You will already know the importance of preparing well for a three day Intensive; the significance of your preparation increases about ten fold for a long Intensive. Basically you need to prepare yourself, the participants, and particularly the venue, so that you can devote all your energy and attention to the process of helping people get enlightened. And when groups go on for a long time the general rule is “anything that can go wrong will do so”.
2.1 The venue
Satya did not check out her venue for the second six week and that caused her and the participants difficulties. She was stretched by the poor facilities available – to such a degree that she did not have much capacity left to confront participants’ minds. (My comments on this six week are based upon detailed reports I received from about eight participants.) The participants were justly very critical of the environment and Satya had to absorb that – which did not leave her with much capacity for then dealing with other parts of people’s minds. Despite all this many people gained a great deal from that Intensive.
Any Master can only handle a certain amount of nonsense at any one time. So if too many people are freaking out with their minds running at the Master then he or she will have to retreat to absorb as much as they can of the irrational nonsense. This means that the Master will have less capacity left to deal with participants minds. The way to have as much capacity available as possible is to
(1) make sure the environment is good and up to coping with the number of people for the duration of the Intensive
(2) make sure that you do not have too many crazy people on the Intensive and
(3) set up a support system for yourself
The two week on which I participated had all the men sleeping in the group room on mattresses that they took in and out each evening and morning. This worked, but only just. It is much better if participants have bedrooms and that they have a small space around their bed that they can regard as their own. On six week Intensives it is preferable to give each person a screened off area to themselves. Beds and mattresses need to be good enough to be comfortable for a long period. Generally harder mattresses are better than soft ones, though people do differ on this.
The group room needs to be able to hold all the people comfortably. You need to be able to regulate the supply of fresh air and temperature – preferably independently. If the group is in the summer then heating may not be a problem – but its better to make sure you can provide warmth if necessary. Lighting should be sufficient to enable everyone to clearly see their partner – and for you as Master to see into all parts of the room. Very bright lighting needs to be subdued since it can be very wearing on people’s eyes. Some people are also sensitive to sunshine coming in through windows; if you can arrange the rows so no one is blinded by sun then so much the better. You should also check that the venue has enough chairs, cushions and back supports for your group – you’ll need more cushions than you expect! You will also want a really comfortable Master’s chair. These are not easy to come by, for the six week I invested in a really good chair and it was a superb investment.
You must make sure that you know how to cope with normal emergencies, like leaking pipes, blocked toilets, fuses or trips switching off the electricity and so on. If you do not know then make sure that at least one member of your staff knows and that they are competent to do whatever will be required. You have to be Master of the physical environment, even though you may delegate details to staff.
2.2 The staff
You will need at least a senior monitor and a cook. The monitor will assist the cook, take care of the physical environment, organise and process washing and all the other working contemplations. The cook should be responsible for all the food, this includes ordering food and organising or doing the shopping. You should have people who have worked on Intensives before; you will not have the capacity to teach someone how to cope with a long Intensive when you are mastering the first few – all your attention will be on the group and how you are going to survive as a Master.
I strongly recommend that you organise at least one day off per week for both the cook and the monitor. People can cope with two weeks non-stop cooking, but they will be showing signs of wear towards the end. A half day or whole day break will rejuvenate them and give an extra input of energy to the process.
Remember that the first rule for a good group is that they are well fed. If they are not well fed then no matter what you do the group will not be good – their energy will be off into wanting to be nourished more. I encourage cooks to relax and cook what they enjoy cooking and to occasionally spoil the participants with sweet things or special snacks or whatever. Also encourage the cook to repeat favourites, it cuts down the stress on the cook and the group love it.
Many people have food trips. Almost everyone in the western world overeats. The last few long Intensives I have run I have insisted on no special diets and it worked really well. Some people have not participated as a result, but then I haven’t had to deal with their trip on food. To counter the over-eating I get the cook to serve out small (normal intensive sized) portions for the first four days. After that the participants can have seconds at lunch time and the cook will increase other portions in line with need. For example on the six week schedule I used the gap between breakfast and lunch was too long, so we increased the breakfast size until most people were not inconvenienced by the long gap.
You must have a very good relationship with the cook and the monitor. If there is any doubt about it, spend time before the Intensive working on the relationship. If it is not right do not use the person. You can survive without a monitor – the cook has to be good and the participants have to take more responsibility for work periods. I ran a whole two week without a monitor and it was OK – but it was also the 6th one I had run.
I have figured out how to run a long Intensive without a cook – but with a monitor. But I would not recommend it. You take responsibility for the food and have it prepared in the work periods (so people have to complete the tasks allocated, even if that means they cannot contemplate much). The monitor watches the stuff cook and serves it up (though the participants can serve themselves too). I think Charles Berner ran his long Intensives solo – this is too stressful and unnecessary.
I used to pay monitors £50 per day and cooks £70 per day for a group of about 20 people (1990’s money values).
2.3 The participants
Appended to these notes are the notes I send to two week participants. There you will see that I make it clear that undertaking a two week is a serious proposition. In particular I warn off people who are simply out to increase the probability of having an experience and people who have experienced difficulties after taking a three day. The notes appended also include information about the integration exercises we have introduced (more on this in Appendix 4).
The first group, those who are just after an experience, are people who are sincere but for whom the process does not work – usually because they are not open enough. On a long Intensive the lack of openness will be even more of a burden and they will waste most of their time. In practice the proportion of people having an experience was consistently higher on long Intensives, up to 60% and averaging 50% – compared to 25-30% on 3-day events. However I did not want this widely known because I knew it would attract the wrong kind of participant. You want people for whom the process has already worked and who want to take their experiences to a deeper level – not people so stuck in their mind that they cannot be open to the Truth. Incidentally one of the reasons for the higher percentage of experiences is because the participants are better than average (in the sense of more committed and more open).
The second group, people who have found it hard coping with the stress of a three day, will cause you a lot of anxiety about whether they are about to crack up or not. In fact even people who could cope well with a three day may experience difficulties on a long Intensive if their grasp of reality is not very strong. For me this was the group of people that I found it hardest to turn away and yet caused me the greatest worry and stress during the Intensive itself. My strong recommendation is to exclude all marginal people for your first few long Intensives – you’ll be stretched enough in other directions.
For the six week Intensive I wrote to participants before (and after) the group on a regular basis. The letters before the group were to increase their motivation and get them started on the process – this was useful because more than half the group booked more than a year in advance. The regular letters also meant that there was a steady build up towards the Intensive (with people freaking out months before it started). I also confronted a number of people with whom I had had difficulties before. Basically I said – either accept my authority or do not participate. I also outlawed special diets to protect the cook and to enable me to avoid all food trips (well almost all!). This confrontation and selection of participants is difficult when you do not have many people signed up. But never ever duck it. It is crucial. If you duck it at the beginning it will come back at you again and again during the Intensive – when you have less capacity to handle stuff.
Ideally you should already know and have shared an Intensive with all the people on your first few long Intensives. Knowing the people is the best way of screening them. I did used to accept people from abroad that I did not know but who were recommended by someone I did know. The biggest issue with overseas people is making sure that they speak good English; I have had people for whom language was a serious and impenetrable barrier. I insist that everyone speak in English all the time so that I can track their process and check whether they are laying trips or not. I have received reports from people on long Intensives where other languages were allowed and where, unbeknown to the Master, people were laying trips on other participants in a foreign language. This is very unhelpful and leaves the Master in an impossible position for enforcing the most important rule of the Intensive.
Skanda allowed people to speak other languages and ended up with a psychotic participant – partly because he, Skanda, could not understand his communications and hence had missed the fact that the man had not slept for 3 nights and now considered himself to be a frog! Lack of sleep is probably the greatest danger on a long Intensive (See Section 7 on kundalini) and you should keep a sharp ear out for communications about sleep in the first two dyads each day. The person on Skanda’s Intensive was taken off the group and after a few days completely recovered and the experience profoundly affected his spiritual life (for the better).
I have had participants as young as 20 on long Intensives, and they get on very well. Generally younger people are less stuck in their mind and therefore freer to be open to something different. The oldest I have had is about 70 and for people this old the physical stress of the group is tough. I always make sure that they have the most comfortable bed up the least number of stairs – and give them extra rests if necessary.
2.4 Yourself
It is extremely important how you prepare yourself for a long Intensive. Satya and Skanda said that running a long Intensive is like putting yourself through a meat grinder – and it is! I’ll describe more in section 6, but basically you have to be able to put your own stuff aside for the duration of the Intensive under the most extreme provocation. Not only that, you have to give positive instructions and be open and loving to everyone – including those who want to kill you or defy you or just piss on the process. And you have to keep your attention on the group and give inspiring lectures and spot subtle technique errors and nurture the cook and monitor through their crises … and you need to be in good shape to cope with it. The most important thing is to start the process well rested. Once I did not. I was exhausted with getting work things finished when I started the two week – and it was a disaster. There were not many experiences and at the end of it I physically collapsed – literally, I got home and fell down as I walked in the front door. I had to stay in bed for about a week. (This was also the time when I had my second kundalini release.) If you are well rested, have staff you trust and have selected the venue and participants with care, then you will have done all you can. You probably will want to have some ideas for lectures (see section 4), but do not overdo this – you’ll be surprised at how much you have to follow the group process with your material. It is important how you start the group – the first three lectures (introductory talk in evening, first morning and lecture on day 1) will set the tone of the Intensive to a large degree. I used to contemplate on this and come up with a theme that was rooted in my own process – stuff like getting to know your mind better, the liberation from suffering provided by experiences, wanting one’s life to change and so on.
A Master's Path 