Testimonial letter from Sir Davis Hughes
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 the Hon. Sir Davis Hughes. It is "Exhibit A-645" 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.
 THE HON. SIR DAVIS HUGHES 19th July 1983 TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN I should perhaps say that is is not my usual practice to write letters of the type where in effect it adds to the efforts of a pressure group to achieve a specific end. I am making this exception because I feel very strongly that I should support the fine objectives of the movement led by the Bhagwan. First may I give a short summary of my background and experience feeling that this will indicate that my whole outlook and mode of life has been cast in a very conservative role. I have been a teacher in three Australian States over a period of 25 years becoming Deputy Headmaster of a fine conservative private boarding school conducted by the Church of England. I was a member of the Parliament of New South Wales Australia for the next 23 years as a member of the Country Party, a free enterprise party (now known as the National Party) with its whole policy and outlook based on the minimum interference of Government in private enterprise and in the private lives of individuals. Perhaps the nearest analogy to our aims is that of Conservative party in the United Kingdom. For the last nine years of this period I was Minister for Public Work responsible for building schools, hospitals, harbours, bridges, water supply schemes and perhaps best known the Sydney Opera House. In 1973 I was appointed to the Diplomatic Post of Agent General for New South Wales for the United Kingdom and Europe. At present I am Australian Advisor to the French Bank, Societe Generale Why then am I writing this letter? I have two major reasons. The first is that my daughter is a follower of Bhagwan and I have seen the dramatic and wonderful effect it has had on her life style and philosophy of life. It could only spring from someone of exceptional quality and exceptional ability as a leader of an important life style. It is clear to me that the teaching which gives inspiration and devotio to a beautiful life style must be of great benefit to our whole society Secondly through my daughter I have met many Australian followers of Bhagwan and his teachings and I have learned to admire tremendously their outlook, the fine moral tone of the community, their happiness in their beliefs obviously emanating from Bhagwan. They are also great contributors to the well being of the whole community. My wife, Lady Hughes visited the headquarters in Poona and was tremendously impressed by the whole atmosphere. All this makes me believe that the Bhagwan is a man of exceptional ability and that his philosophy and spiritual teachings are very important and add significantly to the well being and moral values of the whole community. Yours faithfully, |
(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.)
