Testimonial letter from Sw Paraprem
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 Paraprem. It is "Exhibit A-2311" 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.
 P.O. Box 10 To whom it may concern. Creativity has always been a main concern of my life. Before meeting Bhagwan I was mostly living in a world of fantasia and day-dreaming, never being quite satisfied with what I was doind. This is changed quite dramatically. It is not so much that I am doing anything different on a practical level. I was a handyman before - I still do the same kind of things, but the quality of it is totally different. For years I had been working with people whose only interest was when the next week-end is coming, or the next vacation, or even the end of that day, so I can get out of here and start enjoying myself. Working was like purgatpry - you had to do it because you needed the money or whatever. This is a common experience for millions of people. For me now doing my work has become a way to worship this existence. I am enjoying doing the most simple things and somehow just being relaxed and having a good time doing my work I always find myself being really creative in my work. And this doesn’t limit itself to my work. I see that I can as well be at times a painter, a cook, a musician, or anything else, so that whatever I do becomes a chance to express my love and gratitude for this life. All this is very closely related to being close to Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. He is certainly an outstanding teacher and though he is not talking at this point, a lot of understanding happens around him. Seeing him every day is a great blessing and I feel my soul at peace living in this commune where so much love and harmony are happening. It is very inspiring to be part of the creation of this environment where everything is respected including all animals and the land itself. I have never seen a place where the land was so much cared for. It is so obvious for anyone coming here for a visit. And it all happens because of Bhagwan’s love and teachings. Sincerely 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.)
