Testimonial letter from Lowdon Wingo

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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 Lowdon Wingo. It is "Exhibit A-162" 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.

London Wingo, 7.21.83
Professor
University of Southern California

Immigration & Naturalization Service
Portland, Oregon
Gentlemen:

For the record, I am a full professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of California since 1976. Prior to that, I held the same rank at the University of Pennsylvania, and for sixteen years prior to that I held a senior research position with a major national research foundation — Resources for the Future, Inc. in Washington, D. C. My writing is well known in my field for its treatment of major policy problems of cities and regions and the environment.

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh came to my attention through his books and tapes four years ago and had such a spiritual impact on my life that I have thought of him as my spiritual and psychic guide ever since. I am not a sanyassin in the sense of wearing red and exhibiting the "mala"; I have not been to Rajneeshpuram and may never go, but as I sit here in my office writing this letter to you, I am aware of his presence in my heart, and mind, and life. I have watched videos of him sitting in silence before those who have committed to him both outwardly and inwardly, and the eloquence of his presence over—rides any words. He is now living his teaching, and what more can we ask of a religious leader and spiritual guide ?

I am not a freaky kid, nor insane, nor feeble-minded. I am a 60-year old scholar, conservative by nature, respected by my peers, and deeply concerned with my spiritual life. It is that life that Bhagwan — though his books and tapes, certainly, but also through the eloquence of his presence — has helped me to open up. So, gentlemen, you see that it is not some itinerant foreign fakir who will be injured if he is driven from this land. I will be spiritually brutalized, as will be many thousands like me. And the spiritual life and civil demeanor of this land impoverished.

Oliver Cromwell in his great distress once screamed at the leaders of the Parliament, "Gentlemen, I beseech ye in the bowels of Christ , think ye that ye may be wrong!" And just so, gentlemen, do I beseech you.

Yours respectfully,
[signed]
London Wingo
Professor
School of Urban and Regional Planning
University of Southern California


(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.)