Testimonial letter from Susan Dalton

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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 Mrs. Susan Dalton. It is "Exhibit A-502" 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 4 pages.

59 Gipps Street,
Birchgrove. 2041.
Sydney. N.S.W.
Australia.
July 14, 1983

Dear Sir,

I write in support of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, testifying to his exceptional ability as a religious teacher and spiritual leader, on the basis of my experience and qualifications in a wide range of areas, and most specifically in the field of linguistics and science, in which I am currently publishing a book. I graduated in 1971 from the University of New England, Armidale, N.S.W., with an Honours Degree majoring in English and Educational Psychology, and a teaching Diploma in Education.

My book, being published by Heinemann Publishing Company (Melbourne), is called ’’Language in Science”, and is a text-book for secondary students for whom English is a second language, or for slow learners in science. It is certain to be widely-used, according to the interest and demand already shown, there being no such text for students at this level already in existence (despite a good coverage at the tertiary level). Papers have been presented to, and articles published in the journals of, several well-recognised bodies, including the Australian Science Teachers’ Association and the Association of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (A.T.E.S.O.L.), in response to interest in the book as it was being written. I wrote the book on a grant from the Federal Government Schools Commission, funded through the Catholic Education Department, to satisfy a need in secondary schools.

I have been working in the field of Multi-cultural Education for eight years, commencing in Nigeria, West Africa, where my husband, John Dalton, was implementing a World Bank beef cattle project for three years, and I was in charge of remedial English and Math. programmes in a school embracing twenty-five nationalities. I have also worked in a similar capacity in the Republic of the Philippines, where my husband has been in charge of agriculture on the Philippines-Australia Development Assistance Project for rural development in Mindanao since 1978. I have been living in Australia for the last three years with our children, and in addition to writing the book, have worked part-time for the Commonwealth Department of Education English Preparation Centre in Sydney, preparing Colombo Plan students for entry into Australian universities, usually at the doctorate or masterate level,

I find the City of Rajneeshpuram, Oregon, to be an outstanding achievement in multi-cultural living. I have been working to help people overcome the problems normally inherent in poly-ethnic living, rooted in inability to communicate, and compounded by differences in life-style. At Rajneeshpuram, and indeed among sannyasin communities throughout the world, these normal barriers drop away. The factor which dissolves barriers between people of disparate race, language, colour and custom, and enables people to work hard together in unity and harmony, is the living influence of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. I have lived communally in a wide range of situations (university college, foreign-aid projects, Christian community), and worked in large organizations (N.S.W. Institute of Technology; Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney; Catholic Education Department, Sydney), and also visited many alternative communities in Australia ( Arthaven Artists’ Community, Blackheath, N.S.W.; Nimbin Commune, Lismore, N.S.W. etc.), but nowhere else have I found communities which have such a good proven track-record of success (in practical achievement and in harmonious accord) as I have amongst Rajneesh communal undertakings.

Rajneeshpuram is the largest testimony to Bhagwan’s exceptional inspiration, and there are many smaller examples, such as Zorba the Buddha Restaurant, Sydney, and the Orange Blossom Cafe, right here in my suburb.

Another field in which I have considerable interest and involvement is conservation and ecology, my husband and I having set up the Capricorn Coast Conservation Council, on the Central Queensland (Barrier Reef) Coast, where we lived from 1970 until 1974. I am greatly impressed with the nature of the agricultural and urban development at Rajneeshpuram, which is not merely ecologically sound, but indeed represents the transformation of eroded "high desert" into productive land. This testifies to the presence of an exceptional spiritual leader, as the transformation is somewhat of an environmental miracle.

Lastly, my experience has been in the field of psychology. I have studied all the contemporary psychologists and philosophers and spiritual teachers, and have come to Bhagwan because he is the most relevant and practical of all: he in fact synthesises the writings of all the others, eastern and western, past and present. More importantly, his writings and beliefs have actually been put into practice, and have been found to work, over a longer period than a brief experiment (Poona, India, and now Rajneeshpuram; and also long-standing Rajneesh communes such as Medina, outside London). I am particularly impressed with the relationship between the sexes in Rajneesh communities, which is healthier than anywhere else I have experienced it to be. Bhagwan teaches and inspires men and women to live and work together in harmony through honesty, equality and love. My Honours thesis was in the area of feminism ("Aspirations of Female University Students"), and I have also lived within the nuclear family as a wife and mother for ten years, and I find communal living within a Rajneesh community or household to be the most fulfilling life-style : men and women, adults and children, all live harmoniously together. Rajneeshpuram attests to this on a large scale.

I have studied Bhagwan’s writings in great depth in the last eighteen months (while studying for a Graduate Diploma in Social Communication, from Hawkesbury College of Advanced Education ), and know of him also through personal contact, tapes and videos . I am about to begin perusing his works to publish a book summarising his teachings on the education of children, with a view to Rajneesh schools being set up more widely. My husband and I have removed our sons from a prestigious Jesuit Catholic school (which is my husband’s old school), and they now atter(?) a Rudolph Steiner school, the philosophy of which is as close as we can currently find to Bhagwan's educational philosophy.

Bhagwan’s reputation as an exceptional, professional, psychological teacher is recognised throughout the world. The psychologists and spiritual scientists working with Bhagwan are the best available. In Sydney, many of the top people in the professions of psychology and healing, have become sannyasins (including the daughter of the Prime Minister).

I offer my full support to Bhagwan’s continued inspiration in the growth of the model city of Rajneeshpuram.

Yours sincerely,
[signed]
(Mrs.) SUSAN DALTON


(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.)