Zorba the Buddha: Sex, Spirituality, and Capitalism in the Global Osho Movement

Zorba the Buddha is the first comprehensive study of the life, teachings, and following of the controversial Indian guru known in his youth as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and in his later years as Osho (1931-1990). Most Americans today remember him only as the "sex guru" and the "Rolls Royce guru," who built a hugely successful but scandal-ridden utopian community in central Oregon during the 1980s. Yet Osho was arguably the first truly global guru of the twentieth century, creating a large transnational movement that traced a complex global circuit from post-Independence India of the 1960s to Reagan's America of the 1980s and back to a developing new India in the 1990s. The Osho movement embodies some of the most important economic and spiritual currents of the past forty years, emerging and adapting within an increasingly interconnected and conflicted late-capitalist world order. Based on extensive ethnographic and archival research, Hugh Urban has created a rich and powerful narrative that is a must-read for anyone interested in religion and globalization.

Author: Hugh B. Urban
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 01/12/2016
Pages: 264
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 9.00h x 5.90w x 0.60d
ISBN13: 9780520286672
ISBN10: 0520286677
BISAC Categories:
- Biography & Autobiography | Religious
- Religion | Cults
- Religion | Mysticism

About the Author
Hugh B. Urban is Professor in the Department of Comparative Studies at Ohio State University, where he studies comparative religion, religions of South Asia, and new religious movements.