Testimonial letter from Ma Deva Mayo
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 Mayo (Gerda E. de Oude). It is "Exhibit A-336" 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 3 pages.
 stichting schooladviescentrum To whom it may concern. Nieuwegein, July 13th 1983. Work-experiences: 2. Since 1971 I am working as a full-time schoolcounsellor in service from the Foundation Schooladvisory-Centre in Utrecht. The collegues and I are paid to cooperate with the teachers, schoolboardmembers and parents to innovate changes in all infant- and primaryschools in the town Utrecht. Getting acquainted with Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and his work: In february 1979 I got acquainted with the work of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. I read many of his Books and listened to several lecture-tapes. In december 1979 I went to India for a six-week-stay and asked Bhagwan to give me sannyas. In december 1980 I went again to India (Poona) for a five-week-stay. My experiences in the ashram of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh were very enriching. It was surprising and hopefull to me, that I could directly experience a lot of the teachings, whereabout I read and heard already in his books and the tapes. The people in the Schooladvisory-Centre agreed with these two short stays in India. Since january 1980 I exercised my profession with the teachers in Roman-Catholic, Protestant-Christ and Public infant- and primaryschools in Utrecht, using my sannyas-name, wearing red/orange-coloured dresses and a mala (necklace). Nobody made any problem about it. The same was the case in respect of my in- and outdoor-meetings and activities with local and State authorities, collegues, parents, students, etc. In april 1981 I demanded the Board of the Schooladvisory-Centre for an unpaid five-months-leave. In my application to the Board I wrote about Bhagwan's teachings, the Rajneesh Counsellor-training, other Rajneesh meditations/courses in which I wanted to participate and last but not least about the Rajneesh School for children, aged 3-16 years old, that I wanted to visit. The Board granted the unpaid leave from September 1 1981 until february 1st 1982. As the Rajneesh-ashram in Poona, India, closed, I chose to go to America during november/december 1981 to participate in a Rajneesh-counsellorscourse and other activities in the Geetam-Rajneesh-ashram in California. In july 1982 and july 1983 I again went to America; these times to take part in the religious Annual World Celebrations in Oregon in the presence of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. The importance of Bhagwan and his teachings in relation to the work of the Schooladvisory-Centre in Utrecht-town: From 1976 - 1982 the Dutch Government, Ministerium for Education and Science, made some experiments possible to develop a new Dutch schooltype: "Basisschool'’, meant for children aged 4 -12 year. In 1985 the two present schooltypes "Kleuterschool" (=Infantschool) and "Lagere School" (=Primary School) will disappear acoording to the new Dutch schoolsystemlaws. I worked as project-leader in such national project, that was and is visited by many school/education-interested people from the Netherlands and abroad. Recently (friday June 17th 1983) we received even a group of American education-scientists . The Dutch Government, the Schooladvisory-Centres, many teachers in the Infant-and Primaryschools and many other people are trying to find other (better) forms of schooleducation. The Dutch society (as other societies!) is changing fast: more and more information, computerizing, progressing development in broken families, unemployed people, aggressiveness, etc. etc. As I understood in the vision and teachings of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh are the following aspects in schooleducation important to make changes in society possible Several of them I recognised already during the realisation of the national "Basisschool-project", that as I just mentioned, I led as a project-leader. In schooleducation (3 - 15 year old children) it is important In meetings, workshops and other activities with my collegues, the teachers and schoolboardmembers I make points as just mentioned more concrete in the work at the schools. In publications, programs, etc. we try to illustrate the possibilities. Several collegues started reading the books from Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh themselves and are directly interested to get acquainted with Bhagwan's teachings about education and schoolsystems. [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.)
