is built.
You are.
That's what you discover when you do
nothing
."
He chuckled. Some of us chuckled along with him in recognition of a truth.
"This is
it
," he announced. "This is it. This is all there is
right now
. No kidding."
I
got
that what he was saying was that all the effort and struggle
and tight muscles of our lives came from trying to get our lives to work.
As I was digesting this and noticing my resistance to it, Werner spoke
to what must have been a common experience. "The mind can't handle these
facts," he reassured us. "And what happens in the training is that the
mind is bypassed so the self can experience itself being."
The graduates applauded in recognition. As I looked around the auditorium
I noticed that some people were deeply absorbed in Werner and others, like
myself, were interested but not enthralled. When I was in the
est
office a few days later and discussed the evening with several people,
I found a direct correlation between the depth of commitment to
est
and how people related to "Something About Nothing." A staff member told
me that he had had a moment of enlightenment, "a complete experience of
how it really is."
The evening then took an unexpected turn reminiscent of "This Is Your
Life." Werner brought three of his seven children and his parents to
the stage and introduced them to us. They were an attractive group,
and it was obvious that he had great affection for them.
He told us that it had taken him a long time to grow up but that he had
finally grown up -- when he was almost forty. He then thanked his family
for being who they were.
He then told us softly, "I don't have anything to teach anybody. I don't
know anything that you don't know. I haven't got anything I can give you.
"People don't come to hear me talk because I'm great. They come to
hear me talk because they're great. I'd really like you to get that
clearly
. The only purpose in being here is simply to realize your
own worth. And somehow, if you and I just be, we get to participate in
that worth."
I knew and accepted what he was saying but I felt, somehow, that I wanted
more and was annoyed that I wasn't going to get it. He thanked us by asking
us to consider ourselves thanked "for all the things I should thank you for"
and then asked us to end the evening by getting in touch with "what your
experience of my experience of you is."
Then he was gone and the lights came on. I had a fleeting sense that
he hadn't yet been there and that the show was yet to begin. It was
wishful thinking.
Exiting the theater and, again, on the street, I asked people to share
their reactions, curious to know if I was alone with my feelings of
boredom, disappointment, and confusion. Most of those I spoke with felt
as I did. A few thought the evening had been wonderful.
A gray-haired man, who appeared to be about sixty and who was accompanied
by his wife and two daughters, summed up what others had said to me.
"I never saw Werner before and it was disappointing. And the training
changed my life." He added, "I would have died a bitter man if it hadn't
been for
est
."
A few days later I re-read my notes and thought about what had happened
that evening. What I
got
was that Werner's talk, however obscure
it might have seemed, was really what
est
was all about. It was
the philosophy on which
est
was built.
I also
got
that Werner's Something About Nothing was the space
he had given us to experience ourselves.
I felt that the discontent I and others had come away with that evening
was because Werner had spoken to the space he thought the graduates were
in, and that many of us were not in that space. Like me, they didn't want
something about nothing. I felt that they wanted more obvious content --
something about something.
Soon after this, another event was announced for graduates only, featuring
trainers Ted Long and Laurel Scheaf. Ted, a former trial attorney who
gave up his practice to become a trainer several years ago, was marvelous
and theatrical. Laurel, a trainer-candidate relatively new to the public
limelight, would add charm and sex appeal to the evening. It was to be
another bona-fide Event.
Soon after Ted began, I realized that we were being given the pep talk
people seemed to want, a review and a reinforcement of the salient parts
of the training delivered in the punchy, riveting, straight-faced style
est
graduates are used to. The subject was "aliveness."
"There is nothing to do in life except live it," he said with a smile,
"and you are qualified if you are living. Life as we
know
it is
made up of concepts: 'I like it; I don't like it; I believe it; I don't
believe it.' If you want to
experience
living, you have to get in
touch with those body sensations, attitudes, emotions, points of view,
and images from the past, which we're attached to -- concepts which persist.
That we get stuck at false cause is the issue. Adding more
things
to your life simply doesn't produce satisfaction. You only get
space
for yourself when things are all right the way they are."
I had heard all this before but, still, I related to it. Our belief systems
are so deeply ingrained that if we don't notice them continuously we
get stuck [fixated] with them. They are our point of view. In
est
talk we have to keep "coming off our point of view."
Just before the break there was the usual pitch for special programs
for graduates. A few new ones had been added and we were reminded of
those already in existence. I had my usual reaction when I heard this:
I bristled. By now I was a confirmed
est
-er. And sometimes I still
resisted what appeared to me to be the hard sell, which was standard at
est
events.
Ted came back to "consciousness" by turning to nature for an illustration:
"When you plant a tree, you cultivate it, water it, support it, and it
blossoms and bears fruit. If you immediately go and pick all the fruit
and stop supporting the tree, then the tree dies." His point was that
people who enjoy life concentrate their energies on supporting the tree
of their life instead of focusing on gathering the fruit.
There was a process and then the closing message, an
est
classic:
"Be responsible for the way it has turned out. If you can't, it runs you.
There is nothing more to do."
The applause was enthusiastic. It was apparent that the audience had
experienced something about something.
Bailey
Bailey is an exuberant and warm young
man, about thirty, who was one of the
early (1971) graduates of est. He did
volunteer logistics for est for about a
year. He now works for a California group
that runs communication workshops.
Before
est
I used to blame the world and everyone I knew because my
life wasn't working. Since
est
, I know I'm the source of everything
that happens to me. Like, it used to be that if it wasn't for my boss,
I would work better hours or make more money. Now I see that wherever
I am is where I created myself to be.
I had been totally dead for twenty-seven years. During the training
I really felt I was a machine and it was very traumatic. Werner was
talking about how we're all machines and my body suddenly began to feel
different. My head got light and I felt like I was going to explode.
I screamed out. Then I got up and said, "I am a machine!" It was a big
release for me. At that moment I experienced who I was. Ever since then
I've watched my life expand more and more.
I also got to see that my parents brought me up the way they thought it
was best to bring up a child. That was all they knew. I had spent a lot
of years making my father wrong because of my mother's hatred for him.
Last summer my father came to see me and I told him all the stuff I'd been
carrying around since I was eight, when he and my mother were divorced. I
told him, "Dad, you're really O.K. Whatever you want to do in your life is
O.K. and I love you." Now we have a great relationship after twenty years.
My mother still carries all her negative feelings about Dad; she won't
let go. She used to really upset me when she'd say I was just like my
father. Now she can't pull that on me anymore, because I don't get sucked
into her game. But I don't make her wrong for where she's at. It's her
life and there's nothing I can do for her; she's totally responsible
for it.
I really love her a lot. I love both my parents a lot. And I love my woman,
who I live with.
Before
est
I never thought much about anything. I was just doing
my thing, unaware, unconscious. I also handled relationships like my
mother had. Like, since I'm perfect, why would a girl want to leave me?
That idea would really murder every relationship.
I used to worry about death a lot, but not since
est
. Whatever
happens, it's O.K. with me. I feel that the only thing that dies is the
flesh; your being lives on. When I was a practicing Catholic, I was in
fear most of my life. The nuns used to terrify me. I was caught between
confessing my sins and going to hell.
From
est
I got that religious institutions are into survival, too,
and that fear and guilt are their way of keeping you in line. I've read
the Bible a lot, and now I see that the church totally misinterpreted
what Jesus said. He kept telling everyone over and over that everybody
was like he was: perfect. He was experiencing life, like Werner. He knew
he was total source, living moment to moment, and was spontaneous.
Jesus is just another guru who happens to be popular here in Western
civilization. I can't go into a church and praise Jesus. But I really
got where he is coming from. He wants to let everybody know "I'm you."
So my whole point of view about religion has been totally altered.
About
est
, I see that people really get attached to it. It becomes
a place to hide for some of them, even for some of the staff.
I've taken all the graduate seminars and now it's all right for me
not to go to
est
anymore. I've gotten what I needed. I created
est
. I love it. I think the people there are fabulous because
every- one wants to be there.
People expect
est
graduates to be perfect. They're really just
the same as they always were except that now they notice what they're
doing. People are also afraid of perfection. They're afraid that if they
solve all their problems, there won't be any more.
There's no shortage of problems. And you can be perfect.
10
Where Werner Comes From: Grist for the Mill
"The truth is: You are."
-- Werner Erhard
"It's all just a lot of mind-fucking."
-- A New York psychiatrist
Werner says, ". . understanding is the booby prize." He later amplified
this to me, saying, "Understanding without experience is the booby prize
in life." This chapter, nevertheless, is designed to give you some
understanding of
est
. My intention is to convey a sense of where
it comes from and the way it works. And I suggest that you cannot know
est
from what you are about to read.
To get the most out of what follows I recommend that you don't try to
figure it all out. Maybe read it aloud or maybe just flip through it and
read whatever catches your eye. If you don't make an
effort
to understand it, maybe you will.
At the gates to certain Eastern temples stand two fierce figures who
represent guardians of the truth within; one represents confusion
and the other, paradox. To find the truth, one must pass these guardians.
est
looks confusion and paradox squarely in the eye. And then moves
straight through them.
The
est
training is a self-confrontation with one's own truth about
one's self. Its ancestors, historically, include Zen, Buddhism, Taoism,
physics, Vedanta, Yoga, Sufism, philosophy, Christianity, Cybernetics,
Scientology, psychology, Existentialism, semantics, and business.
Werner says, "While
est
can be interpreted as a compilation or
distillation of a lot of disciplines, in fact, it isn't. But you aren't
wrong to understand it in that way. Any point of view isn't wrong, as
a point of view; and it's important to remember that any point of view
is an interpretation -- a way of understanding something."
I choose to see
est
as a creation, rather than a compilation.
Werner has created
est
in the way a great artist creates a
masterpiece, using techniques and materials that have been perfected
over centuries to give his creation form.
The essence of the
est
technique, which both produces and
is
what you get (the medium is very much the message here), is to have people
dis-identify from their minds, bodies, emotions, and problems, the story
of their lives. This is done in the training by making it safe enough to
"get off it" for long enough to step back and look at yourself instead
of being forced to be yourself or defend yourself.
Every time your mind tries to justify a concept you have about who you
are or what the truth is, it gets punctured by an insight presented by
the trainer. This continuous pummeling of the chatter in your mind stops
the noise long enough so you can
be
in silence. It is then you
can
experience
truth.
The truth is: You are. For openers.
While each of us really knows that, the training allows people to know
it with their total being -- experientially. In an attempt to avoid
discomfort, uncertainty, pain, or just plain boredom, we set up systems
of behavior that keep us from being still enough to allow such things to
come up. We smoke, make idle conversation and eat at that exact moment
when, if we were to be still, the meaninglessness of our lives, the pain
which we repress that only pops out as headaches and lower-back pain, the
emotions which we suppress, would come to the surface and be experienced.
In the training people are given the opportunity to be with all those
things which they have kept under the surface. As one by one these hidden
things come up they seem an enormous burden on physical, mental, and
emotional systems. Underneath the things people don't allow themselves
to experience is the experience of their truth.