Testimonial letter from Sw Amrit Paul

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 Sw Amrit Paul (Paul Cotton). It is "Exhibit A-2075" 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.

559 Forest Street Oakland, California 94618 July 28, 1982 To Whom it May Concern: It has come to my attention that the effectiveness of Bagwan Shree Rajneesh as a religious teacher and enlightened Master of Philosophy is being challenged because the present stage of His Teaching has led Him to take a vow of public Silence. Apparently this form of teaching makes the literal-minded person think that Bagwan has stopped teaching. In fact, Bagwan’s Silence is a fulfillment of His Spoken and Written Word... a natural, dramatic and: courageous fulfillment. Bagwan’s teaching about the spiritual reality which is omni-present has always transcended the language he used to point to "it." This conundrum is self-evident to the Creative imagination and is a language barrier which Poetry and Art are perpetually working to penetrate. The problem has been a central theme in the works of Norman O. Brown who is one of our foremost western authorities on language and its relationship to spirit: It cannot be put into words because it does not consist of things. Literal words always define properties. Beyond the reality-principle and reification is silence, the flesh. Freud said, Our god Logos; but refrain from uniting with words, in order to unite with the word made flesh. Norman 0. Brown, "Love's Body" Vintage Books, 1968. P. 265 I am frankly quite surprised that I have become a Sannyasin (a Student-Devotee) of Bagwan because I basically believe in the autonomy of the individual, I distrust Hero worship, I am wary of organized religion and I do not enjoy being labelled as a "member of a cult." I spent a year studying Bagwan’s books and meditating before I finally took the plunge into Sannyas without ever having actually seen Bagwan. My choice to accept Him as a teacher and spiritual guide towards Self-Real-Eye-Zation was ultimately a "Leap of Faith" in which many of tne doubts and negative thoughts I had had, dissolved away. As a person with twenty-six years of formal education behind me, a Masters in Art History, a Masters in Sculpture and an inter-national following in the art world I turned towards Bagwan as the vessel of the Spirit and Intelligence of True Higher Education. This country is indeed fortunate to have attracted the boundless gifts of Bagwan’s presence as He guides each of His Sannyasins towards the Silence of hir own awakened response-ability. The essential meaning of "education" is to "draw out," to guide one’s followers out into the reality of tne present and into Self-Fulfillment. This is exactly what Bagwan is doing in a-Mused Silence. May His presence be welcomed and honored as a gift and blessing to America, the haven of spiritual and religious freedom, the Home of the New Frontiers in consciousness. Sincerely, [signed] Sw. Amrit Paul a.k.a. Paul Cotton

(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.)