Testimonial letter from Ma Deva Parinito

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 Parinito (Erika Haerer-Penza). It is "Exhibit A-2591" 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.

To whom it may concern 2nd of August, 1983 I’m happy about the possibility to write to you today. I’ve been a disciple of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh since 3 years. I got to know Him through doing self-realization-groups in Germany. At this time - after being succesfuly in my profession, but not fulfilled, after going back to university and seeing the pointlesness of it, after being in political- and feminist-groups, after finally searching for ’something else’ in drugs, after a seven-year-chaotic-relationship - I was quite hopeless about myself and my life. My approach to Bhagwan was not intellectual at all. Without reading any of His books I decided to become one of His disciples. Then later on in Poona (India) I was listening to Him in lectures but not really understanding. His teaching reached me more through working and living in one of His communities, with other Sannyasins and under His guidance. Here slowly slowly I get to know about myself, about my suffering, about my fears, about my needs; about the possibility of living joyfully. Immediatly after taking Sannyas I was dropping a great fear, the fear that my life is already pre-programmed and conditioned through my childhood, my own self, my surroundings and I could do nothing about that. And I saw so much around me I couldnt accept. Bhagwan was telling me that everybody is responsible for his life, you have your life in your hand, everything that happens to you you have invited. That was a great relief. Now I could do things I should have never dreamed before. Like having a child; being married, living a totally normal life. Because now I know that nothing by itself can be bad its yourself that creates it. Yours sincerely [signed] Ma Deva Parinito (Erika Haerer-Penza) Via San Manco 40-4 20100 Milano ITALY

(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.)