Testimonial letter from Sw Anand Habib (1)
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 Anand Habib. It is "Exhibit A-1834" 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 3 pages.
 Habib is also the author of another letter, hand-written fourteen days later. There is enough commonality between the two letters to establish definitively that the same one person has written both letters, not two different people with the same name. There are 22 other such cases known. We may be amused by the illicit possibilities here but just as likely he was simply giving the organizers two letters to choose from. See also Testimonial letters#duplication for more on this. Ronans, Wellbrook TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN Just over two years ago I came across some books made from discourses given by Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in Poona, India. They impressed me like no other work by any philosopher or spiritual leader had done, for their simplicity, directness, and authenticity. The more I read Bhagwan, the more I became aware that the fountian of his genius came not from borrowed knowledge, but from his own experience, quite unlike other works I had read in my three years study for a degree in Psychology. I ended my stay at the university disillusioned with what researchers had to offer practically in the everyday world, apparently able only to help clinically "sick" people and not "normal” people, who still had a yearning to become happier. In Bhagwan, I found a man who had evidently passed through the ordinary stages of sadness, depression, solitude, anger, and fear, and had reached a stage of peace, love, wisdom, and evident bliss. From this peak of human experience, he was and is able to see the valleys of despair and misery and offer a means to come out and enjoy the heights of human potential. This he did through discourses given each morning in Poona for seven years. However, Bhagwan has often said that "Truth" cannot be given. Happiness or joy is not a commodity. All that anyone can do is point the way or set the person on the right track. He cannot make the person experience happiness. He had often said that there would come a time when he would communicate through silence. Words can be used to point the way, but they are not the truth, itself, rather the cloak which can reveal the truth. Anyone will be aware that the presence of others can affect one’s moods. Some people feel agressive or sad even without saying anything or moving. They give off an unpleasant aura, or energy, that makes one want to escape from them. Other people give off a feeling of well-being, wisdom, joy or security, or any combination of these things. With many great men such as Abraham Lincoln, Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King, or Mahatma Gandhi, their very presence was sufficient to quieten the mind of those around than, and give them a feeling of security or well-being. Such an occurance is only possible when this person himself has experienced the heights of human awareness and being. For several months in 1981, I had been saving up to visit Bhagwan in India. It came as a shock to me that he had stopped giving discourses, but this did not prevent me from continuing to read his work and experience his energy while meditating. I did various courses in meditation in England, and at the end of 1981, Bhagwan's energy within me became so strong that in November, five months after his decision to only communicate in silence, I took sannyas and became one of his disciples. Modern science is still only really able to account for the five senses, but evidence continues to be brought forward that there is more to life than meets the eye. Telepathy and extrasensory perception are not uncommon. Experiments have even conclusively shown that plants have feelings. Strange as though it may seen, even the presence of somebody can affect one’s being. Through Kirlian Photography we know that man has some sort of aura and it is becoming evident that this aura has an influence over its environment. In the case of someone like Bhagwan, this influence is so enormous and powerful, it is difficult to imagine. Only someone who is open to him or such energies is affected, however. These include his disciples and many others who have discovered him through being with him. And distance appears to be no barrier. You will remember the experiment of a rabbit's young being taken into a submarine. Her offspring were killed one by one, and yet hundreds of miles away, she, the mother, reacted through electrodes attached to her scalp each time one of her offspring was sacrificed. Likewise, a meditation in another continent can tune into Bhagwan's energy. And in fact, through his silence, a peace is available which was perhaps more difficult to obtain when words were used, which sometimes swelled the activity of the mind. In a country like the United States of America, where freedom of religious expression is recognized, you must recognize that Bhagwan is able to help others through his silence. To deny such a man the opportunity he and his followers have been seeking, to further man’s development, would not only be a travestry of the law, but also morally unjust. I trust that you will make your decision on Bhagwan's visa in open and full awareness of all the evidence that is being placed before you. Yours 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.)
