Testimonial letter from Sw Anand Stefan

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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 Sw Anand Stefan (Stefan Schanze). It is "Exhibit A-937" 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.

Trier, 17.07.'83
Swami Anana Stefan
(Stefan Schanze)
Am Stecken 15
D-6730 Neustadt 16 (1st residence)
+
Kirchplatz 1
D-5500 Trier 19 (2nd residence)

RAJNEESH HOTEL
1115 3W 15 avenue
Portland Oregon
97205
USA

Dear Sir,

This is my support-letter to attest Bhagwan Shree Rashneesh’s competence as a religious teacher and spiritual leader, so that he will be established as a person of exceptional ability in science of psychology and philosophy.

For that I’ll give a very short summary of that part of my life, when I came to know Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh:

Beeing twenty years old, I went to the army as a voluntary soldier for two years. I became a cadet for officer of reserve. In this position I had to lead a group of ten soldiers. But on the one hand I was unable to get along with my subordinates and on the other hand I felt like a failure.

In addition to this, a four-year partnership with my fiancee broke after a few month. I went through a deep emotional crisis. Out of this I started with therapy-groups and took a dislike to the army, because I made the military responsible for my trouble. I even considered the possibility to make an application for beeing accepted as a ’war-duty-refusal’(Kriegsdienst-verweigerer) pursuant to my conscience.

At that time it happened, that I had watched TV, hearing for the first time a well-known German journalist, a disciple of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. It touched me so deeply, that I bought his book and devoured it on one day during my duty. Turning over the last page Iknew, that I’m also a disciple of this Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.

Since them my life changed completely, including my militarylife! I became a successfull leader and had also good relationships with my subordinates. I simply learned to manage my life!

What I also got out of it, was a sense for my military-duty. I realised, that only in our free, democratic western system it is possible to make such remarkable experiences and personal growth like I did out; of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh's work and influence.

I discovered the military duty for the first time as a joyfull game with a real significant sense.

After leaving the army I continued doing voluntariely exercises as a reserve-officer and started studying psychology.

Now I’m considering to go back to the army as a professional officer after finishing my studies.

I’m so very glad, that the center of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’s work is just in that country, which garantes that freedom and humanity in the western part of the world, what I came to experience totally through this genious man Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. His community in Oregon is the most remarkable modell of a new way of beeing, I have ever heard of.

The influence out of this modell could transform all fields of human beeing all over the world!

-The significance of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is in my oppinion today similar to that of Martin Luther or Jean Jacques Rousseaus meaning for the ’Age of Enlightenment’.

I hope, that the most liberal-minded country does not repeat such old, well-known mistakes, to proscribe such a real enlightend living master like Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh!

USA has a great leadership in several fields like culture, technical science, politics, etc. in the whole western world -and even in some parts over the whole world!

This is absolutely the right country for the spiritual, psychological and philosophical leader of today!

America should be proud of beeing honored by the presence of this man!

Yours faithfully
[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.)