Testimonial letter from Robert Mittelstaedt
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 Mittelstaedt. It is "Exhibit A-1227" 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.
 Robert Mittelstaedt Sir, I have heard that it is still questionable whether the work that Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and his sannyasins have begun in Antelope, Oregon, can be continued or not. Please let me tell you a few of my arguments in favor of the project that is going on in Oregon. I am not a Sannyasin but I have good knowledge and some experience of Bhagwans teachings since about five years. As a psychologist, I am myself working in the field of human growth and therefore I am professionally interested in all kinds and ways of human development. To me there is no doubt that our world is in quite a desolate state and many people are eagerly looking for effective ways of getting this world, our world, out of its dilemma. We cannot blame anyone for this situation, the situation is as it is and our only chance is to accept it as a challenge. One thing is clear: the only way out of the dilemma is through raising every individuals consciousness, not on the intellectual level (this won’t help at all), but in its quality, its comprehensiveness. To me there are few who can really cope with Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’s comprehension for the needs of our world and human individuals. He has opened the most effective ways for human, social and cultural development. The impressive work which Bhagwan and his community have performed in Oregon so far should make my pint clear. This great experiment in Oregon stands for the meaning of Bhagwan’s teachings in reality. And this reality itself is a very inspiring one, one which shows, practically shows, that problems are soluble - and, if anything, this reality can also give hope for the survival of our planet. At present our governments are negotiating the necessity of stationing nuclear missiles in Europe, especially in Germany. Missiles, wherever they may be stationed - in Germany or elsewhere -, are more likely to create new problems instead of solving any. Your missiles don’t give me hope, they make me feel desperate. Let me receive more hopeful news from Oregon. Kind regards. |
(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.)
