José Carlos González-HurtadoThe more science, the more God".Scientists as well as believers. Reasons for their position of faithWhat is the future of ecumenical diplomacy? Rafael Domingo, professor and author of more than 30 books, and Gonzalo Rodríguez-Fraile, U.S.-based businessman and Harvard MBA, have just published the book ".Spiritualizing". (Rialp). The book aims to help people resolve conflicts and live in peace in an age marked by personal suffering and lack of happiness. The book is intended for all types of people, regardless of their religion, beliefs and culture. The authors think differently on religious and anthropological issues of some significance, but they agree on everything they say in this book.
We interviewed Rafael Domingo about the book.
What motivated the writing of "Spiritualize"?
The book is the result of ten years of uninterrupted conversation between me and the well-known businessman Gonzalo Rodriguez-Fraile. It is the fruit of a sincere dialogue that flowed spontaneously when we met in February 2014, in Miami, through a good mutual friend. To the fact that we were both Spanish and had lived many years in the United States was joined an ardent desire to seek the truth, as well as to help others resolve their conflicts and find inner peace. Our dialogue was very enriching for both of us. Nothing could be further from each of us than pretending to be right, let alone trying to impose it.
What is the purpose of this book?
The book provides a general framework for achieving inner peace and proposes different tools to skillfully resolve the conflicts we generate in our minds. Sometimes it is due to a lack of understanding. Other times it is due to inefficient conflict management.
Give me an example of lack of understanding?
Not distinguishing the mind from the soul is a source of conflict, for example, because it prevents one from transcending the limit of the mental, which is in any case contextual. To live in peace, one must learn to live from the soul, not from the mind. Another example is to think that the ego can disappear or must be controlled, when, in fact, it must be transcended. The practical implications of these examples are many and important. If a fly gets into your room you can chase it, with the stress it generates, or simply open the window. With the ego, something similar happens. You have to learn to manage it.
What does "spiritualizing" consist of?
Spiritualizing oneself consists precisely in that: in seeing oneself from the soul. The soul is the bonfire of the human being, which heats and illuminates the other operative centers. From the watchtower of the soul, any conflict generated in a lower operative center can be solved, no matter how complicated it may seem. The instinctive conflicts are not solved in the instinct, but transcending the instinct. Emotional conflicts are not pacified with emotions, but by transcending emotions; sentimental conflicts are not pacified in the mental realm, but fundamentally in the soul, by purifying the intention. The soul should be the control tower of the human being, which radiates peace, harmony and light to all the lower bodies. In order not to obstruct this work, the ego must be transcended.
But then, it is a book against the current.
Totally, and politically incorrect: he makes the spiritual present in a world centered on matter; he speaks of God in a post-modern society, and he states bluntly that, to achieve peace, the human being must be seen more from the summit of his soul than from the valley of his body.
We are in a world where there is a lot of talk about spirituality without religion, spirituality without God, etc. Does your book go that way?
Spirituality is a word invented by Christians, in the second century, as necessary to follow Christ, to be united to God. It seems that now many Christians are afraid of it, as if the spiritual belonged to Eastern religions. Just as there is a natural morality, there is also a natural spirituality, which leads us to seek union with God and the divine, with the universe, with others and with ourselves. What we are trying to do in this book is to seek points of encounter of universal validity that contribute to the spiritual growth of people and that do not require revealed faith. It is not a matter of opposing religion to spirituality, but of studying spirituality in depth as a unique and unitive phenomenon.
But then, aren't spirituality and religion the same thing?
Proof that they are not the same is that religions can and should be spiritualized. A religion that promotes love is more spiritual than one that promotes only the application of divine justice, or one that promotes unconditional forgiveness than one that only demands it in certain cases and circumstances. In my opinion, Christianity is the most spiritual religion, and, at bottom, in it, spirituality and religion merge. But conceptually spirituality and religion are distinguishable, like morality and religion or liturgy and religion. Spirituality is closely linked to the purity of intention; religion, on the other hand, is more related to the institutional, the cultural.
All this sounds like syncretism and religious relativism, is that the direction of your proposal?
Although on this point the authors disagree, we do not think that all religions are equal, but we do point out that in many of them there are accurate anthropological and cosmic perspectives for human development. A religion that does not contribute, does not endure centuries and centuries. On the other hand, in my opinion, to say that Christianity is a religion is a reductionism, like saying that the human being is a thinking animal. For me, and as the concept of religion is understood today, Christianity is much more than a religion. Jesus Christ founded a Church, which is neither more nor less than his Mystical Body. To be a Christian is not to belong to a religion but to live in the Mystical Body of Christ, in perfect union with the Father through the love of the Holy Spirit.
Does man still need God?
Yes, of course. Every human being needs God. But above all, a God who is Love, like the Christian God, not a god assembled by the human mind as an idea or concept. Much less a caricature of God, as so many people (sometimes Catholics) have formed. Where there is love, there is God, Teresa of Calcutta liked to repeat. Therefore, a person who loves, no matter how much he may mentally deny God and argue and proclaim to the four winds his non-existence, in reality, is not an atheist. He simply has not yet encountered God with his reason or has not received the gift of faith. For that person, God is the great Unknown. But in the depths of his soul he may be loving, without knowing it, this Unknown God. And we Christians know that this Unknown God is loving him infinitely from all eternity.
How to make the existence of God compatible with the existence of evil?
That's the million dollar question. You are asking me to solve the mystery of iniquity in a few sentences. What I can say is that, with great ease, one falls into the dualism of opposing the wrong to good, as if they were two principles that govern the world, following the Manichean principle. However, evil is not opposed to good, as darkness is not opposed to light. Evil is the absence of good, as darkness is the absence of light, but not its opposite. God, as the Supreme Good that he is, could not create evil, but only good; just as he did not create darkness, but only light. A God capable of creating evil would not be God but a false god. And if evil has not been created in its own sense, then it has no existence of its own, it lacks its own substantivity. The classics said that evil is not substance, but corruption of substance, "corruption of good".
Please land
There is water, not the absence of water. But the absence of proper water in a human body, i.e. dehydration, generates multiple bodily damage or death. Similarly, we can say that there is good, not the absence of good (which we call evil). But the lack of due good produces harm, whether physical, mental or spiritual. Thus, for example, the absence of dealing with one's partner produces estrangement and rupture; the absence of forgiveness in social relationships generates emotional and social tension. Rejection of the good is possible because we are free. God wanted to take the risk of our freedom. I usually use the example of marriage and ask spouses: Which would you prefer to marry someone who is free to abandon you or someone who is not (if that were possible)? All of them usually tell me that with one who can freely leave them. The reason is clear: if I did not have the freedom to leave, I would not be able to love freely, that is, with true love. The same is true of evil. God wants us to love him because we feel like it, that is, with all the truth of our heart. That is why evil, that is, the rejection of the Good, is possible. We have to thank God every day for the gift of freedom, which allows us to love him with our whole being.
But does this book talk about everything?
When speaking from the soul, connections can be established that we are not used to. Our book is not about anthropology, nor psychology, nor theology, nor philosophy, nor physics, nor management, nor self-help, even if it has something of all of them and that in our conversation as authors we have discussed books from all these branches of knowledge. Spirituality unifies the sciences and, through contemplation, gives wings to knowledge, which it transforms into wisdom. It is not surprising that the relationship between quantum physics and spirituality, law and spirituality, health and spirituality, business and spirituality are being studied at world-class universities.
Any suggestions for reading the book?
The central chapters are the second, on the multidimensionality of the human being, and the fourth, on internal conflicts. The first chapter is somewhat more arduous, but its comprehension is necessary because it explains the unity of reality and the importance of accepting it. The third chapter, on spiritual values, is easy to read, and the fifth, on social conflicts, connects spirituality with law, politics, artificial intelligence, etc. Spirituality touches everything. And this is more than proven. A politician, a businesswoman, a teacher, a spiritually elevated Uber driver behaves differently than one who lives at ground level. That is why one lives much better, with more peace, in a spiritualized society than in a materialized individualistic one.
