Testimonial letter from Sw Sangit Premartha
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 Sangit Premartha (Yoshiaki Shishikura). It is "Exhibit A-2658" 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.
 August 7, 1983 To Whom it may concern: Here I am writing to you because I would like to share with you what happened to me and what is happening to me through my experiences with my religious leader: Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. My legal name is Yoshiaki Shishikura. I became a disciple of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh on January 1, 1983, and was given a new name; Swami Sangit Premartha. It was three years ago that I came to know about Bhagwan. At that time I was a junior student of a university in Tokyo. Being a law student, I was not quite satisfied with studying in my major field. I was looking for something I could dedicate myself to. Therefore, I don't think it was by accident that I came across one of Bhagwan's books at the book store of the campus. Having read a few pages, I felt as if the book was written especially for me. Bhagwan's words touched my heart gently but directly. Never before had I read a book with so much sympathy. Since then I have kept in touch with his discourse recordings constantly. However intellectual understanding of his words is not the only way that i feel connected with Bhagwan. While reading his books, I do some of the meditations and workshops given to us by Him. Through these i experienced a different kind of fulfillment which i had not known before. I felt that I was more vulnerable but also more sensitive, more passive but also more receptive, less excited but more rooted... etc. With these experiences, a certain feeling began to grow inside of me. It was subtle in the beginning and also it came to me only sometimes. But as I proceeded, the feeling became clearer and more obvious. Finally, I understood it was real and substantial. I decided to take sannyas. What I felt can't be communicated by words. It might be called "love". But the word itself doesn't bring me any fulfillment on gratification. My experience goes deeper than the word itself. It is Bhagwan's silence that creates a space in my heart into which these experiences flow. Seven months have passed since I became a sannyasin. Now I see that there are so many oppurtunities available for me to grow. Whatsoever I do or whoever I'm with, Bhagwan always reminds me to look inside and be authentic. Sincerely |
(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.)
