Quote
andyb4
So Laaree, how did you manage to break away from DC? And, what's brought you to this forum at this time in your life? If you don't mind me asking. I left DC around 1983. I had a lot of guilt early on, but finally came to realize that I deserved to live my life free from Direct Centering. I wrote a longer piece for this forum but it hasn't been approved yet. I might try to put it up again later on. Along the way over the years I heard about people in drips and drabs and how they got out. Once when I was purchasing a home, the inspector turned out to be Jill 's younger brother and Jill had only recently "escaped". That was 1991. I think that was almost ten years that she was with him.
Re: breaking away from DC--I sent an email to hara a few months back with my little story. Here's a slightly edited cut-and-paste:
"I left DC kind of ass-backwards. For along time I had been inwardly rebellious and disdainful toward all the demands
that were constantly placed upon me, resisting the trend of long-time assistants becoming fulltimers and was unhappy
about the loss of attention that I used to get from Bayard when the group was much smaller. I also was clinging
on to my pre-DC goal of being a successful professional artist or illustrator, which I refused to give up despite
getting constant messages from all directions that the greatest thing you could do was give Direct Centering
and serve Bayard. Of course, I tried my best to walk on a tightrope between spending time perfunctorily doing
what was expected of me as a long-time assistant, weakly trying to let go of my attachments while clinging on
to my personal goals, which were the kind of thing that were denigrated by Bayard as "playing small"--"playing
big" was, of course, enrolling more people in the course and committing more and more of your time to assisting.
(this is an example of how much of what students and assistants were subjected to were classic behavior modification
techniques, e.g. praising acts of commitment, denigrating personal accomplishments, ringing bells and cheering
when someone enrolled a friend in the Course, being challenged on what you were attached to, holding on to,
what aren't you saying, etc. when not enrolling people, etc.)
I was in a condition of great stress and fear, barely allowing myself to entertain thoughts of leaving. I was very
vigilant about keeping my assisting agreements as I was terrified of confrontation over breaking them, but this all
came to a head on the weekend afternoon of July 4, 1982 (I remember the date well), when I was reluctantly assisting
at DC's Manhattan loft along with a bunch of other people on this holiday. Bayard once again interrupted everyone to
hold an enrollment meeting, asking everyone on premises to stand up and say who they were going to enroll in the Course.
When it came to be my turn, I was pissed off enough that I looked at him and said something like "There are people
I could enroll, but I don't feel like it". He yelled back at me "You're expelled! I'm tired of you being around here for
all this time and not fully committing" or something similar. I quickly got up and left the loft, feeling elated and
energized and also liberated--from what I wasn't surer, but freed nonetheless. Word got around quickly that Bayard had
expelled me, which was very satisfying, as I had a position as one of Bayard's earliest and venerable assistants, the kind
of person who you could never imagine being expelled or leaving. Despite going back to graduate events after that,
I stubbornly refused to enroll anyone else and never re-joined the assisting team, even going so far as to write Bayard
a letter which said something like how I was never ever going to become an assistant again and never become a staff
member, not during this lifetime or any other lifetime. I wish I had had the foresight to xerox that letter before I sent it.
My final separation with DC was during the summer of 1983. I did some psychedelic mushrooms with a friend of
mine, another DC assistant who was a good pal of mine. We went to go see Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, which was
just released to theatres. During this movie, I had a tearful psychedelic insight that Bayard was like Yoda or Obi-Wan
Kenobi or some sage Jedi Knight, and myself and the other assistants had been born into this life with the purpose
of virtually being co-agents of the Force against the Dark Side, which was the world of people trapped by their attachments
and limitations and slaves to their minds. Somehow as the movie ended and I came down from the 'shrooms, this fantasy
folded up into its proper proportions in my imagination, and I forswore ever going back to DC ever again. I instinctively
concluded that maybe all the doubts I had, the resistance I experienced, the fear I was gripped by were all sane responses
to a crazy and emotionally dangerous situation I had inadvertently put myself in for several years, rather than symptoms
of my mind running me and my attachments ruling me.
Looking back at all this, I think I was utterly right. At least now I can articulate it, whereas back in summer 1983,
it was more instinct than anything else. I learned to trust myself."
BTW I do remember Jill
. And, seeing that you wrote that you had lived in the Delancey Street house in Philadelphia,
I could tell you the story about how the Philadelphia center originated. I planted the seed, so to speak. ;-)
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/26/2008 09:44PM by rrmoderator.