US, Oct. 20 -- On a temperate night of March 21, 1953, a twenty-one-year-old sat meditating beneath a maulshree tree in Bhanwartal Garden in Jabalpur, central India. By his account, the seeker, the search, and the ache of longing dissolved. What remained was a silence so complete that it needed no name. The young rebel, Chandra Mohan Jain, would one day be known to the world as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and finally as Osho.

Born, raised, and educated in Madhya Pradesh, the college student first attracted attention at Sagar University, where he haunted the library and won numerous debating competitions. His professor, Shri Krishan Saxena, globally respected for a thesis on consciousness, recognized the promise of the graduate student in wo...