Testimonial letter from Ma Prem Manou
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 Manou. It is "Exhibit A-1826" 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.
 Ma Prem Manou To whom it may concern: I am writing this letter because the question of allowing Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh to become a permanent resident of the United States is being decided. My understanding is that there is question about his authenticity and his present silence. I graduated from the University of California at Santa Cruz with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology in 1972. I first learned of Bhagwan in 1981 after he had come to the United States and while he was in silence. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh's understanding of man and his behavior far surpassed anything I had ever come in contact with. I have been living here in Oregon in Bhagwan's presence for 14 months. Where as it was easy for me to write of my work prior to my contact with Bhagwan, it is very difficult for me to find words to describe how it is that living in His presence, being physically near Him while he is in silence, has given me more insights into human behavior than any of my studies ever provided. The discourses and books of Bhagwan's I had read contained the clearest and best guidance about life I had ever been given; being in His presence far surpasses anything I could ever receive from reading. I urge all of you who have a part to play in deciding the fate of Bhagwan's residency to consider the extraordinary asset He would be to any country, and to take the appropriate action to assure that the United States remains the recipient of this asset 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.)
