Testimonial letter from Ma Jivan Sugatha
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 Jivan Sugatha. It is "Exhibit A-685" 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.
 Ma Jivan Sugatha To Whom It May Concern, Visiting Rajneeshpuram, being in the presence of my master Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh was such an intense experience for me. Being there for the second time and seeing what has happened meanwhile makes it so visible how much Bhagwan's silent presence actifies the energy and the creativity of the people being with him. Over many years, Bhagwan was speaking to his disciples. All these words he gave us in the past were very important and helpful at that time, to understand about life. But what’s happening now in the presence of His silence, of his overflowing silent love is much more. There is no word that can express this love, there is nothing to say! Feeling the fragrance of His presence touches me so deeply - much deeper as any word could reach. It is like he transforms the air surrounding Him and it is an incredible gift to have Him among us. In Germany I work as a designer and architect. I studied architecture in the Technical University in Munich from 1972 and finished with an engineering degree in 1978. Since then I practiced in various kinds of projects mainly in urban development and family housing. All the time I was searching for new ways of living in communities and how Architecture could respond to the various possibilities of creating a city society and how Architecture and the way of people living together effect each other. Mainly I found architects, designers, politicians trying hard to create nice new housing areas and environments on one side and people not getting happier living in those pretty, new, well designed but sterile developments. There was a gap! What was missing? The love, the life, the spirit! Through a friend I came across Bhagwan’s teachings and felt very strongly drawn. Hearing about Bhagwan's vision of living together in freedom and harmony in a city of His vision, made me certain that there was the answer to my questions. And this vision is happening in the City of Rajneeshpuram. Walking through Rajneeshpuram with the eyes of an experienced Architect makes me admire this project even more. This is not only the excellence of planning a city but also the excellence of building it. What normally lasts a year of being planned and built, get's here easily done within 3 months. All this can only be possible throught the inspiration of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. It’s fantastic to see, how the freedom of the individual expresses in the freedom of the city environment and the buildings themselves; and to see these beautiful people moving and living in this space. No place else in the world I saw so many happy, beautiful, alive people than here. And everybody having walked down any city road looking into the grey, bored faced, immediately sees the difference. Concerning my own work and life, His guidance transformed me totally. My creativity and my imagination are growing day by day. It’s like new ideas and energies are pouring out of me on it's own. There is no struggle, no effort needed anymore as it used to be before. I'm surprised, how wide, how fulfilling, how deep life can be. Not to talk about the response I get from outside! I did several exhibitions of my own work in Germany last autumn and this spring and people who had known me from before, from several years ago, were totally overwhelmed and wondering what explosion has happened to me. I never had so much success before. And all this beauty, these qualities have been inside me always before. Only I feel, that all this could finally come out, wake up, be expressed through Bhagwan's silent "touch" through His love, through His presence, through His excellent inspiration. Sincerely, |
(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.)
