Testimonial letter from Ma Anutosh Vidya
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 Anutosh Vidya (Angelika Hamblocs). It is "Exhibit A-1481" 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.
 Angelika Hamblocs To Whom it may Concern, I recently finished my studies in German literature and Social Science at the University of Cologne. In the moment I am working as a teacher of German language at the Polytechnical School in Cologne. During my studies my special interest was in Religious Sociology. I wrote my exam paper about "New Religious Cults". That was my first contact with Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Writing the paper, I saw films about the Ashram in Poona, read some of his books and I got more and more interested in his work as a religious leader and in the commune of His Sannyasins. Still watching from the outside the commune seemed to me the most interesting phenomena that I had ever heard of. Where the psychological therapy is concerned, as well as the social structure of the commune, it seems the only alive religion in comparison with the others I had seen. Visiting Rajneeshpuram now as a sannyasin, I feel that what I was interested in from the outside is really happening here and is really happening for me too. Sitting with Bhagwan in silence during the days of Satsang was such a gift. For me it is the difference of analysing or thinking of a more suitable structure of society or really taking part in it myself because of the presence of Bhagwan and his sannyasins. In my opinion being able to visit this religious commune in the United States is a gift for everybody, to see how a religion can be lived in an alive and beautiful way. Ma Anutosh Vidya |
(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.)
