Testimonial letter from Ma Anand Pratimo
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 Pratimo. It is "Exhibit A-904" 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.
 July 21, 1983 TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: I would like to take this time to share with you a little of why I have chosen to live my life in the presence of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. I had it all out there - all that was needed to be a success. You know, married to a nice Jewish doctor, two cars, Saturday night dinner parties, big house, charge cards, bank accounts, closets full of clothes, and a career in education with a Master’s degree in Guidance and Counseling. Two-week paid vacations in the mountains came with all this. Yet, something was always missing. I began searching for the something that was missing, not knowing what it was, in 1977. Two years later, and thousands of adventures later, I sat at the feet of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. There it was, and still is, every time he passes me in his daily ride, or sitting with him in Darshan or Satsang. In addition to the spiritual aspect of being with this Master, the daily environmental living experience is one of honesty, concern, and creativity. I have not experienced this anywhere else. Simple everyday living and working has been transformed into prayer and meditation. Today, as I was taking down one of the tents from the festival, I noticed myself artfully winding the string in much the same way a master chef might put roses on the wedding cake of a princess! This is a bit of why I am here at Rajneeshpuram. Come visit our beloved city, and see for yourself how Bhagwan is a person with exceptional ability in the fields of arts and sciences. This city would not have been without his inspiration and vision. Thank you, |
(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.)
