The Human Encounter ~ Creative Possibilities by Vibeke Ball

The human encounter is a place where we can begin to experience three-folding. In the last newsletter Jef Saunders, as ‘Star over Hesperus’, spoke about the evolution from a tribal society to an individualizing process where so much is about ‘me’. So, does this make it difficult to connect with and understand other people? It seems that today there is much discord in human relationships, whether it be marriages, families or communities, not to mention between different religions and nationalities. I often feel quite overwhelmed by all this conflict that seems to be everywhere. What did Ghandi mean when he said: “Be the change you want to see in the world.”? Is this where we have the actual possibility to make a difference….. within ourselves ….. and can this ‘change’ affect our human encounters on a daily basis, thus enhancing community life?

So, when I encounter another person each of us brings our developing “I”, our individual soul life as well as all our past history and future destiny, to this space between us ~ like a complex tapestry. Do we have the possibility of really ‘seeing’ the other ~ of having a true meeting? Many times a day, a week, a month, a year, we have this opportunity to practice how we connect with each other ~ to continually live into this unspoken three-folding where the archetype seeks expression.

This connects to the ‘rights’ sphere of three-folding ~ what lives between us, between one human being and another. In human rights if you take away gender, skin colour, nationality, poor or rich etc. we are left with the essential human being, much of which is invisible to us. In social life can we really ‘see’ the person other than their body? Generally speaking, we do not see soul & spirit; we do not see thoughts and feelings.

This individual ‘I’ gesture tends to cut us off from all other people and from the world. The feeling is one of loneliness. Through that separateness, the possibility of consciousness is able to arise ~ I am able to ‘wake up’. Meeting other people today is generally a kind of unconscious process that we take for granted. I find calling it ‘Human Encounter’ gives it more awareness to start with. The word encounter can have a painful connotation but it is a human meeting. Can it be a true meeting? So this third space between us is the middle space, this heart space that I share with other human beings. We spend a lot of time in our thoughts. Can I ‘feel’ what I am thinking ~ bring my thinking to this heart realm?

When I say ‘you’ do I have the actual experience of the person being another ‘I’? How can I practice understanding ‘you’ as another ‘I’? By suspending our own thinking, putting it on hold and really listening, putting ourselves in the other’s

thoughts ~ trying to actually think only what the other’s thoughts are – can we really sense the other. This enables us to place ourselves in opposition to an idea we might have. By placing ourself in opposition to our feelings about another’s idea, perhaps we can avoid being enslaved to that idea, and really wake up to the other person. By practicing this we may begin to bring order to our social life.

As soon as we reach the ‘You’ the encounter that weaves between us begins. This conscious awareness as an active process enlivens the third place that weaves between us, leading to ‘We’. Sometimes this ‘bridge’ is a bridge of pain. We may find we are aggressive in our will. We may find we are feeling hard- hearted, but the mission of pain is to become conscious, to awake to ourself and others. Carrying this pain consciously can build the bridge to the other person. It is part of being human ~ bringing humanity into human society.

How fortunate we are to be part of a community like Hesperus that is open to and interested in this kind of development. Can we continue to develop more understanding between us ….. building the ‘We’ of community? I think this is the beginning of what we call Social Art.

Thank you to Rainer Schnurre for this work in building a picture of three-folding in the human encounter. Website http://www.alternativ3gliedern.com

Rainer gave us a practical three-step contemplation on social art ~ to ponder the following three questions:

1. What am I saying when I say I?
2. What are you saying when you say You?
3. What are we saying when we say We? (Note: There is the ‘we’ of twopeople, the ‘we’ of family, the ‘we’ of community and the ‘We’ of humanity ~ living and dead.)

This contemplation could be experienced alone or with a group.

Message from Rainer: “Through the various meetings with groups and individuals during my visit to Canada I realized upon reflection what I consider my task: To awaken in human beings a longing for the Threefold Social Organism!

In my seminars we work through genuine human encounters phenomenologically. We can discover in this process that such relationship dynamics are what is also at work in social three folding in society at large! This experience arises sometimes suddenly, like a flash of lightning! Then we forget it again yet the lightning bolt also ignites a light in the soul, awakening us to light as well as to the pain. This pain comes as an awakener and arises simultaneously with the experience of light. It is through this pain that the longing for three folding awakens in the social organism! But there comes the challenge: Can we stay awake in our will to now pursue change actively?