Testimonial letter from Ma Arihanto

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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 Arihanto (Wilhelmina Hoedeman). It is "Exhibit A-787" 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 3 pages.

Ma Arihanto
Wilhelmina Hoedeman
127 Main St.
Seal Beach, CA 90740
July 30, 1983

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

This letter is in support of the visa application allowing permanent residency in the United States to Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.

I feel very well-qualified to press for a favorable decision as the influence of Bhagwan’s work has been the most significant contribution to my very successful life, both professional and personal; as indeed the information below will show.

In my opinion, Bhagwan’s knowledge and understanding of the arts and the art of living, combined with his ability to teach, is hitherto unparalleled in the world. Indeed, even our language falls short, as the word "genius" would be a gross understatement.

His extreme clarity and creativity and his compassionate willingness to speak the truth has enabled many young and older artists to discover untapped sources of creativity in themselves, which in turn has led to more fulfilled, purposeful and peaceful lives for them.

In previous years, Bhagwan would be indicating that, after having given his students enough preparatory material through his lectures and books, the next phase of his teaching would be without words, through silence. As my life’s work has been devoted to communication, my interest in this phase of the studies was immense. Already I was familiar with the American School of Minimal Art, with such well-known composers as Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass as musical off-shoots. These artists and university lecturers were deeply involved in the subject silence, and change through silence, as shown in their works, but we knew none had really grasped true understanding of silence, although we felt they were sniffing at the right tracks; and so it turned out but another experiment. Yehudi Menuhin, to name another example, never fails to point out that the real music is to be heard in the silence between the notes, but even he could not take the subject beyond this point of understanding.

In evaluating Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’s application, it has to be remembered that throughout the history of man, the artist has been the herald of the time to come, forever being misunderstood by his contemporaries, but invariably being accepted and hailed and worshipped at a later stage, when the new ideas had had time to settle. In this present age of high technology, communication happens fast and this time-lapse has greatly diminished. Our present-day artists are seeking in a field which has become totally known to Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh: silence.

How fortunate that the City of Rajneeshpuram has invited Bhagwan to teach the subject of silence there. I count myself one of the lucky people to be able to study there with him and to observe the effect of these studies in myself and others.

In my opinion, in Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh mankind has been given the artist of artists, one who knows silence, is beyond silence and who can therefore teach through silence. I can now categorically state that the most powerful and meaningful method of communication is through silence.

His silence, which constitutes his Buddhafield, helps his students to fall into synchronicity with him, thus enabling them to experience moments of utter silence for themselves. At such a time incredible joy descends and the student cannot help but be creative. Art begins to happen spontaneously, through the forms of music, dance, visual arts, literature and above all through the everyday actions of the student. Life and living itself become a spontaneous artistic expression, showing a radical quality change in the pure physical worlds of Bhagwan’s students, and also on deeper levels in their psychological, emotional and spiritual worlds. Artistic expression takes on a depth of feeling, where misery, the normal necessary ingredient for any artistic expression, has been replaced by joy. Bhagwan, through his silence, is teaching his students a miracle: Art is becoming positive and life-affirmative, and, as we already know: the artist heralds the time and life to come; through Bhagwan’s techniques people will become positive and life-affirmative.

Let me stress again the importance to America to grant Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh permanent residency in the United States. Rajneeshpuram will be a living Academy of the Arts in which womb a new culture is being born; a miracle we have all been waiting for.

[signed]
Wilhelmina Hoedeman
[CV stuff]


(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.)