Testimonial letter from Sw Anand Shantena

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 Shantena. It is "Exhibit A-2583" 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.

Swami Anand Shantena Miasto Rajneesh Neo-Sannyas Commune 53010 Frosini (Siena) Italy Miasto, July 31, 1983 To whom it may concern. For many years, before meeting Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, I have been involved in the kind of general search about human existence which is sometimes referred to as "quest for meaning" or "truth", or "spiritual quest". On the side of my professional work as a scientist in University research institutions, I was studying philosophical and religious texts and practicing eastern and western psychophysical disciplines. However stimulating and intellectually adventurous that search may have been, it did not break deep barriers of ego structure and conditioning. It did not open up channels of love and a potential for total involvment with human beings and with life which were crying for recognition inside me. Being a disciple of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh for the past five years, living in the creative turmoil of one of His communes has kindled a fire of transformation in me which the study of mere words and ideas could never generate. Being in contact with One who has crossed over the boundaries of ordinary human identification can only be immensely helpful, enlarging, stimulating. I consider myself fortunate to have been granted such a gift, and with all my heart I wish and pray that it may be available to all women and men who are searching, to all those who are struggling with the limitations of our understanding of existence, to all beings who may be, to any extent, open to receive the gift. [signed] (Swami Anand Shantena)

(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.)