Testimonial letter from Ma Prem Nirmala (British)
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 Nirmala (Jean Sherlock Watt). It is "Exhibit A-988" 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.
 TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN My legal name is Jean Sherlock Watt; nationality British. I have a degree in graphic design, a Dip. Ed. which is the certificate of a one year post-graduate teacher training course, and a Masters Degree in Education - pending. For ten years I worked as a teacher in several different British schools and during this time was involved in other projects such as research into progressive education, work in youth clubs, the probation service etc. After ten years I decided upon a career change, and became the propietor of a licenced restaurant. I began to experiment with alternative "growth" groups, such as Gestalt therapy groups and re-evaluation counselling. I also contacted Freudian analysis, Behaviourism and other forms of "growth" at the University of Birmingham. In September 1981 I went to the ashram of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in Poona, because I had heard that the two most powerful growth centres in the world were Poona, India, and Esalen, California. I choose for Poona because the growth programme there was the bigger. In Poona I took sannyas from Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, the most loving and remarkable human being I have ever met, and for the past 2 1/2 years have lived continuously in Rajneesh communities in England and in Holland. Much has been written about communal living in the West in the past two decades. It only remains for me to say that I feel perfectly free and able to live and work alone or in a nuclear family unit (I have a nine year old son). I choose, however, to live in Rajneesh communities, under the guidance and inspiration of Bhagwan and his work. I feel the growth and development of such communities as a invaluable contribution from Him. 17.7.1983 |
(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.)
