I Am Through You So I Read online

  DSR: In the United States, we encounter a very widespread fundamentalism, and I personally do not like its rhetoric, its God-talk. I regret that, in Europe, so many Christians are leaving the Church. It may represent a necessary inner liberation for those leaving, but it also means a loss for their children, because then the next generation no longer experiences religious belonging. The sense of security provided by religious embedding is important in childhood, even if one leaves that safe shelter later. Children need it and enjoy it as well. But in the end, the heart of religiousness is engagement with Mystery, and no one can avoid that forever. The birth of a child; the death of one’s parents, friends, or relatives; one’s own death—all these are situations that are deeply religious because they confront us inevitably with the Mystery of life and challenge us to somehow interact with it. In our society, people often try to invent some ritual on those occasions. What a great gift it is to grow up in a culture where tradition gives one forms to express the religious dimension in everyday life, where people inherit rituals for that, as in the indigenous cultures. How that enriches human life!

  JK: No doubt, but even your interpretation of birth and death as experiences of the Mystery, as religious experiences, would be completely denied by a “religiously unmusical” agnostic. He might say, “Brother David, birth is birth, death is death. That’s the circle of life, it has nothing to do with God or Mystery. We pass life on and it is over when we die. Our highest goal in life is to pass life on to the next generation in such a way that they treat the world well. That is why it is important that the next generation live relatively decently and think well of us. We gave them life, but there is nothing beyond that.”

  DSR: Someone who strikes such an “it’s nothing but” pose is not really engaging with life. Imagine a woman who would say what you have just said: “Birth is birth.” When she gives birth to a child, she surely will be overawed—and the father who witnesses the birth as well. Or when one is standing at the deathbed of a person one loves: that is engaging with life, and there, all formulas break down—the religious ones no less than the atheist ones. What remains is experiencing, and that experiencing is the experiencing of the Holy, of a power that both thrills us and makes us tremble. That’s what religiousness is all about.

  JK: But not for those who do not see it.

  DSR: I do not know whether there really are people who do not see that. There may be those who deny it, but is there someone who really does not experience it?

  JK: Perhaps not experiencing it as wonderful, but in the sense of a profane finite life. It is always wonderful when new life comes into the world and sad when a life passes.

  DSR: Presented that way, all it means is that someone does not think overly much about the Mystery of life. But that is not what matters in the end: it only matters not to actively deny it. And one can deny it with the head, but not with the heart. That, at least, is how I see it.

  JK: But does one experience the religious or the Holy itself, or is experiencing already an interpretation?

  DSR: Naming it is of course an interpretation, but what stands behind that interpretation is lived reality. One may call it whatever one pleases.

  JK: Do you not know people who essentially say, “There is no God. Life is beautiful. Let’s drink and eat, because we’ll be dead tomorrow”?

  DSR: I do not know many such people, because my social contacts are limited. But a person’s stated doctrine is irrelevant in our context here. In other words, when someone says, “There is no God,” I try to look at the person standing behind this statement. That is the same when I encounter a fundamentalist. I try to encounter the person. The doctrine does not interest me so much. We can pretend all sorts of things to ourselves.

  JK: Then what is the essential factor?

  DSR: In the end, what counts is that we let oneself be moved by Mystery, not the terms we use to talk about it—and that is also true for people who use Christian terms. If the Mystery has not taken hold of us, reciting this or that creed is no substitute. Fortunately, life runs its course in such a way that encounters with the Great Mystery are unavoidable. At the very least, we encounter death. Death confronts us with something we cannot grasp but that we must deal with when it takes hold of us. The same holds for music or nature. I am convinced that music and nature trigger the relevant religious experiences in many people. When the Mystery takes hold of us, it takes us into the space that Rilke calls “the world’s inner space.” And that is what counts, not interpretive terminology.

  JK: A brief question about “the world’s inner space”: What exactly is meant by that?

  DSR: Rilke used different expressions for this reality: “the world’s inner space,” “the open,” “the inaccessible.” Those are poetic terms, and one needs to allow oneself to be affected by them. Something resonates in us there, but grasping it, analyzing it, and putting it into the harness of logic, that is impossible. In the end, it comes back to being moved.

  JK: And about mutual belonging?

  DSR: Being moved by the Great Mystery is the experience of boundless mutual belonging. Of course, one can cultivate one’s consciousness of this belonging and let it flow into one’s whole life. But one can also repress it.

  JK: And what can you do for someone who suppresses and denies it?

  DSR: I would start by giving that person a big hug. There is more genuine religiosity in a heart-to-heart hug than in all the God-talk in the world. Where strangers learn to hug one another as friends, the Mystery shines forth in all its glory. Is not the longing for encounters of this kind the deepest reason for our travels?

  Traveling with Anthony Chavez

  8

  Contemplation and Revolution

  1996–2006

  The more I encountered people from many parts of the globe on my travels and the more I listened to their concerns, the more I began to suspect that a sea change in the history of the world was approaching. All the most memorable encounters centered around tears, but also around inextinguishable hope. Especially one conversation—with students in Zaire—triggered insights that would crystallize and become decisive during the eighth decade of my life.

  I am in Kinshasa. The unrest here has reached a point where each night I must be brought to new, less endangered quarters. One evening, I visit doctoral students in their rundown dormitories, where they live cramped into tiny spaces with their wives and children. The only table they have is a cooking surface, dining table, children’s play area, and desk all-in-one, so that the expensive books and the documents for their dissertations are constantly in danger. Despite unimaginable deprivations, these young men have managed to get near the goal of all efforts. “What is the thing you most hope for in your future?” I ask them, thinking—admittedly—of riches and influence. The answer makes me speechless. “Once we have finished, we hope to resist the temptation to howl with the pack. We want to do it differently from those who have money and power now. We know, this will not be an easy road, but we’ll try.” Here is a radical new vision of the future. The courage of these pioneers to swim against the stream goes to my heart and shatters my preconceived notions. Their vision is—in the best sense—revolutionary.

  Over time, revolution becomes an important term for me. I use it half-jokingly, since it concerns something quite different from the revolutions we know from history. The revolution that this moment in world history demands of us must revolutionize even the accepted image of revolution. Until now, revolution has consisted of turning the respective power pyramid on its head, so that the former revolutionaries climbed from the bottom to the top—and continued doing what those on top had done before. Today, it is not enough to turn the power pyramid upside down; we must completely dismantle and replace it by a network. The Buddha made it his goal to put this into practice in the social structure of his sangha,1 and Jesus wanted to see it realized in his community of disciples: “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those in authority over them are called be
nefactors. But not so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves” (Luke 22:25–26). The doctoral students in Kinshasa obviously wanted something similar. Their vision and goal, like that of many other small groups I was privileged to encounter, was not an improved power hierarchy but rather a network of mutual respect.

  From the beginning, the pyramid has been the fundamental model of our civilization. Most people have accepted and continue to accept that model as a given. But without a clear picture in their minds, they simultaneously desire something completely different. People blossom under mutual trust, but our creativity dries up under fear. The power pyramid is built on fear: those at the top fear losing their power and, therefore, use violence to maintain their place. Further down in the pyramid, fear leads to rivalry and cutthroat competition. The fear of losing out leads to greed, jealousy, and envy. In a network, in contrast, there is no position of power to defend, because all are empowered to work for the good of all others. This revolutionary vision of the future replaces fear by trust, rivalry by cooperation, greed by communal sharing.

  History was never my favorite subject. Under Hitler, we were convinced that our history professors were lying to us, because all the past had to be tailored toward its glorious culmination in the Third Reich. But now I wanted to examine the fundamental idea behind the French Revolution. Although the movement soon turned completely in the wrong direction, I found its original premise fascinating: “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité”—did that not contain the program for the fresh start that was urgently needed even then but might today be necessary for our survival?

  Freedom (Liberté) begins and ends with freedom from violence, to which I have sworn myself. Violence makes one unfree, since it is the perversion of power. The only creative use of power is the empowerment of others, and it frees the one who empowers no less than the one who knows himself empowered.

  Equality (Égalité) does not mean raising everyone to the same level, but rather ensuring equal rights and equal dignity. It became increasingly clear to me that a dynamic order can only be built on the acknowledgment of our equality. Where we conquer fear, competition turns into interplay of give and take among people with quite different talents, but with equal rights—and equal responsibility.

  Fraternity (Fraternité) puts a new emphasis on equality by naming its origin: as brothers and sisters, we all are part of the same human family. Thus, fraternity points also to the most beautiful expression of being a family: sharing.

  More than ever before, in my seventies, I also had the opportunity of meeting people who stood at the helms of our society in the United States and elsewhere, and whom I could therefore presume to be well informed. Again and again, I heard particularly these people speak the words, “We can’t go on like this!”—not in politics, not in economics, and not in any other significant area either. “And why not?” I would ask. “Because we are in the process of destroying ourselves.” (And, at that time, there were still many more who thoughtlessly exploited nature and the environment, calling climate change a hoax while still considering themselves experts.) Through violence, rivalry, and greed, we now stood near the brink of self-destruction; and in the thirty years since, we have come significantly closer. But during the same period, ever more people have woken up to the realization that our hope in the future lies in sharing, cooperation, and freedom from fear and violence.

  Power pyramid and network proved to be helpful models for understanding my personal experience in this period of my life. At its beginning (1994–97), I was teacher-in-residence at Esalen Institute on the Big Sur coast of California, close to the New Camaldoli Hermitage, my monastic home for fourteen years, as noted earlier. Archaeological finds have shown that even five thousand years ago, Native Americans of the Esselen tribe and their ancestors had their winter grounds near the hot springs at this place that nature endowed so richly. In the early 1960s, many young people settled by these hot springs, living in a counterculture style and questioning the prevailing social order. The spark that kindled Esalen’s future was their idea to invite intellectual pioneers of the time as teachers and guides: Abraham Maslow, Joan Baez, Paul Tillich, Henry Miller, Fritz Perls, Timothy Leary, Carl Rogers—even a cursory and incomplete listing is impressive. Hot springs by a steep cliff face above the thundering bay; bathing pools overlooking the sea and the playgrounds of whales, dolphins, and sea otters: all that was seductive enough to attract even the most prominent of guests without a speaking fee. Soon, the retreat developed into a nonprofit center for interdisciplinary humanistic studies and conventions. The resident community carried the life of the center, while its owners and a board of directors managed it as a business.

  Perhaps equally important was the fact that the massage technique that developed there soon grew in fame, and that gardeners coaxed not only indescribably glorious flowers from the fertile soil but also rich harvests of fresh vegetables, which inventive chefs turned into delicious vegetarian meals. Some of the women started a kindergarten to care for the children of the resident community. Soon guests too discovered that their little ones were well cared for at this progressively run Gazebo and enjoyed playing with the goats, dogs, and donkeys there while their parents attended courses or enjoyed the hot springs. Thus, the various talents among the resident community found rich expression and use, and the venture thrived.

  Mike Murphy and Dick Price, both born in 1930, and later colleagues at Stanford University, incorporated Esalen Institute in 1961. Mike had inherited from his family most of this land where young people of the Beat generation were squatting. His grandfather, a doctor, had already considered making therapeutic use of the hot springs before there were roads leading to the Esalen wilderness. Both Mike and Dick lived at Esalen, but eventually Mike moved to San Francisco. As a disciple of Sri Aurobindo, he meditated with conviction and tenacity. He focused on his writing and felt responsible for the commercial unfolding of Esalen, which he furthered with the help of a supervisory board. Dick continued to live in the community and was connected to its members by mutual love and appreciation. Together with his wife, Chris, he was teacher, role model, inspiration, and communal center to the varied crowd who were doing pioneering work there. Having had bad personal experiences with psychiatric practices, he wanted to make Esalen a place of psychological healing, where inner processes could unfold organically and find balance. Using his own form of Gestalt therapy, he succeeded in giving Esalen its orientation as “a community of seekers serving seekers” that would make it a world-famous center of integral healing for body and soul.

  On November 25, 1985, Dick was—as he did so often—meditating high in the hills near the spring supplying Esalen with water when he was hit by a falling rock and killed. (At the very same time, something moved me out of the blue to hold a speech of praise in his honor, even though I was over three thousand miles away and knew nothing of his death.) The passing of this man who had decisively shaped Esalen’s inner life for more than twenty years was a blow that would forever change the direction of his and Mike Murphy’s creation. Although Steve Donovan, the new director, was trusted by both the community and the supervisory board and did everything in his power to bridge the gap, the goals of the board and the community drifted further and further apart. Steve began to invite “teachers-in-residence”: women and men who might encourage the community by their presence and charisma. I was one of those honored with an invitation. In one of those almost too dramatic scenarios of fate, the moment I arrived and put my suitcase down, Steve embraced me, picked up his suitcase, and left Esalen for good.

  There I now stood, between the “village community”—as I viewed those who had come to Esalen in the early days with their families—and the “entrepreneurs,” who saw it as their responsibility to turn Esalen into a profitable venture. On the one hand, women and men who had worked and lived there for much of their lives and even raised children there claimed an authorial right: Had they no
t made Esalen what it was? Did the guests not come because of the warm atmosphere of community that they had created and which could not live on in that way without them? On the other hand, the board was convinced that it had not only the right but the duty to transform the confusing welter of community into a well-organized staff. To this day, I do not know what lay in the realm of possibility at that time. With more patience and empathy, the tensions might have been eased and the hurt of sudden, unexplained dismissals of honored longtime colleagues might have been avoided. But in the last analysis, what took place here was a clash of basic principles.

  In retrospect, it seems that this was a demonstration of the conflict between network and power pyramid. While Esalen has done considerable service in programs for businesspeople—I myself was privileged to participate in several conferences at which entrepreneurs and groundbreaking pioneers in the field of economics introduced new, more humane models of leadership—Esalen’s board still follows a conventional top-down administrative model. For now, the power pyramid has prevailed over the original network vision of Dick Price and the community. Their hopes for an egalitarian, cooperative, and humane business model are still waiting to be realized.

  My time at Esalen was difficult for me, and my heart still grows heavy when I recall the suffering I witnessed. But I remain deeply thankful for the encounters and experiences that I received there. After my years in California, I returned to New York feeling that I had reached the end of my life. At that time, my friends Nancy and Roderich Graeff settled down in a Quaker retirement home not far from our monastery and offered to house me there as well. Father Martin, our Prior, familiar with the difficulties of caring for aging Brothers, gratefully accepted the offer on my behalf. And thus, Kendal at Ithaca became a new kind of hermitage for me that turned out to be exactly what I needed. I did not travel anymore, reduced all contact to a minimum, and prepared to die. Well, life was to unfold differently. Again, and again, Tom Driscoll and other friends urged me to put texts on the internet. They suggested gratefulness as a theme. I was not overly interested, but Daniel Uvanovic, an adventurous young internet expert whom I had gotten to know in Big Sur when he spent retreat time at the monastery, offered to come to Ithaca for a few weeks and build a website for me. The weeks turned into months and years, and Daniel most generously stayed on and worked tirelessly. From its humble beginnings, the website2 grew to be a source of strength for a worldwide network of tens of thousands of visitors daily. In my heart, I gratefully carry the names—far too many to list here—of the friends and colleagues who made, and still make this work possible.