Testimonial letter from Sw Deva Florian
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 Deva Florian (Florian Schuller-Edelman). It is "Exhibit A-659" 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.
 Florian Schuller-Edelman To whom it may concern My Sannyas name is Swami Deva Florian. I am 42 years old and here in Austria, where I live, a famous art painter. I studied in several academies of fine Arts and had many exibitions of paintings and drawings since the last 20 years here in Europe. Since many years the Austrian governement supports my work in making exibitions and bying pictures. They also gave me a scholarship to go to Poona, India, to study at the Rajneesh Meditation University for one year. Today I feel more and more the totality of life through my work in Zen, as a painter or simply as a worker who likes to do everything which comes across his path. I know, that is the work of a living master, I see it in me, watch it surrounding me and it is simply Bhagwan. Till now I don't know no other living master who is doing such agreat work here on the earth, there at Rajneeshpuram, a city which is growing immensly. I have been staying there at the Festival in July and I was so astonished, surprised and entangled about suck energy of a Buddhafield, so much happyness, peace and the honnest energy of thoudands hearts. Yes, I feel myself as a relligious man, as a Rajneeshy, why? Very simple. I tried many ways, as a Baptidt, as a catholic, as a Parapsychologidt , as a famous artist, and then came the moment where I was seeing that I am dreaming. Not that I have stopped dreaming - dreaming goes on, with a small difference. Now I know that I am dreaming , I watch it and the movements of my feelings change or transform by themselves, without doing anything, except watching myself. This energy of a Buddha, of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is there, here and now in me. I am just feeling it. And I can share it with everyone who is open for it. Thats all , what I want to say to you. With much fun and love out of the very nive old town Vienna here in Austria [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.)
