Nearly
two decades after he captivated the world with escapades
of gonzo spirituality as the Bhagwan
Shree Rajneesh -- he with the fleet of 93
Rolls-Royces and a controversial 64,000-acre commune
in Oregon -- the guru today known as Osho
has been reincarnated as a mind-body-spirit book phenom.
Indeed,
11 years after his death from heart disease at age 58,
the artist formerly known as Zorba the Buddha
is pumping out more books than Vishnu has avatars. His
latest, Love, Freedom and Aloneness, is due out
this summer, following the paperback release this month
of the Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic.
Some 80 titles are in print in Italy, 2 of them bestsellers
last year. Osho's a bestselling author in India, with
200 titles in print there, and about 45 titles are on
sale in Germany, including picks for Heyne, Econ-Ullstein-List
and Bertelsmann.
And don't
forget China, where in 1996 alone 16 Osho titles sold
a total of 600,000 copies, with Bertelsmann's book club
getting 100,000 copies of Meditation out the
door before the Chinese government declared the deceased
advocate of ''religionless religion'' an enemy of the
People's Republic.
''In
a certain sense he's a dead author, but boy, that doesn't
keep him from writing new books,'' says Michael
Denneny, senior editor at St.
Martin's Press, which has published Osho
in the U.S. since 1995. ''Osho's basically having a
comeback.''
The guru-provocateur
is edging back into the literary footlights largely
through the work of Osho International, whose three-year-old,
New York-based offices manage the author's rights. The
group has signed more publishing contracts in the first
quarter of this year than in all of 2000, according
to Klaus Steeg, Osho International president.
Plus, the door's opening wider for Osho's mischievously
iconoclastic wisdom. ''St. Martin's is getting more
courageous,'' Steeg says. ''They're willing to look
at much more provocative material now.''
Astonishingly,
returns on Osho's books are only 4 percent -- a ''fairly
good indication we could get a lot more books out there,''
Denneny says. St. Martin's began publishing Osho with
the Osho Zen Tarot, which has now sold 150,000
copies in the U.S. and is published in some 18 countries.
Due out this fall is The Art of Tea, containing
a book of Osho's meditations on the Zen tea ceremony,
two Japanese tea cups and a bamboo mat. Also in the
pipeline is India My Love, which will be St.
Martin's first full-color, illustrated Osho work. The
idea is to keep moving from the new-age ghetto into
the mainstream, a shift that's been aided, incidentally,
by none other than Tom Robbins -- an outspoken
supporter who once called Osho's fleet of Rolls-Royces
''the funniest joke ever played on our pathological
consumerism'' and deemed Osho ''the greatest spiritual
teacher of the 20th century.''
Osho,
whose name comes from a Japanese word for master (but
was also intended to riff on the philosopher William
James's use of word ''oceanic'') telegraphs his tomes
from the next dimension via a strikingly efficient system.
Under the editorial direction of Sarito Neiman,
Osho International editors plunder vast archives of
recorded talks -- drawn from some 15,000 hours of original
audio recordings, now transcribed in a searchable electronic
database -- and package up thematically related material.
Though searching for discourses on ''courage,'' for
example, is a snap, putting the compilations together
can be tricky. ''In the early days the tendency was
to make an anthology that was almost anti-Osho, because
the texts boxed in the original flow of his talks,''
says Neiman. ''The challenge is to create the feeling
of how he unfolds a subject, so that reading the book
gives a flavor of listening to a complete talk.''
The challenges
of publishing Osho certainly don't end there.
As the
infamous Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, he presided over what
became known as the Oregon town of Rajneeshpuram for
four years in the early 1980s. Free love and flowing
cash were widely perceived to be the principal commandments
-- at least by the surrounding rural community -- until
reports surfaced that the Rajneeshee security force
had bought 47 assault rifles and hatched a plot to take
over Wasco County. Other activities -- including the
poisoning of county officials -- were generally ascribed
to Osho's personal secretary, Ma Anand Sheela,
who later pleaded guilty to charges of attempted murder,
arson, electronic eavesdropping and conspiracy, among
other crimes. Osho was eventually kicked out of the
country on charges of immigration fraud -- moving to
India permanently in 1986 -- but only after the National
Guard was mobilized and he was forced to take a six-day
trip around the nation in a prisoner transport plane.
This wasn't
the kind of book tour publishers had in mind. Numerous
houses dropped Osho ''like a hot potato,'' says Steeg,
who still marvels as he reads notes they sent him at
the time, along with voided contracts. In Germany, Goldman
published Osho's childhood autobiography just as the
Oregon debacle blew up. ''They pulled the book and pulped
it,'' Steeg says. ''Osho was really crucified in public.''
But as
publishers look to consolidate their spiritual lists
-- ditching the whole guru-of-the-month trend -- they're
seeking long-selling backlists. A decade under the bridge
doesn't hurt matters, either, Neiman adds: ''Once the
messenger is gone, people have a little more space to
look at the message.''
And they
seem to like what they're seeing, according to Denneny,
who says he reluctantly took on Osho from a previous
editor, but soon grew fond of the guru. ''He's essentially
a philosopher, and his central preoccupation is meditation,''
Denneny explains, tagging Osho as a sort of Deepak Chopra
minus the Ayurvedic medicine. And when talk turns to
publicity, those Rolls-Royces are priceless. ''Absolutely
everybody of a certain age knows who Osho was,'' Denneny
says.
And so,
too, will a whole new generation, now that about 200
titles will be released as e-books, mostly in Microsoft
Reader format and sold through Barnesandnoble.com. Early
May also saw the launch of the Osho Audiobook Club,
which offers MP3 digital audio downloads of 154 titles,
each lasting some 90 minutes and costing $3.50 a pop
for subscribers (see www.osho.com). Meanwhile, access
to a full-text, searchable, online database of 227 Osho
titles is now available for subscription fees ranging
from $6.95 for a one-day pass to $49.95 for a year.
Still,
Osho can get a cool reception in the U.S. ''It pretty
much vanished,'' says Steven Finlay of East West Books
in Manhattan, referring to the guru's publishing program.
''Sales are not what they used to be when he was alive.
He used to have 30, 40, or 50 books out. Now it's down
to just a few.'' And according to Sydney Hannan, a buyer
at Stacey's Bookstore in San Francisco, ''They don't
blow out. We have quite a few titles and they seem to
sell steadily, but not in large amounts.''
Maybe
he's still ahead of his time. The Italian publisher
Mondadori, which publishes many Osho titles, refuses
to print titles it thinks will boggle readers. ''We
gave them The Zen Manifesto,'' Steeg recalls,
''and they said come back in 30 years. Maybe then people
will understand this.''
