From this post by
gurugeorge (which incidentally contains a link to this great audio clip by Charlie Hayes), I came across this intriguing page about Large Group Awareness Trainings (LGATs) such as EST, The Landmark Forum and Lifespring. One of my closest childhood friends went through the Forum a couple years ago in the UK, and I can attest to the fact that it actually changed his life. He was an enthusiastic participant though, and was even asked to become a facilitator at the end of the workshop.
Related to this, I received a link from Jerry this morning to this page on his site about Werner Erhard, the founder of EST. None of this material is controversial -- it's just really interesting background and descriptions of peoples' experiences with these sessions. And after reading some of it, it clarified for me why the crux of what my UK friend learned resonated so strongly with my passion for Eastern spiritual traditions. The description of Erhard's awakening on Jerry's page above is a classic enlightenment experience, and it's interesting to me that Erhard developed a whole technique for transmitting this understanding that has nothing explicit to do with the Eastern traditions which are most well-known for investigating these things.
Some of you may also know that there's a fair bit of controversy about these programs generally -- or at least, there was in their early stages. See more on Google or Wikipedia, if you're interested.
And if anyone here has ever investigated or taken these courses, I'd love to hear about it. I find them very interesting, even though I'm uninterested in trying them myself. Since, you know, I'm already perfect as I am and don't need anything like this to wake me up more. :)
(x-posted to
nonduality)
Related to this, I received a link from Jerry this morning to this page on his site about Werner Erhard, the founder of EST. None of this material is controversial -- it's just really interesting background and descriptions of peoples' experiences with these sessions. And after reading some of it, it clarified for me why the crux of what my UK friend learned resonated so strongly with my passion for Eastern spiritual traditions. The description of Erhard's awakening on Jerry's page above is a classic enlightenment experience, and it's interesting to me that Erhard developed a whole technique for transmitting this understanding that has nothing explicit to do with the Eastern traditions which are most well-known for investigating these things.
Some of you may also know that there's a fair bit of controversy about these programs generally -- or at least, there was in their early stages. See more on Google or Wikipedia, if you're interested.
And if anyone here has ever investigated or taken these courses, I'd love to hear about it. I find them very interesting, even though I'm uninterested in trying them myself. Since, you know, I'm already perfect as I am and don't need anything like this to wake me up more. :)
(x-posted to