Commitment to Self isn't for the faint hearted. It's a life of
distinction. It's an ongoing willingness to continually step
into the space of who you really are as opposed to who you
think you are, who you're thrown to be, who you'd like to be. It's not
these distinctions that provide access to Self. It's Self who
distinguishes, and Self is who you are. By distinguishing who you
aren't, who you are comes into play.
It's very
Zen.
It's very beautiful. And it will drive you crazy if you try to figure
it out.
Commitment to Self requires being willing to entertain the possibility
that ultimately there's nothing personal about
Self.
That's not what you learned in school. Being committed to Self isn't
being committed to my self or to your self.
It's being committed to who people really are. Who you really are,
Self, human being, has been around and has been turning out for
millennia. There's really nothing personal about it. It's nothing you
did. You didn't cause it. You inherited Self simply by being born.
Being committed to Self won't fix you nor will it make you a better
person. You won't get more dates because of it. It won't make you right
or even believable. It won't make things go easier.
And ... it may.
You and I have access to Self directly through experience. Clearly
that's where Self shows up. You can't get it as a mind or as an
identity. You can, however, get it as the observer, as the observer of
distinguishing, as the distinguisher of distinctions, as the space in
which the distinguisher of distinctions shows up.
To be committed to this space is to stand for this space as a
possibility for being for human being not just for yourself (because it
isn't personal) but for all human beings. It's being rigorous in
recreating Self even when the possibility of being Self is shot through
with our addiction to lending credence to our circumstances as the
source of our lives and of the quality of our lives. It's being
rigorous in recreating Self as all that's required for
full, whole, complete, inspired lives.
I got that in my late teens. It became clear to me even way back then.
But it wasn't until many years later, much much later
listening to Werner Erhard speaking for the first time that I got the
vehicle for bringing forth Self into the world, sharing
Self, making Self available to people is languaging. I'm clear my own
method - writing these Conversations For Transformation - is really
just an approximation to the real thing which is live spoken out loud
conversations mano a mano, face to face,
tête à tête
between real live human beings.
Commitment to Self is brought forth, is spoken by Self as
Source in the face of all stories to the contrary, in the
face of all stories that human beings are their story. Even
during our chattering stories and our failing attempts to blame our
stories for our lives and for the quality of our lives, Self is there -
as the space, as the observer, as the distinguisher, as the
fulfilled enjoyer, as Source. With Self it's OK the way it is
because this is the way it is and it's never not the way it is. If
that's not clear, if you don't get it, try on this question Werner
poses: "How can the light be off when it's on?".
Being committed to Self, being committed to stand for Self
is being up to something in the world. Commitment to Self is
being up to something with people for the future.