Keeping an Open Mind for Love, Peace and Harmony

I have kept my mind open after landmark forum. When I shared with people about landmark forum, some responded that they have joined other self-development workshops as well. Among those I’ve heard about were Tony Robbins, T Harv Eker, “money and you” and Core Values Training or CV for short.

When I ask other people about these workshops some had positive views, and there were those who had negative views. I’ve heard people say, that Landmark was a cult. Interestingly I’ve also heard people say that  CV was a cult.

When someone commented in my initial post on landmark, that I had been “Fully indoctrinated into Landmark (AKA EST) Cult“, I was initially defensive, but then I recognized my desire to be right and not to be wrong,so I looked into the words. And in doing so, I accepted that the statement can be true, but not necessarily wrong (read my reply in that post) I came to accept that some people are allowed to have their opinions or interpretations. I am being open to accept (not necessarily condone) what people have to say.

Recently I was invited to a CV power lunch, they shared their experiences after taking their CV. I found that their results were similar to the experience of my wife and I from landmark forum. They shared that they learned “change” has to come from within, their spouses stated they experience the changes, and found that their relationship have improved.

Later when the power lunch was concluded and everybody was about to leave, I managed to talk to a few more people on their results and on what they had learned. What I found some answered clearly on what they had experience, others were more cryptic and often say that people have to join to really understand what they got. This experience was similar to those if you asked anyone else from any other self-development program including landmark :p

Unfortunately in some cases, I’ve noticed that some graduates of these workshops may exhibit a tendency to be… Arrogant. Holding so strongly the belief that their program is the best program, and any other program are not. So much so that they were not open to attending any other programs. This was apparent when I asked some CV grads about attending other courses such as landmark or money and you. Some landmark grads had shared that they discovered they had reservations about attending anything else.

When I shared with my wife (who also attended landmark) about this finding. She exhibited the same behaviour. She was defensive maybe even slightly frustrated that these people did not have the open mind that they should have if these courses were that eye opening.Then she realized that she had a racket against these people, I helped here to pull her through. She realized that though she no longer worries about looking good, she was now more into being right. That other people who had belief that their program is the best, and those who think that landmark was a cult was making her feel wrong. She realized that those people are just expressing their opinions and interpretations. That IT made here feel wrong. So now she created the possibility of being open.

A similar event actually happened to another landmark graduate I met in Singapore, he shared that he attended a different program that expressed different views from landmark, he became frustrated and left. It was later with the help of other graduates that he realized he had a racket with that program.

What I have realized that the whole world had a racket against each other, not just individually, but also as group, country, sect and religion. That all these people believe so strongly that what they have or what they believe in is right and everyone else is wrong. That in turn made others felt wrong, and those who felt wrong in turn were compelled to make others wrong to make themselves feel right. Some (not all) believers of a religion may believe that their religion is right, and other religions are wrong, and these also happens the other. That countries belief that their neighboring country or state is invalid. I am inclined to believe that if everyone and every leader could accept everyone for who they are,including accepting themselves as they are, and not label anyone as right or wrong. As it is what it is. And so the world would be truly at peace.

And that is my racket, that not everyone is working towards peace, love, and harmony. But if I continue to believe so, I will not achieve it. I realize that I cannot expect everyone to do the same thing as I do, to be open, to be patient, and to be compassionate. So now I am truly open for people to be open. I can only BE what I want to BE, to Do what I want to DO, and to HAVE what I want to HAVE. and in the process I can only hope to enroll people to realize my reality of love peace and harmony.

I have found that most what I hear from these programmes have existed for a long time. I first thought that most of the techniques used are similar to what I learned in educational Psychology. Mostly Carl Roger’s Person Centred Approach on Being true to yourself, and Albert Ellis‘ Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy on examining our beliefs on what happens in the world and how it makes us feel. But after further research I found that they also built their studies on ancient eastern philosophies.

All these different programmes may or may not have the same vocabulary, but I would like to believe that all these development programmes have the same goals, but in different techniques, which is to know ourselves, to accept ourselves and others for who they are, to find what we really want and achieve in life, to be present in the moment and to ultimately live our lives to the fullest.

It seems to me, that what we have learn is often in a short time, what took our predecessors a ages. What we learned in school or in these programs in a short time. Took philosophers, Scientists and researchers from a  life time up to several generations. We are in a time where the Information flows freely, where the culmination of human knowledge can be found in books, on the internet, in wikipedia, youtube and can be found by searching google. Reminds me of the Age or Renaissance where they were searching for what the philospher Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472) stated “a man can do all things if he will.”  We are living in the age of Tranformation.

May we all achieve Love, Peace and Harmony