Testimonial letter from Sw Deva Ruparahi

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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 Deva Ruparahi. It is "Exhibit A-463" 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.

1 Upper Fisher Row
Oxford
England
11th July 1983

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN :-

From 1974 to 1977 I undertook a B.A. honours degree in Human Sciences at Oxford University. The degree was an attempt to forge a synthesis between the biological and social sciences of man and as part of the course I studied Anthropology, Social Psychology, Sociology, Human Ecology, Animal Behaviour, Genetics and the Philosophy of Science. My tutors included some of the most distinguished scientists in their field - for example, Prof. Mary Douglas in Anthropology, Dr. Desmond Morris in Human Behaviour and nobel prize-winner Prof. Niko Tinbergen in Animal Behaviour - and I gained distinction by graduating with a top first class honours degree.

By the time I left Oxford University I was very conversant with the scientific disciplines listed above and gained an important insight. That insight was that there was very little common ground between the various disciplines and that each of them had its own image and way of describing man which did not gell well with the others. Thus one could see man as a cog in a complicated social machine, a ‘naked ape’, a set of conditioned reflexes or a repressed, neurotic being. Each image was partially true. But the partial truths did not add up to a total truth. The essence of man remained as elusive as ever. What was the truth? I left University deeply frustrated and resigned to the fact that I would never really understand human nature.

It was then that I read the books of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and knew at once that here was a man whose insight and depth of understanding of human nature was greater than all my university professors put together! In the field of Social and Interpersonal psychology alone Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh has contributed immensely. To describe him as brilliant is an understatement. I have never come across anyone who could unravel the intricacies of human behavour as lucidly and intelligably as he does. And this is because the understanding of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is not only based on the scientific method of objective observation but also upon the western method of introspection. The truth about man lies within us as well as without and we can never truly hope to understand others without understanding ourselves. Recent advances in the philosophy of science have shown that science is not as ‘objective’ as it makes out. In fact, the scientific method is a complicated interplay between observation and intuition and the role of the latter is extremely important. I think it is entirely reasonable to describe Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh as a pioneer of the method of introspection and as the founding-father of introspective science.

What does introspective science reveal that objective science does not? Firstly, objective science always reveals man as fragmentary because its method is analytical - it splits and pulls apart. This is why the human sciences never give a total picture of man; they cannot in the very nature of things. Secondly, introspective science reveals that beyond being an animal, a social being and a psychological being, man is essentially a spiritual being. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is a scientist of the spiritual realm and has helped many people to understand their spiritual nature. Man’s spiritual being provides a bridge between the animal, social and psycholgical parts of himself. It is in this sphere that there is a synthesis. Many people separate religion from science. It is my opinion that in years to come such a distinction will not be made and that Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh will be recognised for the genius that he is.

Yours sincerely,
[signed]
Swami Deva Ruparahi B.A.(Oxon.)


(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.)