Free est by Adelaide Bry Page B

after nine. My greeting was a stern reminder that I was late.

"Who is responsible for your having broken your agreement?" the training

assistant asked, as he stood, arms folded, in front of the door into

the training. I was, I told him, and dutifully recited out loud,

"I acknowledge that I broke my agreement."

One woman among the latecomers refused to take responsibility for her

lateness. She argued and cajoled but, of course, got no sympathy and

no agreement with her position. All she got, over and over, was the

question, "Are you willing to take responsibility for breaking your

agreement?" Eventually she realized that her whole life had been based

on breaking agreements and refusing to acknowledge that she had. Sobbing

as though her heart had broken, she finally capitulated and was allowed

into the room.

I was impressed, again, at how each element of the training was directly

related to the way each of us leads his life. Even people's excuses for not taking the training were the same excuses that kept their

lives from working.

The second training day began with sharing. A man in his mid-forties

dressed, anachronistically, in a gray suit, white shirt, and blue tie,

got that he had become a college professor so that he could put everyone

down the way he felt they had put him down. "I simply had to prove I

was right and they -- my parents, everybody -- were wrong. Now I know

I'm a phony. I don't really know anything."

A woman got up to confess that she had once been raped. She had been

out with a man she had picked up at a bar. At the end of the evening,

she invited him back to her apartment. It was there be raped her.

Stewart prodded and questioned her mercilessly. She finally got that

her identity had become "rape victim." She had made it the primary

event in her life, and had talked about it to anyone who would listen,

endlessly. And she got that playing "rape victim" wasn't a winning game.

A sophisticated-looking businessman took the microphone to announce

that he thought the training was a rip-off. "I don't think you people

know what you're doing," he said, "and unless things change soon I'm

not going to stay here much longer." "Thank you," Stewart responded.

"I acknowledge I heard you." The man remained standing as though waiting

for something more and finally sat down only after he was asked to surrender

the microphone to a volunteer.

Stewart's responses were becoming predictably familiar, but I never got

a sense that they were by rote. When he said, "Thank you. I got it,"

that meant he didn't agree or disagree with the trainee; he had just

listened carefully to the communication and let the trainee know that

the communication had been received.

A young schoolteacher admitted, haltingly, that he wished he could love

someone but he couldn't. By now the trainees were beginning to see the

rackets people run. A loud groan ran through the room.

The trainer launched into a diatribe about love. "I know what love is to

you jerks," he barked. "I don't call you on your bullshit and you don't

call me on mine. We don't talk about love to assholes who don't know

who they are. When you know who you are, then we will talk about love."

I snapped to attention. How many times, I thought, had I believed I was

in love only to find that when the going got rough I wanted out. My idea

of love was lots of terrific sex and a civilized, undemanding friendship.

"Not being able to love is your racket," bellowed the trainer. "If you

want to know who you were , keep up your old patterns. If you want

to know who you are , give up your old patterns."

The training "genius" then stood up. I've heard that there's one in

every training -- a sophisticated, bright, well-read intellectual who

has usually done both therapy and some of the Eastern disciplines and

is still seeking the way. "I know all this data you're putting out,"

he announced. The trainer told him he was "possibly the biggest