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
This Is Not In The Constitution
Browns Valley Yogurt and Espresso Bar, California, USA
January 23, 2020
"Here's my view: there's nothing I want people to learn
from me. It's what you
discover for yourself
that makes it powerful."
...
discussing compassion with
Dr James Doty
at Stanford University between presentations of the
Leadership Course
in Cancún Mexico and the
Mastery Course
in New York
This essay,
This is Not In The Constitution,
is the companion piece to
Here Is The Secret.
It could be said transformation treads that
razor's edge
between intellectual understanding, and
direct experience.
Intellectual understanding is the domain of change.
Direct experience
is the domain of transformation. The domain of change is also the
domain of doing. It's the domain of transformation that's the
domain of being.
There are any number of well-written, intelligent, exhaustive books out
there which espouse explanations, solutions, and interpretations of how
we human beings got to be the way we are, and how to change (read
"fix")
the way we are. You'll find many of them in the
"Self
help" section of your local bookstore (online you'll find
their CD, PDF, and podcast versions). Oh, and
"Self
help" by the way, is a total misnomer if there ever was one: the
Self
doesn't require any help. No kidding! Really.
I don't just mean how we got to be the way we are as a
species (this isn't about evolution). I don't just
mean how we got to be the way we are culturally. I don't mean
"we" plural. I mean you. I mean I. Singular. The
tomes espouse how you and I got to be the way we are now. And in this
genre, the purpose of espousing how you and I got to be the way we are
now, is to provide an understanding of what happened on our way to
becoming the way we are now, with a view to change /
fix
ourselves. And look: even if that's stated as "with a view to
transform ourselves" (as it more and more often loosely
is), it's almost certain to be the colloquial use of "transform" (ie
just "change lite" or "change lo-cal") rather
than
Werner's
rigorous
use of "transform" (ie
"getting to see as a
possibility who you might be really").
There's nothing wrong with the former implications. There's nothing
wrong with any of them. We're naturally curious. We want
to know. We want to know
why.
Yet where our natural curiosity falls short of what it really takes to
transform our lives, is that no matter what understanding we have about
the way we are, no matter how many explanations we come up with, none
put our
fingers
and hands and feet on the dials and levers and pedals of
transformation. Said another way, understanding the explanation of what
it takes to
drive a car
doth not a
driver
make. Understanding doth not transform (it may reveal a
car
clearer but the
driver
remains the same).
Considering what may be the
authentic access to
transformation,
requires critical distinctions which unless we
discover them for
ourselves,
will have very little enduring power, and will carry even less enduring
value. And their power is especially diminished when they provide
understandings and explanations, creating only a kind of a seduction, a
mistaken sense ie a warm, fuzzy feeling that finding out
why
we ended up being the way we are, is a handle on (ie is
an access to)
transformation.
This is wherein the
trouble
lies ie wherein the pitfall lies: there's no power to
transform in an explanation. Explanations satisfy in the domain
of intellectual understanding. They don't transform in the domain of
direct experience
ie in the domain of being. And the way we discover transformation is by
discovering "being" for
ourselves.
That's what's required in order to unleash /
access the power to
transform:
you have to
discover it for yourself.
Oh, more than that: you have to discover what it is to
"discover it for
yourself".
It oftens seems colloquially (ie without
rigor)
that transformation occurs in the same arena as a right -
like this: "All human beings have a right to transformation" (my
fictitious quote is as an example of a right / entitlement that's
assigned to us).
I'm sorry,
but no one has the right to transformation. We get it when
we discover it and distinguish it for ourselves. That's
why
this is not in the constitution like an entitlement, nor
is it in the declaration of human rights like a right. Inscribing
transformation in the constitution and / or in the declaration of human
rights wouldn't make it any more
accessible
or experience-able than it is now - more intellectually palatable
maybe, but not more
directly experience-able.
Discovering it for
yourself
makes transformation
directly experience-able.
That's powerful.
