Testimonial letter from Ma Anand Jen
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 Jen. It is "Exhibit A-680" 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.
 Ma Anand Jen To whom it may concern: As a person whose life has directly and positively been influenced by the teachings and presence of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh during the past 5 years, now seems a good time to speak out in support of Bhagwan. Since childhood I have been absorbed in creativity and philosophy. These interests led me to study art, painting, philosophy and language at University for 4 years. In 1976 I graduated with an Honours degree in Fine Arts at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. During the following couple years, I lectured at the university, painted, sculpted, made jewellery, taught art, and then spent a few more years doing graphic design. By this time I was feeling dissatisifed with scholorships and a successful art exhibition, and had the feeling that I needed to find a master of the arts, a Michelangelo, or a Leonardo da Vinci; to start again, from the begining and forget all that I had learned, all the impressive techniques that had accumulated over the past number of years. It so happened that while traveling in Europe, I was constantly attracted to the beauty of Bhagwan’s sannyasins; the first time I heard Bhagwan’s voice on audio-tape, I found myself laughing and crying with joy and relief; yes, I had found my master of the arts, only Bhagwan is much more: his understanding and teachings encompass the arts and sciences, the whole of human and spiritual experience. During my initiation as one of Bhagwan’s disciples, Bhagwan spoke to me of colour, ray major love during my artistic career. I heard him speak of how all the colors, all the experiences, are contained in the colour white, just as all the colours of the rainbow culminate in the simple clarity of white, the non-colour and the all-encompassing colour. In a few words, Bhagwan had summed up my life up until that point. And now, living here in Rajneeshpuram, I find my entire life changing; each simple action becomes a "work of art". Around Bhagwan we don’t "work” we "worship". Everything we do is done in gratitude to Bhagwan and to existence. My place of worship is "Zorba the Buddha Rajneesh Lounge", and whether I am serving a customer, clearing tables, arranging flowers or entertainment, organizing schedules for other worshippers, I find more and more that everything that happens here, each action or non-action, is transformed by Bhagwan's presence. Rajneeshpuram is filled with a prayerfulness that is solely attributed to the fact that Bhagwan is here with us, and his presence is being felt and appreciated worldwide, not only in America. Bhagwan is guiding the world towards a new consciousness, where every breath is taken in deep gratitude towards existence itself. Ma Anand Jen |
(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.)
