Testimonial letter from Sw Deva Makarand
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 Makarand (Hans Rendler). It is "Exhibit A-1371" 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.
 Hans Rendler TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN What I like to describe in this letter is: to introduce myself and to show shortly how much Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh has helped me in University studies and as a psycho-body-therapist. Before I studied for seven years (1973 - 1980) - education, sciences, sociology, psychology and philosophy at the famous Karl Eberhard University in Tübingen, South Germany. I was living with Catholic monks and priests and studying Christian theology and theologians (1963 -1971). So I experienced the Catholic education, which was in many ways restricting. My main studies in the last three years at the University were about different approaches of education and treatment, psychotherapies and body therapies. The main interest was to find the real causes for psychosomatic problems of modern man on the one side; on the other side to show how we can connect again with our feelings, with our bodies and with our intuition and awareness. The title of my thesis was: "The Rediscovery of the body and its meaning for psychic health." There are many complex and complicated theories about how to educate children, so they can become real adults. That means for me: to be aware, responsible, honest, free and intelligent, creative and full of trust .. I couldn't find any author whose writings could integrate historical, social and individual aspects of human beings' growth towards freedom and love except the teachings of this very special man: Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. His teachings are so incredibly exceptional; multidimensional and extensive, as well as deep in His understanding of human problems and potentialities. His teachings were the only real guideline in my scientific studies for my thesis at the University, for my work as a therapist, and in my personal life. Only through His approaches and vision to see man, to free man, was I able to analyze all the causes of psychosomatic problems, why the modern man is so much disconnected with his own center. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh showed me very clearly the limits of all the various body and psycho-therapies. I learned to know Bhagwan in September 1977 in Poona, through personal contact in darshans, through listening to His discourses in the mornings, through the worship in the ashram as a bodytherapist, through the different kinds of the most effective meditations, created by Him, and through the experiences of many Rajneesh growth group programs. It was unbelievably helpful, to drop the rigid conditionings of a restricted education and to feel the dissolving of fear, so that I could enjoy new, spontaneous ways to express myself. Through His guidance in theory and practice I could show in my thesis and in my life that psycho- and body-therapies are just preparations for meditation. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is not only a man of the most unimaginable depth of understanding human beings and life, He is also the most helpful spiritual leader I’ve ever met in my life. Many friends and colleagues, doctors and professors of the University are immensely impressed by his unique teachings which are so easy to understand, which integrate the knowledge of all the important old and modern sciences and the wisdom of all the religions from East and West. Many students and seminar leaders felt a strong attraction towards this inconceivable mature man. For six years I have appreciated Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh as an extraordinary spiritual leader and religious teacher. In my personal life, He is the only guidance in my work (or worship) as a bodytherapist (in Germany, Switzerland and Austria). He is the best supervisor! He gave not only me the ability to grow, but also many people who came to see me, to help them to free their body armours and to dissolve their spcyhological problems. Nobody else in my life could give me so much, to discover my own potentialities, to find my own way, to enjoy and celebrate life and to accept myself and others. With very friendly greetings |
(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.)
