I moved to an ashram because I thought it'd help me find myself, but having children made me leave

• Jeanette Krohn lived on multiple communes in the 70s and 80s as a follower of the Indian guru Osho.
• Parents were seen as sub-class members; achieving enlightenment was more important than raising kids, she said.

I grew up in 1950s Australia near the caves, creeks, and gum forest wilderness outside Sydney. This was my magical playground, instilling a devotion to nature from a young age. My dad had served in World War 2, witnessing atrocities that made me want something different than the mainstream.

In 1973, I found my community in Nimbin, a hippy enclave in New South Wales and the site of the Aquarius Festival, Australia's answer to Woodstock.

Dancing with artists, fighting for rainforests, and raising two children, I stumbled upon tapes of the Indian guru Osho, and was mesmerized. Wanting to learn more, I left my baby son with his father and traveled to India with my new partner and my daughter to live in his ashram.

I joined the ashram because I thought it would help me know myself better and understand my place in the world; I left because I realized this path to self-realization required me to become alienated from other aspects of my life, including my career and my children.

Being a mother put me at a disadvantage for ashram living

Osho was an Indian mystic. He started recruiting followers in India and then moved to the US, where he relocated his facility to Oregon, in 1981.

Osho blended eastern mysticism and western thought in the ashram. There was much to like about the international community besides being near him. I felt like I was in the company of like souls. We wanted to turn inward instead of engaging in environmental wreckage or warfare. Sitting in silence with 10,000 people on the ashram felt profound.

Sannyasins, also known as disciples, worked in all areas from administration to cleaning. They included doctors, therapists, artists, musicians, and tradespeople. We could afford to be there because many of us came from affluent backgrounds and were well-educated. Plus, India was cheap for us foreigners.

Unlike most sannyasins, I was a mother, and this was considered unfortunate by Osho and his sannyasins, who believed children should be raised away from their parents.

I knew some girls as young as 14 who were sterilized in the ashram hospital.

When I found out I was pregnant with my third child, I was encouraged by one of the ashram doctors to have an abortion, but I decided to ask Osho for his blessing. Instead of responding, he sent three women from his inner circle to reprimand me.

Feeling like a pariah and missing my son, I decided to move back to Australia to live in a sannyasin commune, where we renounced the comforts of materialism. Like other communes of sannyasins set up around the world, this one had an appointed leader who received directions and requests for money from the ashram in India.

Women were mostly in charge, as Osho saw himself as a feminist. But his feminism discouraged pregnancy because he believed children held their parents back from fully developing their consciousness. He also believed that most religions encouraged breeding to win dominance over other religions and did not want sannyasins to think they were part of a religion.

I moved to an ashram in Australia, but things didn't change

In the Australian commune, most people worked outside to earn money and paid it into the coffers. Some, like me, worked in the ashram.

All work was meant to be seen as equal, but because I was still seen as a sub-class member with a new baby, they made me chief toilet cleaner.

Any spare money we made was sent to build Rajneeshpuram, a new commune in Oregon that later became the site of the largest bioterrorist attack on American soil. Osho, who at the time was going by Rajneesh, led this commune, which attracted people from all over the world.

In both the Australian commune and on the ashram, sannyasins were intent upon their enlightenment and seemed prepared to forgo basic kindness or ethics to get there, including sexual abuse and physical harm. Some people were happy to hand over their responsibilities to the collective, especially in relation to childcare.

Many of the kids were troubled and neglected. One woman, who had given her twin daughters up for adoption, approached me once as I held my new baby, and screamed words of hatred at us. Another woman threw away all my daughter's clothes because they weren't the right color; sannyasins only wore sunrise colors.

When the leaders proposed relocating all the children, away from their parents, to a farm in West Australia, we left for good. The commune was no place for kids or the parents trying to raise them.

Going back home wasn't easy. My old friends were skeptical about my having been a member of a cult. I have only three enduring friends amongst the sannyasins, including my now husband of 35 years.

It wasn't perfect, but I am grateful that I had the freedom and opportunity to know myself. I'm grateful my children are ok and know how to love and that I still do my part fighting and defending nature.