Testimonial letter from Sw Deva Allen
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 Deva Allen. It is "Exhibit A-564" 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.
 P.O. Box 10 TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: I am writing to you about the application of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh for permanent residence status because of his exceptional ability in the Arts and Sciences. I currently live in Rajneeshpuram, Oregon, and help co-ordinate all the work and research done in the heating, air-conditioning, and ventilation of buildings, houses, greenhouses, and other enclosed spaces requiring controlled environments. My background of 10 years in the various construction trades and practices has proven invaluable and has also shown me the incredible contrast with the commercial contracting sector in the way this type of work is approached and executed here. In Bhagwan's presence there is no competition, but work to do, a job to get done. We all work together to solve the problems that arise, consequently, this work happens much smoother here. His presence is a catalyst for us to. perform our work with an awareness that goes beyond what we are immediately doing. More specifically in my situation, we are dealing with the job of heating and cooling homes and buildings of a small city. We have access to many standard accepted ways of accomplishing these objectives, but many times choose new and alternative means that may prove more economically or ecologically suited to the task. We are able to monitor the energy use of buildings or processes that consume energy so that we have input on how to better our approach in the next project. We have installed a large solar system on a cafeteria to pre-heat water that we monitor continually for performance data. It has been saving us about $400.00 per month on fossil fuel costs. In this building that serves meals for over 800 people per day we are also looking at various means ot heat recovery that will become standard procedures in a few years to come in buildings of this nature. In the 13,000 sq. ft. repair garage, we have installed a waste oil fired boiler that will consume all the used motor oil from vehicles and machinery in the city. In another area we are starting to construct a series of greenhouses to provide fresh produce through the winter for our community. These are being build into south sloping hills and each is 200' long by 25' wide. The emphasis here is on low energy consumption and passive ventilation. As there is little available data on large solar greenhouses, these are considered experimental and will provide much needed data in this field, not only for us, but in the agriculture community at large. In my department or temple as we call them, heating and air-conditioning, electrical and plumbing are all one group, so that when we plan projects all of the service aspects are closely co-oridinated and executed. This results in minimal job-site complications and efficient use of materials and equipment. The projects happen as a result of co-operation and are seldom found in the commercial sector where various trades and unions tend to only look after their specific job and are often openly indifferent to the other divisions of labor found on a job-site. The additional expenses insued from such self serving attitudes would surprise all of us. We have our own sheetmetal shop to fabricate all out duct and sheet metal work, a complete refrigeration shop, and electronic sector for building controls. With these facilities and skills we are allowed a wide range of design possibilities, and freedom that enables us to be innovative. We also have constant feedback from the persons installing and maintaining systems and equipment, so that the designers can constantly upgrade the quality of our work projects. I feel that all of this work is being inspired directly by the presence of a living master, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. It is the vision of a new man, not bound by traditional limitations, but encouraged to experiment, to work, to produce in an atmosphere of love and cooperation that is happening here. Sincerely yours, |
(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.)
