Conversations For Transformation: Essays Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

Conversations For Transformation

Essays By Laurence Platt

Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

And More

A Structure For Who You Are Really:

A Speculation

Alston Park, Napa Valley, and Buchanan Airfield, Concord
California, USA

March 28 and April 6, 2018


"The Mastery Course is a structure in which it is possible to discover for yourself who you are really. This structure allows for the breakthrough of the Mastery Course."
 ... 
answering Laurence Platt's question "As the breakthrough of the est training was unleashed in confronting 'You are a machine!', what creates the space for the breakthrough of the Mastery Course?" in Questions For A Friend XII
This essay, A Structure For Who You Are Really:  A Speculation, is the sequel to
  1. An Experience Like A Red Balloon, A Life Like A Concrete Form: A Manifesto
  2. The Newest Piece Of Work
in that order.


That compelling anticipation  you hear? It's the first ever Mastery Course, starting some time around ... now  ... ie even as we speak. Werner's Mastery Course is a structure in which it is possible to discover for yourself who you are really. How do I know that? I know that, because Werner told me that's what it is, during my conversation with him about creating the breakthrough  of the Mastery Course. So now I'm wondering what exactly is  "... a structure in which it is possible to discover for yourself who you are really"?  I mean, what does it look like? What's its essential nature? And  (more to the point) if you're going to build one, what raw materials would you use? Structures are ordinarily built with brick and mortar and wood and sheetrock (at least, some of them are). But this is a structure Werner built (wait: I know Werner, and it's probably more accurate to say it's a structure he's "... ongoingly  building and  refining"). So ergo  in all likelihood, its raw material is language.

That's my best opening salvo - and I'll bet it's a pretty good  opening salvo actually. But in point of fact? I have no idea  - I simply don't know. And the answers to all these questions aren't likely to be found by googling them either. Yet I get  them - that is, I get what this structure is, pre-verbally  ie I get it at a level which is prior to speech. I get it by direct experience before  it's constituted in language. Listen: I'm not the expert - no, not by any  stretch of the imagination. I'm just an ordinary dude like you ie a dude who's in the same inquiry as you (and when I say "dude" in this context, I'm saying it unisex-ly). Whatever I say about Werner's structure in which it's possible to discover for yourself who you are really, is pure speculation on my part. And there may be no value for you in speculating if a definitive answer is what you're looking for. Yet speculating about / wrestling with these issues (any  issues really) is the source of unimaginable  value to be discovered in Werner's work.

In speculating here, I have many theories, one of which is this: part of our inability to discover for ourselves who we are really  (which is to say, part of our inability to discover for ourselves the space  in which who we really are, shows up)  is that there are so many other  pieces of our machinery, which also show up in that space, which we haven't yet distinguished as not  who we really are (in fact which we've falsely identified  with who we really are), rendering us not seeing the forest for the trees, so to speak. Intellect, ego, mind, thoughts, memories, feelings, emotions, bodily sensations etc all  show up in that space, vying for attention. They, in and of themselves, don't get in our way of discovering for ourselves who we are really. But our not distinguishing them  for what they are, leaving a blurred, undistinguished mass filling the space, absolutely  and impenetrably  gets in our way. So how can we put each of those pieces in their place (ie put each of their heads up on a pike, so to speak) where they can be scrutinized and clearly seen for what they are, leaving who we are really, as clear, distinct, obvious, and (most of all) as accessible?

Another of my theories is this: Werner's brilliant way of putting each of those pieces in their place, is by giving them something to do, something so all-engaging that they, consumed by their tasks, stay out of the way  long enough for who we are really, to be clearly gotten - effectively and decisively ending their siege. That would imply (and here's the truly wild part) that the structure he's speaking into existence, is created by totally engaging intellect, ego, mind, thoughts, memories, feelings, emotions, bodily sensations  etc - in other words, by totally engaging those very pieces which when undistinguished, get in our way of discovering for ourselves who we are really. The language of the Mastery Course would then simply have to generate razor-edged, laser-pointed conversations (all of which are truly Werner's forté) that engage each of these pieces completely ... and voila!  the structure would be created and in place, in which who we are really, could then be completely discovered.

Now, is that "the truth"  about Werner's Mastery Course's structure? Gee, I don't know - look: I really  don't know. No kidding! ... and it may be. I'm just speculating.


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