Testimonial letter from Ma Arpana Barbara
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 Ma Arpana Barbara (Barbara Coenraad). It is "Exhibit A-2526" 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.
 HOW I CAME TO TAKE SANNYAS WITHOUT EVER SEEING BHAGWAN SHREE RAJNEESH Since january 1983 I had individual therapeutic sessions with a psyciatrist. Mentally I was totally lost and close to a break down. I felt so insecure that even shopping was too much for me, meaning that I started to tremble and sweat all over my body, and not daring to look people in the eyes any anymore. Only when I was alone at home I felt a little relaxed. At that time I slept almost every free minute and felt exausted all the time. Physically I was in poor condition too. Low blood pressure, often dizzy, growing too fat, etc. Then a friend invited me for a lecture of Amrito about Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. I went with her being curious how a psychiatrist(Jan Foudraine) could come to become a sannyasin(Amrito). That evening was the first time that I heared about Bhagwan and that I saw Him on video. He opened my eyes and since many years I was there again. Since then I went to Bhagwan centra to meet sannyasins, to see video and to meditate. I red about Bhagwan and his own books. Since april 21, 1983 my life changed completely. After that evening, as usually, I had my sessions with my psychiatrist. The second session after the 21st. the psychiatrist told me that in her opinion I didn’t need to come again and assumed I could go on without her assistance. "You’re like being very much in love!" So it happened and since then I haven’t been to the sessions anymore. I dared to go and do alone, without trembling and sweating. Mij bloodpressure became as normal as can be, no more dizzyness, became slim. From no energy at all, I got so much that my sleeping hours went from ± 12 to ± 6 a day. Extra. As I used to look much older than my age, my appearance became younger, Etc, etc. The end of May, one morning I woke up and the decission to take sannyas was there. At july 1, 1983 I was initiated at Rajneeshpuram. Ma Arpana Barbara |
(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.)
