Testimonial letter from Elke Behnke
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 Elke Behnke. It is "Exhibit A-1388" 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 2 pages.
 Elke Behnke to whom it may concern My name is Elke Behnke. I am 32, married and mother of two little boys, they are four years old. I am a German. My profession is a teacher for subnormal children, brain handicaped or handicaped in speech. After my studies (1971) as a teacher for elemantary school I was called for another special study, so I became a teacher for handicaped students in the age of 7 to 15 years. Since 1977 I am doing this special work at a school of special education. My work expects a lot of social engagement, because often the reasons of the handicaps are founded in social conditions like prae-, peri, post-natal handicaps, handicaps as a result of social conditions of the parents (unknowledge, no profession, no money, little room to live, many children). My pupils need special help and a person, who is centered and able to give besides her learned teaching techniques love and understanding. My work takes a lot of energy. So this was in the beginning of my work the most importend reason, which confused me. I gave all what I could give and felt bad, because there was no feed back. Or, at this time I couldn’t see that something was giving back to me. I wasn’t content with my work and a negative transfer in my private life was happend. My family life, my life as a wife and a mother went into crisis. At this time I have heard of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. My husband and I did several self finding groups. I got more and more centered, love was floating again to my husband, to my sons and to my professional work. I learned many techniques of meditations and helps to be aware of what is happening with me and other people. This experiences helped me to be a centered person, who is able to live in love, to give love to my family and my students, who need my help urgently. Since the time I met Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh life and love goes successfuly on and I can act life happyly. Also I got able to transfer techniques of psychology and scientific experiments which are developed from Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in my daily life and into my daily work as a teacher of subnormal children. A collective love is floating and given back to me. [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.)
