Testimonial letter from Ma Prem Udbodhi (1)
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 Udbodhi (Sandra M. Abeles). It is "Exhibit A-1575" 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.
 Udbodhi is also the author of another letter, written seven days later. There is enough commonality between the two letters to establish definitively that the same one person has written both letters, not two different people with the same name. There are 22 other such cases known. We may be amused by the illicit possibilities here but just as likely she was simply giving the organizers two letters to choose from. See also Testimonial letters#duplication for more on this. P.O. Box 10 To Whom it may concern I have a specialized B.A. degree in Art, Drama and Recreation from San Diego State University. I have performed in various places with a touring theatre group in connection with the Californian Ballet, the San Diego Repertory Theatre, the Orange Company. A highlight was one day’s performances for 1600 children with the Orange Company. Beside the theatre aspect of my experience, there is also ceramics and painting. I have been a self-employed potter as well as working for Orion Pottery. Orion ships their pots to places all over the United States. One 6 ft. tall woven macrame piece 30” in diameter was shown in an exhibition in Chicago, Illinois. The newest of my work has been full-size, 3 and 4 tiered Shoji screens, painted with bamboo. After meeting sannyasins and reading books of Bhagwan’s, my artistic abilities were high-lighted. I found the meditations to be incredible warm-ups for the theatre work I did, especially movement and voice. I used music from his meditations as a background for teaching, with great success. I moved into more improvised work with theatre after being introduced to Bhagwan’s teachings, and was quite amazed at the new and original theatre pieces that evolved. I am truly grateful for Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh's religious teachings, enriching my life and others through the arts. Sincerely yours, |
(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.)
