Testimonial letter from Robert Lazeres

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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 Lazeres. It is "Exhibit A-36" 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.

P.O. Box 10,
RAJNEESHPURAM, OR. 97741

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

I was raised a Catholic and went as deeply into Catholicism as possible for the first 24 years of my life. In 1960, I graduated from a Catholic High School in Tucson, Arizona. Then I studied five years in the Carmelite Seminary, Mt. Carmel College, in Niagara Falls, Ontario, graduating with a B.A. Philosophy major. That was followed by one semester of graduate study in theology at Catholic University, Washington, D.C. By this time it had become clear to me that something was missing in my life. Although I excelled at religious studies and loved the Catholic liturgy, a part of me still longed for expression and fulfillment. So, with nd regrets, I left the Carmelite Seminary just 2% years short of being ordained a priest and having already been a Carmelite monk under vows for 3% years. I therefore had an intimate acquaintance with a major traditional religion from the inside.

It wasn’t until nearly ten years later that I came across my first book by Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. I read it with fascination for here was a man who spoke a religious truth I had not heard put so clearly, so honestly before. In November, 1977, I flew to India and became a disciple of this beautiful spiritual leader. So for the past 5^ years I have been closely associated with Rajneesh, both in India and here in my own country.

Certainly the forms of worship and the teachings of the Catholic Church and Rajneesh are different. But as far as their essence is concerned, that is, to help lead us to the Divine -there is the same purpose. In fact, my personal experience is that my religious experience has been much more enhanced by Rajneesh in less time than by all my years in the Catholic Church. His religious teachings, as embodied in the many books transcribed from His years of daily discourses, are more profound, deeper, and more alive to contemporary man than are the Scriptures of the Catholic Church. If this man is not a religious teacher, then there are no religious teachers anywhere and neither was Jesus a religious teacher. That He is now ’teaching' through silence does not make Him less a teacher and an inspiration to His followers. To have a religious teacher of such outstanding and exceptional ability as Rajneesh in America is a singular blessing for all of us in this land of religious freedom and material plenty. His spiritual message, more than all others, speaks to 20th Century even to 21st Century man, especially western man who has had his material needs fulfilled and has found them wanting. He has a religious message especially suited for Americans and we would be as least as foolish to cast Him out as the Jews and Romans were to crucify Jesus. It is not too late for America to remember its heritage and its high calling and welcome this saintly religious teacher with open arms.

[signed]
Robert Lazeres


(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.)