Landmark fundamental principles

The Landmark Education courses are grounded on the following fundamental principles

1. Human beings are whole, perfect and complete. They have barriers to experience their wholeness and completeness.
2. Change causes persistence
3. Non change causes disappearance

Rackets

Racket is a word that is very commonly heard among the Landmark graduates.

What is a Racket?

Racket is a persistent complaint or a fixed way of being. Complaints can be about you or others, others to you and other to others. One of the fundamental reasons why we racket is to avoid taking responsibility. Also because we do not have any keen interest in addressing the complaint. Racket is like a scam. You get something out of being that way / having that complaint. That is like a pay-off. As you get those pay-offs, you also pay some cost. Following table shows some of the pay-offs and costs.

Pay-offs	Cost
Being right / making others wrong	Health
Dominate / avoid others dominating	Satisfaction
Justify / Invalidate others	Fulfillment
Win / Make others loose	Love/affinity
Look good / make others look bad	Vitality
more...	Joy
	Peace of mind
	more...

Note: You cannot get both sides of the above table at the same time. Either you get the pay-off or get things on the cost side. If you are interested on things on the cost side: health, peace of mind etc, you have to give away your pay-offs: being right, justifying, dominating etc.

Look at this monkey.

 

In south India, to catch monkeys people build monkey traps that are constructed from a hollow gourd with a single opening just large enough for the monkey’s hand to grasp the tempting bait of fruit or coconut. Inevitably the monkey sees the banana through transparent trap and comes to get it. It is easy enough to get its hand in and grab hold of the banana, but once the monkey makes a fist with the banana in it, there is no way for it to pull it’s hand back out. Knowing that it's life is at risk (cost), even though it can leave the banana (pay-off) and run away, it gets stuck.

Does it look funny? Yes, it does. This is how we look when we have a racket and we are stuck with those persistent complaints / fixed way of being.

How do I distinguish my Rackets?

1. Look at your life and see what you are resisting, something that you are putting up with, avoiding to resolve and fixing & changing
2. Who do you have the complaint with in that situation? What do you say about that person? <this-person> is....
3. Identify what is your fixed way of being when that person says / does what you complain about?
4. Look at what are the pay-offs you are getting by being that way
5. Look at the costs you are paying by being that way

Once you distinguish the pay-offs and costs, it is upto you what you want to have.

Already always listening

Human Beings don't listen. We listen to people through a sea of opinions (filters) and not what they say. These filters already exist and always exist. As we were around 2 - 2.5 years old, we started inheriting language and along with it the opinions of that particular culture from the surroundings that we were brought up. This already always listening manifests as an internal little voice that keeps talking something like the following

• This is good / That is bad
• This should happen / That should not happen
• This is right / That is wrong
• How can this happen?
• What is this?

Distinguishing the little voice: If you still could not distinguish your little voice, take a moment, be aware of your little voice and notice what it is telling you. If you are asking yourself, what inner voice are you talking about? or I don't have any inner voice. Then perfect! whatever told you "I don't have any inner voice" is the little voice that I am talking about.

What we already know to be true constitutes the already always listening. Overtime, our listening gets so automatic that it does not look like we are listening through those filters. It gets hard to distinguish your (lightning quick) interpretation from what is actually said. In a way, we are gripped by these opinions that we formed overtime. This limits us to have complete power, freedom, self-expression, and peace of mind.

Next obvious question is, how do we start listening without these filters? One of the powerful ways to listen is to be aware of the filters moment by moment as we listen. Once we get present to the filter, do not try to change/fix as change causes persistence and no change causes disappearance. Just being aware is enough to distinguish the filter from the what is said. Being aware is possible only through being present.

Being present starts with getting present to the degree to which we are not present

We are not present and we are not present that we are not present. Because we are not present we are not listening. In fact, we are so not present that we are not even present to how not present we are.