Why Should I Attend? - 2010 Intensive

Why are we attending?

(written by a participant)

Everyone will have his own reason to participate. If you know what you want, and find it matching with our aims for the Intensive (see below), I think you do well to consider this Intensive as a way to get it, and you'll probably receive more than you think of now. You are being offered a once-in-a-lifetime experience. In fact, you cannot be sure that an event of similar duration and intensity will ever again be available.

Instead of guessing what your reasons for considering to participate may be, I will give my own reasons for coming.

I have been looking to change myself, and have realized how difficult that really is. I usually fool myself thinking that I have changed, to find myself a week later back to where I was before. By participating in the Intensive, I hope to meet with conditions that will help me to find the development I am looking for.
The participants form a group of people that can help each other. I know from movements classes that a group can achieve a different level of energy and consciousness than I can by myself. I think this will be of great value, and hope that it will continue to be so after the Intensive has finished.
The Fourth Way is not only concerned with changing individuals, but also with changing the world. This world, our way of living, needs change in many ways; we might not even survive as we are now. Instead of trying to impose changes one by one, it would be much more effective if we could increase the overall consciousness in the world.
I have full confidence in the organizers. Almost all of them have attended the School for Continuous Education, run by John Bennett in the 1970's, and have stayed with the principles taught there even after 35 years. They are experienced Fourth-Way teachers and have organized programs similar to this Intensive several times before.

Why should you attend this Intensive?

Our answer to that question is...

To equip you with a range of practices—tools—that you can use in your continuing path of spiritual transformation
To encourage you to evaluate the material of the course in the light of your own experience, taking this as your primary authority, rather than accepting this material uncritically
To provide conditions in which you may have a taste of a reality different from the lives we ordinarily live
To help you gain the confidence that this reality is accessible to all who are prepared to work towards it and that it is not something distant and intangible
To foster the awakening of Conscience so that you are able both to see and to respond to what is right and necessary
To help you take a step towards your own inner freedom
To foster an awareness that we all have a task to perform in serving the future