Testimonial letter from Sw Anand Maitreya (2)
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 Maitreya (Mathura Prasad Mishra MA). It is "Exhibit A-391" 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.
 This is one of two letters written by Sw Anand Maitreya. The other is at Maitreya (1). The numbering is according to their appearance in Noles' collection, not chronological. In fact, the other was written more than two months after this one and was one of a focused group of letters from "important" members of the commune, in which all stated their religious titles or educational positions in "Rajneeshism", hoping to expedite Osho's residency application as a religious leader. This letter did not mention his title in Rajneeshism, "Acharya", hence a new letter likely was requested for that campaign. It is not known why both letters were kept, but likely only the "Acharya" one was submitted to the INS. See also Testimonial letters#duplication for more on this "second letter" phenomenon. Swami Anand Maitreya TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN I hesitate to call myself a man of arts or sciences; though years ago I passed M.A. in Hindi literature from a reputable university in India. Professionally I have been a journalist and a politician, and was a member of Indian Parliament for seventeen years. In my long life I had the opportunity to meet great men of India and other countries including Gandhi, Nehru and others. But when I came in contact with Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh I came to realise the He is the greatest among the great. And I also believe that He is a scientist of scientist, artist of artists and a master of masters. He is essentially a man of religion, and for the first time He has expounded the psychology of the Buddhas. His place among the psychologists is the same as that of Einstein among the physicists. Amongst his disciples are hundreds of scientists and artists and psychologists and psychiatrists of repute. This fact alone, speaks volumes for him. Also, who can deny that He is a man of international renown with an international following of a quarter of a million disciples spread all over the world. If a sample survey is made of the commune that He is building at Rajneeshpuram here, one will ccme to know that this commune is more representative of the world, in its real sense of fraternity, than the U.N.O. is. In these circumstances, the USA administration will do itself and its country a singular honour by giving Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh permanent residence as a person of exceptional insight, a genius and a man of international renown. If some prejudices and fears stand in the way, as they certainly do, it is time to shed them boldly and thus earn the gratitude of all mankind of present and future times. 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.)
