WHAT IS HINDUISM?
reciprocity of relational transformation. Thus, speaking of
his central life inclination Buber wrote:
“It was just a certain inclination to meet people. And as
far as possible, just to change something if possible in the
other, but also to let myself be changed by him. At any
event, I had no resistance...put up no resistance to it. I
began as a young man. I felt I had not the right to want to
change another if I am not open to being changed by
him...”
These wise words echo the old Talmudic saying that a
truly wise human being is one who finds something to
value and learn from in each and every other human being.
Aware relating is innately and intentionally educative and
transformative, allowing the relation to teach and transform
others – but only on the condition that one is open also to
being transformed by it, above all by being open to and
learning from the uniqueness of the other – what makes
them different or ‘special’, however ‘aware’ or ‘unaware’
they are.
People have their own individual feelings and world-
views, values and principles, fears and desires, dilemmas
and problems, hopes and potentials. ‘And’ they have
relationships, more or less fulfilling. The aim of a New
Yoga of active and aware relating is to bring an end to this
mere ‘And’, with its implication that relationships and
relating are merely an appendage or optional add-on to our