Jayakumar Balasubramanian

Please read my previous posts about Landmark Forum ( Part I and Part II) before reading this one. In the past few weeks, I have been getting multiple comments for my posts about Landmark forum. Here is the summary of those comments: The landmark forum provides spiritual dimension to an individual. It helps the attendees to lead a peaceful life with full of self-expression. Why are you commenting on it? Today's world is filled with misery, where people are selling anything and everything. If we can tolerate a phone-call from a credit card salesperson, why not a spiritual/self development course like Landmark forum, Art-of-living etc? I think the commentors didn't completely understand the point I was trying to convey. It is not my intention to criticize these organizations or courses and say they are of no use. My take is to learn, understand and internalize them and practice in real life. Also understand that 'transformation' is a journey, rather than an instant capsu...

I understood quite a lot of things by observing people who attend landmark forum. Primarily the educated, upper-middle class, urban population attend this and they don't have any clue of what life is all about. The materialistic life style has taken toll totally, which makes them live a miserable life with wrong perceptions, notions and beliefs. Suddenly they realize that the situation it out of control and start thinking about 'one-stop' solution for all their problems. They look for one 'thread' on which they can hang on for rest of their life and forget their worries. The start identifying the thread by attending course like: Landmark forum, Art of living, Ramdev yoga and then getting associated with them. Other examples include: Kanchi ashram,ISKCON, Saibaba ashram, Aurobindo ahsram, Amritanandamayi etc. In a way all these organizations and courses teach almost the same universal values like: humility, responsibility, community service, treating everybody equal,...

It’s been 6 months since I attended Landmark Forum in Bangalore. For people who don't know what this is all about please check out this link . I have mixed opinions about the course. Let me share my first set of thoughts about this course. Let me explain the course structure first. It’s basically a three day plus one evening course primarily focused on personal transformation. Each day starts about 9 AM in the morning (sharp) and goes on till 11 PM in the night, with grueling sessions. Each day has only very few break in between, that too at odd timings (11 AM, 3 PM and 7 PM). A well trained ‘forum leader' will be leading the course for about 400 participants. He has a pre-defined courseware and speaks non-stop for all the three days. These leaders are extremely smart people and ruthless in expressing their viewpoints. The landmark education forum has internal methods of identifying, coaching and grooming these leaders. Coming to the course contents, it’s completely a westerniz...