Welcome to the Spiritual Journey site. Postings I do on this site will complement a course I am teaching, but also provide information of general interest to anyone reading the texts commented on here: Martin Buber's I and Thou, Black Elk's The Sacred Pipe, Thich Nhat Hahn's Being Peace, and Sallie McFague's Super, Natural Christians.
You will also find discussions of classical spiritual autobiographies later on. Enjoy!
Class Calendar - Please check each week; subject to change.
August 27 - Week 1 - Introduction -- view and discuss The Still Small Voice. What is “spirituality"? Class expectations, ground rules, etc.
Sep 3 - Week 2 - Martin Buber I and Thou intro, pp. 20-48 (optional, but helpful) and Web assignment (required). Read ahead a bit in the Buber text if you can!
Sep 10 - Week 3 - I and Thou, pp. 49-122.
Sep 17 - Week 4 - I and Thou, pp. 123-182.
Sep 24 - Week 5 - Read through chapter 4 (p. 66) of The Sacred Pipe; Web assignment.
Oct 1 - Week 6 - Complete The Sacred Pipe.
Oct 8 - Week 7 - handouts/Web assignments on psychological theories and models related to mysticism (William James, C. G. Jung, Marion Woodman, others).
Oct 15 - Week 8 - Being Peace, through chapter 3. Also “I Do Not Rehearse My Anger: The Teachings of Sister Chan Khong", from The Bond Between Women, by China Galland. Begin reading spiritual classic. Turn in journal pages Week 8 through this reading.
Oct 22 - Week 9 - Being Peace, to end of book. Continue reading spiritual classic. Comparison of approaches of Thich Nhat Hanh and Sister Chan Khong. Meditation experience in class. Check in with group for spiritual classic project.
Oct 29 - Week 10 - Continue reading spiritual classic. Also excerpts from Religious Experience and Journal of Mrs. Jarena Lee, an African-American preacher in the early 19th Century. Paper #1 (Spiritual Autobiography) due. Choose books for Paper #2.
Nov 5 - Week 11 - Finish reading spiritual classic by beginning of class; prepare for group presentations in class. Discussion of Christian spirituality in early centuries of the Christian era. Video: Sr. Wendy interview with Bill Moyers.
Nov 12 - Week 12 - DO GROUP PRESENTATIONS IN CLASS. Begin reading for Paper #2; preview Sallie McFague’s book.
Nov 19 - Week 13 - McFague Chapters Intro through chapter 3 (read these chapters completely using reading notes supplied on Web)
Nov 26 – THANKSGIVING - use the break to read McFague and your selection for the final project.
Dec 3 – Week 14 - McFague to end of book (selected sections). Hand in completed reading journal – include reflection on McFague and spiritual classic.
Dec 10 - Week 15 - Paper presentations due in class; E-mail instructor 1-page summary/review of book for class distribution via Web site prior to class time; Hand in printed copy of Paper #2 in class.
The Spiritual Journey – Reading/Discussion Journal Assignment
The purpose of keeping a journal is to help you reflect personally on the concepts and issues we will be reading about and discussing in class. It will require between 30-60 minutes each week. I will collect your journal pages twice as indicated on the syllabus; the second time, hand in the entire journal. Full credit (100 points possible) will be given for journals where you have clearly done the required amount of time writing each week and have responded thoughtfully to the questions; partial credit will be awarded where you have skipped weeks or have clearly failed to spend enough time writing, or have failed to respond thoughtfully to the questions. There are no "right" or "wrong" answers - just answers that show engagement with the reading or lack of engagement with the reading.
Here are some quotes to help you envision what the journal is all about:
• "A. . . journal can be a documentary of. . . . academic. . . . growth, a record of evolving insight as well as a tool used to gain insight."
• ". . . . journals exist somewhere on a continuum between diaries and class notebooks: whereas diaries are records of personal thought and experience, class notebooks are records of other people's facts and ideas. Like a diary, the journal is written in the first person (that is "I. . . ."); like the class notebook, the journal focuses on academic subjects the writer would like to learn more about." Fulwiler's Journals Across the Disciplines
Keeping a journal is intended to help you:
- reflect on, clarify, question, and respond to class readings and discussions
- understand these concepts and issues in light of your own life experience
- raise general questions about spirituality which might add to our classroom discussion.
How to Begin
1. Get a notebook, preferably a three-ring binder. I prefer loose leaf paper or typewritten pages, as it makes handing in your pages easier (and you keep the notebook for further writing). You can also use the binder to organize your class materials. This way, you can also remove or clip together pages that you don't choose to share with me. Please date your entries. Typewritten journals are fine, but the journal can be handwritten too. But please leave ample space in the margins for my comments, as I see the journal as a dialogue between you and me.
2. At least twice each week, spend at least 15 minutes writing in your journal (so, 30-60 minutes per week total). You may write about your reactions to concepts and issues we discussed in class, to the videotapes presented in class, or to class readings or assignments, but don’t use the journal as a place to do reading notes or respond to reading/study questions. (You may want to keep a separate place in your notebook for reading notes.) For the journal assignment, you should put aside the texts and write your personal response to the reading. You may also wish to reflect on events happening in your life or in the public realm that connect to class discussion and readings. However, this is not a diary about your personal life as such.
3. Your comments can be connected to your own experience, but they should relate to things we are working on in the class. The primary focus should be on the course reading, and responding to the reading response questions.
4. Please write legibly and clearly. I won't be evaluating your mechanics of your writing in the journal (though these will be more important in your final project), but clear writing does communicate your thoughts better than garbled or "stream of consciousness" writing.
5. Please conform to the rules governing good usage of quoted material. Don't write down information from a text without using quotes and giving a page number. If you are paraphrasing ideas from the text, you need to mention this informally (as in, "Buber describes. . . . , Black Elk suggests that. . . .), rather than having it be ambiguous as to whether this is your thought or a thought from the reading. (In a more formal paper, you would need to add a footnote for paraphrases as well.) Even though this is not formal research paper writing, please note that if any of the language, even partial sentences, come directly from a text or internet site, this language must be in quotations and cited appropriately. Be sure that you give yourself enough time to do the reading journal, so that you are not tempted to cut corners with your writing. Again, 30-60 minutes of writing each week should be sufficient to do well with this assignment.
If you are struggling with how to do this sort of writing, I encourage you to visit the Metro Writing Center:
http://www.metrostate.edu/writingcenter/.
The Spiritual Journey
Suggested Ground Rules for Discussion
(Ground Rules suggested by prior students in Religious Studies classes)
• Respect others' opinions; exercise toleration.
• No anger or malice if disagreeing.
• Learn peoples' names.
• Use non-judgmental language.
• Don't take things personally.
• Respond and let them know if someone unintentionally offends you.
• Choose humor when possible (laugh with each other, not at anyone).
• Use memories as well as intellect.
• Don’t proselytize.
• Make sure you leave space in the discussion for everyone to contribute.
(Instructor-Generated Ground Rules)
• Attend class and participate if at all possible -- contact instructor promptly when absent, and review missed lecture information with a fellow student.
• Be prepared (with reading completed, journal up to date, discussion prepared for).
• Use active listening skills (be receptive and open, rather than thinking of response when listening.
• Respect differences.
• Ground our positions in "I" statements.
• Respect everyone's need for confidentiality.
Video Notes: A Still Small Voice, Bill Kurtis host
1. Examples: Valerie Andrews, researcher for Time Magazine, author -- "Nature Mysticism" --
. --Tim McDonald -- experience of "theistic mysticism"
--Joseph Goldstein -- Buddhist monk -- experience in Tibet -- understanding of self-lessness, core of Buddhism
2. George Gallup polling of US/England: 40-50% of people have had religious experiences: nature, music, meaningful coincidences, conversion, near-death
3. Meditation and Mysticism -- overview by Joseph Goldstein --
-- theistic -- God-centered
-- Buddhist -- meaning of universe
-- two method tracks: concentration (focus on object, picture, sound, breath, feeling) and insight (moment-to-moment awareness)
Sebastian More, English Benedictine, -- paying attention to God
says some people "have a knack" for going inward
Pascaline Coff, on North Am Board of East-West Dialogue (Osage Monastary Sand Springs, OK) -- uses Buddhist methods to focus mind -- focus down to one point using a mantra, word, syllable to focus mind
Kallistos Ware -- Orthodox Bishop of Great Britain -- discussing use of Jesus Prayer -- says we can't use the will to control thoughts, but need to replace them with a simple task, gradually stilling the mind (Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me-- the "Jesus prayer")
Rabbi Samuel Dresner, student of Abraham Heschel, discussing chanting -- vocal meditation in Jewish prayer service
Seyyed Hosein Nasr discussing vocal prayer in Islamic tradition -- Sufism
4. Nature Mysticism -- the Wild Side
Valerie Andrews -- discussing addiction as craving for godhead -- nature religion gone awry -- A.A. recognizes the search for the sacred in addicction -- addiction to negative relationships that block us from reaching the divine -- compulsive behavior -- craving for acceptance
William Newell -- Prof of Philosophy U of Hartford -- religious traditions serve to structure uephoria -- or it can flip into power -- using people
Example of Rambaud and use of drugs to enduce spiritual experiences -- not god, but expanded ego
Dark Night -- contraction -- William Mahealy and John Fergueson, both in VietNam -- evil is no illusion -- everyone is two people (boy scout and killer)
Mystical nightmare -- Nazism as example of use of mystical experiences to create religion of the state
5. The Dawn of Consciousness -- Marie Koenig Woerner (sp?)
Cave drawings express mystical awareness -- which led to understanding, thought
Father Brendan Purcell -- Newgrange -- replication of the center of the world -- allowing people to get in touch with unchanging reality, the harmony behind disorder
Eugene Webb -- comparative religions/(U of Wash?) -- human consciousness is constituted by the divine as source
6. Science & Mysticism -- Einstein's theory: energy vs matter -- chaos theories
George Stancin and Robert Augros, New Story of Science -- breakdown of Newtonian view -- complete determinism would mean no free will -- quantam physics starts with mind, allows for indeterminancy -- the experimenter freely chooses the approach
The big bang theory can be combined with theism -- something preceded matter -- space, energy, time were preceded by Mind.
7. Mysteries Solved -- mention of Teihard de Chardin, with his theory of consciousness as the ultimate goal of evoluation for the planet
Alan Jones, Dean of Grace Cathedral, San Francisco -- some kind of tradition is needed for spirituality -- his three:
communal testing/ inner experience / "holy book"
final test is love -- community building, contrasted to inflated, unbearable, crazy behavior -- e.g., what kind of human being is being molded
Bernard McGinn, the experience of the immediate presence of God is mediated to us through texts
Valerie Andrews -- mysticism is breaking through everywhere
Seyyed Hosein Nasr -- spiritual experience -- both a gift of God and something an individual can seek through steady practice -- through grace, this practice can lead to permanent attainment
Gai Eaton -- satanic deceptions can mislead us -- to seek the marvelous -- is not our business at all
Alan Jones -- the church likes only dead mystics -- hard to control
Luis Dupre -- the concentration on the self is the opposite of what is needed -- withdrawal, turning to self, then the person fails to do duties -- real mystics are great women or men of action
Pascaline Coff -- we ordinarily see only the outer covering of reality -- with meditation, our inner eye opens, and we pierce through appearances
Joseph Goldstein -- the "no-self" is a key idea -- hard to convey -- humans are a process of happenings -- all is experience -- there is nobody to whom they are happening -- what we are, is the process of change
Bishop Kallistos Ware -- mystical experience is available to all -- all have seeds of contemplative attitude to life
Samuel Dresner -- think of the self as a wheel -- spokes and a hub -- usually, the ego is at the hub -- the spokes everything important to the self. In the divine presence, God displaces the ego at the hub, and the self is only another spoke
Tim McDonald -- justice in society requires spiritual grounding -- truth and justice go together
Joseph Goldstein -- 2,500 past Buddha is supposed to be a time of spiritual resurgence (prophecy about when horses have wheels and ships fly...)
Martin Buber Background Web Links for Session #2 - and some hints for reading I and Thou
The Buber home page, with a brief bio, and lots of links - including to some electronic texts of secondary research. Good to browse now and go back to later. Under "Life" there is a time line linked at the left ("biography") that is helpful. Under "Material" there's a thoughtful article for the philosophically-minded in the class, "Of Dialogue and Trust: Buber's religious thought".
http://courses.washington.edu/spcmu/buber/
Great website giving overview of his life and thought in general - lots of pictures!
Read this one for sure.
http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-buber.htm
A page of excerpts on Buber and education. This gives a helpful introduction to many of the key ideas we will be working through in the book, so consider reading this before you do your reading journal writing.
= = = = =
As you begin to read I and Thou, keep these hints in mind:
Budget a bit more time for this book than you would ordinarily for such a short book, and be sure to get started early. Definitely don't put it off! Read it in several sessions, over several days. You may find it useful to read it twice.
Though I and Thou is not lengthy, it is a work of serious religious and philosophical reflection, involving complex thought and the expression of profound religious experience. However, do recognize that the central ideas recur over and over through the writing. For this reason, read carefully (consider the following suggestions), but don't get hung up on a particular section that you may be having difficulty with -- move on and come back. After discussion of the book, more will come clear.
Reading suggestions:
- Consider keeping a dictionary handy.
- Use the reading notes on this web site as you go along.
- Read for a limited amount of time, then take a break and write a bit about your response, then read some more.
- If something is completely obscure or confusing for you, take note of that and move on. Note the confusing place and bring it up in your notes or discussion.
- In your response, focus primarily on the broad ideas and the ways Buber's ideas can be applied to understanding religious experience or commitments. Pay attention to memories or examples from your own experience that connect with his descriptions and his examples.
Additional reading for the adventurous:
Background on Judaism and Hasidism
http://www.pbs.org/alifeapart/intro.html
Has a list of articles which give the history and description of Hasidic Judaism (especially in the United States). Helpful as a background to Buber's thought.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/Hasidism.html
"Jewish Virtual Library" - another article with more detail.
Buber I and Thou Commentary - Prologue - beginning with page 20 is recommended PLUS please everyone read at least 31-37, as Kaufman is really helpful on Buber and Judaism in context of Christianity.
Your recommended assignment begins with page 20, but if you WANT to read the earlier pages, here are some notes. They are somewhat rough, as they were written quickly last year.
= = = = = = = = =
This Prologue is written by the translator as a commentary on the text -- shows something of what the text meant to him, and suggests how the reader can best approach it.
** Beginning section: appears to be centered on a society made up of scholars - an “intellectual community" -- obviously the writer’s primary sphere of reference -- so the types of “men" here are different sorts of scholars -- with the quest for TRUTH at the core -- and the many ways of being self-deceived or of settling for insipid, rote scholarship being delineated (pp 9 and following).
** Page 11 -- varying ways scholars stay locked up inside their own heads. Some take an interest in things, but not as having independent reality -- more as an extension of their own minds, while others operate without perception of their OWN independent reality, so can’t EXPERIENCE anything (12). Or, (13), they live as a member of a collective (“we" so can’t really connect meaningfully to anything outside themselves -- or they relate to others as part of “us" or as outsiders, negatively seen, as “them".
** Page 14 begins his explanation of the difficulties in translating and understanding Buber’s use of “du"(“thou" in English, but not really the same, as “thou" has dropped out of common speech in English). Because of the religious overtones of “thou" in English, Kaufman has chosen not to use the word.
** PP 11-15 -- contrasts “I and Thou" to Freud’s Ego and Id (and Superego) -- both sets of terms from these books which later became understood formulaically.
** PP 16-17-18 -- cautions the reader not to take Buber’s definitions to extremes -- or see them as absolutes, overly simple -- especially giving in to the tendency in Western philosophy to see things DUALISTICALLY (a thing and it’s opposite, rather than a spectrum, or half-tones, or as Buber presents things, a dialectic where one thing changes into the other). Dualism in philosophy often puts one of the opposites higher and one lower (spirit vs matter/nature; light vs. dark; male vs. female) -- Kaufman says Buber has this tendency too.
** PP 18-19 -- possible influence of or resemblance to an essay contrasting Christianity and Judaism using repetition rather than argument to make the case -- also that Buber’s language teases and fascinates, rather than forcing the reader to ethical action. I’m not sure I agree -- what Kaufman DOESN’T seem to imagine is language that’s slippery and paradoxical BECAUSE that’s the only way to mediate mystical experience. (Later: maybe he does.) He also suggests that long-lived books may survive in part because of obscurity -- not a virtue, in his mind!
** PP 21-22 -- then a history of the book’s success -- among Protestant theologians, to start with, then among those who wanted to connect with Jewish wisdom after the Holocaust. Buber was also an unforgettable lecturer because he established genuine contact with his audience -- helping establish the book as a classic. Then came the 1960s when the book was a big hit in the US -- as, Kaufman puts it, an adolescent “neo-romanticism" -- making it clear in his comments that these people could not have really understood or appreciated the book -- and Buber’s “neo-romanticism" appealed to theirs. (See Kaufman’s derogatory definition p 47.)
** P 24 -- Kaufman contrasts I & Thou with later books by Buber that he believes are clearer: Tales of the Hasidim, for its economy and brilliance. I and Thou, in contrast, is obscure, blurry, suggestive – “romantic". Also, people think it MUST be profound, because Buber MUST be wiser-than-average, as in Hasidic leaders. Buber himself described the book as more poetic and inspired than philosophical (p. 25) -- though Kaufman challenges this too.
** P. 25 -- Kaufman attempts to liberate the core ideas from their “romantic" appearance: The sacred is here and now. The only God worth keeping is a God that cannot be kept. . . . The only possible relationship with God is to address him and be addressed by him, here and now. -- This relationship is problematic (26-27) -- easily misunderstood or confused with PANTHEISM (God infused into the world, especially into nature). Kaufman also makes a fascinating argument that the book is grounded in Buber’s relationship with his wife (27-28) - and on 29 offers a psalm suggesting what God needs for humans to be in contact with God. This sets up the second half of the prologue which is much more positive -- he starts out by stating that Buber’s simplicity and obviousness may only be seen in hindsight, after we’ve already taken in his perspective and been influenced by it.
** P. 30 -- more about “God" for non-believers -- leaving God out can flatten the divinity or the spiritual power of the human-human encounter -- bringing the sacred into everyday life. And there ISN’T a substitute for religious language, as much as it is difficult for many.
** pp. 31-32 has more about how difficult God-talk is for non-believers -- and the helpfulness of Buber’s depiction of the human-divine conversation.
** Which leads to how very Jewish the book is. For all his theological erudition, Buber was trying to get back to the rots of Jewish faith -- he was steeped in this in his project of translating the Hebrew scripture into German (34-35), a life-long project. Kaufman contrast the Hebrew culture to the visual Greeks: the Hebrew experience of the Divine was one of listening and speaking, a dialogue. In contrast, Christianity is more Greek in influence, culturally -- where God became MANIFEST -- e.g. visible -- could be seen and represented visually. There was still a Jewish core of dialogue in Christianity, but nothing as central as it was in Judaism -- rather, there became in Christianity an emphasis on “belief" or “faith," for salvation. Buber’s core of relationship, of dialogue, is, Kaufman argues, closer to the core of Judaism.
** PP 36-37 -- Important word: “t’shuvah" -- return: humans can return to God at ANY TIME -- unmediated by church, priest, shaman, rabbi, sacraments. Kaufman argues that Christian (Pauline) understanding is very different, requiring Christ as the mediator of reconciliation.
** P 37 – Buber’s Zionism -- comes from his yearning for a “new type of community" -- as a core emphasis in the book is the human-human encounter. The book is an important social critique -- what needs to be fixed in human society? -- so works as a social change manual too.
** PP 38-39 -- Also a manual on how to read – we’re used to reading for entertainment, diversion -- nothing that comes from someone’s heart and more that merits serious attention. We need to encounter the PERSON behind a book -- the key to vivid, alive scholarship -- and much of schooling goes against this. Also -- Buber teaches how to TRANSLATE (pp. 39-40-43). His life-long work on translating the Bible as an example -- this means committing to the writer -- finding and representing a person’s voice -- so this is what Kaufman has tried to do, pulling out of the way his own responses (well, putting them in the Preface -- the whole spectrum from irritation to adoration).
** P 43 – Buber’s intention was to make the reader chew on the words rather slowly -- slow down the reading process. There’s a temptation for the translator to try to improve on the original -- and the limits of what he COULD do -- and some comments on important terms (44-48).
** Romanticism is defined -- ironically, not admiringly -- on p. 47. Buber is cast in contrast: as all about actual action in the world. Romanticism is seen by Kaufman as escapism. However, I’d like to point out that Romanticism in literature is broader than that, and includes an effort by writers to mediate experience beyond the mundane -- and an effort of kindling an experience of the Divine, especially in nature (see Wordsworth). However, the attitude of escapism defined on p. 47 certainly applies to some readers and writers.
Buber - Commentary on I and Thou First Section
(These are very sketchy marginalia of my own - for what they are worth in your own reading!)
** Note that he sees speaking as equivalent to being - think of God/Christ as Word in John’s Gospel. (53)
** Note that ‘I’ is different depending on the type of relationship.
** The ‘I’ is ONLY constituted in relationship (54).
** Activities=the world of ‘I-IT.’ Activities are time bound, finite; relation is unbounded, in a way; infinite.
** Experience (56) is all ‘I-IT’ - subject->object.
** P. 57- has a reference to Moses and also to the 6th chapter of Isaiah (see note). Introduces the three spheres: nature, human, divine.
** 58 - sphere of nature – it’s hard to imagine the reciprocity of human and tree; easier to imagine with, say, a dog.
** 59 - sphere of human-human relation. Think of falling in love as what is described here - and the book does owe a lot to his feelings about his wife. Also note use of ‘confront’; this doesn’t mean ‘as opponent’ - see p. 45 - it means ‘have an encounter,’ or ’come face to face.’
** 60 – ‘experience’ as contrasted to ‘stand in relation.’ Then a lovely section about the relation between the creator of an art production and the art work. When the creative act works well, one can’t step aside/outside the art, but stand with it/in it/in relation to it. And for the ‘receptive beholder,’ the art work invites a You relation.
** 62 - note that the small ‘it’ can be referencing the You in the ‘I-You’ dynamic – it’s confusing here. The ‘I-It’ dynamic always is with a capitalized ‘It’. Note that ‘I’ can only become fully ‘I’ AS I encounter You.
** 63 - The ‘I-You’ dynamic is in the radical PRESENT tense - can only happen NOW in encounter. This section seems very Buddhist to me!
** 64 - continues the time sense: fears and anticipations of future are not in the present - thus they don’t exist. VERY Buddhist.
** 65 - fine ideas and ideals are ‘objects’ - they lead us AWAY from real encounter with real beings.
** 66 - Action in terms of ‘You’/person is ‘love’ - response and more – it’s a dynamic presence BETWEEN us.
** 67 - AND in this relation, we connect to something More. The bottom of the page starts an imaginary dialogue with someone questioning the author to help get clarification – that’s what the ‘—‘ bullets are for.
** 68 - note statement on hating being closer to relation than indifference - close to Biblical point here.
** Bottom 68 - impossibility of SUSTAINING the ‘I-You’ relation - it keeps slipping into ‘I-It.’
** 69 - more on this - very much the same issue as the impossibility of staying in a mystical state of awareness, at least for most of us - the trained practitioner of spiritual practices is supposedly able to enter into a more permanent state of this sort of awareness.
** 70-75 - The stuff about ‘primitive man’ - this seems VERY speculative to me - typical of early 20th Century Western scholarship in its assumptions about non-Western cultures being debased and early versions of Western culture (writers like Freud and Jung made these assumptions too). He is assuming that individuals in these non-Western cultures don’t have a developed sense of self, an ego, which he also discusses as the case with infant humans in our culture. He also argues (p. 75, in dialogue with another imaginary questioner) that Western culture has lost something important in its more ‘advanced’ development. I see in this a yearning for a closer connection to the world of nature.
** 76 moves into the discussion of early childhood development, where the development of the sense of self, the ‘ego’ is taking place. This discussion brings up issues I’ve read about in feminist psychology where this normative ego development describes here is more typical of the development of the male individual, with the more dramatic separation from and differentiation from the mother (where the female stays in closer identification and relation). Fascinating to see an article in the recent Newsweek arguing that male and female BRAINS develop differently, and not because of culture. Here’s the Web site for the story: http://www.msnbc.com/news/958646.asp?cp1=1
** p. 74-75 describes the ‘cosmic pathos’ of the ‘I’ where the “basic word I-It, the word of separation, has been spoken." That’s the infant separation from the mother, and the separation of humanity from nature - according to Susan Griffin (Woman and Nature, among other books).
** p. 79 - optical and tactile contact with the infant - very much supported by research - that infants track caregiver faces VERY early, and that being deprived of touch, infants will sicken and die. Also, language interchange is simply necessary to the physical development of the brain.
** 80 - development of self-consciousness - I become something of an object for my own perception. He goes on (81) to describe this cognitive development as a kind of estrangement.
** 82 - an aside about the INNATE order underlying our efforts to impose order.
** Then (82 lower section) a series of contrasts between the two worlds of ‘I-You’ and ‘I-IT’ - again, making the experience of ‘I-You’ seem very much the ecstatic experience of falling in love, or ecstatic mystical experience.
** 84- 'It' ’is known and safe; the ‘I-You’ world is dangerous - one can lose control! But it’s important, too, to understand that these realms/worlds are in a dialectic, where one moves back and forth, and they merge into one another.
PART II
This section makes a big jump from discussing the qualities of the ‘I-You’ and ‘I-It’ states of being, or being in relation, for an INDIVIDUAL to discussing something more reified (‘out there’): the ‘It-world’. That isn’t defined so much as described. In one sense, it is a ‘fall’ -- a decline from something earlier in time. There are similar popular views of how Western culture has fallen from an earlier almost paradisiacal state, such as the simplistic views of pre-historic religion found in Goddess spirituality, where the fall is into patriarchy (and some of these popular ideas had roots in German writers of the 19th century).
** 88. -- the increase of the ‘It-world’ connects with a rise in technology and scientific thinking -- e.g. knowledge of the world. Again, he brings up ‘experience’ -- the stance in the world that sees it as something to USE, not just something to come face-to-face with. Note on bottom of 88 he mentions the common use of ‘life of the spirit’ meaning something that keeps people from really ‘living in the spirit’ -- in the first case, it is something more like the life of the intellect.
** 89 -- here, living in the spirit is defined as living in the power to relate. Second block goes on in more detail describing ‘spirit’ -- here, clearly, the opposing ‘world’ to the ‘It-world’. The paragraph is a long set of metaphors; we are in spirit, and spirit is in us. Spirit is speech -- in the sense of the ACT of speaking the ‘I-you’ word (again, reminds us of John’s Gospel). Second paragraph he brings up the dynamic between the two worlds again as in tension -- the silence of spirit breaks down into the specificity of language, already the ‘It-world’. This intertwining nature between the two opposing ideas is more typical of Chinese Taoist thought (intertwining yin and yang) than strict dualism (though there’s also clearly a hierarchy, and the world of spirit is superior). More on this later.
** 90 -- contrasting responses: how to change the frozen word, the ‘It-world’ back to the spirit is in the attitude of the receiver -- either ‘heeding’ (listening, being receptive) or ‘utilizing’ (making use of it for one’s own purposes. Knowledge (‘It-world’) comes from beholding -- SEEING. Remember in the prologue that seeing is a Hellenistic way of being distant from the world; ‘heeding’ is more listening, responding, which is the Hebrew legacy. From seeing comes scientific knowledge, where we move from the particular instance to general laws, or ‘conceptual knowledge.’
** 91 -- the same dynamic in how art is encountered, and how it gets devalued. Then, second paragraph from the bottom, the aside which attempts to put the two worlds into more of a balance rather than a radical hierarchy: the form, the scientific or aesthetic knowledge is USEFUL, but needs to give way to the immediacy of spirit. Then bottom of 91: the third area (following science and art) of religious experience and expression.
** 92 -- (continuing this third area of discussion): an individual having a life-giving experience of the ‘deeper mystery’ of You experience can become a prophet, but this person’s insights can turn into the ‘It-world’ of history and moral codes (e.g. formal religion), and people can miss the point of how it started. The bottom bulleted section on
this page opens up the discussion of the relationship of the individual and society.
** 93. Here is a discussion of the false split between ‘public’ and ‘private,’ with the public realm being the realm of institutions (government, commerce, education, and the like) and the private realm being the realm of feeling. In the 19th century, these two spheres were very separate, with the public life one of industry and capitalism, and the private sphere the tender realm of the ‘angel of the house,’ the wife and mother, and also, increasingly, the realm of leisure and consumption. Here, he claims that BOTH realms, taken by themselves without real relation (spirit) are isolating: ‘neither knows person or community.’ Here is the Jewish ethic very strongly present: ethical value lies in engaged presence both in public and private life, not depersonalized action in public, nor retreat to private fantasy or private feeling. The nitty-gritty of REAL human interaction makes living community difficult to sustain.
** 94. Social institutions are quintessentially of the ‘It-world’ because they are living in the past (their history, founding, etc.) or the future (their need for self-preservation), but not in the living NOW. Private feelings are the same -- and here’s a close resemblance to Buddhism, which characterizes our normal life as one of illusion, fueled by feelings of fear and desire. This retreat into private feelings is alienating because it doesn’t support real relation with others. He paints a picture on this page of alienated individuals and empty, false communities, both of which lack the ‘living, active center.’
** 95. On this page, the central You is shown as the animating center of both public and private life, needed even in the most intimate of relationships. (This is really a very Biblical call to return to God; the word return will be used frequently in following sections.) Bottom of 95 is another little aside making it clear that the problem is not that there is an ‘It-world,’ but that there needs to be a re-centering, where spirit comes back to the center of things and restores the balance. It’s the DISPLACEMENT from spirit/You word that is evil.
** 96. Another imaginary dialogue, with the questioner proposing that the ‘It-world’ is simply a necessity for the modern state. There may be some regrettable features of it, but it’s too late to go back to something simpler.
** 97. Buber responds in the second paragraph: he takes his earlier picture of alienation even further, with the image of an engine running without direction. Things appear to be going well, but there’s nobody at the center making decisions -- the ‘market’ -- the machine itself – can’t guide society. Both societies and individuals need the ‘presence of the You’ -- without that spirit, evil takes over. Again, the social form isn’t evil, but it becomes evil when spirit is missing.
** 98. Continues this VERY prophetic (Biblical) strand of critique: remember the statement in the video where Huston Smith characterized the Hebrew prophets as telling all nations that, without justice, they will fall? This is similar: the core of a society’s life is the ‘fullness of the relational force that permeates their members’. He claims that one can live in society and serve it without being completely OF it -- but keeping some kind of internal tension. This section resembles the Taoist writings of Lao Tsu and Chuang Tse trying to help the folks who have responsible positions in society keep from becoming cogs in a machine, but it has a very Biblical flavor as well.
** 99. Continuing: how is a person to live? By being a witness to the ‘You’ in the world of the ‘It.’ He goes on to say that we can’t improve society by tweaking its mechanisms, but only by bringing into it the spirit -- the ‘You-saying, responding spirit.’ One thing that needs to be avoided is segmenting out parts of the communal life, putting the life of the spirit into a box -- but that leaves the rest of society ‘abandoned’ to the ‘despotism’ of the It-world, and making the spirit unreal.
** 100. Another ‘balancing’ point: both the It-world and the spirit need each other -- spirit HAS to be actualized in the world, not pulled out of the world into some rarified realm. The next bulleted section is VERY Buddhist: dealing with the world of causality, or what the Buddhists (and Hindus) would call ‘karma,’ the law of cause and effect. For Buber, causality is the primary feature of the ‘It-world.’ By itself, causality isn’t good or bad, for Buber, as long as it is balanced by the ‘world of relation.’ (For Buddhists, as we’ll discuss more later, the realm of karma can only be broken by enlightenment: the realization that our ordinary consciousness is suffering -- the monkey-mind of desiring and fearing, never fully being present to the world). Buber does something really important at the bottom here: describes the state of mind which allows for real, engaged action, or choice-making.
** 101. This section is obscure and poetic. I’m reading it as the phenomenology (the ‘thick description’) of what it takes to truly make choices, to truly ACT rather than REACT. Most of our actions are in fact programmed by the ‘It-world’ -- social forms, necessities of varying degrees. But those who have experienced something NOT conditioned -- the -You world’ -- can make choices even in the midst of causality. Such a person (which reminds me of ‘the sage’ in Chinese Taoist writing) understands that existence ‘oscillates’ -- moves back and forth – ‘between You and It,’ and knows both what is conditioned or necessary (accepts it) and what is open (takes opportunity for action).
** 102. Here we get to the call of destiny: experience of the You world, the spirit, has a purpose of kindling an individual to service in the dry land of the ‘It-world,’ not to pull aside and contemplate one’s navel. This is very much a Jewish ethic. This is a heroic project; freedom and necessity are bound up together. The ‘free human being’ here is shown as functioning as a Biblical prophet, bringing a reminder back in the ‘sick age’ where the ‘It-world’ has overpowered humanity.
** 103. Here he shows the same dynamic of the spark of an individual who has had an ‘original encounter’ with the You-world, which reinvigorates the culture (the founding of the world’s great religions). Mid-page depicts a culture where that ‘living and continually renewed relational process’ has been lost, and the ‘It-world’ has become almost completely devoid of spirit. Bottom example of such a situation: a culture which had previously seen ‘karma’ as meaningful in a religious framework now are locked into tyranny.
** 104. Another example of a culture where the ‘law of heaven’ used to be understood as underlying cause and effect, leaving the culture (ours) with a meaninglessness, an absurdity (remember novelists like Kafka writing in this vein). So ours isn’t the only or first culture to have lost its way, and an individual responding to ‘his You’ can spark a renewal of the culture.
** 105. This long paragraph describes ways of understanding society that are disempowering, that leave us feeling hopeless to change anything: the ‘law of life’ (Darwinism); the ‘psychological law’ (sounds like Freud or similar theorists); the ‘social law’ (such social scientists as Durkheim, or even Marx). All of these kinds of theory leave the It-world supreme, the laws of cause and effect, the social forms, as the only reality. None of them imagine any individual freedom from these forms.
** 106. (This is a bit obscure.) And all of these theories, though they propose some start (‘teleological development and organic evolution’) really seem to be static, and show things as gradually getting worse -- entropy. Believing (the ‘dogma’) that nothing an individual can do will change things leaves no hope. All you can do is ‘observe the rules or drop out’. In the center of this paragraph is dropped Buber’s hope: ‘freedom or for its most real revelation . . . returning.’ Remember in the Prologue the discussion of the word ‘return’ and what it means in Jewish understanding: that God is there always available to the individual that turns to find restored contact.
** 107. Carries on from the ‘play by the rules or drop out’ false dilemma, and the illusion that withdrawing inward will allow freedom -- for Buber, that’s retreat into unreality, because real freedom is action in the world. What chains us is a belief that what we do doesn’t matter and can’t matter = the ‘It-world’ at its solidest, most convincing, most causal. Next bullet: (as in fairy tales where the Devil is confronted) -- recognizing the ‘It-world’ for what it is defeats most of its power, especially because the You world is all around us, in the real matter and life of nature (that’s how I read this obscure reference to the ‘mother goddess’ on the top of 108).
** 108. The imaginary questioner again: acting in freedom seems impossible -- bringing up the word ‘caprice’ as what all action feels like (useless, impulsive action with no hope of making a difference). Actually, the word isn’t defined, but circled through examples. I take it to mean action that is really REACTION -- to the understanding of being completely controlled by random causality, or by whim and passing emotion (the inner unreality of the It-world), or by passing desire or fear. Basically, action made without reference to the reality of the world of spirit or relation; unconscious or unaware action. Bottom of this page attempts to picture action from freedom, and how difficult it is.
** 109. Destiny is that tension between the real causality of the world and the opportunities for action which comes from LISTENING (that Hebrew rather than Hellenistic virtue) -- listening to ‘that which grows, to the way of Being in the world’ -- the world of spirit, encounter, connection. Then a long paragraph of what acting from caprice looks like, in contrast. (The depiction of the free person seems, again, very reminiscent of depictions of the Taoist sage.)
** 110 -- following up with the free person. The free person ACTS; the capricious person REACTS, because he’s ‘entangled in unreality.’ BUT there’s hope: if a person really figures it out, that one’s actions haven’t been free, one can reach a rock-bottom place of despair which holds the possibility of rebirth (the beginning of real consciousness and possibility for choice).
** 111. The questioner again: but isn’t the personal ego sturdy enough even in the ‘It-world’? Buber answers that one can’t really BE a self in isolation. Here begins another pairing: the ‘I’ as subject/person in the ‘I-You’ connection) contrasted to the ‘I’ as ego (in an ‘I-It’ experience).
** 112. More about person vs. ego.
** 113. The ‘I’ is ACTUAL only in relation or in memory of relation -- being in relation is the only source of subjectivity. A person has being; an ego has qualities.
** 114. Or rather, a person has qualities as secondary, while the ego has distinguishing differences as primary -- as necessary . The ego is a self-created fiction, a story told by oneself about one’s specialness, difference. By the bottom of the page, again, the dichotomy is followed by a caution: these oppositions are, in fact, a continuum, and we move along the spectrum back and forth between being/person and ego.
** 115. But being in actuality means a large portion of one’s being in the You-realm. Next bulleted section: more on the ‘I’ of person contrasted to the ‘I’ of the ego, with Socrates as an example of a person, whose emphasis is all on relation to others, including his relation with an inner-experienced You of his daimon.
** 116. Goethe’s ‘I’ spoke from the relation with the world of Nature. And Jesus’s ‘I’ spoke from the intimate relation of the You he experienced as ‘Father.’ (Note here that Jesus is shown as a role model, not as God incarnate.)
** 117. The relation that Jesus had with You as Father is available to everyone. Second section: the questioner again, wondering about a certain kind of person who is so obsessed with a cause there isn’t any room for any kind of encounter or relation, giving as an example Napoleon, who did act in the world. Buber characterizes this cause with which Napoleon identified himself as a ‘demonic You’ -- a cause that takes the central place that should be other humans, or nature, or spirit.
** 118. This depiction of the public figure taking the place of the You of other humans or spirit is uncannily what happened with Hitler’s rise to power. Also, it is described as almost the antithesis of the response Jesus is described as having to his You. Ultimately, such a person falls out of the historic moment of carrying this power into mere humanness -- or possibly madness.
** 119. But such a person is unlikely to really understand what happened -- and the ‘age’ (society at that time in history) will misunderstand what happened as well. Second section: questioner probes what Buber means by ‘self-contradiction.’ That is the falseness of attempting to relate to oneself -- when all relations have to be to someone real who is OTHER than oneself. Anything else is self-delusion.
** 120. Returns to how difficult it is to life in freedom, in light of the It-world. The horror of being really conscious of the alienation of that It-world is depicted as someone lying awake through a sleepless night. But deep down there might be the knowledge: ‘the direction of return that leads through sacrifice.’ (Remember in the video Huston Smith’s pondering on the centrality of sacrifice in Jewish spirituality.) Buber sees some connection between sacrifice and ‘return.’ But what is being sacrificed?
** 121. The sleepless night goes on: (the person seems really male here, with the soul imagined as a female figure) -- here the person is caught between the illusion of an enormous cosmos as a lifeless clock, the Newtonian world of cause and effect, in which the infinitely tiny individual action is just more ticks and tocks of the clock, totally determined; and the illusion that there’s nothing but what the individual has in his head, that he’s made it all up. I’m sure you have had nights like that. But both of these illusions are really delusion, and both paint a picture of a world with no relation. I am left wondering whose midnight (or 4 a.m.) sleepless experience this depiction is. The horror (p. 122) is when the two pictures are superimposed, wiping out each other and leaving nothing, nobody there at all.
Buber Part III
Buber Notes on Third Part -- Spiritual Journey Class
** P.123 -- begins the focus on the human-divine encounter. All relationships “intersect in the eternal You.�? Here, we come to know the ‘eternal You’ through other relationships. By the end of this section, we also come to serve other beings through the relationship with the ‘eternal You.’ He mentions that God has been known by many names through history; that the names can contain a holy quality because they have been used (and can be used) to speak TO God; and also these names can be misused.
** P. 124. It isn’t the attributes and qualities of God that matter (these are human notions, after all) but addressing God (using whatever name we use) that matters. We can encounter God, but not describe and explain God, or speculate on God’s intentions.
** P. 125 (from bottom of 124) -- begins the paradoxical dynamic of the God-human relationship: we choose, but are chosen; act but are acted upon, both at the same time. This resembles the ‘not-doing’ of Chinese mystical philosophy, but it’s different in Buber’s understanding -- because we aren’t withdrawing into some separate world in having experience of God, but are instead becoming unified in ourselves and connected to the actual world.
** P. 126 -- continues the discussion of meditation techniques, which he rejects as the appropriate approach to religious experience. The"‘one thing needful" is the “total acceptance of the present." (One might respond to Buber that this is precisely what many meditation techniques are aiming at helping us achieve.) Second section: how being in relation with anyone else feels: it is exclusive (leaves everything else in the world out); it is unique; it seems to fill up our consciousness. Think of first falling in love, and having everything you do or see connect to that central relationship -- or the way one experiences the world after having a new baby come into one’s life.
** P. 127 -- continues with relationship with God -- Buber rejects the idea that we need to withdraw from the world; instead, we bring the world WITH us into the relation with God. Trying to get out of the world to get to God is a delusion, ‘It-talk.’ Bottom 127: paradoxical language: God is “wholly other" AND “wholly same"; mysterium tremendum (power of the Universe) AND “closer to me that my own I."
** P. 128. Can’t withdraw to find God, because each step of the way, all other encounters are devalued and turned into things, just stepping stones to the Divine. Real encounter with God is, in a way, THROUGH finding the divine in all those other encounters along the way. More paradoxical language: “finding without seeking." We find the “wholly actual" of the divine out of the “actuality of the consecrated life of the world."
** P. 129 - second section: Buber describes and rejects an approach to God of cultivating a “feeling of dependence" or “creature feeling." He rejects measuring relation by whether the ‘right’ feelings are present -- because, in human psychology, feelings ebb and flow, and also contain some degree of their opposite.
** P. 130 -- more on feelings and their opposites. This is murky but an attempt at capturing something interesting, which is how in the encounter with God, the essential character is not one feeling or another, but the experience of coming to a point of wholeness, or fusion of the oppositions in our emotions -- a ‘still point’, as T.S. Eliot called it. One way of putting that stillness-within-tension is that it is paradoxical. Third paragraph: one is dependent AND free; created AND creative. This goes on: we need God AND God needs us -- needs us to be active in the world: “divine fate." We participate in creation -- through “prayer and sacrifice."
** P. 131 -- continues -- sacrifice is imaged as adding one’s little flame to the “supreme flame" of God’s work. This is contrasted to ‘magic’ which is the effort to expand one’s own will in the world, where sacrifice and prayer are an individual’s way of aligning action to the greater action of God. That’s much more complex than the ‘dependence’ understood by the theologians of his day.
** Bottom of p. 131 -- a fallacy of trying to find God by becoming self-immersed. There are two mistaken ways of doing this: erasing the self (‘ego’) or coming to believe that one is already unified with God.
** P. 132 -- both approaches are wrong, because the intimacy of relation with God is not found in either wiping out the self or in wiping out the sense of God being other than the self -- in both cases, there is no relationship. He brings two quotes in here: one from the Gospel of John, where Christ identifies himself with God, and one from the Hindu sacred text of the Upanishads, where a sage sees God as unified with his heart.
** P. 133 -- mentions that the Hindu fusion of self and divine leads to the Buddhist ‘no self.’ (Buber doesn’t see this approach very sympathetically -- we’ll go back after reading Thich Nhat Hanh and reconsider.) Then he discusses John’s Gospel as being about the nature of the ‘pure relationship,’ that is, the human-divine encounter, not a symbol of some inner “relationship of the I to the self," as he scornfully describes a modern reinterpretation.
** Buber’s imaginary questioner: But many mystics have spoken about this unity with God. Buber clarifies the confusion:
** One form of unity is SELF-unity -- that is, having the inner contradictions brought into a whole, through mystical experience. This is very much the idea in C.G. Jung’s notion of ‘individuation.’ However, this self-unity is an invitation to ‘destiny’ -- e.g. service -- or retreat into self-obsession.
**direction can tempt us (next page) to split ourselves in two: the ‘sublime’ self that becomes a kind of God-junky and the debased self still living on earth -- which is not the point.
** P. 135 -- continues -- the rapture of ecstatic mystics can lead to the temptation of self-eclipse, but that isn’t unity. This is a ‘marginal’ -- stretched, warped -- version of the “central actuality of an everyday hour on earth," where the eternal You can be seen in sunshine and twig.
** P. 136 - back to the other doctrine of immersion: unity of divine and self. He revisits the Upanishads where the nature of this unity is described as annihilation of all “lived actuality," and rejects this in favor of the “holy treasure of our actuality." This discussion shows very starkly a central difference between Hindu and Jewish understanding of the world: the first sees it as an illusion, and the second sees it as a divine creation, good at its core (remember Huston Smith quoting Genesis: and God found it VERY good). Hellenistic Christianity sometimes misses the goodness of creation in an emphasis on afterlife or spirit contrasted to materiality.
** P. 137: We need reciprocity -- relationship -- for ‘effective activity’ -- especially where the ‘unified’ human connects to the ‘boundless You’ of God. By ‘unified’ he means bringing the whole self to God, not leaving out the sensual or emotional (another temptation of some historical Christian spirituality).
** P. 138 -- continues his rejection of the possibility of immersion into the Divine -- as being ‘It-language.’ Then, interestingly, he brings in a long example of how Buddha tried to steer people away from trying to figure out what ‘post-immersion’ would be like -- the entire focus on the question was a distraction. Buddha tried to “teach not a view but the way."
** P. 139 -- But ‘we’ aren’t Buddhists -- we have a truth that “has been inspired in us and apportioned to us" -- this refers, I am assuming, to the Biblical tradition, which has a different goal in mind than what Buber understands to be the goal of Buddhist practice as ‘the annulment of suffering.’ He understands Buddhists to be trying escape from the ‘wheel of rebirth’ as a primary goal, and to have basically rejected the world as only made up of suffering. For his part, whether or not there is rebirth, the point is that there is a possibility in this life of true encounter with God, which means that life is NOT essentially suffering.
** P. 140 -- he acknowledges that the Buddhist path leads to the initial goal of the unified soul -- but beyond that, the Buddhist path leads away from seeing the reality of the world and the body, thus limiting the possibilities of “You-saying;" he acknowledges that there is this element in Buddhist teaching, but it doesn’t have the centrality it needs to have (though he claims that later Buddhists have named Buddha as a ** P. 141 -- More on the fallacy of immersion: the delusion that a human spirit is IN us as individuals. Instead, the spirit is what is BETWEEN us and that to which we relate.
** P. 142. Self and world really are separate. What matters is actual relation. ‘Experience’ is a delusion of encounter where the world isn't really touched.
** P. 143. Rejects the dualism that splits the world and the spirit -- where the world (matter, body, etc.) is seen as debased. In contrast, real relation with the world leads to God.
** Bottom section: brings in paradoxes of the ‘religious’ situation (this is pretty obscure for a bit). There are lived contradictions in our attempt to understand and live a religious life; we can’t resolve them, only live them.
** P. 144 -- a primary example is the essential paradox, in a religious life, of being dependent on (‘surrendered to’) God and taking action (‘it depends on me.’) Both are true -- and can’t be split into two different worlds (the spiritual world and the debased world). Also, he rejects any ‘theological artifice’ -- some formula of doctrine that would annul the real tension of this paradox we are called to live.
** Bottom of 144 and 145 -- begins another series of attempts to characterize the differences between ‘It-world’ and ‘You-world,’ starting with his cat. The animal is on its way to spiritual existence, but we take it further because we have language. In our relation with the cat, it comes close to self-awareness in relation -- all in the experience of a single glance. I read this as an actual experience Buber has had with his cat and is trying to make sense of. He addresses the nature of human-animal relations again in the Afterward.
** P. 146 -- nature of the You-world to pass -- as the experience of the cat-glance passed. Another experience he had is mentioned: that of holding a piece of mica and contemplating it (147) -- brings again the notion of the ebb and flow of the sense of the You-world. However, it is only our own SENSE of the ebb, as we move from the ‘actuality to latency’ of Love -- the eternal You is ALWAYS actual -- it is only that we can’t sustain the connection.
** P. 147 -- finite relationships of the world are contrasted to the non-finite relationship with the eternal You.
** P. 148-149 -- more differences between ‘It-world’ and ‘You-world’: the ‘It-world’ has time, sense, and distance; the ‘You-world’ is one of a continuing Now. The duality, however, is apparent, not real; we move through a rhythm of being able to sustain timelessness and falling back into time.
** P. 149-151 -- three spheres of relation: nature, humans, and ‘spiritual beings’ -- by which he doesn’t necessarily mean God. All three spheres can be ‘It-ized’ or gateways to relation with the ‘eternal You’ -- there isn’t any ‘higher’ or ‘lower’ levels here, though there is something special about the sphere of human relationships, because we can speak and answer each other (lovely quote about marital closeness). At the bottom: imaginary questioner pressing again for seeing mysticism as a matter of solitude, not something found in social life.
** 152 - Buber’s answer: we can’t relate to God if we haven’t had some practice of relating as You with other people, because otherwise, we live in a world where we have made others (people, nature, and spirit-filled creations) into Its. There is a place for some solitude in the rhythm of life, but we can’t live in a “castle of separation" -- that’s self-indulgence and delusion. We don’t CONTAIN God within us, though God “embraces us and dwells in us" -- because God is beyond us (and in the world outside us) as well.
** 153-155 -- discussion of ‘idolatry’ -- responding to and rejecting a position of Max Scheler. Buber seeks idolatry not as having the wrong OBJECTS of devotion, but of having the wrong SORT of connection to them, one of ‘It’ rather than ‘You.’ These objects ‘possess’ a person unless the right attitude or association is undertaken. Bottom paragraph of 154 and further: examples of true and unholy associations.
** Mid 155-157 -- Presents a false view of religious life as transcending social life, as somehow better than social life. He answers this by the metaphor of rivers running into a sea: social life is made up of those rivers, all moving into the larger sea of relation between human and God. One can’t be true to God and USE humans, see them as ‘It’. He also combats a view that sees true religious life as transcending ethics (as if the Biblical commandments of charity and justice were burdens). Humans are seen by this false view as paralyzed by the conflict between what they can do and what they ought to do. The ‘religious man’ is one, in this false view, who lets go of this tension and becomes passive, no longer striving (presumably confident of having been redeemed, though the theology he is contesting isn’t very clearly outlined). In contrast (top 157), Buber says that obligations to love and serve the world are an outgrowth of “stepping before the countenance." In the light of the eternal You relation, what was before an anxious duty becomes one’s own desire. There is still the need to decide, over and over, to act in accord with this reality, but this action grows FROM the central encounter. (This section on 157, while obscure, is something worth pondering.)
** Bottom 157: Buber sees the core truth of the Biblical heritage (“what we call revelation") as the human transformation from the encounter with the eternal You. Top 158: In this encounter, something really takes place (image of Jacob’s wrestling match). Something changes in us -- not a “content" but a “presence as strength." There are three outcomes worth pulling out here (158-159):
-- “abundance of actual reciprocity" -- a richer and also more challenging life, in the light of this ongoing presence
-- “confirmation of meaning" -- not the details, but the certainty that life is meaningful
-- and the location of meaning in “this our life" -- not displaced into an afterlife.
** P. 159 -- Buber makes the point that the outcomes of this encounter are very individual -- different people will have different actions called forth. Each person takes away unique meaning, and can give no universal message for everyone else.
** Mid 160 -- the only revelation is that God is available for relation (referring back to Exodus 3:14: “I am that I am" -- in his interpretation, “I am there as whoever I am there."
** Bottom 160-162 begins the discussion of how God-encounter turns into religion, which can spark more God-encounter, or which can devolve into the ‘It-world,’ where religion is a thing. We turn religion into a thing when individuals become uneasy with the ebb and flow of ‘pure relation.’ (Note the “profiteer’s assurance that nothing can happen to him because he has the faith that there is One who would not permit anything to happen to him" -- a harsh depiction of a kind of self-satisfied religious person who thinks he has bottled up truth.) The natural human desire to bond together and share the You relation can lead to a cult, which can actually help sustain that relation (ritual), or which can “gradually become a substitute" for the You relation, supplanting the originating impulse with a dead It-thing.
** P. 163 -- continues this thought -- the You relation has to be actualized in the world. Thus, the ‘It-world’ becomes permeated and radiant. True community is made possible by individuals all relating to their ‘true You,’ as spokes in a wheel, radii leading to the same center. Through this, a ‘human cosmos’ comes to be -- finding and creating a spirit-centered community (as was discussed in the earlier section).
** P. 164 -- true encounter with the eternal You is always outward in direction -- but we want to hold on to it, greedily, and turn backwards in an attempt to hold onto God, and in so doing, turn God into an It. We can “converse with" God but not turn God into an object of understanding or definition. (In this view, theology would have very little utility for spiritual life, though common ritual with other God-encountering individuals could help them all sustain and kindle the You-relation).
** P. 165 - bottom - 166 -- how religions get started: from some individual encounter with the eternal You, which help kindle and sustain you-relation of other individuals (another description of the role of the prophet or religious ‘mouth’).
** In this work of founding and sustaining religion, humans are co-creators, not just passive conduits of divine revelation. (This connects with the description of the experience of creating art in the first section.)
** P. 167 -- the person encountering God can bring some of that encounter to the world in both ‘beholding’ and ‘forming’ God’s form. (This is similar to the Eastern Orthodox understanding of the religious icon, an image of the divine that is imbued with the spiritual experience of the artist who made it.) More on this page about the dynamic between living faith and dead religion. When religion (the form) becomes more important to followers than the “movement of return," God is removed from the “form" and the “cosmos crumbles" (that is, when the You-relation is missing from the form, the meaning goes out).
** P. 168 -- More on how religion can move from a living faith to a dead form. A new revelation leads to a renewal of “association of I and world"; that leads to an active period where this understanding is preserved; and then a period where the ‘I and the world’ are alienated (I am assuming here that the religion has taken the place of real You-relation with God). In closing, he points out that this rhythm of the ages isn’t circular (as it is understood in Hinduism) but a spiral -- moving through history in a direction of both greater risk of alienation/doom and also of greater potential ‘theophany’ -- showing of God.
Notes on Afterword: written much later, in 1957, Buber clarifies some issues about the differences between ‘I-you’ relations between humans, relations between humans and nature, and relations between humans and forms in the ‘spiritual realm’ -- which are both religious and artistic creations. An example of a real encounter with a ‘spiritual realm’ is really listening to the voice behind the writings of a long-dead spiritual master (perhaps the way he modeled trying to listen to Buddha in the last section). Another is connecting to the spiritual form of a Doric column. ‘Spiritual beings’ come into form through inspiration, which is the same in creative (artistic) work and religious inspiration. (176).
Point 5: (177 and following) talks about special ‘I-you’ relationships that have particular purposes (teacher-student, therapist-patient, pastor-parishioner), which are by nature not fully reciprocal. They are all genuine encounter, but the roles of the two are not the same. The teacher, therapist, and pastor have a responsibility to carry the emerging self of the student, patient, parishioner in a way that can not be reciprocated within the existing relationship. ( P. 179: He does a nice job of characterizing the job of a therapist: “the regeneration of a stunted personal center . . . the buried, latent unity of the suffering soul" -- which requires a ‘I-you’ approach, never turning the patient into an object.)
Point 6: Points out some paradoxes -- one being the apparent conflict between loving God exclusively and loving other people. Again, Buber reiterates that we embrace all others THROUGH our primary relation with God. Another paradox is that we describe God as a person, though of course God is much more than that. Buber says we do this because we relate to God AS IF God were a person, and that relationship is real and mutual, which for us can only happen between persons. God is more than a person, but
‘it is permitted and necessary to say that God is ALSO a person." The paradox lies in the assumption that a person is limited (because there are other persons too) -- he answers this by the “paradoxical designation of God as the absolute person, that is one that cannot be relativized." We bring all other relationships into our relationship with God, where they are “transfigured." Finally, Buber reiterates his point that conversation with God doesn’t take place outside the world, but this conversation
“penetrates the events in all our lives and all the events in the world around us. . . and turns it into instruction."
This word “instruction" is his word for Torah -- the Jewish word for Scripture, the living word of the law of God, which in Buber is widened to an ongoing revelation that we contribute to in our own conversations with God. The purpose of this instruction -- of Torah -- is that we live our lives in the world in response to this ongoing and living conversation.