Testimonial letter from Sw Anand Suraj

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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 Suraj (Peter Langhoff). It is "Exhibit A-838" 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.

Sw. Anand Suraj
P.O. Box 10
Rajneeshpuram, OR 97741

To Whom It May Concern:

This letter is in fullest support of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’s application for permanent residency in the United States.

You can read his 350 volumes of unparalled, soaring poetry, published in a dozen languages by a dozen publishers. You can read accounts in the Indian Press of the fiery discourses he delivered all over India to the masses in a deeply loving effort to stir them from their profound lethargy. Scoured by the journalists he continued for years, with legendary courage, to dispense the essential bitter medicine. You can read of the world's largest and most influential growth center which sprang up in his shadow in Poona. Now in America, in Rajneeshpuram, his work to help man to fulfill himself continues in silence. Out of that silence has arisen a most remarkable experiment in human history - communities flowering in unprecidented energy and harmony. It is these "communes to provoke God" whick will be his only autobiography. The God of which Bhagwan speaks is life, life in every moment. The possibility is for every man to celebrate that every moment.

What is Bhagwan’s significance for the United States, for the world? Essentially he is the only available guide from the anihilation toward which man is accelerating. His experiment is a significant alternative-living system on the planet. An enormous love energy must be allowed to arise to balance the intense hatred among men that has grown and festered for milenia. If this energy is nurtured the world will have a vibrant, working model of love -a harmonious, vital, creative, compassionate possibility for humanity. It is important that it happen in the United States. It is only here that this experiment can be showcased with sufficient speed and clarity to avert the final holocost. If the United States, the world’s bastion of religious freedom, denys him there is no hope elsewhere.

My own contact with Bhagwan grew out of a long involvement with the therapies of the Human Potential Movement. Carl Rodgers and Fritz Perls had been wonderful guides, but they left me only tantalized. One day I chanced upon Bhagwan’s face on the cover of a book of his discourses, The Mustard Seed. It was a haunting expression that bespoke another reality. The words of Bhagwan crackled in my ears and my old psychological maps began to disappear. The message became unmistakeably clear - life, all of life is perfect exactly as it is. My search was over; this was the ultimate truth. Meditations, sannyas, Poona, center development in Berkeley, and membership in the Rajneeshpuram commune followed in easy succession.

The INS criterion for admission in Arts and Sciences clearly indicates a man of surpassing genius. Bhagwan easily fits this definition. Only the most remarkable of men could draw together such a collection of talented, exceptionally well educated, and dedicated people from every corner of the earth to give their all to realize a seemingly impossible dream. My professional background includes secondary and adult teaching and counseling together with individual and group psychotherapy. I hold a B.A. in History from the Unvierisyt of California, Berkeley (1977). I hold professional credentials in secondary teaching, Registered Social Work and school counseling.

With Greatest Love,
[signed]
Sw. Anand Suraj
(aka Peter Langhoff)


(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.)