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

Cause In The Matter II:

Congruent* With Life

Sequoia Grove, Rutherford, California, USA

March 6, 2013

This essay, Cause In The Matter II: Congruent With Life, is the companion piece to

It is also the sequel to Cause In The Matter.

I am indebted to Victoria Hamilton-Rivers and to David Alan "Dan" Norton who inspired this conversation.

Something wonderful becomes available when I stand being cause in the matter of my life, and of Life itself.

<aside>

Wait! I didn't say "Something wonderful becomes available when I stand for being cause in the matter of my life, and of Life itself.".

There's no "for" in what I said. I'm not voting here.

<un-aside>

Standing being cause in the matter of my life and of Life itself, I'm whole and complete. It's more than that actually. It's much more. It's standing being cause in the matter of my life and of Life itself, my life and Life itself are also whole and complete ... and ... I'm being congruent with Life.

When being congruent with Life shows up for me, when being congruent with Life occurs for me, it occurs as blindingly obvious. By blindingly obvious I mean being congruent with Life is so obvious that I can easily forget to distinguish it, instead taking it for granted - like air is taken for granted by a bird, like water is taken for granted by a fish. By blindingly obvious I also mean it's nearly impossible to get ... nearly impossible to get, that is, if I'm only looking cavalierly at it, nearly impossible to get if I'm looking at it with nothing at stake - in other words, nearly impossible to get if I'm looking at it with no rigor.

It's not necessary to define light in terms of the absence of darkness or to define darkness in terms of the absence of light. Both darkness and light can be defined as wholly positive phenomena in wholly positive expositions. That said, the absence of being cause in the matter, is being a victim.

Usually we use the designation "victim" for someone who, for example, is hurt or robbed or cheated etc (particularly unfairly) by an act of a person or by an act of nature.

Please be clear I'm not using the designation "victim" like that. By being a victim I simply mean being at the effect of. The absence of being cause in the matter is being at the effect of. When I'm a victim of Life, I'm not being cause in the matter. So I'm either a victim or I'm being cause in the matter. There's no gray.

Underscoring this point: regardless of my circumstances, I can be at the effect of my life and of Life itself, or I can stand being cause in the matter of my life and of Life itself.

"Regardless of my circumstances" doesn't mean defying my circumstances, denying my circumstances, ignoring my circumstances, or lying about my circumstances. Rather, "regardless of my circumstances" simply means the choice of whether I'm at the effect of my life and of Life itself, or whether I stand being cause in the matter of my life and of Life itself, is a choice which doesn't occur in the domain of circumstances. It means it's a choice which occurs in the domain of being. Choosing to be cause in the matter of my circumstances, doesn't make my circumstances change. Choosing to be cause in the matter of my circumstances, makes me congruent with Life.

The Choice

"Chocolate, or vanilla? Choose!" (as Werner Erhard may have said).

Victim, or cause in the matter? Choose!

No analysis. No reasoning. No weighing up the options. No evaluating where the bigger pay off may lie. No justifying. No rescuing, helping, or heroics (and not debates either please: this is experience not a court room). No voting for or making a case for being a victim. And no rebuttals: no voting for or making a case for being cause in the matter either.

Just choose.

Having Chosen

Now you've chosen.

Having chosen, it's not significant. Whatever you've chosen, don't make it mean anything. Don't make whatever you've chosen, into a rule, into a recipe, into a strategy ... any and all of which will either lock being a victim in place with no opening for redemption, or will turn being cause in the matter and being congruent with Life, into just one more tired old belief system - which will surely kill it off as a living, breathing, thrilling possibility, with deadly efficiency.

From the Cambridge International Dictionary:

<quote>

Definition
congruent

adjective
describes a shape in mathematics that has the same shape and size as another

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