At the peak of his career in 1982, late veteran actor, Vinod Khanna moved to Osho’s commune, Rajneeshpuram in Oregon. Vinod quit Bollywood to indulge in deep meditation and in a self-indulgent act, left his family behind in Mumbai. However, the actor said that he was in constant touch with them and kept providing for them despite being away.
Vinod once told Simmi Garewal that his move to the commune came at “no cost” to his family life. “I was very much in touch with my family. It’s not that I ran away. I was providing everything,” he said. When asked if he still looked at his move as a selfish decision, he said, “It is! Unless you’re selfish, you can’t do anything like this. Because it’s your own being that has to find that transcendence.” He added, “Everybody has to travel alone. You come alone, you go alone. You have to travel your path.”
Talking about what influenced him to move to Oregon, he said, “My own mind. My mind was thinking too much. I was too hyper. My thoughts were all over the place. I was very angry. I’d reached a saturation point. People can press your buttons and make you react. Everything is not under your control. But I would see that when I meditate, these things weren’t affecting me at all.”
He added, “You have to become the master of your own mind, and these were the things that drove me to say that I’ve had enough, I’ve made enough money… Now, if I want to go deeper into meditation, I have to give my full time to it. I have to live in an ashram, I have to live at the feet of my guru. So, obviously, there was a need within me.”
In 2020, Vinod’s son, Akshaye Khanna also talked about his father’s belief in Osho. “As a five-year-old, it was impossible to understand it. Osho had nothing to do with my thoughts about why my dad wasn’t there. That came much later… It’s a life-changing decision, which he (Vinod Khanna) felt that he needed to take at the time. Something must have moved him so deeply inside, that he felt that that kind of decision was worth it for him. Especially, when you have everything in life. And when life doesn’t look as though there’s much more that you can have,” Akshaye said.
Vinod Khanna returned to Mumbai after the commune was disbanded and Mahesh Bhatt helped him restart his career with Jurm.
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