So if you're on the
Golden Gate Bridge,
you may or may not experience
transformation.
As Werner says, there's nothing significant about being on the
Golden Gate Bridge.
As magnificent as it is, as magical as it is, there's
nothing special about the
Golden Gate Bridge,
the crossing of which will render an untransformed human being
transformed.
No, Werner's transformation isn't a function of his location.
Rather it's the result of his inquiry lasting years and
years and years into the nature of what it is to be a
human being. Said as a question, his inquiry is "What's the possibility
of being for human beings?". His inquiry finally played
itself out exactly where he happened to be at the time: on the
Golden Gate Bridge.
Yet he could just as easily have been in the Grand Canyon or on the
Florida Keys or at the Bronx Zoo. That is to say, he could have been
anywhere at the time his inquiry finally played itself
out. And when it finally did play itself out, he was (no surprise here)
wherever he happened to be.
Having said that, having underlined the complete absence of
significance, I've always thought it's the perfect analogy: that the
first really accessible, the first really share-able, the first really
get-able occurrence of
transformation
on
the planetshowed up
on a bridge - on a bridge which links two erstwhile
unconnected sides, on a bridge which brings together
people and traffic each heading where the others are coming
from, on a bridge which spans a beautiful space, the
crossing of which makes available and accessible its awe, its wonder,
and its magnificence as an immediate first
handdirect experience
rather than simply as a photograph or as a movie or as a
concept or even just as a good idea.
But it's more than that, actually. It's even more subtle. It's even
more profound. The experience of
transformation
bridges the gap between people. When I'm
transformed,
I know myself as
who I really am
- which is to say I know myself as theSelf.
When you're
transformed,
you know yourself as
who you really are
- which is to say you know yourself as theSelf.
Transformation,
it could be said, is the
Self
knowing itsSelf
as theSelf.
There's no shorter distance between
two human beings
than this.
Transformation
is quite literally the possibility of the shortest distance between
two people. And since
transformation
is the possibility of the shortest distance between two people,
transformation
is therefore the possibility of the shortest distance between
people. Period.
Gee! I hope you get this ...
We live in an exciting time. But when I say we live in "an exciting
time" I'm not referring to the stürm und drang, I'm not
referring to the snot and tears, I'm not referring to the tale told
by an idiot, full of
sound and
fury,
signifying nothing (as
William Shakespeare
may have said) which constantly bombards us vying for our attention day
after day after day as the
soap opera
of how the world is turning. No, the exciting time I'm referring to is
the possibility available right here and right now of
transformationpresencing
its
Self
as theSelf.
This possibility is the opportunity we share. To avail ourselves of
it doesn't require going anywhere. It's
You.
It's
I.
And it's found by traversing the shortest distance between us,
the shortest distance across this beautiful space, the crossing
of which makes available and accessible its awe, its wonder, and its
magnificence as an immediate first handdirect experience.
As I said, anyone can cross the
Golden Gate Bridge.
But that won't necessarily ensure an untransformed human being becomes
transformed
on it unless the inquiry into "What's the possibility of
being for human beings?" just so happens to play itself
out right there, in which case (you can count on it)
transformation
will
show up
right there as the possibility of the shortest distance between two
people.