Author(s): Tim Guest

Biography Memoir

An unusual, quirky memoir following a childhood growing up in a commune with the followers of the Bhagwan Imagine growing up with 200 mothers and 200 fathers. What would it feel like to dress entirely in orange? What would it be like to grow up in a commune with daily chants, meditation and muesli on the menu? What would it be like to swap your mother for a whole new orange family? In 1981 Tim Guest was taken by his mother to a commune in a small village in Suffolk. It was modelled on the teachings of the famous Indian guru , Bhagwan, who preached an eclectic doctrine of Eastern mysticism, chaotic therapy, and sexual freedom. Both were given Sanskrit names, dressed entirely in orange, and encouraged to surrender themselves into their new family. Tim - or Yogesh, as he was now known - spent the rest of his childhood in Bhagwan's various communes in England, Oregon, Pune and Cologne. While his mother meditated and chanted and ran therapy groups, Yogesh lived a life of unsupervised freedom, occasionally catching glimpses of the strange behaviour of the adults around him. In 1985 the movement About the Author: Tim Guest writes for the Guardian and Daily Telegraph. He lives in London.