I am indebted to Sara Carter who contributed material for this
conversation.
Transformation
is readily available today, so much so that you could include it in a
class of experiences we're so comfortable with, we take them for
granted. That's
deadly.
Even more than that, its
language
is now in such wide use that I'm concerned if we don't stay
awake
to it, it'll become less effective as a generator of
possibility given our propensity to reduce accurate
languaging
to
jargon.
There was, however, a time not so long ago when
transformation
wasn't available, a time when it wasn't in the
cards,
a time when it was never going to
happen
- no, it's more than that actually: it's there was a time not so long
ago when it
couldn't
have
happened.
We people, being what we are, talked about it (of course, by
many other names),
we debated it, we
imagined
it, conjectured it - in fact we've been doing exactly that for
centuries. The thing is before
transformation
became possible, we didn't have a clear distinction for it which would
definitively point to it, let alone call it forth. Rather, we had a
sense of it, and a hodgepodge, an olio of
pursuits which we hoped would bring it on. Yet if we tell
the truth about it, given the way we were headed, there was no
guarantee
transformation
would've ever become available - neither as a possibility for any of us
as individuals, nor as a possibility for all of us as the group we call
humanity.
Then one day some time around now (it may have been closer to March
1971 but nonetheless some time around NOW) (to be
specific: at the dawn of one day sometime around now, if you will)
transformation
still wasn't readily available. But by the evening of that day, it was
available. Something
happened
during that day which had never
happened
on
the planet
before. What
happened
was
transformation
became available like a possibility.
When we talk about this seminal event in human history, many of us will
tell the
story
of
Werner Erhard
on the
Golden Gate Bridge.
That's a really good
story
to tell. No, it's a greatstory
to tell. When you tell it, you're telling the
story
of how the possibility of
transformation
appeared on
the planet.
So what did
happen
to bring on the possibility of
transformation?
No, I don't mean the
story
about it - as great a
story
as it is. I mean the big picture.
I assert what
happened
was this: an
opening
in the universe appeared - and when this
opening
in the universe appeared,
transformation
became available on
the planet
... just ... like ... that!
The fact that this
opening
appeared - not sooner, not later, but rather exactly when
it appared - is indisputable. And it's our good fortune it appeared
when it did, during our lifetime. It appeared not before we got here,
not after we left here, but exactly during our time here.
Not sooner. Not later. But now ie exactly now - or at
least sometime around now. And
Werner,
as it turned out,
happened
to be perfectly positioned right here on the
Golden Gate Bridge
at exactly the right time to notice this
opening
which suddenly, fortuitously appeared in the universe, to
articulate it, and to share what he noticed.
Werner's
spiritual hejira (if you will) is legend. What he's done
is make this
opening
available, easily accessible, palatable, tangible,
count-on-able. What's
interesting
to me (which is to say what's endearing to me) is his
method has always been to look into the space ie into the
beingsphere,
and share what he sees there without adding anything and without taking
anything away, rather than claiming credit for himself ie rather than
claiming credit as an
ego
trip. In so doing, he's received justifiable acknowledgement for
this work,
including the Mahatma Gandhi
Humanitarian
Award.
How long will this fortuitous
opening
in the universe remain
open?
That much (it would seem) is up to us, given we're now empowered to
keep it
open.
However our empowerment to keep the
openingopencomes from the
opening.
And
Werner's
empowerment to articulate and share what he notices about the
opening,
comes from the
opening.
So it's a veritable chicken and egg conundrum, yes? And as
every schoolkid on
the planet
knows, we're still trying to figure out which came first.