Testimonial letter from Kazuyoshi Kino
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 Kazuyoshi Kino. It is "Exhibit A-6" 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.
 Mr Kazuyoshi Kino 4-5-9, Ogata To Whom it May Concern, I have been envolved in research and mission work on Buddhism for the last thirty years* For my research on Buddhism I have recieved a Society Prize from the Japan Association of Indian and Buddhist Studies which is a group of Buddhist scholars in Japan. For my mission work on Buddhism I recieved a Cultural Prize from the Buddhist < Promoting Foundation, which is the highest institution of mission work for Buddhism. This foundation is well known by those who have donated Buddhist scriptures that have been written in English to hotels all over the world. I have not met the master Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh personally, but I have read almost all of His books that have been published to date. This master is the rarest and most talented religionist to appear in this century. His writings about Buddhism are full of inspiration and original conceptions. As a specialist in Buddhism I have been surprized many times by His original and creative interpretations and by His unique religiousness. His interpretations are saturated with the truth of Buddhism. Even the outstanding monks that are present here in Japan cannot obtain to this level of interpretation. If such an exceptional religiousist begins religious activity in America, I trust that it will not only promote the religious consciousness of the American people in general, but also contribute to Christianity in America. It is beyond me to explian to you how much His books have deepened my understanding of Buddhism. It is incalcurable. I sincerely trust that the permanent residence of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in America will greatly contribute to religious consciousness over the entire world. I pray and hope that the people of America will deal with His case in a sympathetic way with my whole heart. [both pages signed and notarized] |
(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.)
