Unavoidable asymmetries of awareness between
individuals however should not be identified with
differences of gender, class, race or caste. The belief that
women and/or people of a different race or lower social
caste or class are innately inferior in awareness has been the
curse running through countless religions and spiritual
traditions, Eastern and Western. It must be emphasised
too, that awareness and acceptance of asymmetry in adult
relationships, and the practice of aware relating in response
to it, is not just a way of accommodating to the limits or
lesser awareness of others. On the contrary, it is what
allows the highly individual nature of the limitations
evident in another person’s awareness to become a source
of deep interest, meditation, learning and insight rather
than a cause for boredom or accommodation, restlessness
or a sense of innate superiority. For the aware acceptance
of asymmetries in relationships also turns all social
situations into opportunities to recognise what I term
‘reverse asymmetry’. By this I mean the opportunity to
appreciate and learn from the unique individual qualities of
awareness embodied or expressed even by persons with a
‘quantitatively’ lower level of awareness. The principle of
reverse asymmetry gives expression to a notable
autobiographical remark made by Martin Buber. Here he
describes the enduring life inclination he felt impelled to
embody, one which recognises both the transformative
power of aware relating and the ‘reverse asymmetry’ or
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