in that order.
I'm reluctant to cite tenets of transformation. That's
simply because the
waters
of being transformed (if you will) get muddied when I try to explain
transformation in terms of principles,
beliefs,
and doctrines ie the fixed precepts which comprise the
milieu of tenets. With that distinguished as a
precautionary note, it's useful for us to consider that the powerful,
ongoing possibility of
rich,
thrilling, enduring transformation, is drastically diminished, without
first confronting ie without first
discovering for
ourselves
and 'fessing up to the total automaticity of it all, the
total automaticity of
Life itself,
and particularly the total automaticity of our own lives - like a
tenet.
That's never an easy sell. We recoil at the mere hint that we're not
in control. In this regard, given the way we're thrown
to be about being in control of our lives (and about not
being in control) ie about being in charge of our lives or
not, any notion of life, of
Life itself,
and particularly of our own lives being on full automatic, is mostly
untenable, at best
slippery
to grasp, and at worst abhorrent. It's a scenario which we, under the
most ordinary of circumstances, are equally loathe to confront, or are
simply hell-bent on avoiding - to put it mildly, we're terrified of it.
When
Werner
first confronted us with
"You ... are ... a ...
machine!",
it was met by people who were expecting
enlightenment,
with stunned, panicked "Say-it-ain't-so" shocked silence
in which you could hear a pin drop fifty feet away on the far side of
the room.
I want to be totally clear about this. It's not that
we human beings
show elements of automatic behavior. It's not merely that
some aspects of our lives are on full automatic. To couch
it in those terms would be little more than an attempt to
water
down an uncomfortable / unconfrontable truth in order to make it
palatable. No, it's that prior to the onset of transformation, our
entire lives are on full automatic ... and
... what's also on full-automatic is our
resistance
to confronting exactly how completely automatic our lives really are.
The inmates have in effect gained control of and are running the
asylum. Be clear that transformation doesn't change any of that. It
won't give you more control. Neither can it offer a way out of being on
full automatic (I'm
sorry,
but there is no way out). It simply
presences
a new
context.
Look: in the ordinary scheme of things, we're thrown to not confront
our own automaticity. Avoidings "ᴙ" us!
History shows most people have avoided confronting it, and may never
do so. We've successfully settled for being who we think we are, having
been unsuccessful at being who we really are. What's unavoidable is:
doing so, comes at a horrible price. Not confronting our own
automaticity while living within a fully automatic
universe,
produces one kind of
experience
of
being alive
- which is arguably one that's inauthentic and fundamentally
dissatisfying (not surprisingly so). Confronting our own automaticity
while living within a fully automatic
universe,
on the other hand, produces a totally new order of
experience
of
being alive
- which is arguably one that's authentic and profoundly satisfying
(also not surprisingly so).
It's the latter that may be deemed to be a possible tenet of
transformation, when it's spoken like this: "For you to
discover
who you really are, transformation requires confronting
your own automaticity while living within a fully automatic
universe.".
May be? The inquiry is uniquely
personal,
yet that's as good a place as any to start.
This possible tenet of transformation, essentially
presents
an opportunity to relate to the automaticity newly, to own it, to
swim
in it, to be senior to it, in other
words
to
recontextualize
it (I
love
that
word
...). Without it, any expression we put out of being
free to be and free to
act
and / or of asserting our own free will for that matter
(which is a subject for another conversation on another occasion) is
just more automaticity / more inauthenticity - much like
the incessant yapping of
that dog who keeps trying
not to be a dog
(and
a dog trying not to be a
dog,
is still a dog, yes?).
You are a machine.
A machine trying not to be a machine, is still a machine.