Testimonial letter from Sw Chidananda (Italian)
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 Chidananda. It is "Exhibit A-1487" 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.
 July 23, 1983 TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN I met Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in Poona in 1974 - at that time I was 19 years old and I had just taken my degree as a school teacher - and since then life for me has been an ongoing adventure both into the inner and outer world. Having met Him when I was so young had a profound influence on my life and both my parents encouraged me to follow His teachings and helped me at times also financially to go visit Him in India. (My mother also took initiation as a disciple in 1975). During my life I worked in many different fields -as a musician, gardener, carpenter and others - and in all of them I have been feeling His influence because He has taught me to work with love and playfulness, which is something really unique to learn in this world where ambition and competition prevail. I was born and grew up in an ancient aristocratic Italian family and I feel really grateful to Bhagwan because He has always pointed out the very ordinariness of life which would have been difficult for me to experience, considering my background. Activities like gardening or carpentry have become for me the most exciting adventures simply because He is teaching us how to make work a worship. During the period in India I translated a few of His books into Italian and, getting to know His words, I thought sometimes that I was really understanding what He was saying but once He entered into silence I realized that in His talks He was just pointing towards something that is happening beautifully HERE in the mystery of His silent presence and in the day to day life of Rajneeshpuram commune. I came from Italy twice to take part in the World Festivals here at Rajneeshpuram and I realized that people here live the life I’ve always been dreaming of. And that is : every resident in the commune works, everyone contributes with incredible love and devotion, just happy to be here, to be alive. And I said to myself: ”So that’s what Bhagwan was talking about during those beautiful mornings in Poona...." And that’s why now He is silent because all that He was talking about is becoming a reality and finally He can just sit silently, spreading His love, which, believe me, is just overflowing here at Rajneeshpuram. 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.)
