Testimonial letter from Ma Prem Vidhi
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 Vidhi (Alison Piggott). It is "Exhibit A-1552" 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.
 July 1983 TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN I have a joint honours degree in sociology and psychology from Durham University, England, in 1971, and a Diploma in Counselling from Aston University in 1976. I have spent 3 years working with Voluntary Service Overseas & International Voluntary Service, lecturing in psycholog in Africa and subsequently co-ordinating their programme of voluntary social work which covers most countries of the world. Ever since I first heard of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in 1977 I have seen how his work encompasses and surpasses the ideas and ideals of the organisationa I worked with. The life style which is evolving at Rajneeshpuram is spontaneously much closer to what we were aiming for in all our efforts towards social equality and world peace. His religious teachings and vision have brought together such a representative variety of people that it is obvious that His work is of value to anyone, of any nationality, class or creed. My experience of the counselling profession was that its practitioners tended to have a sense of futility and struggle in their work and felt unmotivated and disillusioned, compensated for only by a gratifying salary. There was an awareness that something deeper and more effective was needed to make an impact on the lives of their clients as well as their own. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, in His beautifully eloquent religious discourses, has put into words what so many of us were looking for, and now Rajneeshpuram made it a reality. It is a living testimonial to the art of living and testifies immediately to Bhagwan's unique contribution to our world. Yours 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.)
