Testimonial letter from Robert Aitken

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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 Robert Aitken. It is "Exhibit A-73" 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.

Diamond Sangha
A ZEN BUDDHIST SOCIETY
KOKO AN
2119 KALOA WAY
HONOLULU, HAWAII 96822
July 22, 1983

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

I have been asked to write in support of the teacher Rajneesh in his efforts to remain in this country. I am not personally acquainted with him, and my way of teaching is very different, but it is apparent to me that his message is very meaningful to large numbers of people and that he meets their needs.

Therefore, so long as the basic laws of our country are being observed, I would hope that the teacher Rajneesh would be allowed to remain in this country to teach as he deems appropriate. I believe this would be in keeping with the principles upon which our country is founded.

Respectfully submitted,
[signed]
Director, Diamond Sangha


(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.)