The Book of Est

trainer assists us in seeing and feeling the sand dunes, the reeds, the seashells, the hotness of the sand, the line of seaweed running parallel to the water line, the blue sky blotched with clouds, the pieces of bleached driftwood, the crushed empty beer can, the charcoal remains of a fire, the gulls circling above a decaying fish. He assists us i

assist the trainee in getting in touch, with buried material and experiencing himself as the creator of his experience.

If you want to get out of the realm of nonexperienced experience, you've got to stop being reasonable, stop making decisions, stop hoping, and just accept what is. No more, no less. Accept what is. When you do that, the light bulb of experience is turned on. Until you do, it's turned off.”

feel. “YOU ASSHOLES, you'll NEVER get it by trying to get it where it just was. The Great God of Life in the white suit is always moving the cheese. You'll never be happy by trying to be happy, because your trying is totally channeled by your beliefs about the right place for cheese to be. As soon as you have an idea about what you want and exactly

“You are perfect,” Don is saying, pacing from left to right across the platform perhaps an hour later, “but there are barriers preventing you from experiencing and expressing your perfection. We have called this the first notion of est.

“But I thought people were taught to learn to control their emotions.

is introduce people to the possible usefulness of the steering wheel...

“You lie. You lie about where you are so that when you try to change where you are you just make a royal mess of things. You might just as well know that you can't possibly get from here to there unless you're actually here in the first place... “You lie. You sense you're stuck and want to break out, but you can't possibly go where you want to go u

“You people all know you've been trying to change your lives for years and they DON'T CHANGE. The things you work on persist. It's not that you're weak or not trying hard enough. It's just that you're assholes, that's all. You're using the wrong method. If you don't like something about yourself or someone else, the thing to do is just observe it,