Association
In the late 90s, after the first Satvatove Foundational Courses, we found that course graduates naturally continued their association with each other. Subsequent to the Advanced Courses, which began in 2002, this tendency showed itself even stronger, with seminar participants meeting together in-person and forming email conferences, long after the seminar experience had ended. The Life Mastery Program, started in 2004, was developed to provide a structure for this natural tendency towards a community of like-minded persons.
A Safe Environment
Perhaps the core attractive feature of the Satvatove seminars is the creation of a safe environment where participants feel safe and free to express themselves at a deep level of honesty. Naturally, we desire this sense of real community in our lives; it is not surprising that course participants are eager to maintain connection with each other. “Real community” refers to a high-trust environment where people feel safe to reveal their minds in confidence. In such an atmosphere conflicts are effectively addressed, not denied. Handling conflicts and tensions with high-level interpersonal skills, based on principles of compassionate, responsible communication, results in closeness, understanding, and intimacy.
Structure
Above we referred to “structure.” For some the term could evoke a sense of constraint or limit. Actually, appropriate structure offers the possibility of freedom and distinctive personal expression. Guidelines, parameters,
and ground rules are an integral element of the Foundational and Advanced Seminars. These structures don’t limit individual expression. Rather, they are a vibrant
aspect of the safe atmosphere that fosters unique and inspired expression, a more profound and authentic expression than many have previously experienced. As an analogy, the rules, or structure, of the road, are designed to assist us in achieving our goal, not to confine or stifle us.
Commitment
Commitment is required to establish new, healthy, and effective habits and to discard former patterns that no longer serve our life purpose. In the seminars we say, “The course starts on Sunday evening [or whenever the seminar officially ends].” What happens in the seminar room is special and profound. More important is what happens in the days, months and decades following the seminar experience. Similarly with coaching, we often express that what happens between coaching sessions is more significant than what happens during the sessions. We’re interested not just in maintaining our realizations from the seminar, or the coaching sessions. We want to expand them so that they are ever-increasingly alive. It is deeply encouraging to hear from course graduates who took the seminars years ago about how they are applying the principles they absorbed and using the skills they learned more and more each year. In this way the seminar experience is a seed that grows and blossoms, making a powerful difference in lives, communities, and the world.
Responsibility
Active caring and support for one another is a crucial nutrient in the growth of that seed. They inspire the courage and determination for authentic living and for making the changes we desire. Of course, recognizing the formidable influence of association and environment is not contrary to full personal responsibility for our experience and the results in our life. We don’t blame our association or the lack of it, if things aren’t working out as we like in some area of our life. We accept responsibility. Neither does this mean that we blame ourselves. Responsibility means acknowledging that we responded, or didn’t respond, in certain ways, and that led to particular results and experiences. Often blame, and also wallowing in emotions such as guilt or shame, can be a means to avoid squarely examining our responsibility for our lives: past, present and future. Accepting responsibility for my life, I recognize how much association influences me. Thus, I commit to surrounding myself with people who are similarly dedicated to principles of personal growth, who will challenge and support me in forming strong character and a life of excellence, fulfillment, and remarkable achievement.
Satvatove Community
We invite you to connect with the Satvatove community in whatever way that inspires you. Consider reestablishing contact with people with whom you went through the Foundational or Advanced Seminars. In doing so, there may naturally be an element of nostalgia, reconnecting with your seminar connection. And, if we choose, we can create more than that in such interactions. We can move and inspire each other to reenergize our determination for fulfilling our vision, living and not being satisfied with surviving in mediocrity. Also, consider contacting Advanced Course graduates in your area and forming an LMP, creating a powerful structured environment as a springboard to new heights.
The seminar starts now. Let’s dedicate and rededicate ourselves to creating communities of vital, nourished, powerful individuals interacting from purpose, choice and joy, rather than from fear. We possess the capacity to generate value for each other, in each and every contact. Let’s inspire each other through life-enriching association, bringing alive discoveries and realizations from our Satvatove experience.