Testimonial letter from Sw Jayanta
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 Jayanta (Fritz Rohloff). It is "Exhibit A-806" 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.
 P.O. Box 10 To whom it may concern I am writing this letter in support of the application of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh for permanent residency in the United States of America. I don’t know if it is possible to communicate the impact this man has had on my life . Words are not my usual medium - my skill is in ray hands. My training and experience are in working with machinery, and in that area I feel myself to be a skilled craftsman. I am German born. After my high school years I graduated from a commercial school that I attended for two years. Then I went to trade school and graduated after 3 years. After that I had a 4 year long education as electronic technician in a German aerospace company. I worked, for example, on the first German satellite Azur (antennas and solar energy systems) and on rockets to probe the Van Allen belt. Then I discovered that I wanted to work more with my hands, be a craftsman. A friend of mine who owned a machine-shop in Munich agreed to teach me tool and die-making. I worked with him for almost 4 years. Then I read some of Bhagwan’s books and I was fascinated. In 1978 I traveled with a friend to India to see for myself, and I became a disciple of Bhagwan’s. In India I met my wife-to-be - an American Jewish artist from New York. She was also a disciple of Bhagwan’s. I married her and moved to Eastern Long Island into a house we bought. The combination of education in business, electronics, tool and die-making, made it possible for me to get a management position in an aerodevices company in Long Island, New York. I was leading the prototype shop and later the tool and die-making department. I was responsible for design and fabrication of tooling for a complete line of fuel systems for aeroplanes. I was with this company for 3 years. Then we heard that the commune was founded in Oregon and we moved here. I have lived at the commune ranch in Oregon for two years now. When I arrived here I had basically a toolbox of my personal tools to work with. Today I am coordinating a machine-shop that is able to repair small things like sewing machines as well as design and fabrication of aeroplane parts for our fleet of 5 planes, or any custom manufacturing for the commune. I work together with four machinists, two of them taught this trade. We work seven days a week, twelve hours a day. Being around Bhagwan, being and working around His people, I realize that certain understandings are creeping into my consciousness; that I am relating to myself and to all my fellow sannyasins in a different way: without uptightness, without anger, without a spirit of competitiveness. I feel my life becoming richer every day. All this is a result of His teachings and I don’t feel that any more words of His are needed. He has said it all. His words have filled more than 300 books. I would not trade my life for anyone’s anywhere. I don't think you will find so many open, loving, easy-going people per square mile anywhere else in the world. These are my friends, and we share a similar experience - that our lives have been enriched, our understandings have been enriched, and we feel ourselves to be creating an ideal community according to His teachings that will be an example to the world. And the moving force, the inspiration, behind what has happened for us is Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. With love |
(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.)
