Testimonial letter from Ma Bodhi Sirpa
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 Bodhi Sirpa (Sirpa Paakkonen). It is "Exhibit A-1438" 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.
 Ma Bodhi Sirpa To Whom It May Concern. I am a practical nurse at a University Hospital, Karolinska Sjubhusel, in Stockholm, Sweden. I have worked at Karolinska in 13 years in various wards like neurology, surgery, psychiatry and the two latest years in the intensive care. My education is also provided by Karolinska in several parts, the latest a course in intensive care and the technical equipment in an intensive care 1981. During many years I often felt that my work was very heavy. I had physical pain in my lower back and emotional agony in dealing with deep problems like death and family tragedies. I tried my mother's religion, traditional Protestantism, for some years, but it did not help me. Four years ago, a friend told me about Bhagwan. After reading a couple of his discourses in my friend's newspaper I felt immediately: This is what I have been searching for years, now I have come home. I began to meditate in the center in Stockholm, and soon my lower back pain disappeared. After a while, getting more in touch with Bhagwan in intensive therapy groups, I found that my agony diminished and I could deal with my patients and their families in a more relaxed, accepting and loving way. The death was no longer an enemy but one part of our life. Both my working mates and private friends have told me that after I began to meditate, they feel a certain change. I am more open, happy, relaxed, easier to deal with. For all this, I thank Bhagwan. His holistic, accepting, delightful approach to all aspects of our life, makes him the greatest psychologist ever seen. Even if he is now in silence, we can feel his love for us. We can hear his taped discourses, and in all his books everything must be said already, so now the words are not necessary any more. The presence of a spiritual leader like Bhagwan is really good and useful for any western country. We are getting more and more materialistic, individualistic in a bad way, separating from each other, competitive, non-loving. A master is needed to tell us what we REALLY need. I have now the opportunity to live in Rajneeshpuram during a course of three months, and I wish everybody could have this chance to experience how we can make the life a celebration. [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.)
