Osho was born in 1931 in a small village in Central India. He spent his first years with his maternal grandparents. After the death of the maternal grandfather, he moved to his parents’ town, Gadarwara.

From 1951 onwards he studied philosophy in Jabalpur. While at college his awakening occurred on March 21, 1953.

He worked as a professor of philosophy from 1957 to 1966.

During this period he started to travel and speak all over India. He became known as Acharya (spiritual guide or teacher) Rajneesh and as a brilliant and provocative speaker.

From 1966 to 1970 travelling and giving talks became his full-time occupation. He found many supporters throughout India.

In 1970 Osho settled down in an apartment in Mumbai (then called Bombay) where people who were interested in him could see him frequently. During this period he developed the major fundaments of his work and his movement, and changed his name to Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.

Starting from 1974 he inspired and guided his devotees to build three flourishing communes around him.

In 1977 I travelled overland to Poona (now Pune), and Osho (then called Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh) initiated me into neo-sannyas with an intense look and a short talk:
“This will be your name: swami deva ananya.
Deva means divine, ananya means one – one with the divine. That’s our reality, that’s how it is. We may know, we may not know, but our knowledge or our ignorance does not change the reality at all. It is so: we are one with the divine! Otherwise is not possible because we cannot exist without being one with the divine. We are rooted in it, we are part of it. In fact to say we live is not right: only he lives through us. So many millions of forms but the reality is one.
Ananya is one of the beautiful terms, the most beautiful terms. Literally it means ‘not other’…not other than god. Mm? somebody thinks he is a man, somebody thinks she is a woman, somebody thinks he is a child, somebody thinks he is old, somebody thinks he is beautiful and somebody thinks he is not beautiful, somebody thinks he is intelligent and somebody thinks he is not – but all are one the divine.
These are all just forms of the surface; deep down our reality is one. They are just like waves of an ocean: they are all ‘ananya’ with the ocean, not other than the ocean. A small wave, a big wave, a very big tidal wave – all are one with the ocean.
So this name will remind you again and again, and whenever you are reminded of it feel one with god in that moment. By and by one becomes more and more skilled in that feeling, that’s all.
We have not lost anything, we have simply forgotten. Once the memory returns, once the remembrance comes back, everything is there, has always been there. The treasure is not lost, we have only forgotten where we have put it. It is in our houses; we have lost track of it. ”

After four years in the USA and some adventures around the world Osho returned to India in 1986. His Pune Ashram flowered again and he resumed to give daily talks. I was working in the video department and managed to produce a video clip on the side:

His physical condition deteriorated visibly in 1988 and 1989, on Jan 19, 1990, he died.

Osho’s Rhetoric: A Model for Transformation

Taking into account that tricksters like Osho have to conceal their real purpose in order to achieve it, we see that their intention is the exact opposite of classical Aristotelian rhetoric, which focuses on the logical approval of the audience.

The trickster’s rhetoric is designed to bypass logical resistance, disrupt habitual thought patterns, and induce a shift in perception. It follows a different structure:

1. Disruption (Shock, Paradox, Humor, Absurdity)
   The trickster intentionally destabilizes conventional thinking.
   He contradicts himself, tells absurd stories, or makes outrageous claims to confuse or shock the audience.
   Humor, irony, or even outright nonsense short-circuit the rational mind, making people more receptive to a different kind of understanding.
2. Subversion (Misdirection, Concealment, Playfulness)
   The trickster hides his real intentions so the audience doesn’t resist transformation.
   He appears foolish or contradictory, but this is a tactic to keep people engaged without triggering their defenses.
   Instead of directly stating a truth, he leads people to discover it themselves—often through riddles, paradoxes, or playful deceptions.
3. Identification (Shared Experience, Emotional Connection)
   Unlike pure deception, the trickster’s approach creates a deep identification—the listener feels personally engaged rather than passively convinced. Mystification, ambiguity, and contradiction draw the audience in, making them active participants in the meaning-making process. Tricksters break down rigid identities and encourage a fluid, adaptable way of seeing reality.
4. Direct Experience (Inner Realization, Shift in Perception)
   The trickster’s goal is not to “win an argument” but to catalyze transformation. He doesn’t offer logical conclusions but instead opens the door for the audience to “see” differently—through experience rather than analysis. Whether through a joke, a shock, or a contradiction, the audience steps outside their normal frame of reference and encounters reality with fresh eyes.

A summary of the trickster’s rhetoric in one line:

Confuse them, mislead them, make them laugh, and in that moment of openness—let them see for themselves.

This is why Osho, Gurdjieff, Zen masters like Linji, and mythological tricksters don’t argue logically, they provoke. They don’t explain, they disrupt. Their goal is not to inform but to reconfigure perception itself.

The trickster’s rhetoric, however, while powerful for transformation, carries inherent risks and pitfalls—both for the recipient and the trickster himself. Let’s break these down:

Difficulties and Dangers of the Trickster’s Rhetoric:

• Identification Without Transformation (Dogmatization of the Trickster)
  The biggest danger is when the audience gets stuck at the level of identification—believing in the trickster’s words literally, rather than using them as a stepping stone for transformation.
  Instead of seeing the trickster’s paradoxes, jokes, or absurdities as tools to disrupt rigid thinking, they may be taken as absolute truth.
  Example: Immediately after Osho’s death (and some even before) many followers started to turn his words into dogma, ignoring the point that he intentionally contradicted himself to prevent dogmatization.
  But there is no remedy to these side effects: even though most tricksters continuously subvert their own status—undermining their own authority to prevent followers from clinging to their words as fixed truth. Some Zen masters, for instance, were known for dismissing their own teachings to ensure their students would not cling to static concepts.
• Psychological Confusion and Disorientation
  When exposed to constant paradox, misdirection, and contradictory statements, some people may become mentally disoriented rather than enlightened. Instead of transcending old mental frameworks, they may feel lost, as if reality itself has become unstable.
  Some people may not be ready for this kind of destabilization, leading to anxiety, nihilism, or paranoia rather than transformation.
  Gurdjieff’s students, for instance, often spoke of how his methods of deception and shock caused severe emotional and psychological distress.
  Similarly some of Osho’s disciples who were severely affected by Osho’s weird maneuvers towards the end of the Ranch never went through a paradigm shift that would transform the shock into a blessing.

Even though the trickster is aware of his audience and knows that some people need gradual guidance before they can handle radical disruption, he will often go ahead with his pranks.

Side effects can never be completely avoided—the more people the trickster reaches, the higher the risk of misunderstandings, misinterpretations, and collateral damage.

If you want to find out more about Osho, his work, and his communes have a look at my book preview Much Ado About Nothing

More information on Osho on the web:
– Danish professor Pierre Evald has put together a great collection of data on Osho in oshosourcebook.com
– A group of Indian devotees present Osho on oshoworld.com
– Worldwide news on Osho and his devotees on oshonews.com
– The official site of the ashram in Pune promotes Osho Ressort and Osho Multiversity on osho.com