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




Open And Here

The Sunburst, Calistoga, California, USA

November 2, 2016



This essay, Open And Here, is the fifteenth in an open group on Possibility:

What it comes down to when I leave my considerations behind ie what it comes down to when I relegate my doubts to the automaticity they are, and simply let them be, without affording them undue attention, is "This is IT!". Yet if (that is, when)  I tell the truth about it, I don't live "This is IT!" always. I live it some of the time - a goodly portion of the time to be sure, but not always. The rest of the time I'm dealing  with life, surviving it, till eventually I'll revert to ... well ... "This is IT!" again.

Telling more of how it occurs for me, the swing from living "This is IT!", to dealing with life, to surviving it, then reverting to "This is IT!" again, happens all by itself. And the only vote I seem to have in this process, is this: when I realize I'm no longer living "This is IT!", I remind myself "Hey! This is  IT!", at which point it's "This is IT!"  all over again. It seems to me this is the best it gets for us human beings. We're neither designed nor constructed to live "This is IT!" all the time. But we do have the power ie we do have the choice to revert to it as soon as we realize we're (temporarily) no longer living it.

When I'm living "This is IT!", I notice there's a possibility (if you will) which goeswith  (as Alan Watts may have said) the place I'm living from. It's the possibility of being open  and here. Being on the planet and face to face with other human beings, brings with it all the considerations of being open and intimate and vulnerable. Most if not all of these considerations are on full automatic. That's easily seen after a certain inquiry ie after a certain delving ie after a certain authentic introspection (or by being around Werner - the latter is arguably much, much faster). I'm either being open ... or I'm not being open. There's no halfway. Being open is its own practice. It's its own revelation. When I be open, I'm open. When I don't, I'm not. That may sound stoopid  simple. It's actually very profound: there's nothing to do in order to be open except be open. The challenge of just being, with all guards down, is met by being open. The practice of being open develops being open. It's its own shortcut. It's its own discipline. That's the first part of the possibility: the "open" part.

The second part of the possibility is the "here" part. But aren't we always (really) here? Aren't we? Speaking for myself, I'm always here - that is, being alive, I'm always here. There's really nothing novel about being here. However being both open and  here? simultaneously?  Now that's  a practice worth taking on. Being open and here, is actually our natural unencumbered state (watch children play). I'm being open and here ... until such time as I realize I've gotten distracted from being open and here (the way we human beings tend to get distracted from time to time, yes?), at which point I can choose to revert to being open and here again.

That's its normal characteristic ie that's the normal cycle: I'm open and here, I'm not, I'm open and here. I'm not, I'm open and here. The only difference between us ordinary folk, and all those great masters who dwell in high states of so-called enlightenment (ie in open-and-here-ness?) is they choose to revert to being open and here faster, as soon as they realize they've gotten distracted (listen: maybe that's all  the great masters do that's different than what we do: aside from they choose faster, maybe there's really no difference between us and them at all?), and so they appear to be enlightened ongoingly and consistently ... except when they don't.

Being open and here, things are the way they are, and they're enough the way they are. Being open and here, the horse is galloping the way it should, and it works to ride the horse in the direction he's going. Being open and here, we can all be together in the most intimate way possible for human beings to be together. Being open and here, is the possibility of living  life and being with it as it actually is, and not simply as the unsatisfying process of always dealing  with it ie of always surviving it.



Communication Promise E-Mail | Home

© Laurence Platt - 2016 through 2022 Permission