I am indebted to Evan Hough and to Josh LeGassick and to
Jerome Downes
and to Randy Loftin who inspired this conversation, and to Victoria
Hamilton-Rivers and to
Jerome Downes
who contributed material.
Many things about who human being really is are contentious. That's
actually a lot closer to the truth than it sounds.
When I set aside the conceptual
machinery
and look at the
context
of my experience, what I see is my
Self.
When I am alone, when I am by my
Self,
I get that when each human being sets aside the conceptual
machinery
and looks at the
context
of their experience, what they see is their
Self.
One of the most contentious things about human beings, regardless of
philosophical, political, or religious affiliation (particularly
regardless of religious affiliation), is when we each see our
Self,
the
Self
we each see is the same
Self,
which is the same
Self
as my
Self.
Indeed,
Self
is all there is.
I'm not saying that in order to be contentious. Neither am I saying it
as a matter of positionality nor to be righteous nor to have something
to believe in - I, for one, don't believe in belief. I say it as a
place to
stand.
I say it as a space in which to
create,
an opening in which the truth can
show up
and go to work (as
Werner Erhard
may have said).
When
Werner
first introduced me to
transformation,
years of my so-called searching came to an abrupt end. What
Werner
showed me was so
blindingly simple,
so
completely
obvious that I wondered
how come
I had not seen it before on my own. What I got was my
Self
ie theSelf
... and the possibilty of generating life rather than being run by it.
Some years later I revised how I was holding another of
Werner's
distinctions. I saw I was mistaking what I am for
who I am.
I assert that
mastering
this distinction (what we are, distinct from
who we are)
designates when a human being has truly grown up ie when all so-called
searching is over, when
the train has arrived in the
station,
when "This Is It!" is the platform for living.
The distinction "what I am" as opposed to
"who I am"
is this:
What I am is the
context
for my life, the opening in which the events of my life occur, the
Self
I am, the
Self
you are, the
Self
we all are, the
Self
which is all there is.
Who I am,
on the other hand, is
constituted in language.
We are human beings - who-man beings (if you will)
- because of
who we are
(and
who we are
is
constituted in language)
not because of what we are. All other sentient beings and
everything else that doesn't
speak,
shares with us what we are but not
who we are.
In an earlier health conscious time it was said
who I am
is what I eat. In a later wealth conscious time it was said
who I am
is what I wear. Instead I would like to consider a new possibility,
whether understood or not, that
who I am
is what I
speak.
The source of all possibilities is at the confluence of
what we are and
who we are.
What we are, the
Self,
is whole and
complete.
There is
nothing to do
and there is
nothing to fix.
Who we are
is we
speak
(not even what we
speak:
just
who we are
is we
speak
- like that). That being the case, let it be that whatever we
speak
is worthy of Life. Let it be that whatever we
speakgenerates life. Bearing in mind that given everything is
already whole and
complete,
mastery
is generating possibilities worthy
of Life simply by
speaking
them into being rather than
speaking
in terms of
fixing
things.
Tell the truth: wouldn't it be great to observe
transformation
everywhere in
the world?
That's not a political platform for votes (and if it were, I suspect it
could inhibit
transformation).
Rather, what it says is it's always inspiring to observe
transformation
emerge anywhere in
the world
where at one time it wasn't.