Testimonial letter from Klaus Bieger

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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 Klaus Bieger. It is "Exhibit A-18" 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.

Klaus Bieger, Theologian
23 Kiel
Petersburger Weg 80
West Germany
20.7.85

To whom it may concern -
I am a german theologian, 47 years old, married, 3 children.

I am deeply concerned with the present uncertainty, whether Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh will be given a permanent resident's permission or not. I became a clergyman of the Protestant Church at a mature age after several different life-experiences. When I was 25, I quit my first profession as an architect, as it did not turn out to be a really self-fulfilling work for me at that time. For some years I worked as a fisherman, became a qualified bookbinder, then started learning Hebrew and Greek and finished my studies as a theologian at the time of my marriage when I was 33. A severe car-accident at that time gravely embarrassed me for some years but finally turned out to be a good push for turning in and facing my own inner state.

After some years of work I happened to hear about Bhagwan in India, then the book of a german journalist-Rajneeshie about his own experiences showed me very clearly what might be possible for me - and off I went to India for a short stay.

Up to then only Jesus and some very ancient people had fascinated me and touched me in my depth. Mow seeing this man Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and listening to him I was instantly very certain that now there was absolutely no need of any further search. All was now rather close to me, that always had seemed very far away. - I went thru a good deal of personal work and started meditating.

From that time on very slowly a kind of centering happened in my ordinary day to day life. Now I can often truely be helpful to other persons without bothering or interfering at all in any way.

It seems to me now that my potential of real openness towards existence was challenged by Bhagwan and now slowly starts unfolding and flowering. He is for me a master, a religious leader, who is friendly, helpful, very non-seductive and non-interfering in any of my affairs, outer or inner. Towards other persons I find myself more understanding now, there is more joy in the air now. This is deliberately increasing after each annual meeting in Rajneeshpuram/Oregon.

So I beg you as an American, help this possibility to realize many more times, it may in its way be useful for peace among men.
[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.)