Testimonial letter from Ma Prem Atandra
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 Prem Atandra (Susan Ananda Star). It is "Exhibit A-1829" 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 2 pages.
 Ma Prem Atandra TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN I am a 38 year old American disciple of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh with a B.A. in Psychology (University of Missouri, 1968); an M.S.W. (Temple University, 1975); post-graduate work in social welfare administration (San Jose State University, 1978) and 20 years experience in public child welfare and psychiatric social work. My most recent position was as Director of Trinity Healing Centre in London, England, a health education and treatment center. Prior to that I was an assistant Director of Staff Education and Development for Marin County, C.A. Social Services; consultant and trainer to numerous public and private social agencies; a child, marriage and family counselor; and a public child welfare worker specializing in child abuse. I first heard of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in 1979 from colleagues who were, like myself, searching for the most recent advances in the field of psychotherapy and community treatment. I discovered on reading his books that I was encountering a psychotherapist and social thinker of uncomparable brilliance. I immediately began to apply and teach those psychological and social insights, leading to a series of amazing client successes which came, not from miracles, but directly from the simple, yet brilliant, insights of this extraordinary man. His insights were as applicable to my wealthy private clients as to my poor public clients. If his meditations were more widely taught I would expect a dramatic decrease in child abuse in the United States. Two years after thus professionally encountering Bhagwan, I became a disciple, though I never went to India and Bhagwan was already in silence at the time. My decision was an outgrowth of his contribution to my work and to the field of psychology. I discovered that he was not just a genius, but that I could also commune with him in silence and that he was and is a tremendous catalyst for my own growth. Having been immersed for so long in the economic, social and psychological problems of our country, I can readily support Bhagwan as a person of tremendous benefit to the United States. Here at Rajneeshpuram I live in a community in which social problems simply do not exist. Rajneeshpuram can serve as an example of economic co-operation and creative capitalism for everyone in the United States. I urge you to admit this outstanding human being. Sincerely, |
(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.)
