Testimonial letter from Sw Deva Prashanto
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 Prashanto (Aron Abend). It is "Exhibit A-1168" 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.
 TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN I was born in Brazil in 1931, of Jewish immigrant parents from Poland. My father was a construction worker. I graduated from two universities: engineering, with major in economy, and Physics and Mathematics. During my scholastic years I was active in politics with student unions, at state and federal unions (National Student Union). I started and led two university movements in Brazil: the university reform and the Program for Alphabetizing Adults in the National Student Union, wrote several articles for newspapers and magazines about these subjects. Between 1963-1964 I work for the Ministr of Education, as member of the National Committee for the National Plan to ban illiteracy. I was the coordinator of the area of the State of Rio de Janeiro, having under my supervision approximately 3,000 instructors. In 1967 I started to write plays, two of them were selected among the 10 best plays in national contests. Between 1971 and 1975 I travelled throug out South Central and North Americas, participating in stage festivals, giving lectures about the Brazilian stage plays and about oriental philosophy (macrobiotics, Zen, Do-In). In 1975-1978 I worked in Brazil as Reichian therapist (I did a course at the Instutute Wilhelm Reich in Mexico), and I was the pioneer in bioenergetics in Brazil. Between 1978-1979 I was in Poona, India where I knew Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Then a great transformation happened in my life. Until that time I denied the word God, religion, rejected the religious master such as Buddha and Christ. I was convinced materialist and atheist. Rajneesh helped me reconcile with religion, with Christ, Buddha and all of those who are considered traditionally as Enlightened Masters. The reason for this transformation is very simple: I could see through Him what is a Buddha, a Christ and a Mohamed: No Bible, Koran or Talmud could show it, but his alive presence was sufficient. I became His disciple. His religious, spiritual and mystic leadership, mixed with a profound scientific sense has transformed me continuously. Today I lead growth groups, and I am constantly travelling throughout Brazil giving speeches, interviews in newspapers, radio and TV, besides leading therapy groups (average 30 participants per group), where I use all that I could learn from the teachings of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. My work is constantly transformed, new techniques are applied, or old techniques are renewed, mainly in that which concernes understanding of the Human Being, his possibilities in finding the Divine which is within each one. [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.)
