My Life in Orange

Growing Up with the Guru

By: Tim Guest

Narrated by: Shaun Grindell

Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

A memoir of formative years spent on a series of communes: A “[W]onderful 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.

©2018 Tim Guest (P)2018 Tantor

Narration is so bizarre.

I have listened to hundreds of books. This narrator was intolerable for me. I had to read the book instead of listening. Incredible story, but I just couldn't listen to it anymore.

A childhood perspective

I still can't understand the draw of Bhagwan/ Osho/ Rajneesh. It might remain a mystery, his presence is not so dynamic to me, in videos he looks somewhat evil, like a devil and a human sharing a body, as he drones on slowly, but I was made to think of people, or one person really who I was drawn to in a more normal life experience and he was not so great, there is energy that can sway a person, but idolizing people isn't my personal thing. The author was a child so he was there because of his mother, who he accused of being neglectful in the book, so I can't understand why people loved Bhagwan so much by listening to/ reading this story, I actually ended up reading it, just to get through it faster, the accent used for the reading was a little weird, I honestly think most books use some type of AI voice. The story of the Oregon ranch commune is very weird and it is hard to understand how it even came to be, another weird Armageddon tale, the ranch failed but somehow the Osho thing went on, where does the money come from? The author suggested child molestation in the cult, very casually, he suggested kids of 8 or 10 lost their virginity to adults and children. That is not normal. Like the FDLS, the Church of God stories and now this, sexual depravity is a theme but I think something is wrong, as if pointing fingers and mentioning it casually covers up the actual truth, which is very evil and satanic in reality, not something to casually mention as if normal or accuse people of falsely. I'm still looking for the truth, so many conspiracies, one actual truth, one God who knows!

Incredible story

He starts the story by telling of an article he reads that he says he can relate to when a boy kills himself. I never felt his hurt at that depth until the last couple chapters. I would have wanted to know more about his feelings as he was experiencing it.