Testimonial letter from Sw Prem Matthias

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 Prem Matthias. It is "Exhibit A-2562" 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.

Swami Prem Matthias c/o Miasto Rajneesh Comune Neo-Sannyasi 53010 Frosini (Si) Italia Miasto, the 27th of July, 83 To whom it may concern: Four years ago I heard for the first time about the work of Bhagwan Shree. My first reaction was scepticism as I tended to see a religious approach towards reality as a form of escapism. Nevertheless my interests as a socialworker in psychological technics of growth moved me to visit Poona, and to participate in various therapy-groups. The greatest process of transformation in my life up to now started. I realized, that therapy-technics were not just technics, which can be learnt and practised with the best intentions as it happened in my university, but are in their effectiveness essentially dependent on how much the therapist is able to love life, his work, and his clients. In his teachings Bhagwan Shree gave me deep insights about the psychological structure of the human being, and nourished the trust in myself, which anabled me, to more couragiously investigate, how I am built up, and how to improve a responsible and creative rapport with the world. Later on, back in the west, I again started to work as a socialworker with young conflicted people. The influence of Bhagwan Shree helped me to gain the inner strength and sight, which is needed to continuously transform the daily defeats and frustrations of my work into a constructive learn-impulse, and henceforth be of greater help for my clients. Now Bhagwan Shree' s work is continuing in Rajneeshpuram, and I am glad to admit, that it is one of the most important, if not the most important, experiment towards a more harmonious and conscious life, which could only become reality through his presence. [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.)