My Life in Orange, Tim Guest
My Life in Orange, Tim Guest
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My Life in Orange
Growing Up with the Guru

Author: Tim Guest

Narrator: Shaun Grindell

Unabridged: 10 hr 30 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 08/28/2018


Synopsis

A memoir of formative years spent on a series of communes: A “wonderful account of a frankly ghastly childhood . . . Hilarious and heartbreaking” (Daily Mail).

At the age of six, Tim Guest was taken by his mother to a commune modeled on the teachings of the notorious Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. The Bhagwan preached an eclectic doctrine of Eastern mysticism, chaotic therapy, and sexual freedom, and enjoyed inhaling laughing gas, preaching from a dentist's chair, and collecting Rolls Royces.

Tim and his mother were given Sanskrit names, dressed entirely in orange, and encouraged to surrender themselves into their new family. While his mother worked tirelessly for the cause, Tim—or Yogesh, as he was now called—lived a life of well-meaning but woefully misguided neglect in various communes in England, Oregon, India, and Germany.

In 1985 the movement collapsed amid allegations of mass poisonings, attempted murder, and tax evasion, and Yogesh was once again Tim. In this extraordinary memoir, Tim Guest chronicles the heartbreaking experience of being left alone on earth while his mother hunted heaven.

About Tim Guest

Tim Guest writes for the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph. He lives in London.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Joshua on January 16, 2013

The difficulty with this book, at least for me, was the problem with it having to be both a memoir and a historical account. Tim Guest was a child when all this was happening, so he wouldn't have had the relevant details at the time. There are long passages about him as a child, unattended by adult......more

Goodreads review by George on January 18, 2024

I've re-read this one. Remarkable work of reconstruction of an unusual childhood. Have encountered many Rajneeshites in my travels, especially when I lived in the Pacific North West, where their influence continues to be felt to this day. I've read other biographies of the Bhagwan: The God That Faile......more

Goodreads review by Bharath on October 26, 2019

This is a book about the period when Tim's mother was a close follower of the controversial guru Osho (Rajneesh). His mother starts by attending a lecture and gets deeply involved - visiting and living in the Pune ashram of Osho and later Europe, America as well. As he was a small boy at the time, T......more

Goodreads review by Val on April 16, 2018

This is one of the best autobiographies I have ever read. I bought it after watching the Netflix six part series 'Wild Wild Country' about Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and his followers aka 'the orange people'. They got going in the 1970s and then moved to USA in the early 1980s where they attempted to bu......more

Goodreads review by Molly on June 13, 2010

An admission: with just the title, My Life in Orange: Growing up with the Guru, I had somehow expected this to be about a child's experiences with monks. The guru, in my imagined variation, would be the Buddha, but instead, after reading the back of the book out loud to my husband, who gently chided......more