Testimonial letter from Sw Deva Kavyo

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 Kavyo (Frans Herbst). It is "Exhibit A-2310" 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 Deva Kavyo Frans Herbst Schloss str. 60A 7 Stuttgart 1 West Germany TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN : My first contact with Bhagwan was in 1978, when I visited a friend in Amsterdam and we went to a Rajneesh Meditation Center. I have heard a tape of his discourses (The master of the masters) and was deeply impressed by the wisdom of this man. He found the synthesis between science and religion I was looking for since years. One year later I went to Poona and in the two years I lived there with him I experienced the practice of his teachings: living harmoniously together with nature and science, and growing with each others potentials. Working lovingly together in a space of affection rather than greed. In the following years I felt myself becoming stronger, more centered and relaxed and basically much more happy in life. Also my profession has been affected tremendously by this Man and His teachings. I got a totally different view of music and its affects on health and wellbeing of myself and other people. Also my creativity has improved a lot. I am working as a musician in chambermusic and orchestra. My instruments are flute and Oboe. And I also use music as a kind of remedy to help people find their way back to harmony and joy in life. Also all the other aspects of his teachings have deeply impressed me and I am glad that such an outstanding man with so much love, knowing and grace is living among us and I can come and join Him from time to time. Living here in Rajneeshpuram for three months has shown me the way manhood can avoid the holocaust which is going to happen, if we don’t change some of our attitudes towards nature as well as towards our own kind. I don’t really understand all the hassle and difficulty we Rajneeshees get in just living our kind of life in the middle of the Oregonian desert. What are you fearing? What do you think we are going to do to you? Is it so dangerous just to have fun in life? Every country should be glad to have such a genius as a citizen and pay him the respect he deserves. Yours faithfully, Deva Kavyo [signed]

(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.)