Testimonial letter from Irvine Robbins
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 Irvine Robbins. It is "Exhibit A-582" 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.
 IRVINE ROBBINS TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: I, Irvine Robbins, founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream Co. since its inception 38 years ago until my retirement in 1979, am the father of Erin Robbins, now known as Ma Prem Maitri. I hereby certify that she has a Masters Degree in Education, has been a follower of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh for the past six and a half years, having been with him in Poona, India, and now in Rajneeshpuram, Oregon, where she is a religious teacher in the Rajneesh International Meditation University. I further certify that I have visited the city of Rajneeshpuram, and was amazed at what has taken place there in the past two years. The City has literally sprung into being. I saw great happiness and love in the commune members who has worked twelve hours days, seven days a week, to bring this about. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh must be a man of exceptional ability to be an inspiration for this kind of selfless toil. There is a unique feeling of dedication and enthusiasm in this institition of which he is the spiritual leader. As a businessman involved in the development of the worlds largest chain of Ice Cream stores, now numbering over 3000 world-wide, I feel competent to recognize productibility, organization, management, and motivation, all of which are highly evident at Rajneeshpuram. Others who have visited Rajneeshpuram and have come to know the character of those who share this communal life with him, express similar comments, and have been impressed with the positive elements of his institution. Very truly 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.)
