Testimonial letter from Sw Deva Prakasham
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 Prakasham (Eric Fuge). It is "Exhibit A-1583" 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.
 P.O. Box 10 TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN I’m an American Citizen, born in California. I've lived here my whole life, attending school through two years of Junior College. I attended a private high school, York High School, in Monterey County. It is a College Prep. school, the purpose of which obviously was to prepare the student for college. After two years of Junior College though I terminated by deferred admittance at Linfield College in Oregon, to get direct experience in my field of energy management, as relating to commercial facilities, heating and air conditioning. Ive now been a journeyman in the sheetmetal Local #309 in Monterey County for the past four years. I first heard of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh four years ago, from a woman traveling around the U.S. who was from Germany. From the first page of a book that she had with her I realized this was an extraordinary man, and she was so full of joy, it seemed like such a rare thing. Almost too incredible to believe, but a fact nonetheless. Since I first came into contact with Bhagwan, I’ve realized that the world around me is not fixed, does not have to be ugly, dishonest, unloving. Joy does exist in the world, but on such a small scale compared to the potential we have. And Bhagwan has changed my fixed conceptions, handed down from others, through the extraordinary capacity for love, joy that he possesses. Just through the magnificence of his being he transforms. So a man of this understanding, able to show us the potential for a beautiful world through his presence and teachings, has given the world, and especially America, the full benefits of his knowledge by coming here. Because now we have to recognize his wisdom in the most influential country on earth. And this will be a blessing for all of mankind, especially America, and through Rajneeshpuram. And if we’re more loving, aware, understanding, then in America a paradise on earth will be created. And this will certainly benefit us all. America is firstly and most directly receiving the benefits of his religion. And that’s just it. A new religion is being born, centered in America and spreading everywhere. So the World Celebration is very important to expose people to the miracle happening here, and Bhagwan’s presence is important because he is the catalyst. [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.)
