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 Value In Afghanistan
San Ramon, California, USA
November 4, 2001
What can we learn from what is now taking place in Afghanistan?
I am not asking that we take this side or take that side. I am not
suggesting that one side is right and the other side is wrong. And I am
certainly not proposing a new set of beliefs to replace our tired, worn
out, old beliefs. I don't believe in belief.
Yet there is actually a huge opportunity in what is happening in
Afghanistan. It is the opportunity to be enlightened, and there is no
bigger opportunity than that - anywhere, anytime.
Enlightenment, it is said, is knowing the difference between who you
really are, and the incessant chattering of the mind. It is not
stopping the incessant chattering of the mind. Rather, it is being able
to distinguish between the incessant chattering of the mind, and who
you really are.
When things are big, they are easier to distinguish. With all that is
going on in Afghanistan, the incessant chattering of the mind is very,
very loud and very, very distracting and very, very big, and there
never was a better opportunity than now to distinguish "That is just
the incessant chattering of my mind ..." as opposed to "... and THIS
is who I really am!".
If you tell the truth about it, you are not doing any original thinking
about it all. You are, quite literally, just going off. And whatever
your own particular slant on the outcome of it is, I will bet you that
it comes in one or another form of this question:
"Will we survive?".
That is your mind. If you watch it carefully, you will see that it is
on automatic, the reaction
machine
that it is.
Who you really are is the space in which all of that occurs. And if any
difference is going to be made, from that space comes the power to make
a profound difference.