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2) A theory of reality that purports to show that the being encounters the real and the unreal, and that the experience is the real, and that all the rest, the unreal is agreement. In other words, that experience, the real, is pure cause, being created in the experiencing, and that the unreal is pure effect, agreement, the out­come of experiencing.

3} A dynamic theC:u::y __ of the mind that claims it to be a linear arrangement of multi-sensory total records of successive moments of now, whose dynamics leads to the survival of the being or what it takes itself to be. In this theory ego arises as p. way of mind funct.ioning when the being takes itself to be its mind and functions by re-living all the interconnected records (that have threatened survivial) whenever the circuriistances are isomorphic to those that gave origin to them.

4) A theory that intends to show that to live as an ego is to live in suffering and frustrat:iJon because it is to live at every moment the emotions of past experiences in a manner that always hides the present, and that the ego disappears when the being becomes aware of the past event to which his present emotions belong.

5} Everything takes place in the dynamics of the mind in a mechanistic way, that is, under full mechanicaI determinism. The mind is a recording machine con­stituted by records that through its operations on its records secures the survival of the being; and when the mind operates as an ego, the being is a machine. All this is embedded in a meta-theory that is also being developed along the training, but which is fully expressed in its culmination~ namely, that the only fundametal for existence is existence as a result that anything that is is.

The training culminates in a mood of amorality (mutual respect without value judgement) in which nothing matters outside the experience in the present, with experiential, actual or potential, disolutions of the ego through the experience that anything that is is, as well as in a mood of liberation of a burden through the disappearance of value judgement as a feature of the experience in the present.

After this culmination a space is open for creativity and social harmony through the expression of the theory of reality in a dimension that includes the reality of others in the reality (experience) of each individual as the reality of the others, and treats the acceptance of the present as a starting point moment after moment for the new moment.

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Comments:

1. The training is successful in that it operates:

a} involving the trainee in a mood of amoral self-awareness as a member of a class of integrity failures,

b) involving the trainee in the operation of self-awareness of his particular failures of integrity and,

c) involving the trainee in the acceptance of the power of logic of his common language as a source of compe'lling theoretical experiences when operating in integrity.

This is not obtained all at once'. It builds up along the training starting from a basic truthfulness that is brought forth by the mood of self-awareness. How does this take place?,

Mimy of the trainees at the very beginning accept verbal characterizations of them by the trainer in the form of ~rhat otherwise would be considered verbal abuse. This takes place either as a result of their acceptance that the characterization applies to them, or their unwillingness to lose face in front of others that seem untouched, or as a result of their unwillingness to lose their invested money. What follows is that they stay and accept a course of interactions that leads them to re!flect upon themselves, either through reason or after seeing others telling their own experiences in the attempt to self-reflect, with the outcome that the majority of the trainees eventually reveal that they have discovered themselves as cheaters, deceivers, . ,iiars, etc.

It seems that this cannot be avoided by the majority of the trainees revealing that cheating, deceiving, pretending, are as much part of our present social experinece as our continuous exposure to a social demand for truthfulness, honesty, and respect. That we human beings have all lied, deceived or cheated other human beings or ourselves in one moment or another of our lives, and that we have all in one moment or another of our lives denied to others or ourselves that we have done so, justifying our denial with some reason, is the first fundamental" truth on which the outcome of the training depends.

The second one is that our social dynamics operates with a basic hypocricy, namely, that we teach our children basic ways of conduct such as truthfulness, honesty, tolerance, respect to others and ourselves, etc. and We live adult lives that validates a society that continuously negates the validityof such conducts. AS a result of this permanent contradiction we live in pain and are receptive for those accusations which, if they occur in an amoral domain, trigger in us self-reflection.

Socialization, living in a linguistic human domain, requires love, that is unqualified acceptance that permi ts recurrent

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interactions in the domain of socialization. Thisispur_oiQlogical condition, and the prerequisite of love for socialzation is­satisfied through our growth in social conditions.

2. $haring leads to an experience of equality; equality implies the absence of value judgement. The amorality of equality is the third basic truth on which the effectiveness of the traInIfigrests. Amorality IS not ethical blindness of denial of ethics. Social ethics as the realization of the social ethos, is in human societies founded on love, and consists in living in a linguistic dQmain in which one can operate in language, under conditions of unqualified mutual respect. Morality operates as a superimposed linguistic construct that permits human coordinations of activities under the negations of the ethical conditions in social life. For this reason morality leads to inauthenticities, and hence, to suffering.

Amorality is obtained by invitation under condi~ions of suffering that demand expression, and is reinforced by applause. Applause in the training is presented as meaning only acknowledge­ment, yet, in daily life it means approval. This approval component of the applause as a conduct of acknowledgement brings forth the emotion of approval to the amoral conduct.

Without the acceptance of the self-deceipt that carries wi th it the living in a moral society, and the experienc(~ of ethics (unqualified acceptance in an amoral situation) the training cannot work. The first two days are crucial for this.

3. The recurrence of patterns of reactions under what seem to be-very different-rife conditIOns or circumstances;-constitutes thefou:rtfl basic truth on which the success of the training rests. Living systems never participate in particular interactions, they only participate in classes of interactions. In other words, it is the configuration of relation given in any perturbation what triggers a change of state in an organism, not the observable circumstances in which the perturbation appears embedded to an observer. This permits predictio~s of modes of reaction which impress the trainees leading to further acceptance of the amoral situation, and the recognition that the pattern of reactions can be disolved or greatly weakened through self-awareness.

The changes of state triggered by any particular perturbation are determined by the structure of the subject; furthermore, the structure of the subject determines what structural config­uration of the medium constitute perturbations. Thus there are structural changes in the subject that either primarily change the states that a given perturbation may trigger,

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or change its domains of perturbations so that old recur~ent configurations of the medium do not perturb it any more.

Self-reflection may lead to either of these changes or to both while it operates as an internal perturbation in the same domain of states as the recurrent feature of the medium. As a result of this self-reflection is always a source of structural, and hence behavioural change. What is remarkable in self-reflection as a source of change is its universality, its 'consequences do not depend on the perturbations that elicit it, and they can be emotional and reactional.

4. We concede power to him or her who appears to block our escape in a social encounter whose continuance we have accepted. We concede power by submission, open up and accept a lead in the domain of submission. This takes place in the training, and is a condition that puts an absolute ethical demand on the training for not creating a new morality, allowing the trainees the freedom that comes with self-reflection.

Self-reflection puts us in a different domain of action or of selection of our ongoing structural change than the one to which our history confines us in the absence of it. Freedom is realized when we change our usual course of action in some domain. Learning restricts freedom by stabilizing our course of action, restricting our ability to see the unexpected, self-reflection frees us without negating learning. The danger for the trainees is that after conceding power they may find themselves learning a new morality and not the ability of self-reflection.

5. The theory of knowledge expounded in the training is complete and self-contained in the metaphorical domain. As a theory it has oomplete logical consistency, and, hence, for us it is fully compelling. Every logical or rational system rests on some set of explicit or implicit non-rational or logical notions which one accepts as a matter of preference, desire, choice, just because one accepts them. Once these non­rational notions are accepted the rational or logical construct built upon them has full compelling power. When the listener of a logical argument disagrees it is either the result of a logical mistake, and the disagreement is trivial and can be corrected easily, or it is the result of the listener having different non-explicit non-rational starting notions, and the disagreement cannot be dissipated until there is agreement about these non-rational basic notions. All serious disagreements are of this latter kind, and cannot be dissipated through a logical argument as a result of the logic. They can only be dissipated through an emotional experience that triggers an epistemological change, a change of outlooking, in the listener

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or in the speaker, or in both that makes their non-rational starting points isomorphic.

~his emotional experience can be obtained through non-rational or through_ rational interactions that trigger some change of mood and hence of outlooking. When the interaction is rational, the compellingconsequesnces of it trigger a change of mood, but the change of mood is not the result of the logic of the argument.

During the first two days of the training a mood of amorality is obtained reinforced continuously through the ~cknowledging . of the sharing. During these first two days a mood of pragmatic rationality is also obtained, greatly facilitated by the fact that the trainees live immersed in a society with a prevalent pragmatic rational mood, however inauthentically. The !ationality of rationality is the fifth basic truth on which the success of the training rests.

6. Once amorality and pragmatic rationality have been established as basic moods in the training, the two fundamental agreements as starting non-rational basic notions on which the success of the traiinin rests, can be obtained, namely: the agreement that the mind is a mechanistic system that may reduce the .i:>eTng to ego, and-the undeniable nature of exIstence, what is is. These agreements (plus whatever mechanism operates in the working of the mind that results in the errasure of the records) are essential for the success of the training through creating a mood of acceptance of the consequesnces that will necessarily follow. If the mechanistic nature of the mind and the undeniability of existence are not accepted as agreements, that is, as starting points that fundamental as a matter of course in a non-rational way the new outlooking, they are only rational or non-rational curiousities.

To make it in the training is to reach this point; and to be in this point entails to be an amoral outlooking of acceptance of what is as is, and to possess a pragmatic rational mechanism for self-observation in the domain of the mind that may lead to the dissolution of the ego.

7. Whatever else comes afterWards in relation to choice does not have the same strength or grounding. The being has lurked during the training as a background for the mind. Choice is there in answer to an unformulated question about purpose or significance. Strictly it does not pertain to the training.

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Metacomments:

1. The theory of the operatio of the mind is complete. Its power rests on its being metaphorical with respect to processes that do not require to be disclosed or described. Yet, there is one point of flaw which is the assertion that the mind is a total record of nows that encompas the whole universe. This assertion is not meta­phorical and demands an explanatory mechanism. Such mechanism is not provided in the training, cannot be provided, and an attempt to provide it would push the training in a different direction than that which makes it a success. The theory that provides the ratio­nal experiences on which the emotions ride in the training, and which will constitute the rational machinery for further self re-. flections, must be a theory of relations, hence; it must remain metaphorical in the context of the training.

For the training to operate total record is not necessary. To­tal record seems necessary to provide fundament for unexpected ex­periences of social or cosmic unity. Yet, unless one wants to talk about an absolute, a metaphorical rational theory is adequate in dealing with experiences. If one wants to deal with the absolute, then one must fall into morality and foul the training. What the training needs is that the mind should make a complete record of all the moments of now in all the domains of interactions in which the being operates " whichever these may be.

2. Whether the mind does in fact operates as a string of records of the successive moments of now of the being or in some other man­ner, is irrelevant with respect to what takes place in the training. What is relevant in this respect is that the dynamics of the pheno­menon of mind distinguished in the training should involve serial­ity and recurrence of states.

The training is concerned with experience, and not with the is of what is.

3. Ihave not talked about the processes practiced during the training. Some of them are auxiliary and operate in support of dif­ferent theoretical points. They support them through the experiences that they generate; they are complementary, not central. Others are central in the sense that they form part of the set of experiences that generates the fundamental mood of amorality that is at the core of the training, or contribute to its maintenance. Dissappearing through awareness belongs to the former, being in the presence of the other without adding or substracting anything belong to the latter.

4. The question of choice is not central to the training, yet, it is necessary for overcoming the bewilderment of the trainees. Life seems to require purpose, freedom, choice. To live a full life in the absence of choice seems a contradiction.

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Choice requires an independency between he who choses and the domain of alternatives from which one element is intentionally taken in the choice. It seems that if the being were-deterministic and mechanistic this could not take place. Since the being is a background in the training, nothing is sad in the training about whether it is or it is not mechanistic and deterministic. Since the actions spring through or in from the mind, and the mind is mechan­istic, it is only in the interstices between the actions that choice can be exerted. This is the answer guiven to the question of choice after the culmination of the training. This is a weak answer in the context of the complete internal consistency of the training~

The experience is that one cannot predict one's future actions after the dissolution of the ego: existence takes: .place in the pre''':'' sent and everything is what it is. At the same time, whatever takes place ~n the being can be seen by the being a posteriori as related with its past experiences, not as being determined by them, but entailing them. So, the being appears as a source that takes into account at every moment many (or all) of its experiences without being bound by them. In fact, if the being is a deterministic human being that operates in language, the situation would appear the same and no choice in the sense indicated above would have taken place. If whatever the human being does recursively triggers in it a structural change, so that it is apparent to an observer that two different courses of action would lead to two different paths of structural change in it, the human being will be deterministic yet unpredictable (language) in self reflection. He would appear to himself as making choices, as being a source. And, if his ego has dissolved, he will appear as a source to others that would generally be unable to predict anything more than his trivial conduct.

5. At the end of the last night of the training there is a cele­bration: the graduation. Many previous trainees, graduates as they are called, come and make a big event of brotherhood. In fact, this celebration defines the brotherhood of the trainees by specifying the distinction of a boundary: the having accomplished the est train­ing.

This phenomenon has the consequences that every membership in a brtherhood has: it defines the nonbrothers and triggers a discri­minatory conduct between brothers and nonbrothers. Much of the mis­conceptions about est arise from this. Brotherhoods are dangerous for nonbrothers as a rsult of the behavioural Cleavage that arises from the membership in an exclusive consensual domain. Furthermore, brotherhoods define domains of morality and may defeat or greatly endanger the dissolution of the ego.

6. The training is thoroughly western, it is founded upon reason as a basic and legitimate source of experience. At the same time it is western in its adress to the main source of western inauthen­ticity, that is what in the training is called reasonableness.

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Reason without ego is a source of experiential openness, rea-'son with ego is a source of experiential blindness. No one operates exclusively in ego, this how every person can enter into a path of ego dissolution. In this context, the training by being western provides a western human being with a western instrument for ego dissolution in action.

7. The notion of integrity is a universal notion that has to do . with the basic phenomenon of socialization and, therefore, is in­dependent of culture. Integrity means, and is made to mean in the training, authentic socialization. Socialization rests on mutual respect with no value judgement, and mutual respect entails honesty, truthfulness and confiability, that is integrity. As a result, authentic socialization lasts only as long as integrity lasts. By making integrity the central emotional and rational reference, the training calls upon the basic experience of socialization that every child that did not suffered mother deprivation must have had, and succeeds in orienting the trainee to the center of his suffering, namely, social inauthenticity. In this the training is also essen­tially western, and provides the trainee with a permanent reference for self reflection in his dayly life as an on going process. This and the use of reason as a source of experience, constitute the greatests assets of the training.

Humberto R. Maturana