Testimonial letter from J. Donald Ball

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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 J. Donald Ball MD. It is "Exhibit A-126" 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 2 pages.

34 Trinity Church Square
London SE1 4119

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

In 1973 I heard about Bhagwan Rajneesh from friends in London whose judgement I trusted. This made me wish to visit him in Bombay where he then lived, and I was able to do this on my way back from a Tuberculosis Conference in Japan. I was greatly impressed by his wisdom.

In 1978 I decided to visit Bhagwan’s ashram in Poona for two months. Hearing his religious discourses every morning for 1-2 hours I realized he was a man of a stature I had never expected to meet. As a Quaker I saw he had many of the qualities of George Fox; I also saw in him the characteristics of Buddha and St. Francis of Assisi. I judge his religious teaching will have the impact on our generation which that of these great men had on theirs.

This conclusion, so unexpected but so clear to me, made me decide to live in the Poona Ashram directly I retired in January 1981. I have been able to visit the commune in Oregon on 3 occasions.

My three children (one a medical doctor and two psychologists) have reached conclusions similar to mine about Bhagwan; all have spent long periods of training in India. My wife also has become one of his followers, so the whole family is united in its respect and gratitude for Bhagwan and his teachings.

My experience as a physician has shown me how many of our ailments derive from an inability to handle emotions. The stress that results has produced or aggravated such modern plagues as coronary disease and asthma. I find myself disillusioned by the attitudes of psycho-therapists and conventional religious teachers. By contrast I find in Bhagwan’s teaching an authenticity and a relevance which mark him as one of the outstanding personalities of our generation. I think he will influence future trends of medical teaching and hence the health of future generations.

He is, in my judgement, the greatest Man I have ever met and I estimate that his influence on the history of our civilization will be immense.

[signed]
J. Donald Ball M.D., F.R.C.P. (London)


(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.)