When Akshaye Khanna Opened Up About Vinod Khanna Leaving Bollywood For Osho Ashram

Today marks Vinod Khanna's 80th birth anniversary, and it makes us revisit one of the biggest decisions he made in his life: leaving Bollywood for a spiritual life at the Osho Ashram. Akshaye Khanna reacted to the same in an old interview with Simi Garewal, where he said it takes "guts to live for yourself".

Vinod Khanna made an exit from Bollywood at the height of his career in 1982 to follow a spiritual path, a decision that stunned the film industry. At the time, he was one of Hindi cinema's biggest stars, known for a string of hit films and a massive fan following. Khanna left films to join spiritual leader Osho's ashram in Rajneeshpuram, Oregon, where he devoted himself to meditation and a disciplined life. His sudden exit shocked audiences, deeply affected his family, and changed the direction of his career.

Akshaye Khanna's Thoughts

In a separate interview with Simi Garewal, Vinod Khanna's son, Akshaye Khanna, spoke about whether he understood what was happening at the age of five.

"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."

Echoing his father's view on being "selfish", Akshaye added, "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."

Vinod Khanna's Second Wife, Kavita's Take On Actor's Spiritual Journey

Khanna's second wife, Kavita, said his interest in spirituality began much earlier than widely known. Speaking to Loveena Tandon, she said, "He was always spiritually inclined. When he was 17 years old, he picked up Autobiography of a Yogi from Strand Bookstore in Bombay, an iconic bookstore, and didn't put the book down until he finished it. He stayed up all night reading it."

She added, "Whenever J Krishnamurti was in town, if he happened to be shooting, he would take the day off and go attend the lectures."

Kavita said, "I think he started listening to Osho's discourses as they went through a terrible period in their lives, with five deaths in the family, including people who were particularly close to him, like his mother."

"When his mother died, he went to the ashram and took sanyas. That's how that journey began."

She also revealed that Khanna continued working while living in the ashram. "Most people don't know that for three years, while completing the films he had already signed, which included super hits like Hera Pheri and Qurbani, where he looked his absolute best, he would come and shoot."

Kavita said Khanna lived an extremely simple life during this period. "If the shoot was on location, he'd be there, but his base was Pune. He had a room in the ashram that was just four feet by six feet." She added that even Osho joked about the space. "The room was so small that he had to step over the bed and sleep diagonally because there was barely any space."

She said Khanna balanced films and spirituality simultaneously. "In front of the camera, he was doing films; off camera, he was meditating. He was Osho's gardener in the ashram. Then he went to Oregon."

Explaining why Khanna eventually stepped away from the ashram, Kavita said he felt spiritually fulfilled. "I think he found what he was looking for. He didn't feel the need to be in an ashram anymore," she said.

She summed up his philosophy by saying, "When you're on a spiritual path, the idea isn't to keep doing the same thing endlessly. You achieve a certain sense of peace. An inner evolution happens. And then the idea is to be a Buddha in the marketplace. To me, that's the pinnacle of a spiritual journey. If you can be a Buddha in the marketplace, with everything happening around you, and still remain centered, then that's really the thing."

Tentatively, after a 5-year break, Vinod Khanna returned to the film industry in 1987 with Insaaf and went on to deliver several successful films. He scored major hits with Suryaa and Chandni in 1989. In the later phase of his career, Khanna earned widespread praise for playing strong fatherly roles in blockbuster films such as Wanted (2009), Dabangg (2010), Dabangg 2 (2012), and Dilwale (2015). 

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