Testimonial letter from Martin Onken
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 Martin Onken. It is "Exhibit A-225" 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.
 Martin Onken Oberdorf 58 CH - 8598 Bottighofen To whom it may concern Let me first introduce myself to you. I am an elektronic ingeneer with diploma of the Swiss Federal Institut of Technology in Zurich. After I got my diploma I continued to study Psychology and Education with specialisation in didactics of audio-visual-medias at the University of Zurich. Today I am director of the study department of the oldest correspondence school in Switzerland, which was founded 1903. I wrote and edited several Correspondence Courses: Basic Elektronics, Mikrocomputerprogramming in BASIC, Mathematics, Psychology of Personal Development and Psychology of Handwriting. On a trip to India in 1978 I went to the Ashram of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh to visit a friend, who was working there. It was a very short visit but the discourses of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh impressed me deeply. When I came back to Switzerland I read a lot of his fabolous and inspiring books. Since my studies of psychology I was very much interested in the methods of personal development. In Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh I found a man who was able to bring together eastern and western methods of personal development in a creative way, which I have not encounterd before. It was evident for me that his teachings were the fragrance of a deep experiece of truth. In February 1981 I became a disciple of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, because I felt deep sympathy for him and I was sure that he could help me to enrich my life and to gain another dimension of living, more joyously and grounded in the here and now. When I heard that Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh went to the United States of America I was very lucky. Because for me Amerika is like Switzerland one of the countries whose history is bom out of the will of the people to be independent and free. And Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh has often spoken in favour for this country. But when I read in the Newspaper that the INS refused the permanent visa for Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, I was very much disappointed. I could not understand that America does not want this most inspired man of freedom and love to stay. That is the reason why I am writing to you today. I would like to assure out of my position and my experience as disciple that Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is in favour of science, technology, inner and outer wealth, freedom and love. He has and will contribute tremendous to human conscious and I am sure that America can be proud to have this profoundly informed and experienced master of live among his citizens. There is not the slightest reason to be afraid of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. He is a man of great compassion and everything he teaches is lifecaffirmitiv. As an educator and autor in the field of science I could improve the ectiveness of my daily work immensly thanks to the teachings of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, because I do all with more awareness, gratitude, understanding and love. I am very lucky to be a disciple of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and I would be very happy if he could stay in the United States of America, a country I admired all my life. That’s why I would like to ask you: Please do all that is possible for you that Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh can stay in America. In the hope that you do your best to help Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh to stay in your country I remain faithfully [signed] |
(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.)
