Testimonial letter from Sw Anand Pankaj
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 Anand Pankaj (Richard J. Bochniak). It is "Exhibit A-1902" 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.
 Rajneeshpuram TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN This is the second letter of such that I have written because my feelings and experience is so strong. My own qualifications in the arts include performing professionally as a mime and clown all over California (San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco). I studied dance, movement and children's theatre at San Diego State University and have been teaching my art professionally for five years. Most of those five years have been guided by the presence of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. The effect of Rajneeshism on my art has been tremendous. Through meditations and Bhagwan's emphasis on dance, my personal experience of my art form and that expression has really taken a jump into professional quality. In California, I have studied pantomime under Antonin Hodek and also with Richmond Shepherd. Bhagwan has taken all technique and information of movement and integrated it into my being and into the world as a contributing art form. My own experience reflects and relays Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh as an exceptional man in the sciences and arts, and to further write and express my qualifications towards the need of Bhagwan in the community of Rajneeshpuram. I have performed numerously here in the city of Rajneeshpuram, much to the delight of everyone in the audience. Without the presence of my beloved master Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, the capacity of enjoyment between myself as an artist and the audience would never have reached the level that it has. Also working in a variety of skills here at Rajneeshpuram has widened my spectrum of performing and greatly enhanced my art form. 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.)
