Testimonial letter from Ma Deva Ashu
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 Deva Ashu (Louise Cochlin). It is "Exhibit A-476" 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.
 July 19, 1983 To whom it may concern, For the past nine years of my life, I have been involved in the dental profession as a dental hygienist and assistant. I have worked in Canada for several large group practices geared towards preventive dentistry with an emphasis on patient education. In general, dentistry has always been a subject which, for most people, brings up fear and anxiety associated with past experiences of pain and dread of future ones. I have always tried to bring a positive and creative attitude toward oral health, stressing the patient’s responsibility through the teaching of oral hygiene techniques and proper nutrition. For the past seven years, I have also been a disciple of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. While working as a dental assistant in Canada, I came in contact with Bhagwan’s teachings and spent most of the next five years at his ashram in Poona, India. During that time I continued to work in dentistry, both -in Canada and at the dental clinic which was set up in the ashram in Poona. My contact with Bhagwan- listening to his lectures, being with him daily in Poona and living communally as one of his disciples, has helped me immensely in my work on many levels. His insights into the psychological and spiritual aspects of anxiety and fear have helped mo to understand and deal with fearful or negative patients in a totally now raid more loving way. In India, working on my fellow disciples as patients, the dentistry became a theraputic situation where many people overcame their fears and took responsibility for the own bodies and oral health. Bhagwan has also helped me to look upon the body as a temple, the dwelling place of the divine within us all. Through this kind of reverence and awareness, the attitude towards caring for the mouth, which is, after all, the door of the temple, changes into a more meditative practice. My work has become my meditation, and my patients also learn to look upon caring for their oral health as a meditation. I am grateful to Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and feel that he has made an invaluable contribution to my personal attitude towards the dental profession, and through my new awareness I have helped other people to treat their body with more loving awareness. yours truly, |
(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.)
