Testimonial letter from Charles Hewins
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 Charles Hewins. It is "Exhibit A-2058" 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.
 PRINCIPAL'S OFFICE, JE 5-2881, 2881, 2882, 2883 TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: As an artist and art teacher, I first became aware of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’s Influence through reading one of his many books. He seemed to be speaking to me, and with such clarity and insight. His writing is poetry much of the time. He touches aesthetic sensibilities and draws out new awarenesses as no one else I know of. Aesthetics is my field. But his words reach many, many people regardless of their areas of work, since he speaks to the human condition - and the divine possibilities - in such down-to-earth terms of such spiritual heights and depths that it seems incredible. But one has to acknowledge his credibility through experiencing the truth of what he says. I feel it is tremendously important (which puts it weakly) that he be in this country. Every country needs him, but other countries can deport him easily for political or other reasons, according to their rules and regulations. Our Constitution enables persons to live in this country whatever their religious views and beliefs. Everyone who knows anything knows that efforts to deport Bhagwan are all part of a political game. The eyes of the world must be on this issue, and I hope they will see that "America" still means what it did originally. His deportation would be the darkest of blots on our name, here and abroad, and would cause numberless citizens (who do not buy the negative news media's reportings about Bhagwan and Rajneeshpuram) to lose what trust and respect they may have for our government. Very sincerely yours, |
(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.)
