Testimonial letter from Sw Antar Bert
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 Antar Bert (Dr. Bert de Vries). It is "Exhibit A-1836" 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.
 Groningen, The Netherlands Dear Sir, As one of the directors of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Studies at the State University of Groningen, The Netherlands, I would like to emphasize the importance of the city of Rajneeshpuram and with it, of the presence of its great and inpsiring Master, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, from an ecological point of view. I have been involved in energy engineering and energy/ environmental policy issues over the last decade, a.o. as a member of the government Advisory Council on Energy Research. Presently, our Institute consists of about 25 people, active in the fields of renewable energy sources, cogeneration, energy conservation, food and agriculture, noise abatement and social aspects of recycling. Most of the research is done on government funding. Besides, an average of 40 students from all disciplines follow our courses on energy and environmental topics. Personally, I contributed with some 20 articles in scientific Journals, a book on nuclear energy and several other publications and research reports. In 1970 I have been awarded a research grant from the dutch Foundation on Pure and Applied Research fot a one-year stay at the University of Chicago. Inspired by the teachings and the great wisdom of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh I have taken sannyas in Rajneeshpuram in July, 1982. Over the last decade I have been strongly involved in experiments and discussions on a ’sustainable society’. It turned out that after an initial outburst of idealism it failed out of lack of an inspiration that could transcend the ambitions and shortcomings of the participating individuals and provide a continuous source of love and understanding. It is from this perspective that I look upon Rajneeshpuram as an experiment, in the presence of a living Master, of great value. In a general sense it is of great value to mankind as a whole , now that we have to face so many doomsday signals if we continue to proceed out of 7conventional wisdom’, From a more narrow, ecological point-of-view the development of Rajneeshpuram will provide us great insights into community development on an ecological basis c.q. renewable energy source usage, recycling patterns, agriculture, public traffic and the like. Apart from juridical considerations and apart of my great personal love for Bhagwan, it will be clear to you that I and with me many of my colleagues and friends in The Netherlands ask you with great emphasis and love to allow Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh to stay in the United States of America. Relying that you will make the right decision, 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.)
