Testimonial letter from Sw Prem Gayano
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 Gayano (Rudolf Steenstra). It is "Exhibit A-31" 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.
 Parkstraat 94 TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN When I decided this year to visit Rajneeshpuram and Bhagwan, again, many people asked me what was so special about Bhagwan and his religion. And I could only say that to be with him is it; is when religion happens to me - and in fact many other followers of Bhagwan and non-followers tell the same thing, have the same experience: being with Bhagwan is so different compared to reading about . . and God experience etc. as I did in University for 8 years, that it is hard to explain to people who didn’t meet him. Being by profession a scholar in religions and a teacher in differentgroups it is my firm belief that a person as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is the still middle point where religion is happening; being with him, seeing him, gives me an opportunity also to become silent and peaceful and move into prayer, become happy to be alive and to live in this world. He is so beautiful and serene! Many of my colleagues in Holland read about him and were amazed - they praise him as a mystic with a very important message for the world, and the few who did see him were so impressed by what is happening in Rajneeshpuram that they started to ask me to give more information and details in their schools and universities: so I did as much as I could; so much curiosity is there in Holland! I think that being part of a religion is good, but being part of a religion that is grouped round a living master is something different: religion is happening here, it is so alive, growing. Come and have a taste of it! It will change you too. Why chase somebody away who only is teaching God is silence; all mystics did, because God is not explicable in words. Rudolf Steenstra |
(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.)
