Tim Guest is a young British man who was thrust at an early age, by his mother's spiritual search, into the commune life of the controversial Indian guru, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. In this fascinating and moving biography of his early life as a member of that cult, we witness a boy who nurtures a broken heart through his mother's neglect and self-absorption in her search for enlightenment. We see parallels within the life of Tim's mother and the arc of the cult itself, moving from an off-kilter yet earnest spiritual seeking to a finale best characterized as a sad and empty waste of time. Any intense movement that comes to an end will always have its casualties, and we often think only of the adults who have been directly involved in a cult or movement as such "victims", but this book poignantly highlights how the children who are given no choice in the matter can be more messed up by the experience and also in later life.
Tim writes with a contained emotion about his lonely and strange upbringing, shunted back and forth between confused and misguided parents, particularly his mother, who may have meant well but served to give him absolutely no grounding, real love, or sense of self. Aside from occasional visits with his father, much of the time described in the book concerns Tim's pre-teen years, after his parent's separation, spent with the mother who becomes quite an important figure in the European growth of the Rajneeshi movement. She is no mere rank and file follower, but a key figure in the British leadership, and has some direct encounters with the Bhagwan himself. Eventually, the movement unravels under the weight of leadership scandals, tax, immigration, legal and other myriad problems.
Tim gives a very well researched and appropriate level of insight into the movement, as if seeing it again through the eyes of the adolescent he was. We read only obtuse accounts of the rumoured sexual scandals, rape and violence for which the cult was known, since Tim, as the last paragraph of the book tellingly alludes to, was luckily spared some of the darker activities that were going on around him. Needless to say, however, he still has his scars to deal with, most centrally his parents' lack of real involvement in his life. Through it all, he appears to have emerged as a deep and thoughtful person, and this memoir is a top-notch and moving read.