Testimonial letter from Ma Anand Sindhu
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 Sindhu (Monica T. Rushforth). It is "Exhibit A-1103" 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 12, 1983 To whom it may concern: In 1951, I received a M.A. degree from Edinburgh University, Scotland; in 1952, a diploma in Social Studies. I then worked as a social worker with problem children and in 1968 received a M.Phil. in sociology, also from Edinburgh University, to which I returned to study some of the issues the social services were not confonting. I worked in the Sociology Department from 1962 to 72 and became a Senior Research Fellow, publishing in the British Journal of Sociology, the Sociological Review and the Scottish Journal of Political Economy. In 1972 I transfered to a Research and Policy Planning Unit in the Scottish Office of Central Government and worked as a Senior Research Officer in the field of Juvenile Justice at the period the new Scottish Juvenile Justic System was receiving international interest and was serving as a model for similar developments. In 1978 I published a study of problems relating to children in care and custody in the H.M.S.O. Series. Between 1977-80 I trained as a Gestalt Therapist with Ischa Bloomberg of Gestalt Training Services and now work partly as a Gestalt Therapist, and partly as a Tutor and Counsellor for the Open University of Britain. I met Bhagwan Rajneesh whilst doing anthropological work in India on Sabbatical leave in 1976. I had read some of his religious books and heard tapes of his discourses and was moved to go to Poona and seek for myself. I became a sannyasin and have no doubt at all that the contact with Bhagwan and the inspiration of his love and spiritual teachings have made me more effective in the teaching and therapy work in which I am involved. I also believe that the achievement of Rajneeshpuram, a community inspired by Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in which people live their lives with love and concern for all their fellows can become a blueprint for the future in a way that none of the social experime(?) legislation or social engineering has been able to achieve. Sannyasins throughout the world are not living in a Utopia or without realism. They live in the world doing all the normal jobs of an urban society. They simply bring Bhagwan’s love and concerr into their daily lives and produce around them a loving, creative and cooperative atmosphere in which all who come into contact can flourish. I swear with my heart that I sincerely believe all I have written and it is the truth. [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.)
