Testimonial letter from Sw Anam
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 Anam. It is "Exhibit A-1830" 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.
 P.O. Box 10, Rajneeshpuram To whom it may concern. I am writing to give to you my personal experience of the values of the teachings of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Ever since I can remember I have had all the freedom in the world given to me by my parents. The way in which I accepted and treated this freedom was as many other teenagers have, and that is to abuse this freedom. This only happened when I started spending less time at home and more of my time in the streets. I am now a disciple of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. I took sannyas in February 1982, long after Bhagwan entered the silent stage of His work. I have been a resident of the city of Rajneeshpuram, Oregon, for a year and a half now, and I feel that the experiences made available to me on the ranch have led to a great deal of changes in my personal life. Through my worship I am learning a great deal about electronics. In a matter of one year I have learned as much as a student in four years of classes. Moreover, through working with adults I have learned a great deal of respect for the equipment I used in my work as well as for my fellow worshippers. With this respect I am also respected and given the responsibility that rarely is given to somebody my age. It is a fact that the love and teachings of my master Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh are an invaluable asset to the United States; in no way should he be asked to leave this country in which his body can remain healthy. Sincerely, |
(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.)
