Testimonial letter from Ma Prem Sindhu
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 Sindhu (Hilary A. Davis). It is "Exhibit A-1509" 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.
 P.O. Box 10, To whom it may concern Four years ago I made a decision that totally transformed my life. I was an actress for eight years, performing in Boston, New York City, at the . Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Connecticut, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC, after graduating from Brandeis University in Massachusetts with a degree in theater arts and psychology. I was all set to move to New York City permanently. I had a "slipped disc" in my lower back at this point, and was bedridden for three months. It was during this time that I read some books by Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. As I read, I became amazed at the similarity between Bhagwan’s words and my whole "formula" for acting. My desire to express human suffering, love, pains, fears, joys, the whole of the human psyche through whatever character I was portraying was EXACTLY what Bhagwan was speaking of! Here was a Master Psychologist! This man knows humanity, the human mind, what motivates people, over and above any other doctor, scientist, psychologist, guru I’d ever read. But more than anything else, when reading his words, I felt in me that which I’d always been searching for through acting, through playing character after character with the desire for fame and fortune burning through me: feeling the absence of God in my life, the emptiness that comes after finishing a performance and feeling that lost "so what's next?” feeling. I wondered, "What AM I searching for? What do I want from life?" Here was an Enlightened Master totally devoted to the freedom of the individual in a way I'd never heard about before in acting or psychology classes, with an infinite compassion for the human race. I decided to drop my acting career and let go of waves of neuroses and depression, trying so hard to "make it” as an actress, and beginning to "find out" about love, meditation, religion, seeing how acting is really just a search for God. Since being with Bhagwan, I have become more loving, more positive, more compassionate, more prayerful, grateful, more joyful. How to describe to you what a difference this man has made in my life? Just sitting with Him he has transformed my pain into joy. I in turn share this joy with everyone I come in contact with. Ultimately, only love can change the world. Through Bhagwan, this spiritual leader with world-wide impact, this can become a reality. He brings a synthesis of East and West, love and meditation, Zorba the Greek and Buddha. He has said "Bliss is your true nature. Rejoice.” Imagine every person around the world throwing down their guns, their hostility, anger, greed, and rejoicing. What a transformation is possible in this world! [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.)
