Words by Patrick Dunham Photos Courtesy of the Dunham Family
In 1978, my uncle Paul Dunham stepped off a plane in Bombay, India, with a paper bag lunch and a backpack. Next stop: Poona, India, to meditate and live under the guidance of the spiritual leader known as Rajneesh.
Paul, 20 years old when he arrived in India, was immediately greeted by culture shock; the hundreds of rickshaws, range and levels of noise and smell, and the amount of people shook him to the core.
Alone in a new country, Paul had to find my grandfather Robert (now Nijinanda) and my uncle Thomas. Later in the year, another uncle of mine would come to join them, rendering my father David as the only one in the family not there, as he was putting himself through college at the time. This interesting familial decision spurred after the sudden death of my grandmother, which rattled the whole family and altered the course of everything.
When he finally made it to the commune, he spent six months meditating and travelling over India with his future-wife, a German named Nana. He perceived Rajneesh “not as a Godhead, nor as a prophet, but rather a teacher.” Rajneesh was a charismatic, controversial leader, who was among the first prominent figures to “take Ancient-Eastern ideologies and fuse them with Western psychology.” According to Paul, the spiritual chieftain was of the belief that “religions are only alive while prophets are alive,” which is ironic considering that he was still worshipped by his devotees after his death in 1990. The commune was full of “the most amazing, intelligent people around,” and through this unique amalgamation, Paul met people from every stretch of the globe.
Prior to moving the commune to Oregon in 1981, Rajneesh had taken a public vow of silence. By doing this, he enabled his officers to become radicalized, going to desperate, violent measures to disable the citizen’s suffrage.
Prior to the stint in Oregon however, the “sannyasins,” or followers, under Rajneesh’s leadership were not in the least violent or hostile. The large mistake was migrating the commune to America. Many people within the commune were only able to get visas by forming sham marriages to ensure citizenship. When I discussed the 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack with Paul, he felt like the kindling of the fire “came out of his reduction of outward presence.” Rajneesh “handed over a lot of power,” to which the officers became saturated in “paranoia and megalomania.”
This rocky start influenced the top crust to develop intricate schema in order to ensure that their voices were heard. Despite resistance from Wasco County, the Rajneeshees wanted to expand their city and elect the commune’s chief of staff as a county commissioner in order to do so.
The motive for this act of terrorism was to incapacitate the voters, as the inhabitants at the commune were ineligible to vote. Forty-five were hospitalized, and luckily there were no fatalities, but the commune disintegrated and some of Rajneesh’s officers were incarcerated. Somewhere along the way, the officers administrating over the settlement took a nefarious turn and, in documents synthesized by The Oregonian their assassination plots, land/ immigration law-skirting-tactics, wiretapping activities, amongst other criminalities, became exposed.
In much of the hullaballoo concerning Rajneeshpuram, the evil of the commune as a whole is discussed, but this standpoint lacks the consideration that only a handful of the administration had committed these crimes. The thousands of others who lived in the commune were unaware of the deep transgressions being committed, but this fact is easily ignored after the harrowing conclusion of the commune.
My grandfather and two uncles remained in Poona until around 1981, when they went back to America to start their lives anew. My grandfather Robert bought land outside of Flagstaff, Arizona, to start an organic farm, and Thomas got a job as a taxi driver in Houston, Texas.
In the family, my grandfather still liked to be called by his sannyasin name, Nijinanda, and until he died this is what he was called. He was always one with the land; as a geologist he created a classification for carbonate sedimentary rocks, which remains known as the Dunham classification. Although I never got to meet Nij, he will always remain as the single most fascinating person I’ll never have the chance to meet.
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