College student

Osho went to two university colleges. He was asked to leave the first when his logics professor complained to the Vice-Chancellor that he could not teach because Osho would not stop asking questions. Admonished by the professor not to argue, Osho pointed out that this would defeat the whole purpose of being in a class on philosophy and logic. Exasperated, the professor, an old and respected man, gave the ultimatum that ‘either he leaves or I leave’. The Vice-Chancellor found Osho a place in another college, but his reputation had preceded him and a condition was made that he not attend the philosophy classes at the new college. Osho agreed happily.

He preferred to teach himself in the library, where he continued his voracious reading. He also continued to torture his professors. He noticed that few of them ever visited the library, and he proceeded to pepper them with questions about up-to-date material in their field. When he discovered one professor who would never admit that he did not know something, Osho trapped him by quoting in class a fictitious book, Principia Logica. When the professor replied that he had read the book, Osho exposed him to the Vice-Chancellor.

‘In college he did not spare a teacher who spoke an untruth, and he rebelled against tradition and shocked people by his unconventional mode of thinking,’ reported the New Delhi Patriot in a review of Osho’s life published in 1981.

Despite antagonising his professors, in 1957 Osho gained a first-class M.A. in logic, philosophy and literature.