Testimonial letter from Ma Prem Carolina
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 Prem Carolina (Carolina Tempelaar). It is "Exhibit A-679" 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.
 Nevweg 68 TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN I first came into contact with Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh four years ago via an article, in a national daily newspaper written by Jan Foudraine, a famous psychiatrist, and writer. A photograph of Bhagwan accompanied the article, and instantly attracted me. I contacted the Center in Amsterdam, joined meditation programmes, and over the next 6 months noticed my life changing. I am a Theatre and Television Producer/Director and was at that time working on cultural and current affairs programmes for the Dutch National Network. I was trained as a TV Producer/Director at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia and by the Australian Broadcasting Commission as Producer/Floor Manager and Assistant Director. I worked for the Australian Broadcasting Commission almost exclusively on its big budget coast to coast live variety programmes and live light music, working with people such as Herbie Mann, Brubeck, among others. In 5 years with the ABC I worked on over 100 Top Rating Programmes. On a tour of Europe I visited the National Network in Holland, and the BBC in London. In Holland I worked for the NOS - National Television Network - which requested the ABC for me on a "cultural loan" basis for a set period. I remained 6 years with the NOS working on over 10 top musical programmes including the annual Eurovision live Xmas Concert in Amsterdam; co-producing and directing a 3 1/2 hour historical documentary; and producing/directing current affairs programme for 5 nationalities in 5 languages. It was in this period I first came into contact with Bhagwan, via Foudraine/Amrito. In the following 6 months I read what he had said about music!! Life can be lived in 2 ways, either as calculation or as poetry; man has two sides to his being, the calculative side creating science, business, politics, and the non-calculative side which creates poetry, sculpture, music. These two sides have a separate existence. Because of this man is impoverished, remains unnecessarily lopsided! To me this was a daily truth - as a producer, dealing with Budgets, contracts, politics, business etc; and as director dealing with creative aspects, visualising music in pictures for others to look at; creative psychology of "building characters" as depicted in scripts out of my own instincts, feelings, and balances, and directing others how to use their "equipment" that is, bodies, feelings to create the whole for which the director is responsible. To me. the conflict was very real when working on both aspects - and I always compromised the one (usually business, budgets etc.) for the other (the artist, or the "love" aspect). Using his meditations and his lectures I tried to find the centre in me to balance both creatively. Another strong quotation was: "Don’t treat persons as means, they are ends unto themselves. Relate to them in love and respect, never possess them or be possessed by them." As a director, and as a producer I quickly saw the relevance of this to the techniques of working with performers to create characters. My working style changed and interpretations became broader. His attitudes to science and ecology are the most enlightened of the age, and his encouragement to combine material and spiritual values -to live in luxury in every way, spiritually, and materially, using our sciences, and arts, and using our hears, (rather than viceversa) is a stimulating challenge to the absolute creativity of all mankind. "This earth is alive, something tremendously important - consciousness - has happened here. But this consciousness is still not master, it is a slave. It has to be freed. That’s my work here to help you to be free of the mind so you can use it. And if you are master you cannot abuse it, that is impossible. When you are alert, conscious, meditative, abuse is not possible." Such a totally inspired and inspiring being happens only seldom in our history and all mankind, every nation, should be happy and rejoicing welcoming him with open heart, and open arms, and open doors. America, let him stay. Love, |
(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.)
