Testimonial letter from Piet van 't Woud
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 Piet van 't Woud MD. It is "Exhibit A-248" 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.
 PIET VAN ’T WOUD TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN I am a dutch doctor, 52 years of age, working now for 25 years as a general practitioner in the suburb of Leiden, a university city in Holland. I heard about Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in the year of 1979 and decided to visit him in his ashram in Poona, India. In a few weeks I was so amazed by this extraordinary man that I became a disciple then and there. I got a better understanding of my own life and of that of others, this helped me to be a better doctor. I realised that Bhagwan, living in our age, is one of the most prominent among the greatest of the spritual Masters down the centuries, from Patanjali, through Buddha and even Jezus Christ, to Krishnamurti. I doubt if there was or is ever a man with such an extraordinary knowledge of the world in the past and in the present, and with such a healthy vision of the future, as enfolded during his seven years of the most promising discourses he held during his stay in Poona. Last year I was able to visit his new experimental site in Oregon, U.S.A., where his theories about ecology, society, mental and physical health are being realized in the land of freedom and future, the United States of America. In my opinion should the Americans be proud of having such a great man with such a radiance in their midst. What he had to say in words he has said, every word can still be heard on tape, every word can still be read in the hundreds of his books, in all languages to be bought all over the world. Now he still continues to convey his message, The Thruth, in silence: That which Can’t be Said. To me Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is one of the few real blessings of our era. [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.)
