Testimonial letter from Hugh Montgomery Smith
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 Hugh Montgomery Smith. It is "Exhibit A-398" 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.
 Hugh Montgomery TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: It has recently been brought to my attention that the Indian guru, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, is in danger of being sent out of the United States. Personally, I find his contributions to my life invaluable and feel it would be a great loss to U.S. culture if Bhagwan left the country. One area that he is contributing towards is the healing arts and psychology fields. His teachings are bringing new methods for the individual trying to relax and overcome pressures of the modem world. His "dynamic meditation" is one of these methods and I find it to be very effective in helping me relax. Many of my friends also use this technique with great success. My background is philosophy ( I received a degree in philosophy at the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada in 1973 and am currently a high school teacher) and I found his synthesis of existentialism, sociology and psychology to be brilliant. It is his insight into the significance of Jean Paul Sartre’s book BEING AND NOTHINGNESS, in relation to the psychological angst of modem man, which inspired my third year papers, which led to an honors graduation in Philosophy. I have recently been fortunate enough to experience the peace and tranquility of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in person. I found his silence was not a barrier to communication with him. In fact, his presence alone, transmits the satisfaction and fulfillment he has written about for years. He embodies the religion he represents; and brings me fresh insights into my life by his mere presnece. In closing, I would like to say I know many Americans, Canadians and others that have happier, more satisfying lives from being in contact with Bhagwan. His leaving America would take away onf of the most beneficial influences on the general well-being of thousands of people. Sincerely, |
(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.)
