Testimonial letter from Richard M. Brooks
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 Richard M. Brooks. It is "Exhibit A-121" 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.
 RICHARD M. BROOKS, Ph.D. To whom it may concern The uniqueness of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’s vision and the volume of his works sets him apart as the major innovator of this time. I have been reading Bhagwan’s religious books and listening to his tapes for five years. I have gone to India to get firsthand contact with him, and have personally participated in many of the groups and meditation programs in India and the U.S. I feel well acquainted with his works and techniques. His honesty, creativity, and brilliance are beyond question. Bhagwan has seen through the hypocrisy, illusions and deceit of much of modern culture and his comments cut to the core. As a psychologist, I find Bhagwan consistently accurate and a singular source of direction and hope. I am a trained Clinical Psychologist, having received a Master's degree in Psychology at the University of Missouri in 1960 and my Doctorate at the University of Arizona in 1964, where I was President of Psi Chi, the psychology honorary society. My training included study under Dave Bakan and Arnold Lazarus at Standford University. For the past 19 years I have served the Sacramento community as Head Psychologist, Sacramento Mental Health Program, Associate Professor, California State University, Sacramento, Executive Director, Suicide Prevention Service of Sacramento, and as a private practicing therapist. My professional affiliations include the American Psychological Association, Western Psychological Association, California State Psychological Association, American Association of Suicidology and numerous community programs and committees. The profusion of healing techniques, growth groups, spiritual promoters and esoteric commentators on current values has created confusion in, and often abuse of, the average person seeking help, comfort or personal change. I have had an ongoing interest in contributing whatever insights and perspectives the science of psychology has to offer to these issues, and served as a member and then Chairman of the Ethics Committee for the State Association. I also coauthored a book on the evaluation and functional requirements of crisis and suicide prevention centers. In my contact with Bhagwan and his work, I feel I bring the perspective of professional training in psychology, nearly 20 years experience in the social and cultural workings of the community and the personal wisdom and insights of hundreds of my students and clients. it does not take too many years of such work to reach a point where "you have heard it all before", and the latest fad technique is just one more piece of truth in the large, shifting puzzle. While not cynical, I am not easily impressed. When I discovered Bhagwan, however, I was impressed. The breadth and sweep of his understanding of the human experience Is unmatched by any contemporary writer, theorist or theologian. His clear and often humorous discourses on practically every aspect of life reveal an integration synthesis and understanding of 'man' at all levels. This has been immensely exciting to find as a therapist and teacher and deeply enriching on a personal level. My clients and students have affirmed my response to Bhagwan and I feel my work with them has been strengthened by sharing the percepts and methods learned from him. Over the past ten years I have been the psychotherapist for a large convent of Catholic nuns. My work with them was greatly enhanced by my contact with Bhagwan and they recognized a greater skill in responding to their spiritual psychological lives. Though deeply committed to the Christian tradition, the nuns were moved by the universality of Bhagwan's teaching. I was personally raised as a Christian, and attended a parochial school. Until I heard Bhagwan, my education had created separate compartments of understanding and as a psychologist I felt obliged to avoid vast areas of human experience that had spiritual qualities. Now that I have shared in Bhagwan's vision, I am better able to respond to and treat the "whole person". In his discourses, Bhagwan reveals a grasp of history and literature that exceeds the highest scholarly standard. I have repeatedly found myself gaining new understanding of a theory or writer that I previously felt I knew well. I had sensed for years that the outpouring of scientific articles suffered from myopic self-interest and fragmentation. Bhagwan moves through this diversity with a global view that only a genius could provide. As a psychologist, I have used the term genius with great caution in the past. For Bhagwan it may not even be adequate. His impact as a person and the profound influence of his views of the human potential elevate him to the level of the greatest men of thought over all time. He transcends the classification of theologian, teacher, psychologist, historian, sociologist, etc. His work is of such magnitude, that for decades (centuries?) to come, his will be the dominant view of the potential of humanity and its hope in an age of frightening destructiveness. [signed] |
(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.)
