Testimonial letter from Sw Deva Nedko
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 Nedko. It is "Exhibit A-2433" 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 3 pages.
 Vienna, 1 August 1983 To whom it may concern ! I am a disciple of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh for now 4 years, and have for the last year lived in the Rajneesh Meditation Center in Vienna, Austria. It is my wish to communicate what it means being a disciple of this man to me, and to stress the importance of Bhagwan's work in today's world. What Bhagwan is doing in Rajneeshpuram, Oregon, and in all the Communities all over the world is creating a Buddhafield - this meaning a place where all energy is devoted to the fulfillment of the human being, instead of being wasted in the myriad ways which we are accustomed to call "Today's World" - complete with wars, crime, starvation, ideologies, hatred, and so on; all the madness which we are forced to call "normal", lacking a better example, lacking an alternative. Bhagwan's work consists in providing humanity with exactly that: a working model where everyone can see for himself that life can be lived in a different way, that it is possible for human beings to live fulfilled, with love, in harmony with their surroundings, working with and not against nature, and all that not in some future, ideal time and place, but right here and now, in our troubled 20th century, in the midst of our civilization! Human nature being what it is, this task of course would be impossible if there is not a human being who himself has already fully flowered at its center, because only such is beyond all the neuroses and other quirks of madness that we sadly have come to accept as being "human" qualities who has already come to terms with them in his own being and who has absolutely no motivation of his own of any kind, be it egoistic or altruistic. The world is lucky to have such a man in Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. This year in July I was for the second consecutive year at the annual religious festival in Rajneeshpuram and was able to see what is possible in a Buddhafield. Having been educated to think in an exact and scientific way, and having learned to apply this way of thinking in every field of life, I have found that what Bhagwan is giving us with his teachings is "science plus". He is providing us with what I missed so painfully in academic life and everywhere else in the society we are living in: a truly open, relaxed, fearless, inquisitive and absolutely unprejudiced attitude towards life - the true scientific attitude, which seems to be impossible to find anywhere else, where science serves as a pretense for a bundle of hidden prejudices and pre-established judgements of which the holders are not even aware. And the "plus" is love - the part of us which keeps us human, truly human, connected with ourselves, with nature and with god, and which far from being on opposing terms with science - as we all have been taught, intellect vs. emotion - is in fact the prerequisite for all sanity in this respect. It was incredibly beautiful to see and experience for oneself that this is possible, that so many people can be together in harmony and that so much can be done in such a short time, cf. the rapid development of Rajneeshpuram in the last 2 years. I felt very happy there; like a bud responding to abundant light, moisture and warmth opens into a flower, I experienced myself responding to this abundancy of love and intelligence with a part of my being which usually lies dormant but was called forward in this atmosphere: the Buddha who resides in every human being. The Meditation Center where I live is Bhagwan’s Buddhafield in Vienna, a small oasis in a big city. On a smaller scale we are realizing here the same phenomenon as in Rajneeshpuram: that a community based solely on love really works, and that only a community whose foundation is love really works. It is our love for our Master which keeps us together and which helps us to see even difficulties as a help to become more aware of what we are doing and so to become more loving. Every morning and evening we gather to sing in a short ceremony a very ancient formula out of the time of Gautama the Buddha himself, which is a deep reminder of Bhagwan for us, and then our main meditation is our work, inside and outside the Center. I can truly say that my life has changed since I became a disciple of Bhagwan, and that I count myself to be extremely fortunate to be living in our time so I had the chance of meeting this man. Despite all effort I find it hard to convey in writing what joy I have found in my life through Bhagwan, how I live infinitely more intensely since I became a Rajneeshee -indeed, compared to how I live now, one could hardly say that I was alive before that; how also the quality of my living has changed; though I was always well off materially, I never ate as good or dressed so well than since I became Bhagwan’s disciple; and how much I enjoy life now! With much fun and love, |
(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.)
