Testimonial letter from Sw Devendro

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 Devendro (Thomas Matuszek). It is "Exhibit A-2245" 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 Devendro (Thomas Matuszek) Eschendorfstrasse 13 4970 Bad Oeyenhausen 1 West-Germany July 22, 1983 TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN When I came for the First Annual World Celebration in 1982, I wasn't a sannyasin. At that time I was working as a free-lance journalist in Germany (amongst other for 'STERN' magazine). My professional and personal curiosity made me travel to Rajneeshpuram. Meeting Bhagwan and his sannyasins exceeded all my expectations. I have never seen so much love, joy and openness anywhere. The reality here is the future about which everybody once dreamed of. I saw Bhagwan for the first time during his drive through Rajneeshpuram: I was deeply touched by the boundless love that he radiates. Solely through his radiance, his appearance, I knew that I could trust him. All about which he talked about during many years, what has been printed in hundreds of books, it is all here, he embodies it and we are reminded daily about it when he passes by in the car, greeting us. Bhagwan has transformed my life totally, has given me joy and hope. His very presence makes me and everybody here happy, helps us to live together in harmony. He is the axis of the wheel that is turning around him. For me, Bhagwan is 'the Master', the greatest genius in the world, the hope in general. He was able to mediate so much of his love to so many people that they are in a position to live together in love and harmony. America can be proud about having Bhagwan here. Swami Devendro [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.)