Testimonial letter from Basil J. Goulandris

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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 Basil J. Goulandris. It is "Exhibit A-652" 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.

London
July 8, 1983

To Whom It May Concern,

My name is Basil J. Goulandris, I am the son of John Basil Goulandris who, along with his brother, owns and runs ’Goulandris Brothers’ one of the largest Greek shipping companies currently in operation. Today our ships are mainly cargo vessels and oil tankers out on long term charters. As preparation for my entry into the business my family and I decided that a B.A. in Business followed by a Masters in International Business and Law would give me the foundation needed for entering a business that is continuously dealing with all nations and countries of the globe. I applied to the United States International University located in San Diego, California with branches all over the world, a university that concentrates on international business and law. I was accepted at the beginning of the year 1974, completing both my degrees by 1979, five years later. I graduated, however, quite unsatisfied, my questions quite unanswered. The gap that exists today between third world countries and developed nations of the world was thought of as a rather simple problem by most professors that I studied under, a problem that would be and was currently being solved by a variety of theoretical formulas, mathematical equations and the like. Much was said, many papers were written, and little became clear. The third world countries that were being aided by the developed west in order to increase their rate of development, etc, etc. were merely being drained for what they had later to be left in greater disorder and turmoil than ever before. This is not to say that the developed aiders desired such a result. On the contrary they were surely hoping for quite the opposite. Something, somewhere was wrong, and that which initially came to my mind was how could we the developed and leading nations of this world bring greater peace, harmony and prosperity to the third world nations when amoungst ourselves such human qualitites are a rarity.

Upon graduating in 1979 I decided to spend some time within a few third world countries, in order to experience first hand their life and problems, beginning with India. It was there that I came across Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and his people. I decided to spend a week with them out of curiosity. My week became a year. Bhagwan has an answer that was of infinite value, he is a man of immense intelligence. Rather than attempting to improve the society itself he cures the individuals themselves. His commune has a rich variety of highly skillful individuals whose income in the world had been exceedingly high, but also a rather large variety of rich and very famous people all of whom were living together happily, more fulfilled than ever before each and every one having reached higher and greater peaks in their skills through Bhagwan's presence and guidance.

It has been my pleasure to write a few words on something that is of immense value to us all.

Yours truly,
[signed]
Basil Goulandris
69 Avenue Road
St. John’s Wood
London NW8
England


(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.)