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One major aspect I left out of the original post — and it's important:

At check-in, participants are required to hand over their phone, keys, and often personal ID documents. These are sealed and kept by the staff for the duration of the program. It’s framed as “helping you focus” or “disconnecting from distractions,” but the effect is much darker:

You’re physically and digitally disempowered. You can’t call anyone. You can’t check the time. You can’t leave.

And it doesn’t stop there.

Participants are restricted to controlled zones within the premises. During sessions, doors are closed. Leaving the hall — even just to use the bathroom — is subtly, or outright, discouraged.

In one instance, I had to insist multiple times just to use the bathroom, and a volunteer literally stood outside the stall door waiting for me to return, watching me walk back like a prison escort.

This isn’t mindfulness.
It’s containment with spiritual branding.

When you combine physical confinement with psychological pressure and emotional manipulation, it’s no longer a wellness program — it’s behavioral control.

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ENCALEF
6d ago
Similar tactics were used by est in the late 70's, early 80's. Everyone that I knew who went through the \"training\" was insufferable to be around afterwards. Most got over it in about six months.

5d ago
No wonders Isha teaching come from EST

Vasudev aka Sadhguru got trained by Rishi Prabakahar Who got trained/or influenced by Erhard … the EST guy… Check this reply…

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LittleMissSunshine_0
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8d ago
Bhava Spandana is what's called a Large Group Awareness Training (LGAT). These were first developed in the US in the 60s and 70s. Werner Erhard was one of the major proponents through his Erhard Seminar Training (EST) programs. Rishi Prabhakar created Bhava Samadhi Training (later rebranded as Bhava Spandana Program by Sadhguru) after spending time in Werner Erhard's programs and being deeply impressed by them.

Dr John Hunter on LGATs:

Crucial to the CCHOB (Classical Conditioning Hypothesis of Brainwashing) are a number of steps. The first steps render reason defunct as mechanism for challenging the philosophy being indoctrinated; the next set of steps promote general trust and elevate emotional experience as the sole mechanism for making decisions and forming beliefs. Once this has been achieved the participant is vulnerable - susceptible to ignoring rational defenses and uncritical of emotional experience as a source of knowledge. The final step of the process involves triggering a powerful “experience”,which participants associate with the principles/doctrine of the LGAT.

? Step 1 – Destroy the participant’s ability to reason. This is achieved through philosophical undermining of reason as a source of knowledge, as well as through intimidation, sleep deprivation, and attacks on the participants’ identities. Inaccessible content and processes, like reframing and thought-terminating clichés, which make questioning very difficult, are also used.

? Step 2 - Elevate blind trust (particularly in the trainer) to a virtue. Convince participants that unconditional trust, in the context of the training environment, rather than being foolish/naive/gullible, is a positive human trait.

? Step 3 – Elevate emotional experiences as evidence of the validity of a process/doctrine. By spending a considerable period of time denigrating traditional evidence, using selective examples to criticize science (E.g. “At one time all of the best scientists in the world were certain that the earth was flat…”), and arguing that one’s feelings are completely reliable, LGATs convince participants that only experience can be trusted in their forming of new beliefs.

? Step 4 – Trigger an emotional experience paired with group’s doctrine. According to the CCHOB LGAT participants will associate the experience with the principles of the LGAT without processing these principles rationally.