Testimonial letter from Hitoshi Kohara
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 Mr Hitoshi Kohara. It is "Exhibit A-257" 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 3 pages.
 KANSAI UNIVERSITY To Whom it May Concern, I have heard from a friend, that the Immigration Officials in Portland, Oregon are hesitating to issue permanent residence in the U.S.A, for Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. I do not understand why this is happening. For your information, I would like to describe how Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is contributing His special ability to my field of activity. Firstly, I would like to explain how I became acquainted with Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. T heard His name mentioned initially by Mr Sohsuke Mita, a sociologist and assistant professor at Tokyo University. Mr Mita is a distinguished sociologist, who has been awarded the Kido Prize, an award given to preeminent sociologists. Mr Mita has recommended a book of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’s in his answer to a questionnaire titled "The Ten Books for Young People". The book he recommended was "Tantra - The Supreme Understanding" which I bought and immediately read. It was beautiful. With this as a start I began to read His books one by one, while participating in His meditations and workshops. They were beautiful experiences not only for meself but also my study. Now, I am an assistant professor of the Faculty of Sociology at Kansai University, Osaka Japan, presently engaged in teaching and sociological research. I am a member of the Japanese Sociological Association and Japanese Psychoanalytic Association. Additionally I have been attending various meetings for the study of psychotherapy and psychosomatics which are connected with my study. In these fields, to which I am committed, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh has shown extraordinary ablity. Some of the contributions He has made to field of study I would like to describe to you. Sociology has experienced a basis change since the end of the sixies. This change has also been experienced by other sciences and philosophies. This is to say, that sociology is in the midst of suffering a rebirth. Tring to transend the modernismic intelligence which has been held in common by all learning faculties and is still regarded by them as an axiom. This modernismic intelligence can be best explained as a diagram of the subject and object or as a daulistic view of the world. If sociology wants to transcend this intelligence, a basic change of conception and the absolute conversion of the epistemological approach is needed. In this situation His non-daulistic view of the world and His theory of the process of the world are suggestive of the answer for sociology. The validity of His teachings seems to be revealed in the development of the theory of elementary particles, which keeps on searching in the world of the supermicro. This phenomea has also been explained in "The Tao of Physic’s" written by F. Capra which has become a best seller in America and England and has been translated into 17 different languages. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is coming up on the horizon with an idea that can bring about a basic change not only for the epistemolgical plane but also for the theory of the self, the theory of identity and the theory of discrimination. These theorie's are all considered to be individual themes. In the shere in which the theory of human transformation in sociology meets with psychotherapy or psychosomatics, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh has devised many meditation techniques and therapy groups. These are a great suggestion even if they have to be unified and placed into some order. For example I believe what Carl R. Rogers, a reputed American psychotherapist says is basicly spport for His insight into humanity. Psychocybernation, which is now put into practice at the internal department of psychotherapy of Tokyo University is an experiment to unify psychotherapy in accordance to the demands of each client. Here again Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is taking the initiative through His therapy groups. His contribution to the various research fields can be explained seperatly but basically they reveal the criss of society and culture. His contributions are like shooting arrows flying towards the nucleus or focus of the disease of modern society and culture. Lastly as one who is touched by His greatness, I do not understand why the Immigration Officials of the United States of America are hesitating to give Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh permanent residence status for that country. America has been taking world leadership in economics, politics and culture. I think there must be a frontier spirit as an American tradition. Without disgracing this honor, I hope from the bottom of my heart for a glorious decision from America, the country of freedom. 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.)
