Testimonial letter from John Steward
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 John Steward. It is "Exhibit A-664" 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.
 74 High Street TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN After graduating in 1967 from London University with an Honours degree in Languages (Russian and German), I pursued a career in translating, having received excellent training at the New York based translation agency of Henry Fischbach, The Language Service Inc. Through him I acquired a fine understanding of the world of translation - the medium of exchanging ideas and information between the peoples of the world. Subsequently, I had close associations, as a freelance translator, with the United Nations, the European Economic Community and several American multinational corporations . Since meeting Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and becoming one of his disciples more than five years ago, I have been continually surprised and delighted by his linguistic genius. He lias translated and, in the process, revitalised works dating back five thousand years and made them as accessible to 20th centuty man as they were for the contemporaries of Patanjali, the great exponent of the art of yoga, to give just one example. His daily discourses, which spanned an amazing seven years of speaking every day for approximately two hours, bear witness enough to the depth and scope of this man’s understanding and ability to render his insight into the lingua franca of our day, namely the American language, and benefit the greatest possible number of people. Great men, however, are never fully appreciated in their own lifetimes and, in the case of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, it is also perhaps necessary to acknowledge his teachings in practise as evidence for calling him exceptional, even genius. Look around at Rajneeshpuram and you will get a taste, as I have done as a visitor/guest of three months, of Bhagwan's words translated into a living reality. Now he is two years into his silent phase and still his words are with us and a new challenge to transcend even the word. Rajneeshpuram has an "atmosphere" which can readily be appreciated by sensitive and aware people. It is a unique place on this earth and precious too, since Mankind has so little chance to express and develop the good that lies deep within every one of us. The United States is an ideal place, because of the ideals embodied in its constitution, where such an experiment can be allowed to take place. I trust the great principles of this country will inspire its officials to grant accordingly to Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh the necessary documents to continue his great work at Rajneeshpuram for the benefit of all Mankind. 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.)
