Thanks, Paddy, I stand corrected.  I had no idea that SSB and Rajneesh had so many western followers.  Of course many people know of, and respect, Krishnamurti through his books, but I'm a little surprised that he has a following of people that regard themselves as his devotees.

TM seemed to me by far the most successful of these Hindu "imports" but I tended to class DLM in a different category, rather along with groups like the Hare Krishna and the Children of God people - those groups that Mike Donner once characterised as the lunatic fringe OF the lunatic fringe.

What made these latter groups so damaging, IMHO, was that they not only peddled a religious philosophy (harmless enough in itself) but they demanded a lifestyle change. What proportion of the SSB or Rajneesh people abandoned family and friends, careers or education, attended religious meetings every evening, meditated for 2 hours a day, and spent their free time (what was left of it) in "service", year in year out? That would perhaps be a more meaningful comparison.

Rob