est (24 page)

Dennis, at twenty-seven, is an ebullient
young man with laughing blue eyes and
curly hair. He works as a travel agent in
New York.

"I am willing for you to have space to share
the way you got how you run your racket
and I have considerations. . . ."
-- An est volunteer

A. Words you can use and what they mean:
acknowledge: A recognition of one person by another.
act: As in "getting your 'act' together"; your front to
the world.
agreement: A mutual understanding or arrangement
about which it's understood that you're going to do what
you say you're going to do. est places importance on
choosing to be responsible for keeping agreements. If you break
an agreement with est, you are expected to look at what
is in the space between you and fulfilling your agreement. An
est maxim is "Your life works to the degree to which
you keep your agreements." Also, agreement is that by which
you know, for example, that it is dangerous to walk in front
of a bus; the way you know the physical universe.
and: Used in est to avoid invidious contrast; replaces
the word "but," which is hardly ever used in est
(see but, section B).
asshole: What everyone is before he or she knows what is real
and what isn't.
assist: Aid to another person, coming from the assumption that
the other person is responsible and at cause. Contrasted in
est to "help," which put the recipient at effect
(see help, section B).
barrier: What's between you and experiencing your
own perfection; the something inside you that
prevents you from seeing what's going on both
inside and outside you.
belief: A nonexperiential way of knowing, which often
prevents you from experiencing and thereby accepting what's so;
a preconception, usually a misconception, that you once learned
and which keeps you from seeing what's going on right now;
used in the expression "belief system," which is a whole bunch
of beliefs on a particular subject, such as "love," "success,"
"Mother."
buttons: As in "pushing your buttons," triggering automatic
behavior; reacting in a predictable way to certain stimuli and,
especially, to things that relate to deep feelings such as love,
anger, happiness, sadness. (Think, for example, of when and
why you smile.) An unwitting response, accompanied by "reasons"
that are actually rationalizations.
cause: Being "at the cause" of your experience is the direct
opposite of being at its effect"; to create your life,
to make it happen consciously by commission rather than omission:
if we are the cause of our lives, then we create our own reality
and cannot be at its effect (victimized, powerless). A concept
which, once experienced, gives people incredible power over their
own lives.
chatter: As in "the ceaseless chatter of your mind";
means the voices that direct your life from such nonexperiential
knowledge as beliefs, which impose judgments and decisions --
"considerations" -- on things and which distort or put up barriers
to experience.
clear: As in getting clear, clarifying an issue; removing
the debris that prevents you from seeing something cleanly
and sharply; to free from doubt, restriction, and obstruction;
cloudless. Closely related to "belief systems," which are what
often prevent people from getting clear.
considerations: A person's value system; judgments,
decisions, reasons, opinions; barriers to truth because
they get in the way of seeing what's really happening;
a part of one's experience, which is to be acknowledged
before one chooses but which is not why one
chooses; things people use to be right or to justify
their behavior.
effect: As in "at the effect of"; the consequences or outcome
of cause; when one is at the effect of life, one cannot cause
it and therefore feels powerless and victimized. One can move
from being at the effect to being at the cause by choosing to
choose one's experience.
experience: What est is all about; the source of reality.
fabulous: An est acknowledgment of communication
(est synonyms are: great, thank you, marvelous, for sure,
very nice); has no relationship to quality of communication.
get, got: Means that someone realizes the meaning or
significance of a communication or experience; a revelation;
to Heinlein fans: "grok."
intention: Directly related to getting what you want;
you achieve your goals to the extent that you're clear about
your intention; the essence of communication.
love: A willingness for the other to be as he or she is
and as he or she is not; in est, bears little relationship
to the American concept (as portrayed in the likes of Love
Story); a function of communication; (contrary to popular
notion, love is strangled by need).
mind: "A linear arrangement of multisensory total records
of successive moments of now"; what we consider ourselves
to be -- the purpose of which is survival.
observation: The only way to know, besides "natural knowing";
opposed to belief.
on purpose: Going about your business (job, life, etc.)
with intention and with your eye on the goal.
point of view: The stuff that makes you you; your thoughts,
ideas, beliefs, concepts; in order to be able to choose
you must come "off your point of view."
process: What everyone thinks is the secret magical ingredient
of est but which is actually one of several;
according to the brochure, "a method by which a person
experiences and looks at, in an expanded state of consciousness
and without judgment, what is actually so with regard to specific
areas in his or her life, and one's fixed or unconscious
attitudes about those areas. The intended results of doing a
training process is a release to greater spontaneity." (In the
training, you begin a process by closing your eyes and getting
into your space, assisted by suggestions from the trainer. In
life, a process is a learning experience.)
racket: As in running your racket, doing your same old "number";
the behavior that you always thought got you what you wanted before
you noticed that it didn't; your old, and probably useless, patterns.
reality: est says that a test for reality is physicalness,
i.e., dimension, form, and existence in time. That established,
est then says that what we consider reality is illusion
and the only thing that's really real is experience.
running your life: Whatever is controlling or dominating your life;
used to describe events or behavior that you're
feeling victimized by; for instance, "his fear of
sex is running his life."
share:  To communicate insights, realizations, or experiences.
source: Where it all comes from, which boils down to
you; thus, you, me, he, she are all God by being God of each of our
universes, which is really one universe.
space: According to Werner, "'From here' is not space,
it is distance. From here to the very edge of the universe is
not space; it is distance. And what the physicists call space is
actually distance. Space is that medium in which distance exists,
actually where everything exists. Space is not measurable, it is
only experienceable." To allow somebody space is to let the other
person be, do, say what he wants freely and without imposing your
own judgments.
truth: That which you experience. Werner says, "If you
put the truth into the system in which you cradled the lie,
the truth becomes a lie. A very simple way of saying the truth
believed is a lie. If you go around telling the truth you are
lying. The horrible part about it is that the truth is so darn
believable, people believe it a lot."
unconscious: What we are most of the time, oblivious,
"out to lunch," unaware; est gives people the "space"
to wake up so they can look at their Lives -- and thus live them.
yama yama: Synonym for chatter, which is the automatic stuff
going on in your brain most of the time.
B. Words you can use but which get you into trouble
(no-no's) and what they mean:
believe: A lousy way to know something; a justification
for what you're doing and thus irrelevant if not useless
(see belief, section A). Trainees are exhorted not to
"believe" est.
but: An archaic concept rarely, if ever, expressed in
est circles and generally replaced by and.
change: An alteration of something in the physical universe;
an alteration in form -- as opposed to transubstantiation (which
is what est is really all about).
help: To aid someone coming from the assumption that he or she
is at effect, i.e., that he or she needs your aid
(see assist, section A).
how:  There's no way you can know how to do something;
you can only know the way to do something (all of which is too
complex to diagram here).
no:   If it's used, I've never heard it. (It's incredible to me
that sentences can be flawlessly and easily constructed to appear
to say "yes" but actually say "no.")
reason: All the stuff we use to justify why we do things,
which keeps us from feeling alive.
try:  We avoid doing things in our lives by trying
to do them instead of doing them, or leaving them alone.
understanding: The booby prize (the prize, of course,
goes to experience -- or getting it).
(John Denver dedicated this song to
Werner Erhard and everyone in est)
"Looking for Space" *
by John Denver
On the road of experience
I'm trying to find my own way
Sometimes I wish that I could
fly away
When I think that I'm moving
Suddenly things stand still
I'm afraid 'cause I think they
always will
And I'm looking for space
And to find out who I am
And I'm looking to know
and understand
It's a sweet sweet dream
Sometimes I'm almost there
Sometimes I fly like an eagle and
Sometimes I'm deep in despair
All alone in the universe
Sometimes that's how it seems
I get lost in the sadness and
the screams
Then I look in the center
Suddenly everything's clear
I find myself in the sunshine and
my dreams
And I'm looking for space
And to find out who I am
And I'm looking to know
and understand
It's a sweet sweet dream
Sometimes I'm almost there
Sometimes I fly like an eagle and
Sometimes I'm deep in despair
On the road of experience
Join in the living day
If there's an answer
It's just that it's just that way
When you're looking for space
And to find out who you are
When you're looking to try and
reach the stars
It's a sweet sweet dream
Sometimes I'm almost there
Sometimes I fly like an eagle and
Sometimes I'm deep in despair
* Copyright 1975 Cherry Lane Music Co. (ASCAP). Used by permission.
All rights reserved.