Customer Reviews

My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Tim Guest is a young British man who was thrust at an early age, by his mother's spiritual search, into the commune life of the controversial Indian guru, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. In this fascinating and moving biography of his early life as a member of that cult, we witness a boy who nurtures a broken heart through his mother's neglect and self-absorption in her search for enlightenment. We see parallels within the life of Tim's mother and the arc of the cult itself, moving from an off-kilter yet earnest spiritual seeking to a finale best characterized as a sad and empty waste of time. Any intense movement that comes to an end will always have its casualties, and we often think only of the adults who have been directly involved in a cult or movement as such "victims", but this book poignantly highlights how the children who are given no choice in the matter can be more messed up by the experience and also in later life.

Tim writes with a contained emotion about his lonely and strange upbringing, shunted back and forth between confused and misguided parents, particularly his mother, who may have meant well but served to give him absolutely no grounding, real love, or sense of self. Aside from occasional visits with his father, much of the time described in the book concerns Tim's pre-teen years, after his parent's separation, spent with the mother who becomes quite an important figure in the European growth of the Rajneeshi movement. She is no mere rank and file follower, but a key figure in the British leadership, and has some direct encounters with the Bhagwan himself. Eventually, the movement unravels under the weight of leadership scandals, tax, immigration, legal and other myriad problems.

Tim gives a very well researched and appropriate level of insight into the movement, as if seeing it again through the eyes of the adolescent he was. We read only obtuse accounts of the rumoured sexual scandals, rape and violence for which the cult was known, since Tim, as the last paragraph of the book tellingly alludes to, was luckily spared some of the darker activities that were going on around him. Needless to say, however, he still has his scars to deal with, most centrally his parents' lack of real involvement in his life. Through it all, he appears to have emerged as a deep and thoughtful person, and this memoir is a top-notch and moving read.

What happens when a child is swept up in his mother's quest to become a follower of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, an Indian guru? How does a child have a normal childhood when it is spent traveling from England to Germany and other locales, all because of a parent's search for truth and enlightenment?
If Guest's memoir is any indication, the children of such parents may well be left feeling dazed, confused and neglected. In Guest's case, his mother spent much of her time involved in such activities as ecstatic dancing, group sex and bizarre rituals, some involving violence and even abuse. She wore bright clothing in the colors of the sunset.
In all fairness, his mother was not aware of the darkness at the heart of the Rajneesh movement and when charges of embezzlement and even a possible plan to commit murder came to light, she had a change of heart and began to examine all her earlier assumptions. In her own way, she was nearly as naive, trusting and innocent as a child...although I can't help feeling she should have known better and been there for her son as a parent first, with her spiritual adventures coming second.
I was happy to read that she did eventually make peace with her son and come to realize the harm she'd done to him, however inadvertently.

When I think about children growing up in communes, victims of cults, I think about the abuses you always hear happen in these situations. I imagined when I picked up this book that it would be a horrifying tale of sexual and physical abuse of a small child. I braced myself. Instead, I found that the child narrator, Tim, wasn't sexually or physically abused. In fact, he seemed to have many fond memories related to the commune and his life there. It was only when considered from an adult's point of view that the shocking amount of neglect comes into focus. The children in the commune did suffer in this very specific way. The damage was not as graphic and sensationalized as many people expect from a story about growing up in a cult, but it was horrifying nonetheless. Tim Guest did a fantastic job balancing this story to show why people might have been sucked into this commune in the first place, and then why they would decide to leave.

This book is the true story of a young boy whose mother joins one of Bhagwam's communes in the early 1980s. Bhagwam's theory of reaching a higher spiritual plane heavily incorporates the idea of detachment- if you are detached from the things of this world, you will find your place. Unfortunately for Tim and the other children in the commune, they are forced to be part of their parents' new world while at the same time being kept at arms length from the love and attachment they want and need. Tim Guest tells of the years he spent in the communes, the people he knew there, and the effect the very unique lifestyle choice of his mother affected his life.

Quote: `Our parents were saving the world, but saving the world took time. While they danced, rolled their heads, swayed their arms, flailed their malas, beat cushions, broke down their social conditioning, and set themselves free, we filled our lives as best we could with the things we found around us."


I liked this book most of the time . . . it was one of those things that I couldn't read straight through (although in all fairness I have a really really short bookreading attention span and usually have several different things at once I go back and forth between) but at the same time I could never abandon it because I was really invested in Tim's story and finding out what ultimately happened to him, Bhagwam, and the commune. The story takes place in India, Britain, Germany, and the United States, and it was interesting to see the setting change. The story was certainly and unique and fascinating glimpse into commune life, from the perspective of someone who has not chosen it but instead has it thrust upon them.

This book gives a startling, funny, sometimes unbelievable account of a child's life growing up in existentialist communes all over the world. From six years old, Tim Guest travels the world, dragged helplessly by his mother, in search of enlightenment--all through the teachings of Bahgwan, an uconventional guru. As the reader, you can experience the contradiction of the notion of a carefree childhood and living a life where attachment to family and friends was viewed as a path to certain destruction. What's more, you can read it through the eyes of child. It is a compelling story, without judgement or prejudice. It is the most eloquent and poignant book I have read TO DATE. The ultimate book for my fellow yogis out there. Read it, then pass it on!

I just finished this book and I felt it was money well spent. I was a member of a different cult myself but felt such an affinity with the story Mr. Guest was telling. I can't say I "enjoyed" the book, even though Mr. Guest used a lot of humor it was hard not to shudder at the horrific childhood he endured. I would like to see more books like this one by children raised in these groups. Though I don't really feel even adults make an informed choice when they join a cult a child has no choice at all. His story was compelling.

What is it like growing up in a commune especially one modeled on the teachings of Indian guru Bhagwan Rajneesh? It was one big trip as attested by Tim Guest in his remarkable memoir about living under the teachings of Rajneesh. Tim's experiences shows us what happens to children who raised in a cultic environment. While the children's parents are seeking enlightment, the children roam free but on a deeper level are wanting more from their parents who seem oblivious to their emotional needs.
My Life in Orange takes us on a roller coaster of travel and spiritual enlightenment. Meet Tim's parents who are disillusioned with their lives and surrender their lives to the guru. Thus begins Tim's life as a globe trotter as he travels with his mother to India, Germany, the United States and Britain as she carries out the dictates of the cult. He shows us the child's perspective of what is going on in the day to day life of the community.
What you see varies from community to community but Tim is able to give us a glimpse of the political intrigues, depression, manipulation, exploitation and power struggles that take place with the adults. You see just how well the guru had his followers under control.
Tim's story will make you laugh, cry and at times wonder what in the world was wrong with his parents. In their attempts to escape their own disillusionment was it right to drag their infant son on their self centered trip? Tim's life tells us more about the selfishness of young adults who have no grounding in life and will subject themselves to anyone who promises them bliss.
This is a great book in understanding the process of child rearing in a cultic environment and its final product as the organization falls apart. In order to understand his life after the fall of Rajneesh, Tim had to reclaim his past. My Life in Orange is the culmination of his reflection and understanding of what made him into the man that he is today.

A couple of other reviewers have complained this wasn't "readable." I didn't have that problem at all.

Rather, my chief problem was that the narrator was frequently "out of the loop" on the real action, and is only now reconstructing it in his adulthood. Thus you're frequently going to be disappointed. Passages like the following are typical:

"It was Easter, so while our mothers at silently in rows and stared at the wall, we hunted chocolate eggs in the garden. Then we discovered a hayloft with a gap just the right size to jump out of . None of the other kids wanted to make the leap, but after jumping through the Kalptaru meditation hall trapdoor I knew about falls like these." (p. 63)

I remember when the Bhagwan's followers founded a controversial, free-wheeling ashram in Oregon. I was just a teenager at the time. We had been told on the news that the followers believed in "free love," so as horny teenagers we certainly had fantasies of such a place.

But I was hoping for a book that would talk about what life was like in that cult, not just the free love, but also the disillusionment, the drugs, etc. Instead Guest was very young (6 years old) when taken to live in that commune, and I felt his childhood impressions, while somewhat interesting, will fall short of the mark if you are looking for a tell-all book that reveals the straight dope on what went on in Osho's communes. Guest learns about many of the outrageous episodes indirectly, so aside from the fact that he actually was dressed in orange, he comes across as having no more insight about things than you or I would.

I will say in the book's favor, though, that the second half is much better than the first. The second half is less about his personal childhood than the dissolution of the movement, which makes for interesting reading. The parts where he describes the aftereffects of the cult of his family's life . . . well, I found those parts touching and instructive.

Here's two other books on the same subject:

"Breaking the Spell: My Life as a Rajneeshee, and the Long Journey Back to Freedom," by Jane Stork. From Australia; available only as an import in the U.S.

"Bhagwan: The God That Failed," by Hugh Milne. Apparently the best-known book on the subject before Guest's came out: has a lot more of the sex and scandal, from what I understand.

I think that Tim Guest's work My Life in Orange: Growing Up With the Guru is an excellent look into the way the life of a cult through the eyes of a child. This book was of great interest to me as I live in Oregon, which was home to the Rajneeshpuram commune and where much of the controversy took place. I liked the way that Guest tells his own personal story while at the same time narrates what was going on with the rest of the cult, making it both a personal and chronological account of the cult. Guest has an excellent writing style. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in alternative religious groups.

Tim Guest not only seems to have turned out remarkably well-adjusted and healthy for living through an often horrific, certainly neglected childhood, but he is also a sensible and crafty memorist as well. For all the damaging therapy encounter groups and hoards of sannyasins (those who walk the spiritual path) that Guest lived with and observed daily, his recollections and reporting are meticulous. If you want to get an innocent insider's view of what happened behind the tangerine clouds of India, London, Germany, Oregon, than this book is a must. I finished it a less than a week. For all the maternal neglect that Guest endured, he writes of his mother with great compassion and of himself with impressive self-awareness.