

Osho on Radio 2

Johnnie Walker recently hosted Veereesh, a representative of the Osho cult on his prime time BBC radio 2 programme, listened to by millions.

Presented as a "spiritual therapist", Veereesh described the Osho 'Humaniversity' he leads as a training, meditation and therapy centre and claimed not to follow a religion. Worrying as all this free and misleading advertising is for people who know a bit about Osho's dangerous history the interview for a full transcript was most notable for the Veereesh' inadvertent hilarity. When asked about hugging he replied:

"Yeah, yes, that’s what we teach. We're a hugging school. I love hugging. When I met you I thought that you looked like this image of the Johnny Walker bottle, whisky bottle. Yeah, yeah, you're a warm guy, I like you man. I like your voice; I heard it for the first time yesterday."

He then went on to suggest all members of the UN should hug before and after meetings ("that would be so beautiful man, wow!") and explained at length how he once threatened to break his sons legs.

Click here for a full transcript of the interview.

For more information on the weird and wonderful history of the Osho cult, click here

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Sam,

Wow, I seldom read such a biased piece of text. Funny, your text is so in contrast with the title of your blog 'beyond belief'. All you wrote is full of believe and preconception.
May I guess, you have no experience with any Osho meditation or therapy, but loads of beliefs about this 'dangerous cult'.

I don't know Veeresh, but I have been in the Osho Resort in India and, for the open minded, it's a great place. Dangerous? It could be a danger for religious fundamentalism and blind belief because that is the core of what Osho taught: don't believe anything, not even what I teach you, but experience it yourself.

But hey, if scepticism, cynism and belief is what makes you tick. Enjoy it!

Take care,

Jeroen