Testimonial letter from M. J. de Graaf
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 M. J. de Graaf. It is "Exhibit A-2190" 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.
 Ververstraat 40 To Whom It May Concern, In this letter I want to share a few things about myself and my work and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. My name is M.J. de Graaf, M.D. I studied medicine in Holland at the University of Utrecht from 1967 to 1974 and graduated cum laude. After my studies I specialized as a general practitioner and a psychotherapist in which I have been working for eight years now. Four years ago I met Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and I became a disciple. Since that time my work with patients has changed in a very positive way. Through his spiritual guidance and religious teachings a very strong healing quality came into my work which had not been there before. I started to see much more clearly the root causes of the problems and illnesses the people came with. Because of my own growth I am now able to help them in a much more beneficial way. Before becoming a sannyasin I experienced a lot of training programs and therapy groups for my work (such as bioenergetics, counselor’s training, focusing therapy, etc). It never happened before I met Bhagwan, however, that I was inspired in such a way as happened by His religious vision and teachings. He really showed me the way to become "whole" and healthy as a human being for myself and for my patients. Comparing His work with what I experienced before, Bhagwan really has had an exceptional influence on me in my field. 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.)
