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
On Never Having Left
American Canyon, California, USA
September 9, 2015
"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started and
know the place for the
first time."
... Thomas Stearns "TS" Eliot, Four Quartets #4: Little
Gidding, circa 1942
"At the end of all my exploring, I discover I never left where I
started in the first place."
... Laurence Platt
This essay,
On Never Having Left,
is the companion piece to
Ordinary People.
Now if there's anything that
truly
epitomizes what
"counter-intuitive" implies, it's this: given the way
the world
occurs for us ie given the way we occur for ourselves, the
assertion that both
the world
and we as individuals are, always were, and always will be
whole and complete,
is counter-intuitive. Indeed,
given the way
the world
occurs for us ie given the way we occur for ourselves, the assertion
that both
the world
and we as individuals have, always had, and always will have even the
possibility of being
whole and complete,
is counter-intuitive.
Having said that: as far as I can recall, the first time I
experienced it's
whole and complete
(which was also the first time I experienced I'm
whole and complete)
I didn't want it to end. It was more than that actually. It was when I
got it,
I expected it to last forever. But it did end - or, to say it
more experientially, one day I noticed it was gone. Then later I
got it
again, assuming this time I
got it
for keeps ie this time it would last permanently. But then that
experience was gone too. And then I
got it
again.
Got it,
gone,
got it
again, gone again,
got it
again, over and over and over.
I'm
clear
now (I suppose you could say I've grown up and I'm wiser now - and by
that, all I mean is I'm street wiser now) that there's no
one
moment
when we
get it
permanently forever without it ever going away again. What's closer to
actuality is we
get it,
then it's gone, then we
get it
again, then it's gone again, and then we
get it
again. Just as soon as we notice it's gone, we
get it
again ... and that's the way it
happens,
over and over and over. So it's really not thatmoment
(like there's only one) which is the
gamechanger:
it's thosemoments
(plural) which are the
gamechangers.
If we don't realize that this is really the way it
happens
in actuality
(got it,
gone,
got it
again, gone again,
got it
again, over and over and over), we're subject to the fabulous
illusion
ie to the preciousillusion
that we're
getting
somewhere ie that we're progressing, that we're on a
journey toward
getting it
permanently
someday.
We call this journey a spiritual journey. Yet if you stop
for a moment and
consider
that assumption, you'll notice it totally misrepresents the spirit,
doesn't it? The spirit is already
whole and complete,
and always was and always will be
whole and complete,
yes? It's more than that. It's in order to to go on a journey, we have
to depart from somewhere and then arrive somewhere else. But this has
always been
whole and complete,
and this always will be
whole and complete.
So it's not necessary to go on a journey in order to arrive here. We're
already here. We always were here.
Listen:
we never left in the first place. Gee! I hope you
get
that. Please say you do.
If you
get
we never left in the first place, if you
get
we always were here, if you
get
it's not necessary to go on a journey in order to arrive here, if you
drop all the significance-adding and all the
meaning-making and just be here with whatever's
going on, that's
transformation.
When I
play
the
game
coming from
transformation
ie when I
play
the
game
coming from never having left, I'm here (that is to say I'm
still here, I'm always here) living fully,
whole and complete
for the rest of my life.