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




Self Being Self

Vino Bello, Napa, California, USA

March 19, 2014



"What est  is about is transformation. est  is about the Self being Self. And one of the things you uncover or discover or recover when you discover that you are your Self is that absolutely everybody is themself, and that you can't get transformed because in order to get transformed you'd have to be not transformed, and if you're not transformed you can never be transformed because transformation doesn't have a beginning, middle, or end."
... 
"Reinventing yourself into an impossible future doesn't alter how life turns out. It alters who you are being and what is available, while life turns out the way it does."
... 
This essay, Self Being Self, is the seventh in an octology on Self:


This essay, Self Being Self, is a graduate conversation.

The Self being Self is all there is - there isn't anything else. When I'm being mySelf being Self, there's no "I" for me. When I'm being mySelf being Self, "I" isn't there. When I'm being mySelf being Self, all there is for me is "you". Try it on for size. When you're being yourSelf being Self, there's no "I". There's only "you". It's more than that actually. It's there never was anything else: Self being Self is all there ever was. If it doesn't appear like it's this way, that's because we don't ordinarily pay attention to it and we don't notice it, so nor do we notice its such-ness, its thus-ness, its forehead-slapping obvious-ness.

Lay your mouse on the framed photograph to turn it over
(works best with Chrome)
Wood-framed 12" x 16" photograph of a monk in
either Nepal or Tibet - photographer and date taken
unknown.

Given to a person who assisted as a thank you gift in
1973 by Werner Erhard who signed his name on the back.
Self Being Self
"Self being Self is all there is" may be a provocative assertion in certain circles. Yet it's an assertion with neither any moral nor philosophical nor religious  overtones. When I'm being mySelf being Self, that is to say when I'm being fully who I really am, then "The Self being Self is all there is - there isn't anything else" is experientially obviously true.

Notice this assertion isn't the same as a spiritual dichotomy  which asserts "I'm not my body.". I once knew a girl who, in claiming enlightenment, asserted "I'm not my body.". Then one day she accidentally slammed her thumb in a closing door. That's when she discovered she actually does in fact have a very powerful  relationship with her body.

It's all  Self being Self. And we don't stay present to it for too long, perhaps because we're thrown  not to. We're thrown to look for and quickly get away to the next thing. But there's nothing next which isn't this. Neither is there anything to come which will explain this, offer an escape  from it, alleviate it, or give it meaning. This is all there is. This is it!  This is exactly how Life turned out. Life's always  been turning out like this.

Listen: I also know how it's going to turn out from now on. Really I do - and you and I don't have to be psychic to know how it's going to turn out from now on. Here it is: the way it's going to turn out from now on is the way it's going to turn out from now on. Yes, that's how it's going to turn out from now on. That's all Life ever does. It's been doing it for eons. Self being Self, Life's been turning out the way it turns out for eons.

When you're being yourSelf being Self, that's transformation. When you're not, it isn't. When I'm being mySelf being Self, that's transformation. When I'm not, it isn't. Transformation is the Self being Self (as Werner Erhard may have said). It's about being the Self being Self. And when you got it, you got it.



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