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




Breakthrough Heart

Zero Defects, Rutherford, California, USA

January 22, 2007



This essay, Breakthrough Heart, is the companion piece to A Walk In A Minefield.

It is also the third in an undectet of Breakthroughs:




It's ironic. When you hit the wall which thwarts your intentions, you should  be able to call for relief. You ought to be able to get some support, some respite. You ought to even be able to get what we would have called a long time ago some help and understanding  and therefore some compassion. At least your goodness should be rewarded. It should earn points.

Woulda  ... coulda  ... shoulda  ...

The breakthrough heart  knows to not expect that, at least not to expect that for too long. The skydiver knows the possible consequences of taking on gravity. The action itself is not without possibly terrible consequences. That doesn't imply we shouldn't ever skydive. What it does imply is when we skydive, we get to do it in full awareness that we're taking on not just the unforgiving physical universe but we're also taking on causing a breakthrough in both responsibility as well as in being with fear. Breakthrough skydiving is going for it  with as much attention on responsibility and on being with fear as on staying alive.

And so it is with the breakthrough heart. Faint heart never won fair lady (as Miguel de Cervantes may have said). Nor anything else, for that matter.

I'm not speaking about simply going through the motions. That's insufficient in and of itself  to live a transformed life. I'm speaking about always  coming from bigness of heart, always pressing on, always going ahead, always moving forward  in the direction life is always going, stopping at nothing, compassionate toward thos who are stopped, knowing it's so essentially human to be stopped (and to be invalidated by being stopped), and no matter what  to always be creating breaking through  to the next expression of heart.

Life is no carrot on a stick  to me. I'm not in it to get somewhere. I'm not in it to be someone. I'm not in it to garner renown or fame. Or at least I'm no longer  in it to get somewhere or to be someone. And the only fame I'll accept as warranted is being famous for being Laurence.

Neither is life a race to me with a start and an end which some lose and others win. I'm not running as hard as I can to win and to avoid losing. I'm not running as hard as I can to be more than  and to avoid being less than. I'm running as hard as I can because I'm running as hard as I can. My heart breaks through because that's what it does, because that's what it is.

I eschew the mangled dichotomy of being a winner  and not being a loser. As a matter of fact, I assert the obsession with winning and avoiding losing causes the distinction "loser" which it presences ever more stringently in those seeking to avoid being one. The flypaper, stuck to their foreheads, is seen by everyone except them. Their heads are up on pikes.

I eschew the notion of making it. By being born (clearly fait accompli) I've already made it. I'm playing this game from win. Given that freedom, how much of my heart I actually express, how much of what I say is listened and has an impact, how much of the way I conduct my day to day living makes a difference on the planet for everyone with no one and nothing left out is the one thing designed to be managed by me and by me alone.

How much I answer the call of the breakthrough heart is what I'll be known for. It's easy to know those who have yet to answer this call. Just ask them the question "Who are you?". If they answer with their name or what they do for a living, you'll know they haven't heard the call yet. Their hearts don't yet live in breakthrough mode.

Be careful. Be very  careful. You can't use that to make them wrong and to make yourself right. A win when you win and others don't is not a win in the new realm of what's possible for winning. Having a conversation which brings forth a possibility for the breakthrough heart requires ruthless compassion - ruthless  because people are skewed away from that possibility even though (if they told you the truth about it) wishing they could master it is what's keeping them awake at night, and compassion  because they already got it. The arrogance of assuming you  got it and they  don't only gets in the way.




The Heart Of Enlightenment


Werner Erhard, with no vested interest in being right about what enlightenment is and with no vested interest in being right about what enlightenment isn't, asserts simply one of the signs of the enlightened state is you lighten up! It's also been said that enlightenment is giving up the notion you're unenlightened. I like that a lot. It completely takes the mystery out of it. Lately I've come to enjoy an even more rascally Zen notion of it: enlightenment is giving up the notion that you are enlightened (as James "Jim" Tsutsui may have said).

Whichever notion you give up, I'm inspired by human beings being willing to give up what they've always been for the possibility of what they could become. You'll find this willingness incarnate in the breakthrough heart. It's a good platform to stand on from which to turn this conversation over to you.



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