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HOW CAN I DESCRIBE DR. FROMM'S stay in Mexico during the years in which he published most of his work? The thought of doing it is inspiring and awesome. How does one relate such intense experiences? I'm aware that words are limiting, but I will try to transmit the aliveness, the vitality of all the events. On this issue Fromm (1966, p. 18) stated: "… that concepts have their own lives and that they grow, can be understood only if the concepts are not separated from the experiences to which they give expression. If the concept becomes alienated—that is, separated from the experience to which it refers—it loses its reality and is transformed into an artifact of man's mind … The idea expressing an experience has been transformed into an ideology that usurps the place of the underlying reality …"
It is probable that I will include some facts and leave others out, not because they are unimportant; but because of necessity my perspective cannot touch all the events. I have my own outlook, and living events, sometimes, make their own tracks. But I will strive to be objective in writing about my teacher and dearly loved friend.
On one occasion Dr. Fromm asked me to criticize him and, unwittingly, I began to enhance his virtues and resourcefulness. He fixed his eyes on mine and said: "You know, all this sounds rather like a funeral oration and I'm not dead yet. All living persons are imperfect and thus, are subjects of critical objectivity. Only the dead are perfect." I was left with the task, if I dared, of describing negative aspects of his character orientation.
A Zen story comes to mind which I believe, because of the richness of its content, it is timely to relate: One day a Zen Master and his diciples went for a walk in the countryside; one of the monks