As most people who have participated in
Werner's work
will tell you, the onset of transformation completes the before and
starts an after (or said another way, it completes the predictability
and invents a possibility). The major difference between the
before and the after is as startling as it's inevitable: the context
has shifted in the way we experience who (and what) we are. The way
things occurred before the onset of transformation, was largely (if not
entirely) conceptual. The way things occur after the onset of
transformation, is largely (if not entirely) experiential. This
is not business as usual: it's profound.
Before the onset of transformation, I would have said
I had a life
which I lived in
the world
(and most people, I suppose, would also characterize their lives that
way). The thing is back then, I didn't distinguish between "in
the world"
and "on
the planet"
so I'll leave the blur in place for this conversation too
(my difference between the two today is: I createthe world
in which I live, and I reside on
the planet).
And
the planet
on which I resided, inhabited a much broader space called
"the universe".
Yet of all that, the only ownership I could claim (and claim, not by
taking responsibility for it, but simply by default) was
ownership of
my own life,
not of
the world
nor of
the universe.
The world
was the environment in which I lived my life. It wasn't mine per
se ie I neither owned it nor claimed it (at least not
yet). As for
the universe,
that was just too big, too
vast,
too far away, too far out (literally) for me to have any
stake in it at all.
That's the before. Transformation however, shifts all of that (imposing
rigor on my speaking, it
recontextualizes
- I
love
that
word
- all of that). Given this contextual shift, the after is
characterized by a new context for who I am, and consequently by a new
experience of who I am. Reluctantly (I'll grant you) I discovered I'm
not the concepts I'd so carefully assembled into my identity
(horrors!). Moreover the scope of who I am, is no longer assumed to be
limited to
my individual life.
Before, I lived in
the world
which had somehow magically come to exist in the
vastness
of
the universe,
the "How?" of which (any and all of our most cherished
concepts and beliefs notwithstanding) is the greatest, most exquisite
mystery of all time. Now, as the space in which all of it shows up, I'm
not merely the owner of
my life:
I'm also the owner of
my world
and of
my universe.
It's all my experience. Literally. I am the space in which
my life,
my world,
and
my universe
show up. It's all mine!
Now granted, this is a
graduate
conversation, and so this is a
graduate
idea. That being so, you won't get it (or refute it) by arguing whether
it's
true
or false. Neither will you affirm it (or negate it) by debating whether
it's valid or invalid. You can however get it by standing flat-footed
in the space of who you really are, then simply looking at what's
there, and telling
the truthunflinchingly
about your experience. You're the context for all of it ie all of it
shows up in the space of who you reallly are. Shockingly, I discover
I'm not flesh and blood with a faculty for experience. Instead I'm
experience within which flesh and blood show up for which I'm
responsible, in
a world
of my own creation for which I'm also responsible, in
a universe
for which I'm the context. I'm responsible for my experience of
my life,
my world,
and
my universe
- ergo over all of it, I'm responsible for my
say so
of ownership.
So is that
"The Truth"?
It may be (and it may not be). But here's the thing to be wary of if
it is
"The Truth":
if it's
"The Truth",
we're likely to stop digging there. The questions then end, the inquiry
ends, the discovery ends. That's why what's even more pragmatic than
accepting it as
"The Truth"
is trying it out like a place to stand, like a springboard from which
to dive into Life. Test it to see if it empowers, transforms, enables.
If it does, take it: it's yours; if it doesn't: leave it here, and
walk on.
