Martin Buber’s I and Thou is the topic of this week’s Headless Deep Dive. In this classic work of philosophy, Buber explains that we have a two-fold existence.

First there is the world of “I-Thou” relationship. This is the world of being here now, meeting the world in mutual relation, which makes it clear to us that “I am”. Then there is the world of “I-It”. This is the world of living in the past, experiencing a world of separateness and objectification, which makes us feel like another thing among things.

Both these worlds are a necessary part of being human, but we can easily get lost in the I-It way of experiencing the world. Fear not, all is not lost. Buber points out that we can use the power of “reversal” to look back to our being at center and come out of the past, come out of our thoughts, and into the now. This resonates deeply with the Headless Way experiments of Douglas Harding, where we direct our attention back to the place we are looking out of, back to where the sense of “I am” meets the world with no dividing line between I and Thou.

So do you experience the world, or do you meet it?

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