Living Well Guidance from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
Day 3
“Standing eye to eye with being as being, we realize that we are able to look at the world with two faculties- with reason and with wonder. Through the first, we try to explain or to adapt the world to our concepts, thought the second we seek to adapt our minds to the world.”(Man is Not Alone pg.11).
OMG! I am trembling inside at the enormity of these two sentences. In the first phrase, Rabbi Heschel is asking, demanding, suggesting, pushing us to look at ourselves as beings, to see our being and the being of the world. Rabbi Heschel is calling on us to stop wearing blinders, to end our willful blindness to what truly is. We have to stand eye to eye with ourselves when we look in the mirror, which many of us do not do. We look in the mirror to make sure our make-up is on right, our beards are trimmed or our faces shaved. We look in the mirror to fix our hair to look good, yet we forget, most days, to stand eye to eye with our inner self, to stand eye to eye with the being that is who we truly are. Standing eye to eye with ourselves is a scary experience at first and then we get more and more comfortable with it, until we are scared not to stand eye to eye with our inner life, our spirit, God, the universe, another human being, etc.
The realization that we have a choice as to how to look at the world is freeing and debilitating, a true both/and. Rabbi Heschel is not dismissing reason, he is not, in my understanding, saying reason is bad or should not be used. He is, as I immerse myself today, reminding us that we have a choice as to the foundational path of our relating to the world, to being, to seeing. We can use reason as our foundation and we can use wonder as our foundation to encounter life, the world, God, Spirituality, being, ethics, morality, love, kindness, even truth. This is the greatest challenge of our time, of all times- will we use reason as the end all/be all as the foundational principle of our decisions in life? Some scientists and others say that if it can’t be proven, it isn’t valid/true. Every scientific breakthrough has come about because people decided to go beyond the conventional reasoning of their time! When we have to have, what I call a ‘lower logic’ basis for our ways of being, we become trapped and debilitated in our ability to be human. We no longer can appreciate the sun for what it is, rather we appreciate it and all other things for what it does for us. We see the world as utilitarian means to our ends, whatever we decide our ends should be. When we are in our ‘lower logic’, we may feel love, yet not know love; we may feel connected, yet not trust the connection will continue, etc. Lower logic is a way of seeing the world through a selfish lens, trying always to adapt the world to our own concepts, explaining and complaining about the unfairness of life because we did not get our way.
We are living in a world that values what we can see, feel, touch, reason, etc. ‘Lower logic’ tells us we can be/should be perfect and any flaws are signs of weakness. We are suffering because of this way of being. In ‘lower logic’, we are unable to stand eye to eye with anything other than the vision we have created. In ‘lower logic’ we stand at the mirror and check our reflection continually each and every day to ensure that our masks are in place, we look good, no one can see the real me/my inner being/my soul. We use the masks to attain and amass wealth, facts, charm, position, etc, all the while getting emptier and emptier inside. We then use these false measures of success to soothe ourselves, we use substances, behaviors, people to soothe ourselves. And, eventually, nothing works to soothe ourselves. It is at this point we move from the anxiety of being ‘found out’ to the depression of total inner unrest. In this depression, we again seek to use ‘lower logic’ to solve the problem, we use the chemicals/drugs that are being sold on TV, pushed by the Doctors, etc when our problems stem from our surrender to a false foundational way of being. Reason alone, ‘lower logic’ alone as the foundational source of our relating to the world brings about war, hatred, jealousy, prolong the traumatic events of our life, the wearing of masks and hiding, blinding ourselves to truth, love, kindness, etc.
In recovery, we surrender our need for reason as the foundational principle of living. We have used reason to hide, to steal, to lie, to get over, to keep the mask/front up and to take advantage of everyone and anyone who tries to relate to our inner being. In recovery, we know we have to use our reason/‘lower logic’ at times and to use it wisely, we are aware that it can no longer be the guiding principle. We are powerless over our intellectual need for reason/‘lower logic’ and it has made our life unmanageable, is another way to read the first step of AA. In recovery, we realize the fallacy and the debilitating effects of reason/‘lower logic’ being our foundational principle and commit to stop taking this path.
I used reason/‘lower logic’ for my own gain, never to help another person, prior to my recovery. In these past 34+ years, I have seen over and over again the pain, loss, trap, enslavement using reason as my first line of defense or offense has caused. I also realize my buying into the reason/‘lower logic’ of another person has brought pain, loss, enslavement to both of us. I am aware, thru this writing today, of the destruction I experienced as well as the destruction I brought through using reason as the first line of defense/offense. I am realizing how hurtful it is to misread people and situations, when one party is using wonder and the other reason-how easy it is to manipulate, blame and take advantage of another in this experience. I also am realizing how much I did exactly this prior to my recovery. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark