Testimonial letter from Hannu Hirvilammi
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 Hannu Hirvilammi. It is "Exhibit A-565" 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.
 Hannu Hirvilammi To whom it may concern, I am a Finnish agronomist and have been working internationally for many years. I have gained my professional experience from Finland, Sweden, Ontario, California, Zambia and Indonesia. I have also a university degree in economics and have been working for United Nations in developing countries as an agricultural economist. First I came to know Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in Poona India in 1979 and have been since then following his work as religious leader through personal contacts, reading his books and seeing video-tapes in which he describes his religious vision. In July 1983 I visited Rajneeshpuram personally and studied the progress made there in last two years. I feel that developments made in Rajneeshpuram are very interesting and unique. The vision that man can live harmoniously with nature, improve the ecology and yet use the latest modern technology is being realized there. This project can benifit both industrial and underdeveloped countries. I feel that the manner and speed in which the Rajneeshpuram project is carried out testifies that Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh has exceptional abilities to inspire and guide people to achieve tasks far beyond normal standards. Yours faithfully |
(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.)
