Swami Anand Arun interviewd by The Nepal Weekly

A group of six disciples of the Indian spiritual Guru Acharya Rajneesh, popularly known as Osho, has forged the signature of Osho to take benefit of copy rights of Osho’s hundreds of books and claim the ownership of multicrore property in Pune, Maharashtra, according to Swami Ananda Arun, chief of Osho Tapovan, Nepal, also one of the first batch disciples of Osho.

Five Europeans and an Indian national, who are currently taking control of the Osho Ashram in Pune India, have produced forged Will of Osho claiming that they have sole authority over the Ashram’s property and they have copy rights over the materials being produced in the name of Osho worldwide according to Swami Arun.

The Koregaon Police Station, Pune has already issued a notice to the operators of the Osho International Meditation Resort or Osho Ashram in Pune to produce the Will of their spiritual guru after a FIR was filed by the Friends of Osho Foundation, belonging to the first batch of Osho disciples claiming that the Osho never signed a Will during his lifetime and the document produced 23 years after his demise is a forged one.

The name of those accused in the FIR are 1. Michale Byrne (O’Byrne) alias Swami Anand Jayesh 2.

D’Arcy O’Byrne alias Swami Yogendra 3. Philip Toelkes alias Prem Niren 4. Dr. John Andrews, alias Swami Amrito,5. Klaus Steeg alias Pramod.and 6. Mukesh Kantilal Sarda alias Swami Mukesh Bharti.

In the FIR, the group of Osho’s disciples, has claimed that they produced the Will of Osho dated, October 15, 1989, few months before his death, which was forged.

According to Swami Arun three signature experts in Italy, Aurangabad and Delhi had found Osho’s signature on the will as fake. He has further alleged that the Will was created to use the rights and income from Osho’s intellectual property worth millions of dollars and the immovable property in Pune worth 1,500 crores. The operators of the Pune Ashram were also trying to sell the property for personal benefit and the government of Indian including CBI, should intervene, said Swami, a Nepali national, who had been associated with Osho since 1969, when he was in Pune to do Civil Engineering Course. Swami Arun, currently heads Osho Tapovan, situated 10 km west of Kathmandu, which is regarded as one of the largest and most successful commune in the world. There are around 70 branches of Osho Tapovan in different parts of the world including Asia, Europe and USA. (Cont........See Next Page)

There were 1,000 people in the first batch of disciples of Osho, including myself but we were not allowed to enter the Pune Ashram even to pay homage to the Samadhi of Osho after his death, said Swami Arun. The same group, who did not allow anybody to see dead body of Osho in 1990 and burnt it against the wishes of Osho within 10 minutes of his death, are taking charge of the Pune Ashram, says Swami Arun. Osho has some 20 million followers across the world and in Nepal alone, there are 70,000 full time disciples of Osho and 300,000 people are reading his books. The same group had sold Rajneeshpuram in Oregon, USA which was built by Osho in 1981-85 period aimed at accommodating one lakh people, who can live and enjoy life there without the use of money, according to Arun. They have even sold Osho’s clothes, shoes, valuable caps and other belongings, which could fetch millions of rupees. All the money received from selling books and belongings of Osho were kept in Swiss Bank account in the name of the few persons, who are running the Pune Ashram, he added. There were 6 private airplanes, 100 air conditioned buses and 93 Rolls-Royce cars in the Rajneeshpuram of Oregon, 126 sq mile property located in USA, which were already sold and there is no account of the transactions, he claimed.

Once Pune Ashram was one of the top tourist attractions in India, which drew daily 10,000 visitors, similar to Tajmahal, recalls Swami Arun. But the Ashram operators are deliberately discouraging visitors so that they can ultimately sale the property for their personal benefit, he added.

- Shirish Pradhan, PTI