Avia Ustanny, Outlook Writer 
A CONVERSATION with lawyer, author and transformational coach Courtney Kazembe is like a game with a chess master.
Each response is carefully considered, but the answers are so brilliant in their logical and
convincing force that you briefly forget your next move.
Kazembe is the author of the highly acclaimed book - Authentic Power - a publication which targeted those who aspire to "control their destiny".
Authentic power, Kazembe explains, "is the real power we have inside to connect with Source - what other people call God."
The lawyer is also the creator of the "Kazembe Programme" - a trilogy of public programmes (I,II,&III) conducted over weekends in cities around the world. In 2005, he created the Global Initiate for Transformation -GIFT- another initiative which teaches the "unenlightened" a different way to live.GIFT is intended to wake up those who are sleeping and - according to the transformational coach - most of us are.
Born and raised in Jamaica, Courtney Kazembe has travelled a narrow path in the search for self enlightenment and community change - a path which he started walking as a teenager while attending the University of the West Indies.
There, he studied Marcus Garvey, African philosophy, world history and began consider the concept of what it meant not only to be black man in the world, but more fundamentally, what it meant to be human and what it took to achieve one's full potential as a human being.
In Kingston, Courtney grew up in Vineyard Town and went to Excelsior High School - a period in which his step father, engineer Cebert Fagan (deceased), was a very powerful and positive influence who taught him self discipline.
"He taught me to play chess and he taught me only to accept the best."
His mother, Edna Fagan, he said taught him "love, compassion and resilience - she taught me never to give up."
Both parents migrated to Canada when Courtney was 19. In Canada, he promptly changed his name to Kazembe - a name which his grandfather in Jamaica had told him was his to begin with.
"When I was seven, my grandfather told me that Kazembe was his African name. It means wisdom."
Kazembe continued his education in Canada, completing a first degree in politics and philosophy at York University and then moved on do the law at Osgoode Hall Law School - launching a career in the legal field.He is currently a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada, The Ontario Bar Association and the Jamaican Bar Association.
As a young student, Courtney loved Canada and spent all his summer vacations driving from one coast to the other, selling encyclopaedias. "I went to remote towns where they had never seeing black people before."
In Canada, he also studied Leadership and Transformation at the International Forum for Social Innovation (IFSI) in France and at the University of Glamorgan Business School in the United Kingdom.
The result of his studies in philosophy and his fascination with the human condition was his development of transformational workshops and the writing of the book 'Authentic Power'.
Kazembe created Quantum Ventures Inc, a company committed to personal organisation and transformation. The programme includes workshops, seminars and speeches which promise to radically transform the lives of all participants.
The transformational coach explains - while it is true that man's training by family and society is a kind of domestication which can lead to some material success - it is a limited kind. He is asleep.
As unconscious as he is, "You can become president, become a lawyer and a millionaire. The question then is, if I can be asleep and still become a millionaire, why would I want to wake up? Most people are totally satisfied with that kind of existence," Kazembe notes.
But, when one is asleep, the coach claims, one is almost invariably life is ruled by fear and separation. "Even the material success which you have achieved is in separation from others. The never ending fear leads to war, envy, greed , violence. Somebody is invariably destroyed so that another can make gains.
"The unconscious existence does not bring peace of mind. One can have huge amounts of wealth and still be unhappy." His programme, GIFT, facilitates movement from the state of sleep to one of growing consciousness and connection with Source. Having become aware of what it takes to be conscious, participant in GIFT will then pass through a clean up programme. "This takes one deep into self programming so you can reconstruct what you really are - not what parents, schools and religion have told you.
"Having done that, we then create the connection to Source which is what others call God. A connection with Source - pure essence, light and love - the things in life which normally bother you will do so no more- cravings and addictions will be gone, " Kazembe claims.
The author and transformational coach insists that he has had few problems in life and none worth mentioning.
Unmarried at age 42, he states, "I question the institution of marriage. I am not opposed to it but it carries its own inculcations and just too often there are so many pitfalls. When too unconscious people get married it can be destructive. Even though they are married they will feel themselves separate and apart."
Utopia, he believes, is a world in which people can make their own decisions and live with them. "People honour each other as they honour themselves, living with truth, honesty and respect."
He states, "I believe that neither God nor Jesus was religious. The question is - can you be like, love like, respect like, deal with humanity like Christ? (This is what we should do) instead of claiming membership in groups and then fighting each other, fighting against your neighbour."So some kinds of religions are less important than just living and being. Walk the walk and talk the talk. It all comes down to each action you take and how you relate to those around you."
The father of one child - a three year old daughter - Kazembe states: "Part of enlightenment is to get people to understand is that they do not need to have as many children as they do. They have three, four and five and spend most of their adult lives caring for them - there is no time for development of the self."
The author and coach says it is his intention to encourage people to "move up the consciousness continuum and keep climbing the ladder on a permanent basis."On a scale of zero to one thousand - most of us are below 200."
Kazembe states that GIFT will go around the world. The programme has a target of one million members in five years. In the next six months he will travel in Canada, the United States, India and here in the Caribbean - Trinidad and Barbados to hold seminars.
"There is a lot more to achieve and be done." Most of us have been living in one room of our existential house since the day we were born. Consciousness will introduce you to the other rooms. And, as you begin to understand more about human behaviour, you will be able to leave the house all together."
He states, ":Jamaica has a very powerful energy that resonates around the world. The planet is ready for this nation to play its role in its transformation."
