Departed Rajneesh Still Enraptures Devotees -- But Followers Of Ex- Oregon Guru In Power Struggle Over His Legacy

PUNE, India - Twilight is falling. More than 3,000 barefoot, mostly Western and 30-something followers of Osho Rajneesh have padded into a lofty tent christened "Buddha Hall" to again hear the master's words.

The guru's white armchair, complete with a cushion to ease his chronic back pain, is reverently borne in and placed on a marble platform. A screen lowers to the amplified twang of a sitar. The projector lights up and purrs.

Ten feet high, there reappears the wispy-bearded countenance of the iconoclast who once called himself the Baghwan (God), shocked much of the world by owning no fewer than 93 Rolls-Royces and lashed out at organized religion (Christianity, he said, is "the deadliest poison.").

"The worshiper is the worshiped, you don't have to worship anyone else," Rajneesh proclaims from the screen. "Existence is irrational. The moment you ask why, you have missed the point."

Sitting on the marble floor in their white robes, the disciples reflect silently on the evening's sermon. As the session ends and their playfully smiling teacher vanishes, they rise and joyously and deafeningly shout "Osho!"

The outrageously provocative, Zen-inspired thinker - born Mohan Chandra Rajneesh and dubbed the "sex guru" by a scandalized press - seems to be enjoying the last laugh in death.

Nine years ago, with the commune his followers founded in Oregon convulsed by a power struggle, he was arrested on immigration fraud charges in the United States and deported.

On Jan. 19, 1990, at age 58, the man known to his latter-day followers as Osho died here of massive coronary thrombosis, or "left the body," as disciples say.

But thanks to magnetic tape, inspired marketing and the spiritual hunger and curiosity of thousands of Westerners, the guru lives on - though another power struggle may be on, this time for mastery of his legacy.

Still, the ashram, Osho Commune International, has become, in its own words, "the biggest spiritual health club in the world," doubling in size in three years and attracting more pilgrims and enlightenment- and sun-starved holiday makers than ever.

"This is a unique place, a buddhafield," proclaims a notice at the gate, where guards, Osho's brother among them, verify that visitors have passed a mandatory AIDS test and bought a daily pass that costs about 66 cents.

Once inside the fenced-in oasis of 31 acres, the paying guest can meditate, take a class in Zen archery or get a massage at a "Multiversity" - or just play a set of what is jocularly called "Zennis."

Many who seek succor in Rajneesh's eclectic blend of Asian mysticism and Western pop psychology and materialism find contentment and enrichment - and confirmation that Osho was much more than a spiritual con artist.

For the last 3 1/2 years, ruddy-faced Burt Eggan, 62, a former Los Angeles stockbroker and restaurateur, has lived in a one-bedroom servant's house in Pune. A dropout from the high-pressure world of finance, Eggan is one of the scores who perform volunteer work at the ashram, checking off visitor's meal cards, selling them towels and booking tennis courts.

"I was a fairly neurotic alcoholic suburban businessman," says the man now known as Swami Anand Burt, clad in the ankle-length maroon robe of an Osho disciple. "Beneath the exterior, I was desperate."

He read one of Rajneesh's books and left his wife and two children to follow his guru.

Osho called himself a guru for the rich, for people who already have a fast car but are seeking inner wealth. He held that poverty was a consequence of humanity's idiocy. He spoke of Hitler and Gandhi as being violent men.

Osho, the eldest son of a central Indian cloth merchant, enraged many at home and in the West, because there had never been anyone who more brashly proclaimed his belief in both the divine and the crassly material.

"Osho was a man who was dead set against priests and politicians, against religion," Swami Krishna Aroop, a New Delhi merchant who has been a follower for 13 years, explained in his sari shop as he sipped milky coffee one afternoon. "Osho wanted to create new men."

And therein, perhaps, lies the joke that the passing of time in turn has played on the guru. Aroop and some other disaffected Indian followers of Osho say that the buddhafield in Pune is actually becoming a battlefield as Osho's successors, home-grown and foreign, vie for mastery of his legacy.

The ashram, Aroop says sadly, "has been taken over by new priests and politicians."

He and some other longstanding Indian disciples of Osho point a finger at a coterie of Westerners who they claim have money, and not metaphysics, on their minds.

"Their sole concern is to become bigger and bigger, and more powerful," charges Swami Suraj Prakash Manchanda, a Bombay trucking company owner who once hosted Osho for five months in his home. For speaking out, Manchanda says, he has been banned from the ashram.

Rajneesh was arrested in Charlotte, N.C., when it seemed he might be trying to flee the United States. He pleaded guilty to two counts of a federal grand jury indictment in Portland, including charges that he had arranged sham marriages so his foreign followers could settle at the commune.

The remaining 33 counts were dropped. He was given a 10-year suspended prison sentence, fined $400,000 and ordered to leave the United States.

On his death bed, claiming that he had been covertly fed thalium, a common ingredient in rat poison, and exposed to radiation during his 17 days in jail in the United States, Rajneesh looked into the eyes of his chief financial aide, Swami Jayesh, formerly Michael William O'Byrne of Edmonton, Alberta, and said, "I leave you my dream," it was later announced.

Commune officials denied requests to speak to Jayesh.

The seeds of the dispute that divides some of Osho's most senior followers arise from the decision the ailing Osho made in April 1989 to appoint a 21-member Inner Council to deal with "mundane matters" of running the commune after he had gone.

Jayesh was named chairman. The vice chairman's job went to Swami Prem Amrito, or Dr. George Meredith, 49, a fellow of the British Royal College of Physicians who was Osho's personal doctor. He lived with 5,000 other devotees in the Oregon commune and was the one who placed the urn containing Osho's ashes in his tomb.

The dissatisfied Indians paint a picture of intrigue on the Inner Council that has led to 11 of its original members leaving or being forced out.

For Aroop, the sari merchant, the last straw came when the leadership, citing exclusive knowledge of "Osho guidance," or the guru's final wishes, ruled that meditation camps organized by him and other Osho followers across India could not exceed three days.

"When did Osho ever say that, I ask you?" Aroop asked gently. "What they are truthfully concerned about is that, if people meditate in Delhi, they will no longer come to Pune. They have turned the man who was against all churches into a church, with its commandments and rules!"

Amrito contended that nobody really knows how much money flows into the buddhafield, where everything from large $1 photos of Osho to meal tickets and videos of the guru's teachings are on sale.

"No one here is going to sit down and give you an annual report," he said.

One Indian journalist who has looked into commune affairs estimates from 2,000 to 8,000 robed disciples visit daily, and that they spend at least $40,000 a day - meaning an annual take of no less than $7.3 million. But he emphasizes that is only an informed guess.