Testimonial letter from Sw Deva Michael
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 Michael. It is "Exhibit A-826" 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. Deva Michael To whom it may concern, I think it would be great to start this letter by saying that whatever I say wont be enough, what I mean is that to try and describe all of the life giving changes that have happened to me through my direct experience of being a disciple of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh would take several volumes of literature spanning over four years of my life. So I will make a long and beautiful story short by saying what I feel is the essence of my living in the presence of this great Master. When I first came to Rancho Rajneesh a year and a half ago I was still very tense and slightly neurotic from living in San Francisco for over a year, but I was ready to start a new life of clean, hard work and (of course) meditation. Bhagwan has given me the opportunity, I feel no where else could I have been involved with so much creative construction (I am presently a plumber) of beautiful state of the art homes and buildings and at the same time enjoying a beautiful and balanced spiritual life fulfilling in every sense. Just recently we had our Annual Master’s Day Celebration, where 15,000 admirers and lovers of Bhagwan gathered in silent communion with Bhagwan present of course. Now Bhagwan did not speak at all, but to me more was said in those morning communions then I ever dreamed possible in the sense of feeling grateful for life and in the most direct sense being aware of a totally new and fulfilling life that would have been just about impossible any where else in the world. I have never been so inspired to reach out and share before, since coming to Rajneeshpuram, and the opportunity is here, for everyone. No where else is there this state of affairs, nowhere else have I experienced joy and creativity that makes my everyday a blessing. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh has made these doors available to me, I am infinetly grateful to be here in his presence to see him drive by everyday smiling authentically, ear to ear. A truly joyfull human being sharing immensely to all. Yours in Joy and Peace, |
(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.)
