WHAT IF: MARTIN BUBER AND THE ELEMENTAL

What if you are feeling restless and anxious and frustrated when you awaken in the morning after a good night's sleep and,

What if you were able to look beyond those troublesome feelings from the world of screaming headlines and a sense of chaos and unpredictability and,

What if you then pushed all that aside and attempted to go about a day's tasks and to cross off of your to-do list some of the many items falling in an endless cascade and,

What if you met someone on your travels who offered you, in casual conversation, a different way to look out at the external world and also your internal world,

Would you take her or him up on the offer?

Of course, the picture I paint above is not hypothetical. It is a real experience people have all the time. It is what one can read in blogs and online commentary. And it is available between the lines of almost anything one can read and implied in how many people respond to the world. This is the world we confront daily. I am not certain it has always been so. There have certainly been many eras and epochs that have had their share of chaos and confusion, but few to match ours because now the stakes are so much higher. We have the capacity to obliterate all living things from the face of the planet. We all carry around technology in our pockets whose sophistication exceeds by leaps the computers used to put man on the moon. We are barraged in every conscious moment with stories of dreadful acts of human cruelty and pictures to accompany the stories. We cannot escape such data and information. We don't seem to have the wherewithal to filter or interpret all of it. It is no wonder that we are on the “edge” of our seats, physically and mentally. And spiritually, too, I think.

It is no small challenge to ferret out the good news and the stories of rescue, love, empathy, and compassion. Yet, the possibilities for good works abound. Even then, do we discount them? Are we still drawn to the most dramatic and desperate stories, the ones that show us in relief how incapable we are of showing accommodation and forgiveness? How do we find it within ourselves to meet the world as it unfolds and to step more lively into an attitude of joy and greater potential?

It has been the case in past times of turmoil and uncertainty that people seek some realm that is greatly separated from the drumming of the daily beat. In these times, there is a resurgence of interest in astrology (always a source of something upbeat for everyone), in Tarot readings, in interpretation of tea leaves, in expressions of mysticism, to name a few alternative reassurances. In our times, formal religion is not the go-to source of grounding. Many people have fled the dogmatic schemes of formal religion and call themselves “spiritual but not religious.” There is a trend to borrow pieces of many spiritual traditions. There is an emphasis on mindfulness as a spiritual pursuit, something that doesn't tie one down to any particular tradition or any tradition at all but affords some connections that assist in orienting to a different set of priorities.

What are we really talking about when we talk about reorienting? I think we are making a distinction between what our culture values: consumerism, individualism, success, striving, celebrity—and a different way of viewing the world in which ancient values are revived, interdependence is acknowledged, and mutuality is held in common as a public and personal ideal as well as a working philosophy. If one thinks these latter attributes are worth considering, then perhaps it might be possible to have within that system of thinking an ineffable spirit that acts in concert with us to make this world in which we live a more livable and kindhearted place. Perhaps this spiritual presence (is it too presumptuous to refer to it as God?) could provide us with a greater sense of comfort in the world and also a deeper and more comprehensive method for evaluating the contradictions and paradoxes and divisions that bedevil us. I don't believe that imagining God ties us to any dogma or religion. It is a way of designating that there is within all of us a basic goodness which we must work hard to uncover and explore, a basic element that isn't located in our genes but which is as close to us as life itself. If we assume that its presence is universally held, then how does that change how we see the world of individual striving? What does it mean to trade the demands of the ego for the service we might offer those who are less privileged?

It seems a mighty leap to think that a world of service and the abandonment of individual prerogatives and “rights” could be possible. I believe it is possible and I get some of my confidence from this little essay's leading character, Martin Buber (1878-1965). He was a Jewish scholar who wrote about Jewish themes, including those of contemporary Judaism as well as stories emerging from the traditions of the Hasidic community. He had an interest in mysticism and myth and explored as well concepts of evil, always careful to emphasize the concrete and the useful. The work for which he was most known was a book titled I and Thou. I approach this book from the point of someone who recognizes and agonizes over how the world events unfold in ways that sometimes underscore humans' worst instincts and behavior to one another. Buber writes that it is just in this background of reactive and defensive meanspiritedness and harshness that we discover our relationships with spirit and with one another, his designated I/Thou interactions. He contrasts his I/Thou (Buber considered I/Thou as one word) formulation with an I/It attitude. The I/It relationships created subjects and objects and dualities that created gaps, each gap a space in which evil could intrude. The I/Thou relationship applies to our relationship with spirit as much as it does one person's relationship with another. It applies as well to an individual's relationship to the planet and all things and beings. We shift from an I/It mode to an I/Thou mode when we extend ourselves into a relationship.

Buber transitioned in his own life from believing that one's relationship with spirit was a subject/object one in which man was defined by the distance that separated him/her from however spirit operated in the world of mankind. But his mature understanding brought spirit into the marrow of human life and into the physical marrow of each person's bodily cellular mechanics. For him, there was no way to separate spirit from body or mind and to know spirit for its power and energy was to be in relationship with others. He recognized that there was often an oscillation between the I/Thou and the I/It relationship but that the good work of spirit was to be rediscovered at each day's new beginning. Neuroscience now has shown that there are at least two modes of conscious processing. One is egocentric (self referential) and the other is allocentric, where allo- refers to “other.” We tend to move back and forth between the two modes all the time and it is believed that meditation and the training of attention can enable us to exercise one over the other. In the case of the egocentric mode, we tend to concentrate our attention on some aspect of personal reference. In allocentric processing, we focus more on an expansive and receptive mode of attention where we leave the concerns of the ego behind and become more aware of the presence of others. It is in this mode that one might realize more of the energy and power of spirit as it strives for mutually reinforcing relationships. Buber's formulations include not only one's relationship with spirit, but also with those relationships that give our lives enduring meaning outside our own personal frames of reference. He emphasizes the element of reciprocity that shapes not only spirit but also the one being inspirited. Here is Buber:

“The aim of relation is relation's own being, that is, contact with the Thou. For through contact with every Thou we are stirred with a breath of the Thou, that is, of eternal life. He who takes his stand in relation shares in a reality, that is, in a being that neither merely belongs to him nor merely lies outside him. All reality is an activity in which I share without being able to appropriate for myself. Where there is no sharing there is no reality. Where there is self-appropriation there is no reality. The more direct the contact with the Thou, the fuller is the sharing.”

The neuroscience connection is not prophetic, but Buber's 1923 book was in its own way. He brought spirit back into humankind's daily life and at the same time developed the idea of dialogue, a way of thinking about how humans might define and shape what was most meaningful in their lives. And, just maybe, those meaningful aspects could be shared among us. One of the most insidious but persistent concerns humans have is what to do about what appears to be evil. This was one of Buber's concerns as well. Because his mode of thinking placed all human concerns and motivations within the self, that included evil acts, too. Evil was not assigned to some entity separate from human existential experience. There was no Satan that stood at some threatening distance from the vulnerable self. It is a difficult task, indeed, to consider that one's own character make-up contains all evil tendencies, but the “real” world is all that we can see and experience and so evil must be lurking there also. That might be considered the “bad news” about evil, but it is also “good news” because it means that what is evil can conceivably be redeemed. Buber believed that evil was formed in the gap that is created between an I/It reference and that of I/Thou. If the dialogue established that gives life to I/Thou relationships isn't transformed and remains an I/It orientation, then evil is given an opportunity to flourish. It is only in our ability to establish I/Thou relationships that we are able to manifest the best human values of kindness, care, compassion, and love.

So, what does all this come to? I believe that Buber is showing us a different way to think about what makes human life on planet earth meaningful in ways that promote the life of spirit. In doing so, he offers a format, a different way of thinking, for meeting all the infinite details of our complicated lives. He emphasizes the wholeness of life that incorporates (literally to unite in one body) body, mind, and spirit. Neuroscience in our times has pulled back the veil of mystery from some aspects of cognition and has opened a landscape that links all aspects of a whole life. Buber didn't have this scientific knowledge but his perceptions of wholeness were prophetic. But to this day we still must work hard at cultivating I/Thou relationships and narrowing the gap that allows evil to enter. To the extent that we are able to enter into I/Thou relationships is the extent that evil will be forced back into the dark ages of our defensive and reactive past. Is this not a useful pursuit? Do we not want for everyone what we want for ourselves? Should we not offer to share what we hold dear to those whose lives might be motivated by evil or be burdened by travail and suffering in one way or another? How can we help one another? Let us consider the dialogue Buber offers. Isn't this way of thinking elemental and the origin of mutuality for sharing respect and accommodation? And don't we always entertain hopes of sharing love and compassion?