This is a place for me to put all the material that hasn’t conveniently fitted into any of the previous Principles. The first exposition is about how to reconcile your role as a Master with the remainder of your life. For example how do you respond to friends whom you think could do with some advice? The second part is about Intensives and money; how much should you charge? is it appropriate to make a lot of money providing this service? The final section is about the main lessons I have learned about being a Master when running Intensives. This includes a long list of items, many of which you will probably know already. I’ve included them all here in case you have missed or forgotten any.
When I was running five or six Intensives a year I didn’t do well in drawing a boundary between my roles as a Master and as a friend. This is illustrated in some of the feedback I received (see Feedback and for detail see end of Chapter 17). Indeed I notice a similar failure to leave a professional role behind amongst friends who are group leaders, therapists and coaches. Years ago, when asked about this issue, Charles Berner thought it was a good idea to be a Master with one’s friends. My experience suggests that it is not. When someone is in the role of Master, therapist or facilitator they are usually being paid to fulfil that role, that is the explicit contract supporting the role. When with friends there is no such contract and falling back into a professional role puts the friendship in jeopardy. Another way to look at this is to recognise that people will only accept advice when they have asked for it. Unsolicited advice is generally unwelcome. One of my friends has a good response to this happening to her; she says to the friend offering unsolicited advice, “I don’t remember signing up for this group!”
There are a number of different issues involved when considering money and Intensives. Let me make it clear at the outset that I do not think there is an right answer to most of these issues, it is a matter of individual choice. Before I took an Intensive I had a successful career as an academic that provided me with more income than I needed. Partly because of this, partly because there was a hippy philosophy around the ‘human potential movement’ at the time and partly because I was keen to repay the enormous benefit I had gained from participating, I chose not to try to make money by running Intensives. Looking back on the decision I can also see that it was coloured by having only just recovered from a sense of worthlessness and being nervous that I could be a good EI Master. Once I started charging a low fee I thought it was problematic to increase it – and I had already plugged into a clientele who could not afford much higher fees. I trust that this makes it clear that my choices were determined by a particular set of personal circumstances.
Other people have made very different choices. I was impressed by one Master who ran his Intensives in expensive hotels where participants had a hotel bedroom to themselves and for which he charged a significant sum of money. He obviously appealed to a much richer clientele than that I was attracting. In general they were more successful, more powerful, people and it struck me that he was probably having a greater positive impact on the world by appealing to, and catering for, this more influential group. He was also making a very good income by doing so.
I have known a significant number of therapists and group leaders who have relied upon the income they obtain from the role, and many have said how it is an uneasy position to be in. Should I allow this person to participate knowing that they will struggle with the process, also knowing that their participation puts the venture into profit? Should I use this centre which has much better facilities even if it makes it unlikely that I’ll break even? If one depends upon the income then these decisions have an additional dimension that may not be welcome. And although I ducked the issue, it seems to me entirely reasonable to charge a lower price when one is starting out as a Master and to charge a lot more when confident in one’s ability to run a good Intensive. As I stated earlier I do not think there are any absolute right answers to any of the issues I have raised, but for one’s own benefit, it is worth thinking carefully about the choices involved.
What I learned about running Intensives, giving lectures and teaching the technique, as well as dealing with difficult participants, is set out at length in The Long Intensive Manual. That is the best exposition of what I learned about being a Master. Here’s a check list summarising the main lessons I’ve learned from running Intensives.
1. Enlightenment involves being real, authentic and present. It is not an airy-fairy state. This confusion can arise because many people, when having a direct experience, are overwhelmed by feelings of love, gratitude and joy – but those feelings are not the experience itself.
2. Everyone can have an enlightenment experience; there are no pre-requisites. (see also item 6). Many people assume that to have a direct experience they must have dealt with trauma or overcome phobias or become nicer people in their lives and so on. None of this is true.
3. As the Master, or as a Monitor, you may have an idea of what a participant is facing, or what they need to do. You may have some valid insight into their case – but you will always be wrong in detail. I found it humbling to face this over and over again.
4. It is essential that people find out stuff about themselves in their own way and their own time. Finding out for oneself is the most powerful way to learn anything. And this is especially important for people discovering their Truth.
5. It is important that you explain and state the rules of the Intensive very clearly, and that you then enforce those rules whenever they are transgressed. If you hesitate or wait, the situation will only become worse. Participants need you to enforce the rules so that they can feel safe.
6. Do not allow people with mental illness problems on to your Intensives, especially not long Intensives. The process is stressful and if the person cannot handle stress you are not doing them a favour.
7. Within broad limits the schedule can be changed without any loss of effectiveness. For example with a small number of participants meal times can be shortened – for large groups a longer mealtime is required to give monitors time to interview people. My best schedule innovation was to have a 5 minute silent meditation period between the back-to-back dyads.
8. Being funny and cracking jokes as a Master helps participants be more open. I considered myself a bit too serious as a Master, so started every lecture with two short jokes. This worked extremely well – especially on the first day when people are feeling tired and grumpy at lecture time.
9. Only affirm direct experiences if you “get” them. (See also the Principle concerned with engaging with participant’s experiences.) If you do not ‘get’ an experience do not validate it; you are putting your own relationship with Truth at risk.
10. The Enlightenment Intensive is a breakthrough group, which means that the gains made during the group will fade when the participant goes home. You can mitigate this to some degree by having an effective integration period immediately after the Intensive. This is never a waste of time.
11. Be the Master, be willing to take altitude and the power associated with the role. If you shy away from this, especially taking power, then you are failing the participants. They are paying you to fulfil the role of Master, not be a nice person sitting in the chair.
12. You cannot judge how someone is doing the technique by what they report arising in their consciousness. If someone asks for advice because the same material persists in coming up, check that they are fully communicating and allowing all the relevant feelings to surface and be expressed. If the same stuff continues to arise tell them to ignore it and wait for something else to arise.
13. If someone reports an error or misdemeanour that you have not personally witnessed, then ask the potential culprit if they did indeed commit the error. If they admit doing so, then issue a correction. If they deny it then do not correct, simply say you will keep a watch on things.
14. Do not introduce any form of physical or energetic therapy into the process. The grossest error I ever made was to provide a form of energy therapy (called zero balancing) to people on a six week I mastered. It was a complete disaster because it screwed the build up of energy and prevented kundalini release.
15. Do not take credit for direct experiences, but do challenge yourself when there are fewer experiences than normal. It is an asymmetric relationship; you cannot make experiences happen but by getting in the way you can prevent them occurring.
A Master's Path 
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