The late actor Vinod Khanna shocked the Hindi film industry when he quit at the peak of his success and left for the US, to join spiritual guru Rajneesh and his commune. Rajneesh would go on to be known as Osho, and among his many high profile followers for Vinod Khanna, who not only turned his back on his career, abut also left his family behind in India as he left to find himself.
In an old interview with Simi Garewal, the veteran actor defended his decision to leave his family, and said that he had reached a ‘saturation point’ in his career. Asked what compelled him to become Osho’s follower, he said, “My own mind. My mind was thinking too much. I was too hyper. My thoughts were all over the place. I was very angry. I’d reached a saturation point. People can press your buttons and make you react. Everything is not under your control. But I would see that when I meditate, these things weren’t affecting me at all. You have to become the master of your own mind, and these were the things that drove me to say that I’ve had enough, I’ve made enough money… Now, if I want to go deeper into meditation, I have to give my full time to it. I have to live in an ashram, I have to live at the feet of my guru. So, obviously, there was a need within me.”
Also read – When Mahesh Bhatt opened up about his role in Vinod Khanna’s decision to leave his family, career for Osho commune: ‘He had seen me donning the saffron robe’
Asked if it was self-indulgent of him to take this decision, he said, “It is! Unless you’re selfish, you can’t do anything like this. Because it’s your own being that has to find that transcendence.” Khanna admitted that his family was ‘unhappy’ when he told them that he’d be leaving, and explained, “Everybody has to travel alone. You come alone, you go alone. You have to travel your path.”
He said that there was ‘no cost’ to his personal life. “I was very much in touch with my family. It’s not that I ran away. I was providing everything,” he said.
In a separate interview, also with Simi Garewal, Khanna’s son, actor Akshaye Khanna, spoke about how he took the news. Asked if he understood what was happening as a five-year-old at the time, he said, “No, I don’t think one can understand at that age. But we had a fair understanding of what the logistics of things were. I don’t remember it ever being explained to me, actually. It was just the way it was. I don’t think anybody explained it to me. I can’t remember. I’m sure someone must have. But I can’t remember… You can’t understand these things at that age… Everybody has their own way of dealing with things, and it’s only now that one truly understands… I certainly don’t think that it was a bad thing or a wrong thing. When a relationship doesn’t serve the people who are involved, I don’t think there’s any reason to continue it, especially if the excuse is for someone else.”
Like his father, he emphasised on the importance of being selfish. He said, “I’m a great believer in being self-centred, being selfish. Unless you’re happy, you can’t make other people happy. The longer you continue to pretend to live a lie, you start resenting the other person and you start resenting yourself. I think everybody should live for themselves. It takes guts to live for yourself. Very few people can really do it.”
He said that he missed his father as a child, but stressed that he had a ‘secure, happy’ childhood, thanks to his mother. Vinod Khanna passed away in 2017.
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