KATMANDU, Nepal— Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, the controversial Indian guru deported from the United States, said Sunday he plans to settle in a small residence = not a commune — in the Himalayan mountains in India or Nepal.
“If the (Nepalese) king is happy for me to have a hut in Nepal, I’m absolutely willing,” he told his Nepalese disciples. Rajneesh, 54, said Swami Anand Arun, coordinator of the Rajneesh Mediation Center in the Katmandu Valley, offered earlier to provide him with a “poor man’s hut” for living quarters, instead of a hotel.
“I will love to be in a hut,” he said. “It will be a palace for me. Just I will be worried only the king may become jealous of me.
At the invitation of his Nepalese followers, Rajneesh flew in Friday from New Delhi, where he told reporters he had no plans to settle in Nepal and would return to India to inspect possible sites for a permanent commune.
Rajneesh left India in 1981 after running into tax trouble and established a commune in Oregon in the U.S. northwest, He returned to India in November after pleading guilty to US. Federal immigration fraud charges and being deported,
Rajneesh denied Sunday that he had been hounded from the United States, saying, “Nobody is hounding me. I’m hounding thousands of people. In American I was hounding America, They made a case against me and their case was the US. government against Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 10, 1986
