Testimonial letter from Ma Sagarpriya
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 Sagarpriya (Roberta Ann Lowe). It is "Exhibit A-855" 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.
 Ma Sagarpriya To Whom It May Concern: I am writing to express my conviction that Bhagwan Rajneesh is one of the most valuable and exceptional people alive in the world today. Not only is he outstanding as a religious teacher and spiritual authority as his many recorded lectures will attest, but his physical presence spreads a contagious joyfulness and love into the environment which affects those who share the same space with him. This is, in my mind, his most significant contribution, and one which is not immediately visible to those who only read newspapers or hear stories about Bhagwan’s presence at Rajneeshpuram. One has to be in the Master's vicinity to feel that there actually is a different atmospheric vibration he is creating for people to share. He calls this phenomenon a "Buddhafield". I am a therapist by profession, and for some years I have been practicing my art within the "Buddhafield". Nothing I have ever come across in my work previously compares with the power of this energy to heal people's psychological wounds. It is to me awesome what has become possible for the people who seek help here - the way their eyes begin to develop aliveness, the joy that begins to pervade bodies which arrived full of tension and disappointment. Partly this transformation happens through techniques developed under the guidance Bhagwan gave previously in his lectures and darshans, but primarily it is the result of the vibrant and loving atmosphere that nourishes the healthiest part of people and inspires in them respect and care for others. My first contact with Bhagwan was through friends who were psychologists and therapists in Europe. After reading Bhagwan's books, I became a Sannyasin myself, and discovered this was indeed the door to an inner expansion we'd all been looking for. Bhagwan spoke to me directly in darshan several times and gave many insights into the work I was doing, insights which often proved to be the catalyst needed in a specific aspect of the healing process. A bit about my background personally. I graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Carleton College (Northfield, Minnesota) with a B.A. in Philosophy. I began pursuing my interest in the newer psychologies, became a therapist and wrote a book entitled Psychic Massage, which was published by Harper and Row in 1975. That book has sold about 35,000 copies in English and has also been translated into four other languages - Dutch, German, Danish and Portugese. Before meeting Bhagwan I travelled all over the world as a therapist, a trainer of therapists, and lecturer, and I never met a man even remotely comparable to Bhagwan as a teacher and a personal example in the areas that are of interest to me: intelligence, sensitivity, perceptivity into people’s problems, and a compassion for the human situation. He is without a doubt an asset to the United States because of his contributions to the Arts and Sciences, particularly Psychology, and his exceptional ability to inspire love, peace and harmony in people's hearts. Yours 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.)
