Est: Playing the Game* the New Way (*The Game of Life)

Really good book. The metaphysics of EST are as true today as they ever were. Being at Source? Showing Gratitude and Appreciation? Understand Cause and Effect? You are not a body? You are connected with everything? All great questions covered in est Playing the Game.

This book changed my life forever and is still the one book I would never give up. I still have my original - as beaten up and dog eared as it is I still have it - and to some extent revere it. I read est: Playing the Game The New Way in 1977. I read it over and over. I got it. I didn't get it. I got it. I couldn't hold on to IT. I didn't dare let go of this book. It seems to breathe life into me. I was attending the University of Massachusetts in Amherst in 1978, I attended an est introductory meeting. I enrolled. I didn't tell anyone. I disappeared for 2 weekends and never told anyone. I didn't think I got IT. Sometimes I did get IT. I transformed. I was from that point on somewhat wiser. I have grown to appreciate the experience and teachings. I have seen the est teachings in many different speakers, companies, visions - all off shoots of this book, this training. In fact I dare say the our generation was influenced by est in a much larger way than anyone can realize. I never cared if the person who brought this to me made money. I never even thought of it. I am also catholic. When I cherished being catholic I never cared that the pope made rules I thought were wrong or man-made - I was just proud of being catholic for what it stood for to me. I am proud of having been one of the many that went to the original est training. It is a good thing...It changed me... I change people.... it is. Please don't be judgemental when you read this book. The best thing about being a college student in 1975 was the open mindedness of youth. Nothing is perfect (that can be taken 2 ways - no thing has perfection as an attribute and nothing or all things are perfect - very estian), but you can get a gut feel that this book pin points something for each of us. You can't TRY (try moving a pencil - you either do or your don't) to get this book and yet I must use the venacular that people know...this is a book everyone should read at the right time of their lives....

I had attended as est weekend in San Francisco in the 1970's and a friend told me about this book..so I couldn't resist as it was a very important event in my life to attend an est weekend. I have read all the reviews and yes, it is not written like maybe a professional writer would do but for me the substance and content was what was REALLY important for me. It's a reality book, not an academic lesson... I'm giving this Collectors Edition the highest rating because it brought back to me what I had experienced many years ago. I would recomend that anybody who did the est weekend, now, many years later buy and indulge in the expereince and find out what it means to you at this point in yoru life.

The human potential movement of the `70s was alive with excitement because of the possibilities in seeing a different world, and breaking free of the same view that everyone else had. est was a part of the human potential movement, and was a salesman's grabbing and packaging the best of everything he had experienced, and creating seminars to give attendees life-changing experiences. Of all the books that came out of that period, Ram Dass's "Be Here Now" and this book, "est: Playing the Game the New Way" are still in my personal library. "Be Here Now" is more spiritual, whereas the est book is more practical. I found both to be excellent. One of the concepts in the est book is personal responsibility for where we are and what happens to us. I don't believe that a useful view of what is being said is that we choose everything that happens to us. But a whole lot of what the uninitiated might think "happens" to them is in fact a result of their choices. Someone who is chronically late is not late today because something out of their control happened. It is because they chose to be late. What the book does is give the reader to try on that concept that they have chosen where they are and what is happening to them. Sort of like, you are the First Cause. What is happening is because you chose one thing and not the other. Or you didn't choose something. Rather than not accepting responsibility for our choices, we can simply acknowledge that we made choices that resulted in something we would prefer not to be associated with. In short, this concept can allow those who intuitive blame others and events for what have happened and are happening in their lives, to switch modes. To look at what role they are playing in their lives and in what happens to them. This gives a person infinite power, relative to continuing a model that says the blame should go elsewhere for why they have the problems they have. Now, I am describing the effect of one of the concepts that the book gives. The book does not lay it out as I have done. But instead brings you experiences that cause the appropriate change, if you are willing. Another concept of the book is that we should acknowledge people. In est-talk this means that we accept them where they are and don't make them wrong. Have you ever seen two people argue, with each having their own view and trying to make the other wrong? This acknowledging action is one where you essentially let the other know that you get what they are saying, and you are okay that. That you are not making the other person wrong. Those are two of the things the book works to transmit. This is a very powerful and life-changing book. When it came out, est was hot. 700,000 people took the est seminars. The book sold itself based on the reputation of the est seminars. That is why I bought it many years ago. And I found a more powerful approach to life, and to other people, as a result.

I was introduced to this book by someone I respect. I purchased it and read it several times. The ideas and principles are timeless.Contrary to Transformation Buster's review (note that he does not specifically address, in any meaningful way, the technology behind est and Landmark Education's programs; rather, he engages in ad hominem attacks against specific individuals, as if this has ANYTHING to do with whether this stuff works or not). And he does this while hiding behind the Transformation Buster name.It is sad that 3 out 6 people found his review helpful. My advice: ignore it and make up your own mind.