Testimonial letter from Gerhard Münnich
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 Gerhard Münnich. It is "Exhibit A-1285" 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.
 Gerhard Münnich To whom it concerns I am a diplom-physisist, 34 years old, and I am living in Hamburg, West Germany. In Erlangen I was studying theoretical physics and my main subjects were thermodynamics, hydrodynamics, kinetic theorie of gases and mathematics. After my study I was working as an expert for noise protection, sound propagation and air pollution. I made efforts for conscious inner growth and harmonia and was reading books about human psychologic, written by western scientists, and about Christian and eastern ways to live a harmonic life and to become aware of the divine in man and existence. I was practising techniques of autogenous training and meditation as well as karate and tai chi. My experience shows, that these conscious efforts are the right way to more inner strength, independance and peace. And the great religions are teaching, that one has first to look for an inner harmonic, then an outer harmonic will follow by itself. In 1978 I have heard the first time of the enlightened master Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and I read books of him and heard some of his cassettes.I immediately was touched by his beautiful simple words and I felt the deep wisdom in these simple words. Bhagwan has spoken about every important religion in the world and when we look at the innumerable quantity of books, that are written about mystics, yoga, occultisme and also modern methods of human psychotherapie, then the teachings of Bhagwan give an unique survey of this immense province. And his view must be very unique. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh shows the essence of the main religions in the world and he also told about the efforts, that human beings can do for their spiritual growth and for reaching the core of the religions. These efforts and natural possibilities are awareness, meditation, prayer, love, joy, growth groups, body work and creative life. Until today, a conscious religious life, in which a man explores deeper and deeper his own inner being, was lived by very few communities or by spiritual well developed persons. The presence of the enlightened master Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh openes the door to an alife religious existence for a greater number of people. One of the reasons is,that the group therapie is available and helps to understand his own wishes or reactions and those of other peoples, and to become more and more centered in his own being. In daily life the sannyasins of Bhagwan are living in all kinds of social classes. And one person is stronger,the other person may be weaker. With his presence, Bhagwan is creating a Buddhafield, that means a field of great positive psychic and spiritual energy in his community of sannyasins. This energyfield helps the sannyasins to grow and it is well to feel in Rajneeshpuram and also in Rajneesh meditationcenters. And as one knows, that the presence of a happy man can make other people happy too, one of Bhagwans visions is, that the joy of his sannyasins has a positive influence to the world, in which they live. In the United States exist meditationscenters of some real spiritual teachers, that can help their disciples on their spiritual way. One of them is the enlightened guru Paramahansa Yogananda, who’s body died 1952 in Los Angeles. Yogananda foundet the Self-Realization Fellowship in 1920, an organisation of immense worth for the spiritual seeker. Other spiritual teachers are Yogi Bajan and Swami Muktananda, who’s body died last year, and Pir Inanayat Khan,e.g. I was in Rajneeshpuram from June 28. until July 11.,1983. And I was very much impressed by the presence of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and by the life of his sannyasins in the new foundet city. I want to take sannyas, because Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is a living enlightened master. [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.)
