(This essay is from the book: “Life between consciousness and soul, vol. 1. To be released 2010/2012) -Unfortunately the two books of life between consciousness and soul were blocked in a harsh and brutal act by the publisher).
Our problem with others is difficult to trace. We see ourselves with others as separate units, exchanging staff with another separate unit. And each one preserves its own identity.
This is a rational, narrow and material approach, which doesn’t take into account the affinity and relations between both. The moment two people meet and there is an interaction, it does not matter what is each one for himself, it is secondary to the affinity that developed between them. An affinity that has in it what comes from both of them, but there in it something which did not exist before in each of them. It can even be said that they are no longer exactly who they have been when they were alone. They are now not living in themselves but in the middle which was created between them. They are influenced more by the relations that were created rather than their individual personality, in the given time of the interaction.
But it is not as simple as that; this is true only if they allow to themselves to be melted into the mutual affinity and thus to allow something new to take shape. In general it does not happen, the individual personality, or the ego, are too dominant and do not allow for the affinity to happen.
In a situation of an affinity, the relationship are supposed to be the influential element on everyone separately, rather than the other way around.
If one allows the relational affinity to take place between both, he can experience a kind of revelation, a world and experiences that were not available in the frequent interactions, (in which one is faithful to his own separate unite). And will have to adjust themselves to the new things that were discovered during the relational affinity.
But most of us are chained to who we are and to who we think we are, and we don’t allow for the affinity of the relationship to be the central ingredient between both.
In affinity relations the ego shrinks and makes a room for something unknown to take place between both. And then there is mystery, adventure, but may be danger, because in affinity relations you don’t know and is not responsible to what could develop between the two.
In analogy the relationship in which each one keeps his autonomy – is like the old physics, Newtonian physics which saw everything as separate matter, there was no affinity between the various partials, this is very different from quantum physics that sees matter as a space in which an energetic interaction is happening between the subatomic particles. And what seem to us as separate matter is in fact the energetic affinity relations between the subatomic particles and other particles. In other words, bellow the separate subatomic unit there is energetic activity. And the speed of the rotation and the movement of the subatomic particles is what gives the illusion of solid matter.
In fact, from a quantum standpoint there are no separate material units, but there are affinity relations between basic energetic ingredients and other subatomic particles.
A Philosopher that relates to the relation or affinity in communication is Martin Buber. He claimed that there are two kinds of human relations; a relation of ‘I and thou’, (it) and relation of ‘I and you’, according to him the single human is not what is important but its his affinity with the other.
According to him the modern world is in the direction of ‘I thou’ and not ‘I it’. He claims that modern relationship are relations of alienation in which we treat each other as though they were an object (I thou), this is a techno-scientific relation that brings to the modern human, loneliness and spiritual boredom.
Here are the differences between affinity relations and an object and separation relations.
In relation of ‘I and thou’ the other is an object.
In relation of ‘I and you’ the other is a subject:
With a mutual affinity I and his partner are in an equal mutual affinity.
I and you are in the same status and position, the other is not a tool in order to reach a purpose, satisfying a need, interest and so on.
The relation between I and you is without mediation, it is authentic and mutual.
The other is not under measurement and objective evaluation.
The affinity has got a limited time but it influences deeply and for a long time, the personality of the people involved.
What is important in communication is not the positioning and the feeling of the individual but a third thing, that comes from both but lives separate from them. The interpersonal affinity is actualized in the common space between them.
This approach gets a strengthening from the teaching of the Tao (Chinese mysticism of Lao tzu) that emphasizes the mutual relations between two separate human units more than their individual center of gravity.
Joseph Needham in his book: “Science and civilization in China”, claims the Chinese philosophy was finding reality in relations.
In the relational or affinity world, there is no meaning to the existence of a separate unit but only to the relation it makes with other units that stop being faithful to themselves the moment the affinity is created.
In a quantum communication (if it could be said so) the units which take part in the affinity happening (‘I you’) live in an empty world, but a world in which energy can move from unit to unit freely. And then each unit returns to itself fertilized and charged by a kind of a transdental experience, that leaves in him a deep impact and he is no longer the same unit as before.
But the rational, leaner, mechanistic person of today, sees the emptiness and the void that exists between both as a frightening abyss that threatened to swallow the communicators into a non being, a disappearance of them in the void that exist between them. They do not see the void as an opportunity for actualization and of a life of affinity.
They need to through themselves into the void that is between them and see what will happen between them; an entity created by both and influences each one.
Usually we do not create between us a free and empty field in which will happen something new that was not in each one of us before. So that after this conversation we return to ourselves renewed with a view which we did not have before the conversation.
What happens usually is that this void, this silence which is between us frightens us both and causes us to get closed even further in ourselves.
That means that we will do anything in order to fill the void, the threatening silence; especially talking about what does not touch the life of any of us.
How rare it is to create such an affinity between two participants? Very rare. And if it happens, they will probably associate it to chemistry between both and not to the affinity.
*
Here are two quotations about this, from: Frijof Capra: “The Tao of Physics”:
“Quantum theory thus reveals a basic oneness of the universe. It shows that we cannot decompose the world into independently existing smallest units. As we penetrate into matter, nature does not show us any isolated “building blocks,” but rather appears as a complicated web of relations between the various parts of the whole. These relations always include the observer in an essential way…
Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism
“the properties of a particle can only be understood in terms of its activity—of its interaction with the surrounding environment—and that the particle, therefore, cannot be seen as an isolated entity but has to be understood as an integrated part of the whole.”
― Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism
Gabriel