Who is or was Osho. How did he become famous?

OSHO formerly known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (birth name Chandra Mohan Jain) was a mystic, spiritual guru. Since childhood he was a rebellion (watch the movie 'Rebellious Flower ' to know more about his childhood) who questioned each & everything. At early age he realized most of the people were blindly following their respective religions without understanding why they were doing what they were doing. He decided to search & tread his own spiritual path & choose Meditation as the way.

By the age 21 he was enlightened & set upon journey to spread the message. He traveled across country preaching Meditation settling at Bombay in 1970. He started initiating his disciples 'sanyas' & huge followers base started.

He moved to Pune in 1974 in Ashram spread over large area to accommodate sanyasins from virtually all places across the world. His emphasis was on Meditation, awareness, love, celebration and most importantly humor. He stressed upon fact to transfer energy from sex to super consciousness and move from physical, body level awareness to spiritual soul realization which was misunderstood as being sex preaching & still being misunderstood by many.

He consciously took decision to eliminate 'mass' category of people & concentrate on few 'class' followers who understood what he was saying. He was way ahead of the time in his teachings & only the elite, mindful people understood & the rest ordinary people who were looking for some rituals/ methods to follow were disappointed as his core essential teaching was 'unconditional Love'.

As tensions mounted between Ashram & Indian government, Osho shifted to Oregon, USA in 1981 in order to have international community in one place. 64000 acres of semi desert was converted into beautiful Ashram called Rajneeshpuram & all went well till 1985. US government fearing OSHO's growing popularity and his fearless teachings deported him from country & osho came back to Pune Ashram & stayed there till his death in 1990.

His death is still a mystery & many believe he was slow poisoned during his stay in US.

His Ashram is today known as OSHO International Meditation Resort.

His popularity has been growing ever since among the intelligent & courageous people who essentially have to shed their past molding, ego & start living with complete awake, aware state of ones thoughts, feelings & actions leading to constant Meditative state.

His 600 plus books have been translated to several languages and there are hundreds of audio & video discourses.

According to OSHO every human being is a Budha with the capacity for enlightenment ,capable of unconditional love.

His teachings in essence were 'Meditation' and 'Love'

Osho's "Ten Commandments"

1. Never obey anyone's command unless it is coming from within you also.

2. There is no God other than life itself.

3. Truth is within you, do not search for it elsewhere.

4. Love is prayer.

5. To become a nothingness is the door to truth. Nothingness itself is the means, the goal and attainment.

6. Life is now and here.

7. Live wakefully.

8. Do not swim—float.

9. Die each moment so that you can be new each moment.

10. Do not search. That which is, is. Stop and see.

Hope this answers why OSHO is famous!!