Testimonial letter from Guenter Gehrke (2)
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 Guenter Gehrke. It is "Exhibit A-1694" 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.
 Gehrke is also the author of another letter, written seven days earlier. There is enough commonality between the two letters to establish definitively that the same one person has written both letters, not two different people with the same name. There are 22 other such cases known. We may be amused by the illicit possibilities here but just as likely he was simply giving the organizers two letters to choose from. This letter is much fuller and deeper than the first, making the possibility of improving his input as likely an explanation as any. See also Testimonial letters#duplication for more on this. Dip. Ing. Guenter Gehrke TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: On my religious path of this life my Christian Protestant education and interests concerned me the most of all from my age of 16 till my age of 37, and I was tempted to study the logic of "God" - Theology - but I did choose the study of different sciences like Civil Engineering, technical mechanics, mathematics and theoretical physics at the Technical University of Berlin; the discipline Theroretical Physics mostly to find "Him" logically. But logic did not do. It can neither deny nor prove "Him". Besides, I prayed a lot; the sort of Christian prayer, fairly often more begging than praying but it made me feeling better than without. With and without prayer I experienced so much so that I knew: the very most important things of life are beyond "logic". At this stage Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's devised Siddhis challenged me; levitating by practicing the samyama on the Akasha-Sutra of Patanjali, etc. In this time also the miracles and the devotion of two dead Kriya-Yogis like Paramahansa Yogananda and his master Sri Yuktesvarji impressed me. I visited the places Yogananda started his work in the USA in San Diego and Los Angeles in 1925, where he died and where his ashes are buried. The promises of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and Paramahansa Yogananda sounded great but the very crops or fruits, the advanced students and disciples turned me off! In a Hindi course at the Free University Berlin first time I met sannyasins personally, showing me the Berlin Meditation Center. So far, the relaxed "aura" of a few sannyasins, disciples of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, impressed me. But from that day on I couldn't resist to read his various religious books, to listen to his audio-tapes and to practice his modern meditation techniques, appropriate to make meditation happening even in the today’s stressed people. His teachings opened my heart for religiousness and my understanding for religion. Religiousness happens or not, the person concerned knows or not, the whole phenomenon is neither illogical or logical, it is beyond. It can only happen when you're totally in tune with the laws of nature. When there is only one "God", it is nature itself, with its principle godliness. There is also consciousness, never born, never died. And there is consciousness in human beings, identified with their body or mind or senses or heart - one, two, three or four of them - or not identified with one of them like a Bhagwan, the East Indian word for a God in their sense of being, not being the creator of the world, etc., but highly in contact with or flowing with the universal laws or energies. For me, it wasn't enough only to study Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and I became his disciple. On August 18, 1980, He even talked to me in the morning's discourse about the fools, practicing the Siddhis, Patanjali tried to hinder anybody! And he pointed out what real miracles or real magic is all about -see the book THEOLOGICA MYSTICA, published July 1983, Rajneeshpuram, pp. 174, Real Magic - Very often he mentioned in his discourses: Pure communion is a love affair - and the greatest is that between the Master and his disciples -happens beyond words in silence, although through words a certain Master-disciple communciation is possible. But most important are still the gaps between the words when no word is distracting the overflowing love. And his whole effort is to prepare his disciples for this ultimate experience. Bhagwan's love energy jumps to the ones opening up and his energy affects all persons concerned so much that the entire group energy - of around 15,000 this year - becomes more loving and loving...and creative! Lots of sannyasins can't help crying... because this high loving energy release long and constant depressed and controlled sadness, most modern people carry along etc. But anybody's experience can't be uttered into words. This so called "Buddhafield" naturally infects all persons who come in contact. During the festivals now here in Oregon lots of sannyasins and friends are pumping up their energies for their life and that means also work in their country and anybody not closing up can tell what kind of energies become free and productive. This energy inspires to undertake extraordinary creative projects like we did in West Berlin, opening up the most famous recommended and reported disco with the new spirit - love! - in a disco! From the above, it is obvious that Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is a tremendous benefit to any non-destructive orientated communtiy as a vehicle or medium to transmit pure love, creative and productive energy to anybody who wants to receive it! 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.)
