Druanne Cushman

In September 1976 (with Ron Browning and Stewart Esposito leading), the est Training woke me up. It wasn’t like anything I imagined, was told, or read. Words to express what happened became inadequate—which gave me a new word, “experience.” I experienced my own power, ruthless compassion, and love. Suddenly, there were all these people, human beings. They were all around me, my parents, siblings, friends. At twenty-four years old I was a child; relating was new. The Universe was new. I put myself in Werner’s Office to assist and that further opened the door—assisting was an experience—and one like none other. I got it about “being complete,” “cause in the matter,” “being of service” and the art of climbing mountains and moving stars. I got forgiveness. The process is ongoing. I keep participating to keep reminded. I got my life. I got a life to accomplish things “never-been-done-before” and be with people I never would have foreseen. People tell me “you can’t do that; it’s impossible” and I hold it before them, saying, “it’s done.” There’s one part I’d like to give back, however: I always know when I am being a jerk. I didn’t know that before the est Training. It serves me well, a cosmic joke. I can “get off it.” In this day and time, the level of “noticing” is a good thing to re-experience as is “life is meaningless” and “this is a game.” I miss you, Werner. Thank you.

Florence Riggs
www.gaiamama.com

I had the opportunity to reconnect with some friends at the first est volunteer reunion in L.A. recently. I was so happy to be in the company of so many “movers and shakers” who have created such majesty and difference in their lives and on our beautiful planet! It’s been many years since I’d been in and around the “est vibe”, and I want more!! So I’ll be taking the Forum, and reanimating myself into bigger and better things as I reconnect my purpose in an even LARGER way! Love you ALL! Werner blessed!

Virginia Beck

I actually created Being fully expressed as service and love.

“Love them till they run from cover” is my personal theme song, and I have thousands of loving partners in my work.

My most outstanding expression in this lifetime, is the privilege of being my son’s mother….

1. My son, who was born in 1975, with so-called “significant birth defects and a brain lesion” …. did the young people’s training, and the teen Forum.

What I got of the training in 1973, allowed me to grasp that he was not here to fit my pictures, and to take a stand for him as whole, healthy and complete.
He is today a fully functioning, competent adult, with an IQ in the 160s, and is a computer security systems expert with a great life.

2. My father, Brigadier General Clarence E. Beck, deceased, was a highly decorated and accomplished military officer. He assisted Eisenhower in planning D-Day, served in North Africa, Italy and Europe; and was comptroller for USAPAC during the Vietnam War. He helped maintain peace between India and Pakistan for several years, during the military coup in 1958, and was instrumental maintaining the peace in the Northwest Frontier tribal regions of Pakistan.

An MBA from Harvard, he did the Forum after 20 years of my attempts to enroll him. He was so satisfied, he enrolled himself in the Advanced Course. (more…)

Chandra Bhat

G’day, I did the training in Feb 1981 in Bombay. I got it. Then lost it till 2003. Got it again after reading “From Onions to Pearls” in April of that year. Understood Ramana, Nisargadatta, Lao Tzu and Astavakra in a flash using the tools given by Hal all those years ago and Satyam Nadeen in the Onions book. (more…)

Ellen Snortland
www.snortland.com

I did the est training when I was 19 years old April/May 1973 Los Angeles. I don’t know adult life without the fundamental underpinnings of: empty and meaningless, getting off it, a world that works for everyone and everything with no one and nothing left out. I have lived life as an invention.

When I moved to California from South Dakota — yes people actually live in South Dakota — I was here as a young woman completely passionate about the women’s movement. I didn’t find est to be particularly enlightened from a gender perspective per se. HOWEVER, there WAS a context of “So WHAT?!” that was profoundly useful to me as a women’s rights activist. Without “So What?!” I would have given up long ago in working to bring other women and girls into full participation in life, without using the constraints of gender to keep them back.

Everything I have accomplished, which I must say is quite a bit, was on the shoulders of what I got out the est training. www.snortland.com

I also got a lot out of the resulting programs. I’ll never forget the speakers series that Werner brought to LA. Where else would I have gotten to see the Dalai Lama, Buckminster Fuller and now I’m blanking on who else. (more…)

Jim Thompson

I took the training (April A) in S.F., 1976. Tony Freedly was our trainer, both weekends. I continue to enjoy the results and reap the benefits of the training, day after day. Thank you. Jim