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

Eyes Wide Om-pen

Spring Hill, Napa Valley, California, USA

January 15, 2011


"For me this is a practical matter. Instead of having the answer about God like some guy or some thing or some explanation or some anything, I have a space of possibility like an openness, like a place for God to show up in my life."
...   speaking with Reverend Terry Cole-Whittaker about God, in a seminar, circa 1975 AD 
"I am the father of this universe, the mother, the support, and the grandsire. I am the object of knowledge, the purifier, and the syllable 'Om'."
... Lord Krishna speaking with Arjuna about himself, in the Bhagavad Gita, circa 1500 BC
This essay, Eyes Wide Om-pen, is the fourth in a quadrilogy inspired by Werner's work in India:
  1. Werner Erhard Slide Experience
  2. Lucid Disclosures
  3. A Man Is The Crowd
  4. Eyes Wide Om-pen
in that order.

Werner Erhard recontextualized  enlightenment during his recent tour de force  in India. In bringing recontextualized enlightenment to India, Werner acknowledges India as the source of the practice of enlightenment. The practice of enlightenment ie the path  of (or to)  enlightenment has various disciplines, of which meditation  is integral to many.

Traditionally meditation is performed sitting with eyes closed, silently chanting a mantra  like ... "Om"  ... "Om"  ... "Om"  ...

I've meditated this way. I still do - from time to time. It's the great and gracious way of the yogi. Now there's a new possibility  for meditation. Not a better  way. Not even another  way. If it were another  way, it would just be a different  way. And a different way isn't a new way. No, this is a new possibility  for meditation

<aside>

It's also a new possibility for prayer. More about this later.

<un-aside>

Living, handling the circumstances and predicaments and situations coming at me ie handling the real  world, is handling the world out there  - not in here. Living in the real world doesn't go well with closed eyes. You may be able to get by tying your shoelaces with closed eyes. Just don't try driving your car down Main Street USA  with closed eyes. Nor is living forwarded by remaining immobile.

So it occurs to me a new possibility for meditation could be to meditate with my eyes wide open. It occurs to me meditation could be performed with my eyes wide open while I do whatever I do  in the real world.

What does it mean  to meditate with my eyes wide open while I do whatever I do in the real world?

If meditation is performed with my eyes wide open while I do whatever I do in the real world, wouldn't that be ... well ... exactly  what I do when I live my life?  Wouldn't that be  my life? The purpose of meditation, it's been said, is to become fully integrated in Life. To fulfill this purpose, the most pragmatic (and enlightened)  practice of meditation would be to keep my eyes wide open while I do whatever it is I do in Life. Doesn't this imply this most pragmatic and enlightened practice of meditation is living my life and fully participating in Life, which is to say being fully integrated in Life?  Since this has the same intention as sitting with my eyes closed chanting "Om", doesn't this new possibility for meditation also fulfill the great and gracious way of the yogi?

On prayer:

If prayer  is defined as being in a loving conversation with God, and if God loves me and wants me to be fulfilled and have abundance and be happy, isn't living my life and fully participating in Life, the fulfillment of prayer? Isn't this also the fulfillment of God loving me, and me loving God? Isn't the mere fact I'm alive  the fulfillment of God loving me? So isn't me living my life and fully participating in Life ie isn't me living my God-given gift  the fulfillment of me loving God? Isn't this what prayer is? I mean, really? Yes. Really.

Transformation isn't a function of meditation. Neither is it a function of prayer. Transformation is the context for a new possibility  for both meditation and prayer. Transformation is a function of generating the experience of who I really am  for myself. In this context, what shows up is who the meditator  really is ("Om"  is optional) as who I really am. In this context, what shows up is who the pray-er really is as who I really am. It's who the meditator really is, it's who the pray-er really is, it's who I really am who creates the space for God to show up in my life.

Consider this (not like it's "the truth"  - rather like it's something to try on for size):  contrary to the widely held belief that both require closed eyes and / or sitting or kneeling, when I really  live my life with my eyes wide open while participating fully  in Life, I'm deeply honoring and truly fulfilling the intentions of both meditation and prayer.


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