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

Clear Choice

Topeka, Kansas, USA

October 18, 2011

"Understanding is the booby prize."  ... 
"Being clear isn't a matter of understanding what's not clear. Being clear is a matter of standing with  being clear." ... Laurence Platt
This essay, Clear Choice, is the companion piece to Integrity For Integrity's Sake.


I'm not interested in being the kind of clear which requires I attend a retreat to become it. I'm not interested in being the kind of clear which requires I practice and practice and practice penance before I get it. I'm not interested in being the kind of clear which insists I renounce the world and all the pleasures of the flesh so I'm not distracted from being it.

If I'm interested in being clear at all, I'm interested in being the kind of clear which is just ... well ... clear  ... plain, vanilla, common or garden simple clear, regardless of what's going on: big city commotion, mountain walk, driving on the freeway, sitting writing notes in a lecture, making breakfast, taking out the trash. I'm interested in being the kind of clear which doesn't require I take myself out of Life to be it. I'm interested in being the kind of clear which doesn't have to forgo aspects of Life to have it. I'm interested in being the kind of clear which isn't expected to add layers of effort and technique to my life in order to hasten it.

I assert it's counterproductive to have being clear as a goal to attain. Even worse, holding being clear as a state aspired  to is more than counterproductive: it's erroneous and outright off target. That's just my view of it. And speaking candidly and frankly, my view of it is most likely a minority opinion. That said, being clear is commonly talked about in a way which makes it sound like the finishing tape  at the end of a spiritual path's  road race, if you will. That's what's erroneous and off target: it isn't the finishing tape. It's the starting line.

If you inquire into it, if you consider the order  of things (and by "order" of things I don't mean their orderly-ness  - I mean the sequence in which they came about), you'll notice before there was anything, there was Self.

I'm not suggesting you agree with this. Neither do I intend to debate its validity with you. I'll ruin  it if I debate its validity with you. It's just not a point to debate. On the other hand, it's really  useful as an observation. It really does have merit - but only when it's a way of looking at your experience.

I want to tread carefully here. When I say it's not a point to debate, that's not because it can't  be debated or because you shouldn't  debate it. It's because it can't be gotten  by debating it. It won't be true-er  for you if I debate it's true, and I score more points than you who rebut it's not  true, and score fewer points than me. That's because this isn't an intellectual  concept. What it is is an idea  which is best appreciated by simply looking at your experience and noticing before there was anything, there was Self. Before you knew  anything, there was Self. Before you knew anything which confused you, in other words before you even knew confusion, there was Self. Before you knew things aren't clear, there was Self.

And Self, which was there before there was anything, is  clear - clear like a clearing for everything, clear like full of nothing.

Don't believe  it. Observe  it.

Looking at my experience and seeing who I am as the already clear Self, I'm confronted by my thrown-ness, by my automaticity  which drives me to get clear by trying to understand what's not clear  - instead of simply by ... just ... being ... clear.

<aside>

Yes it is totally futile, I know, but I do it anyway  ... at least some of the time: I'm a human being.

<un-aside>

It's in choosing to be clear, it's in inventing the possibility of being clear, it's in standing with  being clear, that I most get to know who I really am as a human being.


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