Testimonial letter from Sw Anand Islamo
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 Islamo (Kurt Mani). It is "Exhibit A-1926" 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.
 Kurt Mani To whom it may concern. I studied latin and greek at the university and I have been teaching these subjects for more than ten years now at a Swiss high school. During this time I made the experience that in education words often are secondary. When I want to teach openness to my students, there is no use in talking about it. I have to be open myself. It’s the authencity that counts. I came in contact with Bhagwan first through books. They were different than almost every other book I’ve read: the important thing didn’t happen in the head by means of words, but in the heart: I was touched. Bhagwan’s openness, straightness and humour were unique. When Bhagwan stopped talking, the words dropped away, but the radiance of openness and humour went on vibrating. I was at the festival in Rajneeshpuram this year. Although Bhagwan was silent, I took home something very important for me: the energy and courage to become myself. This was Bhagwan’s silence for me. For me, there is no question about it: He is a religious leader. And who is more entitled to say so than his disciples? Who can say more about a love affair than the lover? In Athens there was a strange philosopher called Socrates. His most famous words were: I know only that I don’t know anything. He talked with the people of Athens to teach them -nothing. Platon, the most famous antique philosopher was a disciple of this man. The attic politicians reacted more open and cruel, but in a way similar to what happens today: they said he was misleading the young and condemned him to death. I hope that you are more tolerant than the Athenians and that you don’t give in to the well-known prejudices. 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.)
