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




The Complete Presentation

Silver Oak Cellars, Oakville, California, USA

May 31, 2014



This essay, The Complete Presentation, is the seventeenth in the complete group of Experiences Of A Friend (click here for the open group Experiences Of A Friend II):
  1. Stepping Back
  2. At Home As Self
  3. Empty Windows
  4. Futile Like A Freedom
  5. Shut Up And Do What You're Doing
  6. Werner As Intention
  7. Who He Is For Himself
  8. Source Quote
  9. Puzzle Solved, Mind Unraveled
  10. Eye To Eye
  11. Mystical Connection II
  12. Relentless
  13. Being Around Werner
  14. Being Always In Action
  15. Shaken Up And Teary
  16. On Being Sad
  17. The Complete Presentation
  18. Force Of Nature
  19. Everyone's In Love With Everyone
  20. I'm Old School
  21. Werner At The Speed Of Choice
  22. I Get Who You Are From What They Do
  23. The Significance - Not What Happened
  24. You Know I Love You - And I Know You Love Me
  25. Speaking To People's Relationship With Werner
  26. A Master At Being (And Having People Be)
  27. Werner As Source
  28. A Man Who's All There
  29. My Heart And You
  30. Mind Control
  31. Again And Again And Again And Again And Again And Again
  32. Unwavering
  33. The Leadership Course III: Pillar Of The Community
  34. American Genius
  35. Legacy II
so far, in that order.

It is also the fifth in an octology on Completion:


Photograph courtesy Bill Jersey

1983
Werner Erhard with Friends: a Master at work
Whenever a conversation turns to transformation, there's a certain quality, a certain elevation  (if you will) which becomes possible when everyone's on the same page. Speaking transformation in such groups can then become the baseline, a platform  on which to stand and develop openings, possibility, and freedom. It's more than that actually. It's transformation is the essential  basis for developing possibility.

Without transformation, I'd like you to consider real possibility isn't possible. Instead, all that's possible is changing things, adding to existing situations, or taking things away. It's a huge challenge to speak transformation when it isn't already present, when the entire group isn't already enrolled. But when the entire group is already enrolled, speaking transformation can be akin to preaching to the choir.

"Preaching to the choir" is an expression for speaking to ie for enrolling people who are already enrolled. When enrollment is no longer required, let the good times roll!

One requirement when speaking transformation in a space of no  transformation is dealing with the inevitable resistance to transformation. And the thing about resistance to transformation is while it shows up as personal, it's never personal.

It takes a certain speaking and listening to create space for the resistance, to have a conversation for transformation which takes the resistance into account and even expects  it, lets it be ie allows for it yet isn't sidelined by it. It takes a certain speaking and listening transformation in the face of resistance to have the resistance disappear by itself  in the face of what's possible. It takes a certain speaking and listening transformation in the face of resistance to not be drawn in to meeting the resistance like an attack. The advantage is lost the moment you're drawn in to meeting the resistance like an attack.

One particular kind of resistance to transformation is intellectual  resistance. Intellectual resistance can show up as philosophically debating against  the possibility of transformation. It's a common defense. It's a defense which attempts to trump transformation with intelligence. It's the same defense which is often deployed against new ideas when they're presented. However, when you're speaking and listening transformation, there's nothing to be gained by getting drawn into the debate, con or pro. There's no point in attempting to out-philosophize  the resistance. It simply doesn't work. The philosophical debate when deployed against transformation, is a defense. Getting drawn into debating the defense reinforces the defense.

While philosophy in its purest form may indeed point to transformation, philosophy itself isn't transformation. It requires a certain willingness, a certain relentlessness to pursue a philosophical debate beyond the point of clever intellectualization, all the way to the edge of the realm of transformation ie all the way to the edge of the experience  of transformation and then to stop there. Across the line in the world of authentic, living, thrilling transformation, clever philosophical debate doesn't hold much currency. Really  it doesn't. To facilitate the experience of transformation, clever philosophical debate is best left at the door upon entering the world of transformation. Don't worry: it'll be safe. It won't get lost. You can always pick it up there again just where you left it when you leave.

Speaking transformation successfully (which is to say speaking transformation so it becomes available to others, so they're enrolled by it, so they're empowered to develop a 24 / 7 / 365  listening for it) calls for keeping who we really are present. That's the whole idea, really. And you can't bring who we really are into being by debating it into being. The philosophical debate at best only points to and at worse only paces around  who we really are. The way who we really are is proven ie the way it's evidenced  (if you will) - which is to say the way who we really are is brought into being - is by being present. It's that simple. Any philosopher being who he really is ie a philosopher who's present, conveys it all in his way of being - at which point his debate becomes merely of secondary importance.

That's transformation. And incidentally, it's the complete presentation  of transformation which befriends and honors and serves the philosophical debate.



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