Testimonial letter from Ma Prem Gulamo
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 Gulamo (Brenda A. Rose MA). It is "Exhibit A-408" 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.
 (BRENDA A. ROSE, Speech Pathologist) TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN I received a Masters Degree in Communication Disorders, with an emphasis in education of the Exceptional Child, in 1971 from San Francisco State University. The main field of my work experience has been with aphasic children and adults as a Speech Pathologist. Becoming familiar with the works of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh has profoundly changed the focus of my working with the speech and language handicapped. That is to say, instead of imposing my learned rules of approaching a problem in a patient, and hiding behind a trained "front", I would allow the essence of the person to emerge in a true environment of acceptance. It meant relaxing with the patient more, allowing, letting he or she experience himself as he is. This part was essential for any change to happen. I was too much in a hurry to begin therapy - after all that was what my training was all about. I had, in fact, to forget about that to begin with. I remember reading a question posed by a stutterer to Bhagwan. So much has been written about stuttering and Bhagwan's reply was simply to be a stutterer totally, to watch it, and until the stuttering is self-accepted, nothing could change. Here again a loving clime, both in the therapist and in the patient, is crucial. Bhagwan dealt with the questioner in such a loving way. Whilst working with emotionally disturbed teenagers who are highly strung and full of bottled-up energy, I had an opportunity to let them do some of Bhagwan’s meditations. These meditations begin with a physical and emotional release and I found that for the rest of the day there was a positive effect on each child. Other teachers asked me why I could relate so well to the most "difficult" kids. Bhagwan’s teachings greatly influenced my approach to relating and teaching such children. The same seemed the case with adult aphasics - the physical release in some modified form of the meditations followed by relaxation - a state whereby one could approach treatment more effectively - seemed to make treatment more viable in such cases. In my opinion Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is a person of exceptional abilities. The extent of those abilities will only be seen, in every walk of life, as more people come to live his religious teachings. His knowledge is extensive in so many fields, and yet this is not the important thing. It is his ability to touch people’s hearts. Now that he is silent, his words seem more powerful with time and the silent heart to heart communion is stronger than any words. Such a statement to the world may have some portent for the world of communication disorders! 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.)
