Episode 3: Trouble in Paradise

10/26/18 • 49 min

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As Bhagwan's dreams for the future continued to blossom, outside pressures, like the Indian government, threatened to squeeze the life out of his ashram. We'll also examine the efforts to find a new home for the ashram, led by two very different but equally devoted women: Ma Yoga Laxmi, and her assistant, Ma Anand Sheela. To the surprise of nearly everyone, Sheela was about to take Bhagwan’s future into her own hands ... forever changing his life and his legacy.

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Episode 2: Oasis in Poona

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Today we'll take a grand tour of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’s first ashram in the city of Poona, India. Within a couple years of its founding in 1974, it had expanded into one of the most popular — and controversial — ashrams in India, where people could meditate, commune with likeminded people, and be close to the man they called Master. We'll see how an unstoppable force of nature made it all happen: Bhagwan’s personal secretary, Ma Yoga Laxmi. We’ll stroll the grounds through the eyes of a newcomer to see what this place was all about. And we’ll explore about a new, lucrative, sometimes-terrifying method that Bhagwan developed to instruct his followers — and to keep them there.

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Minisode 1: Dynamic Detours

Our first "minisode" provides some additional color on topics covered in the first three episodes. We’ll revisit Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh as a boy and look at the life-or-death events that may have turned him into the brash guru. Then we’ll sidle up to some of his earliest Western followers to see why they fell under Bhagwan's spell. We’ll end the episode at his ashram in Poona and learn about the not-quite-legal methods that some desperate sannyasins used to earn enough money to stay close to their Master.