Testimonial letter from Ma Anand Annelisa

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 Ma Anand Annelisa. It is "Exhibit A-2574" 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.

Note: The typed version of the author's name has been partly obliterated by the hole-punch. And the signed version is a bit ambiguous. Thus, we cannot be sure whether her name is Annelisa or Annalisa and the result is just our best guess. Ma Anand A(?)isa Miasto Rajneesh Comune Neo-Sannyasi 53010 Frosini (Siena) Italy Miasto, July 29th, 1983 To whom it may concern When I became a sannyasin, almost 5 years ago, I was a person without hope and trust in the world. What Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh gave me was the possibility to feel that life is a gift, and that it is inside ourselves where we have the key for its interpretation. This whole experience has been an expedience of joy, also through the pain and the suffering of the change. For me the teaching of Bhagwan is this: to become available to joy. Particularly since He has entered into silence His teaching has reached deep and total levels inside myself, which are beyond the words that only touch the surface of the meaning and the power of things, and which are beyond the mind that sticks to images and creates wrong masters. I had been sceptical, violent and always ready to express this violence towards the others; in this journey in meditation I found much more than what I was hoping for: the chance to believe in life and to love it. This is our religion, our working and staying together in the name of Bhagwan, an example of which is available with the City of Rajneeshpuram: the hope of the new man. Yours faithfully [signed]

(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.)