Life is Transformative

Werner's view of life as a rollercoaster really rings true with me. You can get in the front and center seat and really enjoy the ride. Or you can resist being on the ride, in which case you're dragged along behind the car kicking and screaming. Getting off is not an option.

Lately as a discipline I've imposed on myself, I've been noticing what happens when I resist life. I've been noticing what happens when I resist being on the ride. I've noticed I resist in one of three situations:

1. I resist when I'm losing rather than when I'm winning.

Computers changed my life.

By that I don't mean they made me a better person. I don't even mean they gave me better tools to do my job. Frankly I got just as much done in a work day in 1969 as I get done in 2007. Thirty eight years later there's still only twenty four hours in a day. From time to time, with or without computers, then and now, I complain I don't have enough time in a day to get my work done.

Recently I had the distinct pleasure and privilege of having conversations with a minister from the United Church of Christ, a student of the Bible and an adherent of the word of Jesus Christ, and then with a devout Muslim, a student of the Koran and an adherent of the word of Mohammed, later with an orthodox Jew, a student of the Torah and an adherent of the word of Moses, then with a practicing Hatha Yogi, a student of the Vedas and an adherent of the word of BKS Iyengar. All four, it turned out, were also graduates of Werner's work.

Werner's space, as his friends will tell you, is as much a physical place as it is a context, a way of being. Alternatively spoken with another degree of rigor, it's the result  - almost magical - of a particular way of being. Not everyone is going to have access to the physical place. That's to be expected. Not everyone is going to have access to my physical place either. But that doesn't imply any exclusivity. It's simply the way the dice roll in our associations with one another. Everyone, on the other hand, has equal and unrestricted access to the context, to the way of being.

It's ironic. When you hit the wall which thwarts your intentions, you should be able to call for relief. You ought to be able to get some support, some respite. You ought to even be able to get what we would have called a long time ago some help and understanding and therefore some compassion. At least your goodness should be rewarded. It should earn points.

Woulda ... coulda ... shoulda ...

A new movie has come out about Werner Erhard called:

Transformation: The Life & Legacy of Werner Erhard

Almost forgotten culture icon and founder of the controversial est seminar pulls back the curtain on his life, his ideas and why he left the country.

"An untransformed life is not worth living." ... Werner Erhard

You can have more. You can do better. You can be different.

If you must.

There's nothing wrong with any of that. We all do it. We all want to.

The question is: when do we get satisfaction? After we get more? After we've done better? After we're different?

Or is it prior to all that?

Is satisfaction the result of getting more? Is it the result of doing better? Is it the result of being different?

Or could it be it (as Alan Watts may have said) goeswith all that?

Examining and discovering what allows for us being satisfied prior to (and thus carried into) any and all of life's avenues is the only game in town. It's a game in sharp contrast to any of the other games people play. In all other games, when the game ends it ends. This game never ends. In all other games there's winners and there's losers. In this game there's only winners. In all other games there's players and there's spectators. In this game there's only players, and everyone's on the same team.

She came to me late one night, this angel of light and love and bubbling laughter. If she hadn't come I would have been OK without her. But she did come, and when she looked at me for that first time, I melted realizing I was born to love her forever.

There's no qualifying a love like this. It's simply there. It doesn't occur as a condition for anything. It's mutual. It's reciprocal. There's never a question of or a concern for it being unrequited. It will never go away. It will only expand. Sometimes it's almost too much to be fully open to.

There's no manipulation required to keep it in place. There's no games required to redirect it or to improve it. It's enough in and of itself to validate entire lives. It sets the bar for what's possible in all relationships, and it's huge enough to provide a context for everything that a human being will ever do on Earth.

"Earth's the right place for love. I don't know where it's likely to go better." ... Robert Lee Frost

I'm glad I came. I like it here. I can't think of a better planet to live life on. So I'm taking off my hat and overcoat. I'll stay a while. When my time here is done I'll go somewhere else. There are so many places in the universe to visit. It'll take a while but I've got eternity. I've got all the time in the world. Actually I've got all the time in all the worlds.

There are so many things I'd like to do while I'm here. I'd like to visit the island nations. I've heard the snorkeling is pristine, the coral reefs breathtaking. That's the thing about this place: the beauty - if you have an eye open to it - is inspired. Other places I've traveled through across the universe are harsh, dry, severe, cold, or hostile. Whoever set the coral reefs in place here clearly made a statement saying: "I love you with everything I got. When I made these reefs I knew you would find them some day. They're my calling card to you. Experience my love as you swim in wonder around them.".

"Ding dong bell, pussy's in the well." ... Mother Goose

Ding

How do you describe being free?

Not in a political sense. Nor in a financial sense. Not even in a just got out of jail sense, although admittedly the latter does come close to what I intend to have this conversation bring forth.

What I'm referring to here is being free like a clearing. Being free like an opening. Being free and standing free like a wheat field rippled by the tyranny of the mind without forfeiting integrity to it. I'm not referring to a widely misunderstood yogic purpose to silence the mind. I'm referring to being who we really are: the space of anything's possible, the space of the possibility of possibility itself. The mind is a component of all of it, just like an arm or a leg or a nose. Silencing the mind is about as futile as cutting off your nose to silence odors: it only spites your face.