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A Rebuttal to Osho International Foundation's Policy Against HIV-Seropositive People

by Prem Srajano, October 15, 1998

In an article "Time to Look Again at AIDS", recently appearing on the Osho International Commune's Web site, Prem Amrito, Osho's doctor, takes up the defense of the commune's policy of excluding people who are HIV-seropositive from participation in the commune's activities. The surprising thing about the article is that he invalidates Osho's arguments in favor of this policy, and invents a completely new rationalization.

Amrito's article contradicts Osho's view that AIDS is a disease that is spread by casual contact. Osho believed that AIDS can be spread by kissing, by touching tears, by shaking hands, by hugging, by eating in a restaurant, or by sitting on a toilet seat. Osho made this clear in many references, a few of which are listed at the end of this article. Osho was consistent in advocating quarantine of HIV-positive individuals, as a measure to save humanity from annihilation by an incurable disease which he believed to be highly infectious. Amrito on the other hand says, "People usually cite the view that this (quarantine) is unnecessary because AIDS is not contracted by casual contact. Of course, to date that is basically true." As a medical doctor himself, Amrito could not honestly come to any other conclusion. I have documented this fact myself in a previous article, "How AIDS is not Transmitted".

Osho also enjoined people, in addition to using condoms, to stop kissing and to wear rubber gloves in sexual relations. To my knowledge, the kissing prohibition and the rubber gloves guideline are not followed by many of his sannyasins today, and not from a lack of love for Osho. It is just that we have more up-to-date information, and the intelligence to follow our own intuition about this. It is time for the exclusion of HIV-positive people in Osho meditation centers to be dropped as well, and Amrito's admission that AIDS is not spread by casual contact should help to tip the scales in this direction.

However Amrito now engages in some fantastic intellectual sleight-of-hand in order to defend a quarantine proposal that no longer has any medical justification. He argues that if HIV-positive and negative people are never in social contact then the virus can not spread, and this is indisputable. Therefore he says if the virus is spreading around the world it is because we have failed to quarantine HIV-positive people. This a violation of the most elementary logic. To make the fallacy more clear, let's exaggerate a little. If there were no human beings in the world, there would be no AIDS, therefore the elimination of human beings can eradicate AIDS. So does that mean it is the only effective method?

Is quarantine the only way to stop the spread of AIDS? What about simply following Osho's other guidelines, such as the use of condoms, frequent AIDS tests, and minimizing the number of different sexual partners? The quarantine proposal is actually dangerous because it reinforces the reluctance of people to undergo voluntary AIDS tests, for fear of being ostracized by society. The effect of Amrito's proposal is to divert energy from the actually existing AIDS prevention campaign, whose goal is to promote safe (or safer) sex practices. This is the current fight around the world by those who are trying to prevent the spread of the disease. I would hope that Osho would be remembered as having been one of the first world leaders to advocate this safe sex campaign, and not that he be exposed to ridicule by emphasizing one of his out-of-date proposals that was based on inadequate information.

It is true, as Amrito says, that millions of people do not follow these guidelines, and will end up dying of AIDS. Would it therefore be compassionate to force everyone to undergo AIDS tests and forcibly relocate HIV-positive people to separate colonies? Who knows what these "colonies" may be like. The Osho commune in Poona simply says "not welcome here", ostracizing HIV-positive people, so who knows what governments may do with those who are infected. But I really don't see any reason why education and consciousness should not be attempted as the first line of defense, rather than coercion. Nobody can force you to contract AIDS if you lead your life with some degree of consciousness. Why should I expend energy in trying to protect unconscious people through the use of force?

Osho speaks on how AIDS is spread through casual contact

"And AIDS does not only spread by sexual contact. You can kiss somebody who has AIDS and the saliva is enough to transfer the disease to you. Now kissing should be prohibited completely, it should be made illegal. Somebody is crying and weeping and tears are rolling down his cheeks, and out of compassion and love you wipe those tears with your hands. Be alert : tears carry the virus of AIDS. It should be prohibited." From Bondage to Freedom, ch. 16

"If you shake hands with a man who has AIDS and his hands are perspiring, you can get it." Hari Om Tat Sat ch. 6

He should have told the man who is suffering from AIDS, "Shree Rajneesh teaches compassion. Now it is your compassion not to touch people. Tell them that you are suffering from AIDS and you don't want to spread it. Rather than telling him that, he is telling other group participants to hug him, and they are hugging him. That fellow may spread AIDS to the whole group." Hari Om Tat Sat ch. 6

Aids is not only infectious in sexual relationships … if the toilet seat is not sterilized every time it is used, one can suffer unnecessarily… The Messiah, vol. 1, ch. 16

…that man will be spreading AIDS in thousands of ways. Eating in a restaurant he can cause it… The Last Testament, vol. 3, #8

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