My gurus
do not have to be
angels.
It's OK with me that
the people I learn from,
are
human.
I'm more
interested
in their being
authentic
than I am in their never making mistakes. Should they drink, or smoke,
or overtly display emotion? If I eliminated everyone who drank, smoked,
or overtly displayed emotion from
the list of people I've
allowed to teach me,
no one would be left. Really! Besides which, isn't "overtly displaying
emotion" an
interpretation
on my part, rather than something they are - like a fact? Ultimately,
it's the experience I get from them / the experience they leave me
with, from which I'll judge them.
Books have been written which decry the motive of
Werner's work,
even in the face of dozens more sharing its value. If that's unsettling
for you, isn't that just how it is with
people?
Aren't some
people
just thrown to share the value they get from experiences they've had?
Aren't others thrown to get value by re-inventing themselves as
virulent critics? Such critics may last a week ... or a month. They may
last a year if they're lucky. I've got the space for them to share what
they have to say, whatever that may be. The fact that it's about
Werner's work
has got nothing to do with it.
Werner's work
has endured nearly sixty years, and counting - a good track record. But
I'm not asking you to
vote.
Participate
like you're invited into our living room because there's value for you
here. When there's no longer value for you, stop
participating.
You're free to leave any time you want, and you're welcome to return
any time you like.
It's wishful thinking to expect 100% of
people
to have a convivial take on any one thing. Hostility is built into
human nature.
The way to handle hostility is to get it, and to give it lots of space.
In a
transformed conversation,
one of the first casualties of
rigor,
is "being nice". Transformation releases a lot of
the baggage
we've carried around for years. When it gets released, it can be very
off-putting. But that's quite natural. It's even to be expected. It
takes a
big person
to be transformed. Any expressed hostility isn't anything to shy from.
It's actually proof the process is working. The process of being real,
allowing yourself to be
rigorous
/
straight
with the way you've become OK with your always skepticism of
the world,
then letting that skepticism go, isn't for
sissies.
Other hostile assessments come from an even subtler place which, upon
closer scrutiny, become obvious. For example, it may not even be
Werner's workper se toward which hostility is directed. Most hostility
may not be an expression of antagonism towards
Werner's work,
even though it may look like that.
People
expressing hostility towards
Werner's work
may simply be going through the natural process of getting complete
with their father and / or getting complete with the men in their
lives, through their expression about
Werner.
That's actually a sublime gift, one which may not be obvious until it
unfolds.
If all of the above isn't enough of an exposé to create some
space for what you perceive as others' hostile assessments of
Werner's work,
there are two tenets from
the world
of martial arts which I find useful to re-visit from time to time,
especially when I overhear others' hostile assessments. They are:
1) don't BE where the blow is struck;
2)
the moment
you rise to meet the attack, the battle is lost.
