Every day at 2 p.m., the loyal of Rajneeshpuram, Ore., set down their hoes in the bhagwan's fields, leave their cash registers in the bhagwan's shopping mall and emerge from their dayjobs in the bhagwan's night time casino. Dressed in the colors of the sunrise, they line Nirvana Drive for a peek at the bearded, doe-eyed master slowly cruising the boulevard in one of the commune's 68 Rolls-Royces. Overhead hovers a helicopter,- alongside, a security force armed with semiautomatic weapons. "We're going to sing it from the rooftops, we're going to shout it from the mountain," starts the roadside song of the committed: "Bhagwan's is the master, of love life's laughter.s"
The Rolls passes, and the devoted return to their seven-days-a-week jobs in service to America's most controversial guru. Among the disciples, called sannyasis, is the daughter of Leo Ryan, the California congressman slain six years ago while investigating the Jonestown cult in Guyana. "Trying to explain the experience of being here with bhagwan," says Ma Amrita Pritam, nee Shannon Jo Ryan, "is like trying to explain what it's like to be in love."
For indigenous neighbors in Wasco County, the experience of being near Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, 52, is not at all like love. In 1981, the bhagwan's disciples bought the old Big Muddy Ranch, a 64,000-acre spread about 200 miles from Portland in the north-central Oregon high desert. Ever since his arrival, relations between locals and the instant spiritual city have been antagonistic, at best. Last year Oregon Attorney General David Frohnmayer filed suit against Rajneeshpuram, charging the city with defying First Amendment requirements for the separation of church and state. And during this past election, says Secretary of State Norma Paulus, local concern over the Rajneeshees "totally eclipsed presidential politics."
Bhagwan (literally, Blessed One), eldest son of a wealthy Indian family, taught philosophy at several Indian universities before embarking on a career as a free-lance guru. By the 1970s he had stirred a blend of Eastern religion and pop psychology into a body of thought that was irresistible to many Westerners. In 1974 he opened an ashram in Poona, India, and welcomed more than 50,000 visitors a year -- mostly well-heeled Americans and Europeans drawn to his encounter therapies and free-love reputation. "A lot of people came for sex, a lot came for drugs," says one alumnus of Poona. "He offered us total freedom. It was wild." Within a few years, however, reports of violence, prostitution and drug dealing at the bhagwan's retreat had infuriated the ashram's Hindu neighbors. Richard Price, a founding therapist at California's famed Esalen Institute and a onetime bhagwan follower, renounced the movement soon after he saw a sannyasi break another disciple's arm in a therapy session. India revoked the ashram's tax-exempt status in 1976 and hit the bhagwan with a huge bill for back levies. The bhagwan abruptly departed for the United States on a three-month medical visa, leaving many of his disciples to beg in the streets.
Bhagwan arrived in Oregon with 10 devotees, $1.5 million and a reputation as "the swami of sex." He began a period of public silence, entrusting his decrees to Ma Anand Sheela, his pistol-packing aide. Once ensconced on the ranch, however, the Rajneeshee brass discovered they were lacking the essential water, sewer and phone services needed to run either Utopia or the foundation's large book-publishing business. While waiting for their ranch to be rezoned as a city under Oregon's strict land-use laws, they began buying up property in Antelope, the nearest chartered town. Two years ago the bhagwan's disciples took political control of Antelope. They changed its name to Rajneesh, turned the general store into a restaurant called Zorba the Buddha, and legalized nudity in the public park.
Values: The culture clash was impossible for most of the townsfolk to bear. At a city-council meeting two years ago, Sheela said local students looked "retarded" and charged that an Antelope woman whose husband had died in a hunting accident was responsible for the tragedy. The husband, said Sheela at the public meeting, "shot himself because [the wife] was screwing around with another man." Soon, most of Antelope's old-time residents left town. "For three years, our values were sneered at," says a former townsman. "If bhagwan's enlightened, I'm glad I'm not."
Eventually, the ranch won incorporation. Then, last June, the Oregon state court of appeals ruled that Rajneeshpuram's original charter was invalid. In October the group, whose only hope for a new incorporation election would have to come from the anti-Rajneesh Wasco County Court, began importing busloads of derelicts from around the country. County officials suspected that the 4,000 homeless were brought in to sway November's county-court elections and said every new voter would have to be interviewed. The Rajneeshees, who had already begun dropping off the homeless in the middle of the night in nearby towns, boycotted the election. "It was the sleaziest thing I'd ever seen," says Michael Stoops, who runs a Portland shelter for the homeless. "[The Rajneeshees] picked on the most vulnerable people in America." Commune members insist the homeless were brought in for humanitarian reasons.
Growing Wealth: Meanwhile, the Rajneeshees' city and bankbook have grown exponentially -- to 6,000 people and $100 million respectively -- and so have local fears. Some think the group may be intent on taking over more than just Antelope. Says sociologist Edward Mann, who has studied the Rajneeshees for three years, "He may be heating up to martyrdom so that he can go down in history as the spiritual leader of our time." On the ranch, meanwhile, rubber gloves are now worn during sex to ensure that the diseases of the outside world stay out, and guns are reportedly being stockpiled.
It takes about half an hour for visitors to check into Rajneeshpuram. First, two dogs usually aid in a mandatory search for drugs and explosives. Those who pass inspection are given a hospital like identification wristband, then escorted to the swanky Hotel Rajneesh. For $96 a night visitors get a tarot-card reading and a room with two round beds, several pictures of the bhagwan and a TV that broadcasts discourses from the master. Visitors sense that they are being watched. Those who inquire on how to enjoy Rajneeshpuram are given a hint from sannyasis: "Surrender to it." According to the Rajneeshees, if one's energy and attitude are positive enough, a "Buddhafield" can be created. There, says the bhagwan's philosophy, is where consciousness peaks and enlightenment are achieved.
Outside the hotel lie 40 other commune businesses, all staffed by some of the 1,200 sannyasis who "worship" at their jobs in exchange for $10 a month spending money, free clothes, vegetarian board and mattress space in A-frame houses. Another 2,000 residents pay $250 a month to explore life with the bhagwan. Some sannyasis work on the 70-acre truck farm, which grows enough food for the entire community; others find employment at establishments like the Rajneesh deli and pizzeria, the Rajneesh hair and beauty salon or the Rajneesh bookstore, whose stock consists entirely of the prolific bhagwan's 350 titles. The jobs are assigned through what the Rajneeshees call a concept of "horizontal hierarchy." As Ma Prem Isabel explains it, "That means if you clean, you clean with the same amount of commitment as you would if you were a lawyer." Actually, Sheela and a core group of leaders make almost all of the decisions.
"They don't make any pretense that it's a democracy," says one sannyasi who recently left the ranch. "One day you can have access to the goodies, and the next day you might not. They may think you have to let go of your trip, so you'll go back to scrubbing toilets."
Store patronage comes from mail orders, residents who have hung on to their own money and the 15,000 visitors who spend a minimum of $500 apiece during Rajneeshpuram's annual seven-day summer conclave. Business is booming: the Rajneeshees now also own about 35 Zorba the Buddha restaurants and discos around the world, a Portland hotel and land in two Oregon counties. So far, bhagwan has been able to plow back $110 million into Rajneeshpuram. Reads one popular commune bumper sticker: "Jesus saves, Moses invests, Bhagwan spends."
And of course, receives. Though disciples don't have to give their money to the commune, many do. "If it's a total commitment, you may as well go for it," says one exsannyasi who gave $20,000. The average age of the sannyasis is 35, and 80 percent came to Oregon from middle-or upper-middle-class existences. "We [all] felt something was missing in our lives," says Ma Prem Isebel, who gave up her career in public relations to live near the bhagwan. "We started questioning and searching. Some of us heard about Rajneesh, and his vision somehow put words to a lot of out longings."
Bhagwan's recent edicts belie his reputation as the free-love guru. Because he believes two-thirds of the world's population will die of AIDS, he has instructed disciples to wear condoms and rubber gloves during intercourse. Residents who leave the ranch for more than 24 hours are expected to tell whether they had sexual contact with outsiders. If so, they must affix an orange bead to their necklaces and remain abstinent for 10 days -- the time it takes to get a venereal disease lab report. Last week, alarmed by reports that AIDS might be passed through saliva, the Rajneesh medical group recommended that disciples stop kissing. So far, sannyasis seem unconcerned by the restrictions. "Kisses -- I've had them all my life," says Ma Prem Isebel. "We will just rub our faces together."
'Blood': Other staples of Rajneeshee life may soon be changing. This fall Sheela said she "would paint the bulldozers with my blood" if the county tried to tear down the ranch, then announced on national television that all of Oregon would someday be Rajneesh. While Sheela railed, bhagwan remained mute. Years back he said, "It doesn't matter if they write negative or positive things. More people will come to me. And all they have to do is look in my eyes." But a few weeks ago, the bhagwan began talking again, leading some outsiders to think that he may be dissatisfied with Sheela's outspoken performances.
The bhagwan may also soon need his voice to defend himself on charges he lied on his original temporary-visa application: if the immigration service proves he never intended to leave, the bhagwan could be deported. And soon, the Oregon Supreme Court will rule on Rajneeshpuram's incorporation. If it upholds the lower court's decision, county officials could begin tearing down the city. And in the meantime, the hate mail pours in. That is why, Rajneeshees say, they began purchasing semiautomatic guns last summer; today, editor Win McCormack, whose Oregon Magazine has investigated the commune, estimates they have a stockpile larger than that of all Oregon's police departments combined.
The Rajneeshees are determined to stay where they are -- out of the path, they believe, of the nuclear holocaust bhagwan has predicted will occur in the next 10 to 15 years. "The outside is death and the inside is life," says one former sonnyasi. "If you believed the whole thing, where would you rather be?"