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. 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
rigorously
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
rigorously
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
Sourcein the face
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
Selfit'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.
