Testimonial letter from Chad Varah
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 Chad Varah. It is "Exhibit A-19" 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.
 The Lord Mayor's Parish Church of SAINT STEPHEN WALBROOK From The Rector, the Revd. Dr. Chad Varah, OBE, MA(Oxon), Prebendary of St. Paul's Cathedral TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN. I am best known in the field of suicide prevention, as the Founder of The Samaritans and pioneer of the use of lay volunteers in this field. We have ten chapters in eastern USA. I hold the Louis I. Dublin Award of the American Association of Suicidology, the. Albert Schweitzer Gold Medal for "inspiring youth all over the world in the service of humanity", the Prix de I’Institut de la Vie, the medal Honra ao Merito, and the Order of the British Empire. I give this information because I am told that the immigration of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is being opposed by certain religious persons or groups who allege that he is not a spiritual teacher. It is not necessary to agree with the teachings of a religious leader to recognise him/her as such. I, as a Christian priest, do not agree with many of the teachings of Mahomet, Buddha, Confucius etc, but I am bound to recognise that they are spiritual leaders. It is a matter of fact: does the person proclaim a distinctive message, and does he/she have a considerable number of disciples and followers? On both counts, it is undeniable that Shree Rajneesh is a much revered spiritual teacher. My testimony must be the stronger because I have never met Shree Rajneesh nor am I a ’’sanyassin” (one of his followers). However, I know of his teachings from books, magazines, tapes, and the personal testimony of some of my friends who claim to have been transformed by his influence, and who indeed in most cases seem to have found a degree of renewal. In 1983 it is no longer possible to exclude Shree Rajneesh from the list of world spiritual teachers, any more than Billy Graham could be excluded. (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.)
