Review of “Wild Wild Country” by Swami Chaitanya Keerti
Just five days before Osho’s 65th Enlightenment day, on March 16, people in 190 countries woke up to watch Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh – popularly known as Osho, and the journey of thousands of his disciples to the United States, during the years 1981 to 1985. This was shown in a six-part documentary, “Wild Wild Country” hitting Netflix, with each part lasting for 60 to 70 minutes. It held such incredible power, that not everybody could watch it in a single day and digest it. As editor Adam Patterson said in Film Pulse: “Wild Wild Country is the first great documentary of 2018 and one that gets a high recommendation. I dare you to start it and not end up binge-watching this one. This docu-series takes a much different approach at presenting its material, making it feel completely unbiased, and devoting equal time to both sides of this story. The Hollywood Reporter, in an astonishingly balanced review, had promised that we would want to binge-watch it, being so well made.
The directors, Chapman and Maclain Way were very fortunate to have been given 300 hours of unseen archive footage from the time, the visual richness of which convinced them that they could make a powerful documentary and present the deeper aspects of this historical saga by being sincere and open minded. It is admittedly the most controversial story about Osho and his people in Rajneeshpuram, where they created a world-class commune on 64,000 acres of land in Oregon,
US. This is also where they had to face the worst opposition and discrimination from Christian fundamentalists and narrow minded politicians. Their devotion was such that this blind opposition could not diminish the enthusiasm of Osho lovers, who were passionately living a vision of New Man and New Humanity in the presence of an enlightened master.
A recent news release, issued by Osho International says: “the launch of Netflix documentary series Wild Wild Country is triggering a surge of interest in Osho. There has been a dramatic increase of video views on Osho International’s YouTube channel. Numbers are up since Friday, 16th March by 500 percent. and the channel increased the subscriber numbers by more than 10,000 in just 3 days.”
On this occasion, Osho International launched a six-part video series titled ‘Osho: Priests & Politicians – The Mafia of the Soul’ – linked to the book of the same title by Osho. In these selected talks, Osho speaks directly to the chaos taking place around him at that time and to the human issues – political, religious and spiritual – driving the events of the day. Those events in the Oregon high desert were not only controversial for Oregon and the US, they were also shocking and life changing for his disciples, many of whom came to Oregon to build an Utopian city – a better society.
But in the end, the conspiracy hatched by the local priests and politicians eliminated this model commune, though Osho’s vision can never be destroyed. The new, young generation will continue to aspire to live up to such a creative vision. There is a positive report from Portland, Oregon, where www.katu.com reports: “Bhagwan may have been banned from the US…but his teachings live on.” Phillip Adler, a personal trainer and martial artist who owns Strength Camp Portland, is a firm believer in Osho Dynamic Meditation. At a camp hosted by Strength Camp founder Elliott Hulse, Adler said that dynamic meditation helped him in ways he never knew he needed. “From doing dynamic meditation, I think that it was super important for me to let go, let go of my emotions and maybe the grief and some of the trial and tribulations from the past,” Adler explained. “Our bodies need to release energy while our minds need to be clear.”
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Swami Chaitanya Keerti
(Editor: Osho World monthly magazine published from New Delhi; Author of Osho Fragrance, The Alchemy of Zen, and Mindfulness: The Master Key)
