This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Eastern Movements gathers four groups built around teachers who drew on Buddhist or Hindu practice, chosen because together they range from a respected international spiritual organization to the deadliest attack any of the four carried out.
Brahma Kumaris, founded in 1937 by the diamond merchant Dada Lekhraj after a series of visions, centers on raja yoga meditation aimed at recognizing the self as an eternal soul distinct from the body, teaches belief in a single Supreme Soul it calls God Shiva, and has held general consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council while running meditation programs in many countries, its leadership predominantly female since its founding, unusual among new religious movements from South Asia.
The Rajneesh movement formed around the Indian teacher Rajneesh, later called Osho, blending Eastern mysticism, meditation and Western psychology into a critique of conventional religion and social convention; its American commune drew the cult label scholars apply more cautiously to Brahma Kumaris. Buddhafield, led by a teacher who used the names Michel and Andreas, blended meditation and yoga with a devoted communal following later documented in the film Holy Hell as psychologically controlling and abusive.
Aum Shinrikyo carried the pattern furthest: a Japanese movement blending Buddhism and Hinduism with apocalyptic prophecy and its founder's personal authority, it is one of the most studied cases in the literature on cults and religious violence because it carried out a chemical weapons attack for which its leaders were tried and convicted in Japanese courts, after which the group renamed and reorganized itself under legal and public pressure.