Testimonial letter from Sw Dhyan Paul
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 Dhyan Paul (Paul de Dijn). It is "Exhibit A-1832" 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.
 TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN. Dear Sir, During my stay in the United States two weeks ago, I was able to see a few T.V. talk shows in which a representative of the I.N.S. explained to the public why the I.N.S. denied a permanent visum to Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. The absurdity of such a decision struck me so much that I cannot but react. I myself have never been able to actually see Bhagwan talk 'live' since I only became a sannyasin some 2 years ago, after He went into silence. Until that moment I had been studying Germanic languages at the R.C. University of Louvain and had been teaching literature and language at a Jesuit college in Brussels lateron. His teachings and vision have really changed my live as a teacher. Not that I quit teaching, on the contrary his vision is of great help to me both to understand the human being as it is presented to me in all forms in literature and in the young adults before me and to cope with the negativity of too many pupils having to face a life without future - as they say it themselves. Before I knew Bhagwan I taught literature and thought I was good at it, before Bhagwan I had to teach life to my pupils and was completely at a loss. Thanks to Bhagwan I now know I understand literature far better, thanks to Bhagwan I now feel that I have something to offer to these students before me, and I do see they understand. To deny a visum to Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is to deny the people of the United States the right to come into contact with an exceptional being, a living Master. I sincerely hope the I.N.S. is not going to make this chance in a lifetime impossible. Yours sincerely, |
(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.)
