Testimonial letter from Ekkart Stodte
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 Ekkart Stodte. It is "Exhibit A-501" 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.
 Praxis für psychologische Beratung to whom it may concern BHAGWAN SHREE RAJNEESH is definitely the most startling and inspiring person that I have met so far. In his teachings as well as in the meditation techniques which he has devised especially for modern man, he has made available all the wisdom of eastern and western contributors to human consciousness. In his stressing the religious experience instead of the dead dogmas of institutionalised religions, he has opened for many people again the pathway to religion, which had been barred to them by the dry, repetitive rites of outlived institutions. His way of sharing his overwhelming vision of love with his disciples in silent heart-to-heart communion I experience as deeply respectful and loving to people's inner freedom, because it is so totally unobtrusive: just a sharing of energies in a celebrative way. In my work as a psychologist and psychotherapist I feel that Bhagwan has helped me to pass a certain impasse that can be discerned throughout western psychotherapy, and which I call the meaning-border, or the religious border. We will never be able to really help people get out of the messes they have made out of their lives, unless we are ready to accompany them a little way across that border, where they can tolerate to confront themselves to what we call God, or meaning, a question that arises in death and in love, in deep misery as well as happiness, and that has to be answered should suffering stop. The religious experience with and around an enlightened being is totally undogmatic, always fresh and deeply individual. To open people's hearts to this experience, is, as far as I see it, the work of Bhagwan. I deeply wish that it will be possible for him to continue in it. [signed] |
(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.)
