Testimonial letter from Sw Prem Dasen
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 Prem Dasen (illegible and/or pseudonymous). It is "Exhibit A-2021" 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.
 July 20, 1983 TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN I have heard this morning that Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh has applied for permanent residence in the U.S.A., based on the fact that Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh has exceptional qualities as an artist and scientist both. Moreover I have understood that the I.N.S. are not very clear regarding granting the legal necessitities for a stay in the U.S. Therefore I would like to bring the following to your attention. Four years ago I was working in Venlo, Holland, as a barman, and I was almost being destroyed by alcohol. At that time I didn’t realize that, because from my point of view the world had nothing to offer and I needed the rapid tongue of a barman to hide behind cynism. For me it is a fact that this man Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh saved me from a miserable life as an alcoholic, merely by his exceptional insight into psychology and his tremendous love for humanity. It is difficult to put into words how all this has happened, but I can say that Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is representing something very real. And that I have tasted some of this reality, which made me realize that the world does not only consist of phony ego games, but does have something to offer. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh has tought me a "reality" which should be known by everyone, namely that only through personal growth it is possible to experience, whether this is love, happiness of truth. Moreover Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh has offered a variety of possibilities to realize this personal growth. These possibilities alone are a treasure of enormous value for humanity and offer a chance to a better world, not from without but within; therefore directly through insight and not as a vision of the future. 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.)
