Testimonial letter from Beatrijs de Vos

From The Sannyas Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search

This letter is one of a remarkable series of over 2650 letters amassed in 1983 to support Osho's attempt to get permanent resident status in the US at the time of the Oregon ranch. The image is reproduced here with the kind permission of The Oregon Historical Society. Information about their collection of these letters and other supporting material -- the "Jeffrey Noles Rajneesh Collection", named for Osho's immigration lawyer Jeffrey Noles, who compiled them in 1983 and donated them to the OHS -- can be found at this page. The wiki is grateful to the OHS for making access available for these documents. For more information and links to all the letters, see Testimonial letters.

This letter is from Beatrijs de Vos. It is "Exhibit A-1078" in the Noles collection.

The text version below has been created by optical character recognition (OCR), from the images supplied by OHS. It has not been checked for errors but this process usually results in over 99% correct transcription. Most apparent "errors" are correct transcriptions of typos already in the original. The image on the right in the text box links to a pdf file of the original letter, it has one page.

To whom it may concern.

I am a professional classical singer.My vocal studies were finished at the Royal Music Academy in Ghent and Brussels,after a 2 year study in West-Germany,with Prof.Dr.W.Ehmann,specialised in historical music playing and singing.Immmediately after my last examinations I became a teacher in vocal art at the Royal Music Academy in Ghent(Belgium).At the same time I started my carreer as a soloist,and was singing in many concerts with old and new classical music,and I made several enreqistrations for the Belgian Radio.

In 1980 I met a few Belgian disciples of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh,and I started doing his meditations,aswell as reading several of his books.Something fundamental happened to me and to my art.Especially during "dancing-meditations” I experienced the immense joy and beauty of let go,of non-doing.Also in my singing something changed:going more totally in it,without asking,without a goal,without fear the music was happening by itself.Through Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh I was able to give to my art this little extra that is impossible to express through words,but that everyone can feel. Also the way I work with students got enriched,starting on a base of total acceptance,working without goals,just being in the moment,gives them trust and a more relax way to study.Several times the Belgian Ministery of Culture asked me to work with groups of Belgian musicians,artists,and recently I worked with all Belgian general music teachers.This was a beautiful experience which showed that meditation can happen in everyday-school,even without knowing the word.

I am convinced that Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is giving one of the most precious contributions to contempory religious live in the world.Americans should be happy that one of the greatest enlightened masters that ever lived,wants to stay in their country;through him the beautiful experiment from building and living Rajneeshpuram is happening.lt is a community where meditation is part of everyday live.

Sincerely,
[signed]
Beatrijs De Vos
Tiense Steenweg 88
3030 Heverlee
Belgium


(Please note: We assume that the above letter is still copyrighted, but we regard its historical interest to constitute a Fair Use exception for publication in this wiki.)