Testimonial letter from Sw Anand Premdharma
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 Premdharma. It is "Exhibit A-292" 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 2 pages.
 Rajneeshpuram TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN The presence of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in America is an extraordinary and vital contribution to the religious and cultural life of our nation, and a very important contribution to my own personal well being and pursuit of happiness. His teachings, and especially his personal presence, offer an unparalleled opportunity - already experienced by tens or hundreds of thousands worldwide - to obtain a depth of psychological and religious understanding not presently available through any university curriculum or religious institute that I am familiar with. I have been a disciple of his since 1975 and his presence here is a crucial part of my life and work. My background encompasses study and recognition of excellence in several fields: A B.S. in physics (Phi Beta Kappa) in 1965 from the University of Chicago; study in philosophy, politics and economics with world renowned teachers at Oxford University in England as one of thirty two Americans selected each year to be Rhodes Scholars; study and research in Social Relations at the Johns Hopkins University (M.A. with honors, 1971) as a Danforth Fellow. For a year between Oxford and Johns Hopkins I was elected to serve as national President of the U.S. National Student Association. In the early 1970s I designed and directed one of the major national studies of student/youth culture for the National Institute on Mental Health and the Johns Hopkins University. I was a regular consultant and expert on youth culture and drug abuse for the U.S. Government (Dept. of HEW) and for several private institutions and organisations through the late 1970s. Much of that time I was asked to evaluate the impact on people’s lives of different kinds of therapy programs and community health institutions. During the last few years I have devoted much of my time to analysis and design of computer application, and in 1981 became Managing Director of a computer consulting firm in Berkeley, California. This company was inspired by the teachings of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh to focus on work as worship - honoring each other, promoting excellence, and acting with integrity, while conducting a successful business enterprise. For most of the last year I have lived at Rajneeshpuram, participating in creating a city and community where there is less conflict and more healing, joyful and constructive living than any other place I’ve ever seen. I’ve travelled extensively in the West and the East; I’ve experienced most of the therapies available today and I've studied and practiced several different religious teachings. I know that Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’s presence inspires a sense of love and prayer, the power and directness of which I’ve found nowhere else. This is why his continued presence here is so important to me and to thousands of others. With love, |
(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.)
