Testimonial letter from Elisabeth L. M. Jungschleger
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 Elisabeth L. M. Jungschleger. It is "Exhibit A-238" 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 3 pages.
 Amsterdam, 20th July 1983, To whom this may concern. The purpose of this letter is to introduce myself to you and to share my experience with the teachings of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, the enlightened Master and spiritual leader of the religious movement, called Rajneeshism. My name is Elisabeth L.M. Jungschleger. My age is 32 and I live and work in Amsterdam Holland, as a certified therapist and teacher. I received my Master-degree at the University of Amsterdam dept. social psychology/adult education. I have been working as a teacher at the University of Amsterdam and at the moment I am still involved in educational activities on a free-lance base. Besides my studies in psychology I was trained as a registered nurse. I continued my studies in health-care at the Institute for Hospital Organization and Education. This institute is connected to the Catholic University of Nymegen-Holland. After my graduation there I worked for several years as a teacher at the trainingschool for Nurses from the Free University Amstelveen-Holland. Because of this background my work at the moment as a psychologist is mainly concerned with psycho-somatics; both in therapy as in teaching. In both my professions I was confronted, almost every day, with the problem of life and death. During the time I worked as teacher and counselor at the trainingschool for nurses, many students shared their problems with death and the dying and asked for my advice. It was during this time that I started to realize that both my studies could not give the answers nor even a guideline for myself and my students in this subject. It was in this time too that I felt the need to explore a field of experience beyond the level of science and communicationtheory. And even beyond philosophy. I turned my focus to theology and metaphysics. But after some time it was clear that many theories did not fit the real situation I was confronted with in my daily work. I felt the need of a theology with the freshness of this daily life; a theology that was alive and added something to life and our approach towards death. I knew that this teachings had to come from a very original source, beyond the imprisonment of our human view and intellectual way of looking towards life (which most of the time means; not looking towards death). I was asked to write an article about communication in health care and of course came across the problem of non-communication. "What to say at the bedside of a dying person when all has been said?". At that moment, in my search for literature, a colleague who was involved in spirituality and meditation told me about a library where I probably could find some inspiring literature about this subject. He told my also about books written by Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. My introduction to this spiritual master was by reading "Come follow Me"; talks on the sayings of Jesus Christ. During the time I read this book I felt that these talks contented a synthesis of religion, science and daily life. I started realizing that this was the living religion I was looking for as teacher, counselor and human being. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’ talks became a great inspiration for my work and my view towards the dying. Those talks and teachings opened life completely and that seemed to be the only way to look at death. In these teachings I finally found the almost mind-blowing concept of non-communication-out-of-richness, and that was exactly the answer on my question: "What to say at the bedside of a dying person when all has been said". This master helped me to realize that out of one's own poverty one cannot be of any help in mens most important moments. I started to understand that through meditation - a daily spiritual practise - one can transform one’s poverty into richness; into the overflowing source that is needed to help others. He teached, and still teaches, the living religion that was missing in the traditional theology or methaphysics. Through these teachings it is possible to connect theology with daily life problems and this opens the possibility to solve these problems. For me a more clear attribution towards the area of therapy and solving the "human problem" of alienation than Bhagwans Shree Rajneesh' teachings about living religion as a healing process, cannot be given. They are of tremendous value. It is not only in the helping profession that through my own experience I know that the teachings of this spiritual Master are of immense value but also from a scientific point of view. Many of my students at the university started to see the importance of the synthesis between the eastern way of life and tradiion in science and the western approach. I once gave a workshop about psycho-somatics in which I used a combination of traditional literature and several volumes of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh on the subject of psychology, meditation-techniques and the relation body-mind. In every possible way my students started making the connection between the healing power of meditation, relaxation, the therapeutic value of both and the connection towards scientific research on brainphysiology and the functions of right and left hemisphere, the influence of meditation and relaxation on daily life functions etc. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh approach towards science seems to me very clear and filled with years of his own experience as a university-professor, but moreover with his experience of living religion as a science on itself. My students were inspired to look further than the scientific horizon. They discovered a possibility for their personal growth and with this a growth in their own creativity, insight in life and their attribution towards society. During a visit to his commune I became a disciple and after my return to Europe I continued my work at the University. Recently I started building my own practice and in creating this I even experience more inspiration coming from this Master as a teacher and spiritual guide. For me and for the people I work with, there is no problem in the fact that this spiritual teacher now is in silence. He produced in his lectures so much material to study (for those who like to experience his teachings on an intellectual level). And for people who want to find the answer on a question like: "what to say at the bedside of a dying person when all has been said"; they probably find the most inspiration in his beautiful silence. I am convinced of the fact that his commune in Oregon U.S.A. will be one of the greatest contributions in the synthesis of religion, science and therapy. It is my experience that through his work many people found back their health and even more will do. yours sincerely, |
(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.)
