Testimonial letter from Sw Jivan Prabhakar
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 Jivan Prabhakar (Charles E. Wright). It is "Exhibit A-769" 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.
 Chattan Dear Sir, I am writing to you as a journalist of 20 years standing, much of it as an executive journalist with The Australian, this country’s national daily newspaper. I have been a columnist, a political writer, a special writer, news editor, chief sub-editor, bureau chief and editor. When I first came into contact with Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh I was on special assignment in Perth, completing an investigation of the eastern religious cults and their effect on the youth of this country. My credentials as a dyed-in-the-wool cynic and detector of frauds, quackery, chicanery and bullshit were, I believe, impeccable. I subjected the disciples of this man to a lengthy and rigorous examination. I pored over the teachings of their master, and read the criticisms levelled against him. Everything I had learned in journalism told me that this man could not be genuine. At the end of that examination I was left with the overwhelming conclusion that Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh was the most remarkable man I had ever had contact with, and his disciples, however misguided and over-enthusiastic some of them appeared, were among the most truly happy people I had ever met. That conclusion activated a San Andreas fault in my life. Part of me fell into the Pacific and the other started wearing orange clothes. This man has enriched my life immeasurably, and I have seen his influence bring to others great peace and transcendent joy. He has given to me much greater insight and infinitely more compassion which has made it possible to practise my career more honestly and with greater wisdom. My spiritual life, which was, when I met him, extinct, has flourished under his guidance. To describe him as one of the world’s greatest religious teachers is an understatement. He has breathed on the embers of religion as most of us know it, and brought forth a flame. That flame, which has flickered in India, is now burning much more brightly in the United States, where it is available so much more readily to those, who like myself are searching for something without even being aware of it. If he is forced to leave the United States your country, and indeed the western world, will lose an opportunity that through the ages has rarely been available. 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.)
