Signs of Admiration¡ Discovering values

Experience teaches us that values are not learned, but discovered.

Alfonso Lopez Quintas

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Contents Seminar on Qualfon Values 3 Exclamation Points: 5 1. The need for an accurate knowledge of human life The lack of adequate guides

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2. Our growth process 11 The twelve basic discoveries 11 The discovery of open realities 13 The discovery of reversible experiences 14 The discovery of encounter 14 The conditions of encounter 15 The discovery of values and virtues 17 Discovering the ideal of life 17 The transfiguring power of the ideal of unity.

18 Discoveries 6-12 18 3. Levels of reality and behavior 20 Positive levels 20 Negative levels 22 4. The fruitfulness of this training method 4.1 Overcoming various spiritual blockages The process of vertigo The process or experience of ecstasy The process of ecstasy Directing our desires rightly 4.2 The configuration of behavior around values from the Qualfon shield 4.3 The ideal of service and the success of the company 4.4 The ideal of unity and conjugal love Marriage, a school of unity

24 25 26 27 28 32 33

Index of Topics and Authors

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37 40 42

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Seminar on Qualfon Values Qualfon is a company that exists to transcend. To transcend means to leave a positive mark on the lives of people. We are a company that has the wonderful opportunity to make human contact with thousands of people every day. Each member of the Qualfon family answers a call that allows us to offer the best service to our customers, and this is how we create jobs for young people, who experience in Qualfon a school that teaches them to work, to serve, and to live fully.

Alfonso López Quintás is considered one of today’s most committed promoters of universal values, and he has been generous enough to respond to our invitation to write a seminar aimed at helping all our employees have the experience of learning to develop the art of admiring what is worthwhile in life: the values that are the foundation of a fruitful and joyous life.

The text that Alfonso wrote offers one more resource for our commitment to the Qualfon mission and for living the STRIDES values. It motivates all of us to work with our eyes on what lifts men and women up and makes them happy.

That full happiness is a spiritual reality, so before I wrote this introduction I asked Alfonso what it means to consecrate something to God, because for Qualfon the human person is body, mind, and spirit. The spirit of the company is its consecration to the Creator of the Universe in the expression of His Sacred Heart, which its founder and management team did in 2006 in Cebu City, the Philippines. Alfonso quickly answered as follows:

“The term ‘consecrate’ adds an extra level of elevation to the meaning of the term ‘dedicate.’ Sometimes both terms seem synonymous; for example, when we say ‘we consecrate or dedicate a lot of time to sports.’

We Christians use the verb ‘to consecrate’ in a strict sense to offer the Lord a good that we possess and to dedicate it to a specific purpose: to fulfill the Father’s will. It may be something material, or a portion of our time, or a certain ability, or even – at the limit – our own life. We know that all that we have is, in principle, a gift from God. But in daily life, we can act as if we were the owners of what we are and have. Therefore, showing openly and thoughtfully that we are consecrating something to God that we deeply value, such as the company we run and that we value like the apple of our eye, means much more than giving something freely: it affects the meaning of life itself and the ultimate dominion over all that exists.

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A reality that is consecrated to the Lord becomes sacral, sacred, belonging to the thrice-holy God. When we continue in a close relationship with that consecrated reality, we participate to some extent in that sacredness, and all of our life acquires a peculiar elevation.

From the origins of humanity as told by Genesis, the Creator felt a predilection for those who devoted themselves to him by offering the best of their possessions. When Jesus offered himself as a sacrificial offering, he taught us to make the supreme act of sacrifice: the unconditional surrender of oneself out of love.�

We hope that this seminar will help us all to elevate our life and give it greater meaning so that each member of the Qualfon family will live it from our own reality, respecting and appreciating our beliefs, which are different, but that have their common denominator in universal human values that are transmitted and taught with the most powerful of educational tools: human authenticity and good example.

Roberto SĂĄnchez Mejorada Chief Mission Officer

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Exclamation Points: Experience teaches us that values are not learned, but discovered.

Alfonso López Quintás

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Adolescents need to learn the art of admiring; and this, I believe, is one of the secrets of education.

(Cf. Jean Guitton Nuevo arte de pensar [New Art of Thinking] [Encuentro, Madrid 2000] 23).

In recent decades, we have witnessed, full of hope, the effort to improve the company’s excellence by perfecting those who work in it. Successful businessmen and eminent thinkers have proposed, in line with the Social Doctrine of the Church, to show that it is not contrary to company interests to increase workers’ participation in it. Rather, it is the supreme lever to achieve greater competitiveness, because such gradual participation increases workers’ self-esteem, motivation, and ability to feel the company as their own.

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The renowned Japanese businessman Akio Morita’s strong testimony confirms it: “The success of the Japanese business community is the respect, participation, dedication, and active membership of the workers in the company.” This nexus between the development of the worker and the improvement of the company is not the result of a fleeting coincidence; rather, it is backed up by the claims of recent serious studies carried out by those who best know the laws governing human life and its main activities.

It is not surprising that a prestigious professor like Carlos Llano, a specialist in Business Ethics, states that “we are already glimpsing a type of work whose purpose is self-affirmation and the fulfillment of a mission in the world.” Achieving this requires transforming work into creative activity, which is a factor of human enrichment in all aspects: economic, affective, social, and so on.

From this it follows that in addition to providing a fair wage, the company should, for its own good, offer employees the opportunity to give full meaning to their work and thus obtain satisfaction, prestige, security, and confidence. By so doing, it will provide an invaluable service to its employees and families, as well as the company and its customers. This remarkable progress is possible if managers begin by transforming their basic attitude: the egoistic attitude, focused on serving self, has to become a generous attitude, which gladly tends to seek the happiness of others. This attitude is inspired by the ideal of unity. Such an ideal, assumed with determination, transfigures everything in our life: it increases the power of the mind, the quality and ardor of the heart, the energy of the will, the capacity for creative initiative... Such an increase then leads to greater fulfillment and happiness.

In the following pages, we will see how to discover that ideal and take it on as the principle, goal, and content of our own work. We will do it by way of discovery, not by mere learning, and the company supervisors will participate with me in this quest.

They are called to become guides of other collaborators on this promising path. Great entrepreneurs, pioneers of this movement of “the humanization of the company,” highlight how critically important it is for all employees to acquire a thorough understanding of what we humans are, how we develop as individuals, and by what route we reach fulfillment and happiness. It is very difficult to offer such training to large numbers of people if they do not have expert help to guide them in this climb.

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This excellent task falls to you, dear supervisors. I have now received the honorable responsibility of guiding you along the way. Then you will do it with other company employees. The crucial point is for all of us to be convinced, starting now, that our success here depends on two factors: 1) that we make an effort to acquire certain knowledge; 2) that we make this knowledge fruitful by transforming our attitudes.

This plan of action may seem difficult. Believe me, it is just a matter of starting, motivated by the hope that it is worthwhile. You will soon see that once you do the first double transfiguration with me – the one from the tablet to the board, and from the attitude of dominance to the attitude of respect, esteem, and collaboration – you will be full of energy, without knowing exactly why, but you will soon discover it when you see that this opens the way to encounter others, which is a key event in our lives.

We will quickly see that in the current situation of uncertainty, we need good guides, and to become such, we will begin the first of the twelve discoveries we have to make.

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1. The need for an accurate knowledge of human life

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The greatest needs of man are hidden deeply in him.

Lasting happiness is found a little further, a little deeper than we suppose. (...) Happy is he who takes a first step in that direction.

(Cardinal Godfried Danneels: “Necesidad de una mirada profunda” [The Need for a Deeper Look] in Consudec 696 [1992] 1244ss).

In the Ingmar Bergman film Silence, a young woman is living with a foreigner with whom she cannot speak for lack of a common language. In a private moment, she cries out exultantly, “How beautiful it is to be unable to understand each other!” I wonder if a young man who heard this would realize the young woman’s attitude towards life and the risks it involves for her. Could he feel happy if he knew that language is the vehicle of encounter, and that renouncing the encounter amounts to blocking his own personal development? If he does not know it, he is going through life blindfolded, exposed to a thousand dangers.

This kind of spiritual blindness is a form of “second degree illiteracy” from which we can all suffer to some extent.¹ Not knowing how to join letters and figure out what a text says is a primary mode of illiteracy, and it should be eradicated because it leaves us helpless in life. If we know how to read and we take responsibility

1. I explain this form of illiteracy and set forth the optimal way to combat it in the work Inteligencia Creativa. El descubrimiento personal de los valores [Creative Intelligence: The Personal Discovery of Values] (BAC, Madrid 4 2003) 10-23.

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for what we communicate, we are able to be properly informed and know what we are about in daily life. But suppose that we are not able to penetrate the meaning of what we read or hear. We receive data from the outside, but we fail to discover what it means for our lives. We capture its surface meaning but not its deep meaning. We learn, for example, that a young woman seems to be satisfied at not being able to talk to her lover, but we cannot discover what such a feeling means, at bottom. If so, we would do well to take steps to overcome this form of illiteracy, which prevents us from governing our conduct with some assurance of success. One good measure will be to initiate ourselves in the learning method we suggest below. We will then be able to give the girl clear guidance.

Lately, some political leaders have taken an interest in guiding scholastic activity so that students learn to think well, reason coherently, and decide in a balanced and realistic way. This laudable purpose has not always had the desired result due to a handful of misunderstandings. It was often thought that ethics training consists of “learning” values, and educators were urged to devote time and effort to this form of teaching. But experience warns us daily that the values are not “learned”; they are “discovered.” Therefore, we older people should not reduce ourselves to “teaching them”; we should “help students discover them.”

Values do not just exist; they are asserted, and they project an aura of prestige around them. The educator’s task must consist in bringing children and young people to that area of the irradiation of values, to suggest that they have the necessary experiences to discover their beauty and immense fertility for themselves. Taking charge of that fertility and beauty is the task of a Pedagogy of Admiration.

The lack of adequate guides EIn a television interview, a 19-year-old said the following: “Until recently, I was completely happy. I adored my mother, I loved my girlfriend, I felt excited about my career. But I surrendered to gambling and became an addict, a sick person, a ludopath. Now, neither my mother nor my girlfriend or my career interest me at all. I’m interested in one thing only: to keep playing. I’m bound to the game. What hurts me most is that I started to play freely, and now I see that I have become a slave.”

“This kind of spiritual blindness is a form of “second degree illiteracy” from which we can all suffer to some extent.

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Did anyone ever explain the process of vertigo or fascination and of ecstasy or creativity to this unfortunate young man? Probably not. Not even the director of the program took the opportunity to give him a small bit of guidance. He gave up being a leader in the deepest sense of being a guide.

“In the current climate of confusion, the lack of genuine guides is very painful. Society does not usually favor the formation of such leaders as it tends to cultivate: reductionism manipulation intrusion hedonism

It is quite possible that no one helped the girl in the movie Silence to admire the wealth of authentic language, inspired by the desire to create personal bonds. She did not benefit from a Pedagogy of Admiration. If she had had that chance, she would not feel joy but a deep sadness at settling for a silence of dumbness in order to avoid forging bonds with her occasional lover.

In the current climate of confusion, the lack of genuine guides is very painful.

Society does not usually favor the formation of such leaders as it tends to cultivate reductionism, the unjust reduction of the value of human life; manipulation, the treatment of people as if they were mere objects; intrusion, the audacity to speak publicly about important issues without the proper preparation; and hedonism, the excessive desire to accumulate pleasurable sensations.

Faced with this impoverishment of human life, we need to bring in a pedagogy of admiration or wonder, not of coercion; of discovery, not mere learning; of persuasion, not cold transmission. He who learns what life is by discovering it step by step, in a well-articulated way, not only ends up knowing what has to be done to fully develop as a person, but is prepared to pass that knowledge on to others in a persuasive and convincing way. Sometimes it is said that young people are not educated to act as parents. The Pedagogy of Admiration would be a good way to provide such an education.

But how can this pedagogy be accomplished? In my view, the most effective way is to make a series of interconnected discoveries.

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2. Our growth process The twelve basic discoveries

“To learn how we develop as individuals we must discover ourselves.

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The importance of relationships and relational thinking

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Language and silence, vehicles of encounter

Our capacity to be eminently creative

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The fruitfulness of the process of “ecstasy” or creativity and the destructive nature of the process of vertigo or fascination

How to fill our life with meaning Interior freedom or creative freedom

The decesive fuction of affectivity in our personal life

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The ideal of life

Values and virtues

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Encounter

Reversible experiencens

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“Objects” and environments

To learn how we develop as individuals we must discover ourselves. So we have to start from the conviction that growth is the law of life. Plants and animals grow by an unconscious inner drive. Humans must also grow, not only in the physiological aspect but also as people. This second aspect of growth is not automatic; we need to know how we have to grow, and hence the need for proper training.

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To grow, we have to exercise our powers: move freely, walk, talk, handle objects... but these activities are only meaningful and effective when we receive opportunities from our environment. We receive those opportunities by playing. Playing, in a strict philosophical sense, means receiving the opportunities to create something new and valuable with them: for example, moves in table games and sports, whose goal is to dominate the adversary on the field; forms, in art, for “generating works in beauty” (as Plato said); plays in the theater, intended to show the “inside story” of characters.

The discovery of open realities One of the games that we can play is, for example, chess. I need a chessboard in order to play. I take a square table. It’s mine, I can do what I want with it. We will call this stage of my life, in which I have objects that I put at my service, level 1.

This level 1 mastery that I have over objects does not satisfy me, because in order to grow as a person, I need to act in a creative way. And the real creativity begins when I actively take the opportunities to generate something new that is endowed with certain value. To act in this creative way, I paint a few squares in black and white on my tablet, and so transform it into a board. The board is an open reality because it gives us a channel for the activities proposed by the rules of the game.

I have transformed the tablet. I changed it from a closed object to an open reality, and now I must transform my behavior toward the board. Instead of owning and dominating it, I must obey it as the channel of the game that I am going to play according to the rules. Precisely when I give up my first freedom – the freedom to maneuver – I acquire a higher kind of freedom, the freedom to create a type of game. When I move with this creative freedom between open realities like the board that offer me opportunities to grow, I find myself on level 2. Climbing from level 1 to level 2 is critical in human life.

The experience of the poem. In level 2, I can rise to a plane still higher than that of chess. Someone gives me a piece of paper on which a poem is written. I can do whatever I want with the paper. But not with the poem. I must actively take the opportunities it offers me to declaim it and give it life. My recitation is free, but with a creative freedom linked to the conditions of the poem. The

“When I move with this creative freedom between open realities like the board that offer me opportunities to grow, I find myself on level 2. Climbing from level 1 to level 2 is critical in human life.

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poem inspires, guides, and drives me; I configure my declamation to it. I feel led by it, but I am the one who gives it life through sound. We both work together. It follows that if we want to grow, we must in some way renounce our freedom to maneuver, the ability to act according to our tastes, and acquire a mode of creative freedom or inner freedom that allows us to be creative precisely when we obey the valuable realities that give us opportunities.

Let us observe that no one forces us to give up the freedom to maneuver. We are the ones who willingly decide to do so, because we grasp that binding ourselves by an internal decision to something worthwhile – that is, to ob-ligate ourselves²– is the way toward growth and enrichment. It is highly motivating to realize that we are being enriched.

The discovery of reversible experiences This excitement comes from discovering for ourselves a higher type of experience: reversible or bidirectional experiences. Our personal growth depends on them, since they teach us to be creative, to accept the fact that we must be both receptive and active. Thanks to this double condition, we can give life to literary and musical works and unite ourselves to them in a way superior to the superficial forms of union proper to level 1. Once again, we note that only by obeying something valuable do we grow as persons.

We glimpse the secret of personal life, what we call the “logic of the creative life”: we obey what perfects us without being coerced, but rather motivated by the need to grow and be perfected. This obedience is the attitude of those who feel inspired and carried away by that which enriches.

We have arrived, dear supervisors, to one of the main dimensions of our ascent: the experience of encounter.

If today’s best biologists, doctors, and anthropologists say that we are “beings of encounter” and we live as people and perfect ourselves as such by creating various forms of encounter, we need to know precisely

what it means to encounter another.

The discovery of encounter A Upon entering the field of these reversible experiences, we quickly discover the highest form: encounter, which is the close union of two people willing to create a state of mutual enrichment. A true encounter is not just a matter of being near to the other person. That is mere proximity. I can live with a person, be near her for years, and not encounter her even once. I pass by many colleagues in the university halls every day. At most, we exchange a quick greeting. It cannot be said that there is a true encounter between us. But one day, one of those colleagues comes to my office and asks for help to solve a problem. I leave my papers aside and listen to him. I not only hear him, but I listen to him, which means paying attention; and I not only listen to him, but I mobilize my ability to solve problems. And we dialogue in search of a solution. Although it may be a very brief conversation, we have created a relationship of encounter, i.e., a state of mutual enrichment.

2. I put a hyphen between the prefix ob and the verb ligate to underline the fact that the idea of combining that this verb expresses is especially reinforced by the prefix. We know that in Latin, the role of

prefixes is to intensify the action of the term to which they are affixed.

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The conditions of encounter

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 Generosity Look at what happened here: my colleague came to me, quite simply, and requested my help. He opened his soul with trust, and I generously left aside the task at hand and gave my time to work with him. We see that generosity is the first condition of encounter. The term generosity comes from the Latin verb generare, to generate, to engender. A person who generates new life through various forms of encounter is generous. Other conditions for encounter arise from generosity:

 A true and sincere openness to others

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He who is generous opens himself to others in a sincere and truthful way. Let us not forget that opening oneself with a generous spirit is giving oneself. Thus, sincerity brings forth trust. By contrast, duplicity produces distrust and leads us to turn inwards and not trust in others.

This lack of openness makes encounter impossible.

 Warmth or tenderness He who gives sincerely sweetens his dealings with others; he puts his heart into it. A warm manner makes human relations go more smoothly and easily. By contrast, a surly attitude makes people rough and then conflictive.

 Fidelity

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He who truly gives himself without false restrictions perseveres in his attitude of self-giving and behaves faithfully. Being faithful is not just about holding on. This attitude is proper to walls and columns, level 1 realities. Human beings are not born to passively endure the loads thrown on our shoulders. We are made for something greater: to be faithful, which is to create at all times what we once promised to create: for example, a home, a religious community, a training center...

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 Simplicity The person who behaves generously with others does not seek to dominate them or use them for his own purposes. He wants to create valuable ways of living together. That is why he seeks to treat them as equals, in order to share life in the deepest sense of promoting the exchange of gifts, creative possibilities, initiatives, and collaborations.

 Patience

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The simple person, who does not want to arrogantly impose his views and attitudes, behaves in a patient manner in the sense that he adapts to the rhythms of the people he meets. He even adapts to natural rhythms, such as the slow process of regenerating tissues. When you break your arm and the doctor orders you to rest for a month, he does not order you to endure during that time, but to adapt your way of life to your body’s process and way of being. At the human level, patience involves a form of harmony, consistency, and even – more positively – of collaboration.

 Communication

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Communicating with heart means giving ourselves when we share something. The person who communicates with heart opens himself, shares his life, offers ideas and feelings, enriches mutual bonds, creates community life. This form of communication is not opposed to the so-called “inner life”; on the contrary, it gives it body, strength, efficiency, and credibility. He who closes himself off because he prefers to maintain his independence and cultivate his garden alone runs the risk of breaking ties and curtailing community life. He thereby shrinks his interior spaces.

 Participation in worthwhile common tasks

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“To love is not to look at each other; it is to look together in the same direction.”³ This beautiful phrase from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry could be glossed as follows: “Loving is not looking at each other for the pleasure that it can bring; it is to jointly pursue a worthwhile ideal.”.

3. Cf Terre des hommes [Land of Men] (Gallimard, Paris 1939) 234-235.

Spanish Version : Tierra de los hombres (Círculo de lectores, Barcelona 2000) 178.

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The discovery of values and virtues These conditions of encounter enable us to meet each other and develop as people. Insofar as they enable us to create various forms of encounter, such attitudes are called values. The values we take on as forms of behavior are called virtues. In line with the Latin tradition, we still call a person a “virtuoso” if he has the ability to play a musical instrument masterfully. The virtues are capacities to create relationships of encounter.

We are about to reach the top of the second hill we found in our process of development as people. It has to do with the ideal of unity. With it, we enter into level 3. I recommend to the supervisors that you focus your full attention now, because the quality of our personal life – shall we say, its excellence – depends on the experience we are about to have. Indeed, this is where the meaning of our life, our inner freedom, our creativity, and the maturation of our affectivity are decided... Let us try to discover it.

The fruits of encounter. To lead a virtuous life, we create multiple relationships of authentic encounter and we experience their fruits: we gain inner energy and feel joy, enthusiasm, personal fulfillment, and therefore happiness. Encountering others lifts our spirits and gives us sovereignty over the vagaries of existence. This is basically due to the fact that when we encounter one another, we fulfill our calling and our mission in life. When we realize this, we find our best expectations met and we experience feelings of joy, excitement, and interior plenitude. This joyful plenitude translates into happiness and manifests itself in three intimate feelings: inner peace, security, and festive joy or jubilation. Whenever there is real encounter, there is a celebration; all of life becomes festive: time and space are transfigured, gestures acquire the quality of rites, seemingly ordinary actions hold a special meaning.

Discovering the ideal of life Once I realize that encounter works this transfiguration in my life, I discover something crucial to my existence: namely, that the highest value, the one that holds all the others together as a keystone, is encounter – or, more generally, the creation of higher forms of unity. That supreme value is the ideal of life.

This ideal is not reduced to a mere idea; it is a driving idea; it moves and orients our whole being towards creating ever higher modes of unity. Being oriented towards unity means that we are committed to bringing forth goodness, justice, truth, and beauty in all circumstances. To live in a form of active unity, we must be good to others, fair, faithful to the truth of each one, sensitive to the beauty of every behavior and action.

There is nothing more beautiful in our life than our unconditional commitment to these statements: “Do good always; evil, never.” “What is right, always; what is wrong, never.” If we act according to these deep convictions, we guarantee the high quality and stability of the encounter. If this is the culminating point of level 2, assuming the ideal of unity as a life’s work should be considered the attitude of level 3.

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But how is it possible to act in a way that is unconditionally good, fair, truthful, and beautiful when dealing with people who manifest ignoble and hostile behaviors? There does not seem to be sufficient reason in this world for us to act toward them in an unconditionally good, fair, truthful, and beautiful way. We have to look much higher for its basis: in the Creator who gave each child unbreakable dignity. Returning good for evil is possible only when we take seriously the fact that all people have been created in the image and likeness of a Being who is absolutely good, truthful, and just. Recognizing this, we move to level 4, which enters fully into the religious sphere.

The transfiguring power of the ideal of unity.

Discoveries 6-12 When we are firmly settled in level 3 and well grounded in level 4, we receive a great light: we suddenly realize that the various aspects of our lives reach perfection when we discover the true ideal and unconditionally choose it. The true ideal transfigures everything in our lives:

 The “freedom to maneuver” becomes “creative freedom.”  A dull life becomes full of meaning.  A passive life becomes creative.  A closed life becomes relational.  Language changes from a mere means of communication to a living vehicle of encounter.  A vertiginous fall gives way to an ecstatic ascent.  Self-giving to the frenzy of passion turns into personal love.

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Our whole life is elevated when it is oriented to the ideal of unity. Our mind, will, creativity, feelings... everything in us receives a new potency and is opened to a horizon of unexpected greatness. The ancient Greeks called this process of ascent ecstasy. The twelve discoveries we outlined above constitute the internal articulation of the ecstatic process.

This immense wealth which is contained in the ecstatic process of ascent to the best of ourselves (with its discoveries, its transfigurations, its rise to new levels, its different modes of inner liberation and promotion of creative activity...) is relentlessly destroyed when we surrender to the pleasures of a process of vertigo, with its five stages of degradation.

Let us imagine that, out of selfishness, I do not meet the conditions of encounter, which are forms of the attitude of generosity. With this, I move exclusively on level 1; I act for the sake of control, possession, and the selfish management of the realities around me. This attitude can make me fall in four negative levels, which are the phases of a progressive degradation. We are in a process opposite to that of ecstasy or encounter. While each rise to a new level in the process of ecstasy leads to a greater ennoblement of life, the fall to lower levels in the vertigo process leads to increasing degradation.

To know our personal situation at all times and have, so to speak, a map of personal life, there is nothing more important than precisely defining the positive or negative levels that follow from generous or selfish attitudes.

I now invite the supervisors to review everything we have discovered so far and neatly describe the different levels of reality and behavior in which we can live. This will help us grasp our personal situation at all times since we will have, so to speak - a map of personal life. This map will provide invaluable assistance in guiding us well in life so that we reach the highest positive levels and avoid falling into the negative levels.

“Our whole life is elevated when it is oriented to the ideal of unity.

Our mind, will, creativity, feelings... everything in us receives a new potency and is opened to a horizon of unexpected greatness.

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3. Levels of reality and behavior

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When I choose these values with such decisiveness that my life is governed at all times by the conviction that “we must do good always; evil, never” and “it is beautiful to do good; it is ugly to do evil,” I have a strong assurance that my life of encounter will be authentic and enduring.

Positive levels Level 1 is typical of objects or higher realities that are treated as if they were objects. Our attitude towards them is one of control, possession, use, and enjoyment.

Level 2 is open to reality, creativity, and encounter. We must act with an attitude of respect, esteem, and collaboration.

On level 3, we make an unconditional option for great values: unity, goodness, truth, justice, beauty. By creating relationships of authentic encounter, we experience their fruits: internal energy, light, meaning, joy, enthusiasm, fulfillment, and happiness... Then we discover that the supreme value of my life, the crowning value that gives meaning to all the others, is encounter; that is, the generous foundation of a very high form of unity. I discover unity as a source of abundant life, and therefore as an ideal of life.

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Thanks to the interconnection of great values, when I refer to unity I am also referring to goodness, truth, justice, and beauty. When I choose these values with such decisiveness that my life is governed at all times by the conviction that “we must do good always; evil, never” and “it is beautiful to do good; it is ugly to do evil,” I have a strong assurance that my life of encounter will be authentic and enduring. Here is how the level of encounter - level 2 - is based on a higher level of behavior, level 3, where we make the unconditional option for great values. From the above it follows that the loss of life’s authentic ideal causes a serious deterioration in man’s personal life. It changes his spiritual metabolism. We could say that his spirit gets sick.⁴ My much-admired teacher at the University of Munich, Romano Guardini, saw this clearly:

““When man rejects the truth, he gets sick. This rejection does not occur when man errs, but when he abandons the truth; not when he lies, although he may do so profusely, but when he thinks that the truth itself does not have any hold on him; not when he deceives others, but when he dedicates his life to destroying the truth. Then he becomes spiritually sick.”⁵.

On level 4 we find the necessary energy to unconditionally live the values that we chose on level 3. How can someone be unconditionally good to someone who returns evil for good, and be just toward someone who violates their rights? At this point we need to open a window in our investigation and turn to the existence of a Supreme Being who created us all in His image and likeness, and who gifted us with such a high dignity that we cannot lose it, even though our conduct is unworthy, and who demands a response of “absolute” respect – in other words, a respect that is “released” or freed from all conditions. When we realize that we are joyfully linked, at the very root of our personal reality, to someone who is goodness, justice, truth, and beauty par excellence, we place our lives on level 4.

In a corporeal-spiritual being like man, levels 2 and 3 need the support of level 1, understood here as the plane on which we meet our material needs. And vice versa: life on level 1 takes on a personal meaning in the experiences proper to level 2, which, to be authentic, lead in turn to level 3, which in turn, requires the ultimate basis of level 4. This mutual and hierarchical interconnection of the four levels is essential in order to see them in all their richness and power to shape our personality.

4. Cf Welt und Person. Versuche zur christlichen Lehre vom Menschen

5. Cf Welt und Person. Versuche zur christlichen Lehre vom Menschen

[The World and the Person: Essays for a Christian Theory of Man]

[The World and the Person: Essays for a Christian Theory of Man]

(Werkbund, Würzburg 1950) 96. Spanish Version: Mundo y persona.

(Werkbund, Würzburg 1950) 96. Spanish Version: Mundo y persona.

Ensayos para una teoría cristiana del hombre (Encuentro, Madrid

Ensayos para una teoría cristiana del hombre (Encuentro, Madrid

2000) 106.

2000) 106.

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SIGNS OF ADMIRATION

Negative levels Level -1

If, because of a selfish attitude, our relationship with the ideal of unity weakens, we lack interior energy to ascend to levels 2, 3, and 4 and move exclusively on level 1. Consequently, we give priority to our own well-being.

We consider others as a means to our own ends, and we try to possess and dominate everything around us to in order to increase our gratifications of all kinds. When this tendency toward our own well-being (level 1) is not offset by the desire to make others happy (level 2), we run the risk of becoming selfcentered and insensitive, unconcerned with being kind, fair, and truthful to them or of uniting ourselves to them and giving them a beautiful life (level 3).

When this insensitivity is added to the propensity to subordinate the good of others to our own interests, we easily let it show, which hurts their sensitivity and damages their self-esteem. With this, we begin the process of vertigo and descend to level -1.

Two young people were joined in marriage, and everything seemed to point to a good future, which seemed fulfilled for several years. But one day, after a long and eventful stay in the hospital, the young wife was diagnosed with a chronic disease that is not fatal but that notably diminished her vitality.

When she returned home, the first words she heard her husband say were these: “Sorry, but you are no good to me anymore as a wife. I have to go.” And he left her alone with their daughter. This phrase turned her life upside down, because she suddenly saw that her husband had reduced her to a means to satisfy his own desires (level 1), and when she lost that capacity, she became “useless” to him, unable to satisfy his appetites. Maybe he had said a thousand times that he “loved” her with all his heart. Judging by his words, he never really loved her (level 2). He found her appealing (level 1) when she had her powers in a state of blossoming. Now he saw her as a broken utensil, and he rushed to exchange her for a new one. Swaps are typical when dealing with mere objects (level 1). Performing them with people, when considering them impaired, lowers them to level 1. It is an act of violence. Openly showing it to the person concerned is a outrage and involves a descent into level -1.

SIGNS OF ADMIRATION

Level -2

23

If someone sees another person only as a means to an end – and therefore as a possession – and does not see his desires satisfied, he can come to vent his frustration with insults and even mental and physical abuse. It is an offense more serious than the previous one and involves a fall to level -2.

Currently, society is confused and outraged by the phenomenon of spousal abuse. People call for all kinds of law enforcement measures to prevent it.

But there are hardly any who care to investigate the sources of this social calamity. An analysis of the levels of reality and behavior allows us to x-ray this degenerative phenomenon and uncover some of its causes.

Level -3

Level -4

Once given over to the seductive power of the vertigo of control, we may be tempted to make the supreme act of possession, which is killing a person to decide in one blow their entire future. By so doing, we rush to level -3. Not a few people express their shock at the fact that someone could kill a person with whome they shared their life. Viewed in isolation, it is a fact that seems unlikely.

If we place it in context (which is level -3 ) and we see it as a continuation of level -2 and all that it implies, we see that we are looking at a fall down the slide of vertigo. All this is unjustifiable, but it is perfectly understandable when we come to know the phases of the path of degradation, which is the process of vertigo.

In this fall toward personal debasement, it is possible to bring the desire to dominate to the extreme by tarnishing the memory of those whose lives we have taken. Not a few terrorists have tarnished the gravestones guarding the remains of their victims. That vileness plunges into the abyss of level -4. Mockery and derision are arrogant manifestations of control, typical of those who haughtily enjoy the spectacle of the fallen idol. At bottom, the attitudes proper to the negative levels are increasingly aggressive forms of the dominating attitude. They are inspired by the selfish ideal of dominating, possessing, and enjoying, just as the attitudes characteristic of the positive levels respond to the generous ideal of unity and service.

24

SIGNS OF ADMIRATION

4. The fruitfulness of this training method

“

A young man who lives the growth process, combining the acquisition of knowledge and the performance of various transfigurations, just as we did previously, acquires sufficient light to overcome many misconceptions and wrong attitudes that would distance him from the true path of happiness.

Dear supervisors, we are now at the happy time of the harvest. We will discover the light that previous analyzes give us to solve the serious problems posed by life. Let us turn especially to the young. A young man who lives the growth process, combining the acquisition of knowledge and the performance of various transfigurations, just as we did previously, acquires sufficient light to overcome many misconceptions and wrong attitudes that would distance him from the true path of happiness. Let’s look at several very symptomatic cases.

SIGNS OF ADMIRATION

25

4.1 Overcoming various spiritual blockages

1. A young Central European wrote, desolate, to the renowned theologian Karl Rahner: “My friends and I threw ourselves feverishly into the pursuit of happiness, and now we have become hospital meat. Could you tell me what is that happiness that we both crave and mercilessly destroy?” Rahner simply said that he should not expect too great a happiness and that he would do well to be content with the simple happiness that his grandparents and parents wanted. ⁶ I fear that the great thinker was unable to unblock the poor boy.

At the level of development in which we now find ourselves, after performing the twelve basic discoveries of the growth process, we could tell the young Robert, who feels betrayed by his own desire for happiness, that it is not wrong to try to be happy but that he must avoid doing it the wrong way. On level 1, the management of things and people, we can find enjoyments and we can accumulate pleasant and even exciting sensations, but not find happiness. Happiness arises, not by seeking it directly, but by rising up to level 2 and fulfilling the conditions of encounter: generosity, faithfulness, friendliness, and the communication that links giving to giving oneself. By creating relationships of encounter, we feel joy, enthusiasm, fulfillment, and happiness.

Look how simply and effectively we help Norbert repair a fault, when we help him discover the valuable possibilities offered us by encounter, and derivatively, from the ideal of unity.

2. With similar speed and efficiency, we can now help the young gambler who confessed his misfortune on a television show. Although his tone was one of immense sadness, the program director opted not to help him. We may do so by telling him not to be so sad, because he has his whole life ahead of him to enjoy the discovery that he will make with our help: namely, that playing is a good thing because we enjoy exercising our creativity, but letting onself be seduced by a form of gambling that excites us because it feeds our ambition ends up robbing us of authentic freedom and becomes a source of bitterness. It is such because it is a form of vertigo, a kind of rapture that at first promises you a life full of rewarding feelings, that does not demand anything from you, and that eventually takes everything away from you. With this, not only do we make him see his mistake; we show him the way to creative freedom, which will enable him to find valuable realities and will give him inner strength, joy, enthusiasm, fulfillment, and happiness. This is the adventurous path of the process of ecstasy. We have every reason, then, to feel cheerful.

He will have many more reasons if we also tell him that his sadness comes from having given himself over to a process of vertigo. In life, we can follow two opposite processes: ecstasy or vertigo.

6. Cf K. Rahner: Tengo un problema. K. Rahner responde a los jóvenes [Rahner Responds to the Youth] (Sal Terrae, Santander 1984) 12-14.

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SIGNS OF ADMIRATION

The process of vertigo It begins when we adopt an attitude of selfishness and we want to use the realities around us to accumulate pleasurable sensations.



When we see something we like very much – for example, a person – we quickly want to dominate them to put them at our service. This control is achieved by seduction or fascination techniques.



If we can control that person, we feel euphoria, a feeling of exaltation which leads us to believe that we live fully.



This feeling soon turns into disappointment because we well know that a full life is lived through experiences of encounter, and encounter becomes impossible when we reduce a person to a mere means to our selfish ends. We reduce others from level 2 to level 1, the level of ownership and the management of objects, and condemn ourselves to not encounter them.



This disappointment is immediately translated into sadness, a feeling that follows uthe awareness that we are not developing as people, but blocking ourselves. Sadness always has to do with an internal emptiness – in this case, because of the lack of encounter and friendship.



When sadness envelops us, because we always act with the same attitude of selfishness, our inner emptiness is total and we feel a sense of anguish. We felt anxiously helpless when we see that we are totally lacking in support and safety. From the first moments of life, man’s great support is encounter, acceptance, and friendship. When we see that we are deprived of all that, the vacuum becomes absolute and we feel “spiritual vertigo,” similar to the physical vertigo we can feel when we look out into space from a high tower.



This situation of absolute abandonment gives us a feeling of desperation. Because of our selfishness, we see all the doors to our personal growth closed. Many addicts have confessed that their

“When sadness envelops us, because we always act with the same attitude of selfishness, our inner emptiness is total and we feel a sense of anguish.

SIGNS OF ADMIRATION

27

greatest suffering in those moments came from not seeing any way out. When someone advised them to turn back, to quit drugs and regain their previous serenity, they said to themselves: “If only I could!” Such a sensation of impotence closed them to all hope.



This form of desperation leads to a suffocating solitude. We know that there are different forms of loneliness: a) the solitude of the one who recollects himself to let himself be overwhelmed by something very valuable that predisposes him to create fruitful modes of community life; b) the breaking of ties with others by rejecting encounter, thus nullifying their primary condition as a “being for encounter.”

It is very important to note the consequences of surrender to vertigo:



It prevents us from creating valuable modes of encounter and unity.



When we move on level 1 and thus make it impossible to have any form of authentic encounter, we completely undermine our creative capacity, which is promoted mainly by that highest form of union.



We blind ourselves to values, since these are revealed to us when we are generous and are willing to live them out.

The process or experience of ecstasy It is inspired by an attitude of generosity. If we are generous, upon seeing an attractive reality, we do not try to dominate it quickly and put it at our disposal. We seek to encounter her, to give way to a common playing field in which we achieve a form of intimate union, which overcomes the split between the inside and the outside, the interior and exterior, the mine and the yours. Encounter, as we have seen, gives us inner strength, joy, enthusiasm, fulfillment, and happiness. Upon living these fruits in a mindful way, we see at a glance that there is no higher value than encounter, or in general, creating higher forms of unity. And so we discover the ideal of unity. By opting for it and actively assuming it in our lives, we create eminent forms of community.

“If we are generous, upon seeing an attractive reality, we do not try to dominate it quickly and put it at our disposal.

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SIGNS OF ADMIRATION

The process of ecstasy  Promotes encounter and, therefore, unity;  Increases our creativity;  Gives us light to discover values, and the energy to choose them and live them out.

It is clear that the processes of vertigo and ecstasy are opposed in their origins, development, and consequences. Today, however, many people tend to mix them up so that young people, especially, confuse them and ardently surrender to the destructive processes of vertigo, all the while thinking they are in the constructive processes of ecstasy. We could give many examples from everyday life, as well as from literary and cinematic works.

3. We could tell the young star in the film Silence, who seemed to rejoice

“Upon discovering the process of vertigo, we are prepared to understand its opposite, which is the process of ecstasy. This leads us to the best of ourselves, to the realm of true happiness, that is, the field of encounter.

in not being able to talk to the foreign friend with whom she lived, that there are two types of silence: the silence of recollection, which inspires authentic words overflowing with meaning, and the silence of dumbness, which cuts communication. The silence of dumbness kept this girl in a infracreator level (level 1), because language is the vehicle of encounter, an event that constitutes us as persons (level 2). Upon living her intimate relationships on a plane of pure sensations, without creating real personal relations – relations of encounter – she did not forge the emotional ties that make it difficult to break off the relationship since they generate a sense of responsibility.

Instead, she strayed from the path of true happiness that comes only when one links attraction with generosity.

4.

In his Diary, the writer Miguel de Unamuno makes this confession: “I am terribly selfish. I will not enjoy happiness again. I foresee it. I am left with my lot of sadness for as long as I live.”⁷ It is noteworthy that Unamuno was a winner: he was rector of the University of Salamanca, a bestselling author, an acclaimed speaker... How is it possible that a selfish attitude would lead him to an abyss of sadness? If we ask a young student to define the average ratio between selfishness and sadness and even anxiety, would he be able to

7. Cf oc (Alianza Editorial, Madrid 1970) 123.

SIGNS OF ADMIRATION

29

answer us with sufficient precision? If not, in what way can we help him overcome this deficiency? Simply by warning him that, as we have seen, selfishness causes a surrender to the process of vertigo, whose third stage is sadness.⁸



We recall that vertigo is a spiritual process that fascinates us with something that dazzles us – for example, an attractive person, because he promises plenty of easy pleasures – and invites us to dominate that person through seduction.



When we succeed, we feel euphoria, a feeling of false personal fulfillment. It is false, because when we dominate a person, we treat them as if they were an object, bring them down to level 1, and cannot encounter them. This brings us disappointment and sadness.

Now we clearly see the relationship between selfishness and sadness, and we can explain a thousand phenomena of daily life. Upon discovering the process of vertigo, we are prepared to understand its opposite, which is the process of ecstasy. This leads us to the best of ourselves, to the realm of true happiness, that is, the field of encounter.

5. A widely-viewed news program announced the death of singer Janis Joplin by a drug overdose. The report ended with this sentence: “She was a totally free young woman.” Did the listeners notice the type of manipulation involved in this manner of reporting? If a young person follows the training method I have proposed, they will not be disconcerted at seeing that people consider a young artist who has just died of an overdose absolutely free. They immediately realize that the reporter is confusing the freedom to maneuver – proper to level 1 – with creative freedom, characteristic of level 2. She was very free, indeed, as regards the decision to satiate her appetites (level 1), but lacked the creative freedom or inner freedom that would have led her not to choose the exciting rush that produces vertigo and destruction, but rather the joy of encounter, which gives us true happiness (level 2). He knows that addiction to drugs – like gambling, alcohol, and speed – is a vertigo, a spiritual process that seduces and fascinates us, and therefore drags us along and strips us of creative freedom. It is a contradiction to state that someone is absolutely free if they have surrendered themselves to a seductive process that bestows complete freedom to maneuver while simultaneously preventing the exercise of inner freedom or creative freedom.

6. To defend an abortion law, a justice minister wrote: “Women have a body and must be given the freedom to dispose of it and whatever happens in it.” If we want to neutralize this statement, it is enough to indicate that it unjustly downgrades the human body to level 1. According to today’s most qualified philosophical anthropology, women and men do not have a body (level 1); we are corporeal (level 2). The verb to have can only be used accurately at level 1; but the human person – body, mind, and spirit – includes both levels 1 and

8. I make a very extensive study of the processes of vertigo and ecstasy

[Vertigo and Ecstasy: A Key to Overcoming Addictions (Rialp, Madrid

in my works Inteligencia creativa [Creative Intelligence] (BAC, Madrid

2006).

4 2003) and Vértigo y éxtasis. Una clave para superar las adicciones

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SIGNS OF ADMIRATION

2. When the minister saw that his statement was very vulnerable, he introduced the word freedom, which is currently considered a “talismanic word,” or a term which, for well-known reasons, acquired from the French Revolution such prestige that hardly anyone dares to question it today. Upon hearing it, many people tend to accept what they are told for fear of being branded as undemocratic, another fearsome talismanic word in today’s disputes. The minister did not want to give reasons for what he said; he tried to conquer the people without needing to convince them. So he used the word freedom without specifying what kind of freedom was at stake in order to let the people think only of the freedom to act according to their own wishes, which is the kind of freedom that became a “talisman.”

The supervisors and I must pause for a moment to weigh the fact that there is great confusion in society and a lack authentic guides to help us overcome it. This serious deficiency is exacerbated today because of the growing and powerful exercise of manipulation. We know that this is powerful when it is directed at people who are unprepared. Thus, the greater the manipulation, the better training we must give people. We begin to realize that not just any type of training will do. We need an optimal training in the sense suggested in this paper. ⁹

7. In a pamphlet published by a regional government, children and young people are told that “you have a body and you must use it to be happy.” The authors say this in a suggestive and friendly way to give the impression that the children are being guided by friendly people who want only to procure their full happiness. What can we say to those children and young people so that they do not fall into the trap that such a deceitful teaching sets for them? Maybe that they are deceiving them in order to control them better?

This is true, but if we say that, we run the risk that they might take the side of those who seem to be looking out for their welfare and happiness.

In my view, the right thing to do is to help them discover the level 1 reality and behavior, and how, by the need to grow, we can rise up to level 2. Soon the kids themselves will realize that what those brochures propose will land them on level 1 and hide from them all the great and promising experiences they could find on levels 2 and 3. I refer to encounter and its fruits, then the ideal of unity, with its immense power to transfigure and bestow excellence. The children and youth are the ones who discover it, with our help, and with it begin the process of formation. Once on track, they acquire enough understanding to answer, more or less, like this: “You will not deceive me easily, because I know the cunning tricks of manipulation, which consist in lowering us from level 2 to level 1. You are suggesting that I cling to the level 1 attitude: possessing, managing, and enjoying. I can derive certain fleeting pleasures from it, certainly, but by doing so I would give up the wonders that are offered to me on levels 2 and 3: the joy of encounter, true friendship, and the horizons of bliss that the great values of level 3 open to me. What I want is to integrate pleasures and joys, not stay only with the first, which are fleeting and sometimes treacherous because they can lead to addiction, and condemn myself to lose the latter, which have a different scope and affect the whole person.”

9. Regarding what it means to manipulate, who manipulates, what

y el curso “La manipulación del hombre a través del lenguaje” [The

is its purpose, and how it takes place, see my book: La tolerancia y

Manipulation of Man through Language] in RIIAL http://www.riial.org

la manipulación [Tolerance and Manipulation] (Rialp, Madrid 2001)

SIGNS OF ADMIRATION

Some young people debating on a memorable TVE program showed this looseness in the handling of the terms and the articulation of reasoning during a debate with another group on the meaning of human love. The latter group advocated free love; the first was a supporter of committed love, which integrates sexuality and friendship; friendship and the foundation of a home; and a home and the gift of life to new beings. It was a surprise for everyone to see how these young people handled the fine points of the concepts – for example distinguishing between passion and love, and subordinated what is pleasant to what is fruitful. The next day, people wanted to know who were these people and where they had come from. It is very simple: they had taken a course in the School of Thinking and Creativity, and had taken the approach that I proposed above.

In the current situation, all training methods must strive to help children and young people discover the path that leads them to develop correctly, acquire human fulfillment, and be happy. They begin to achieve this on level 2, perfect it remarkably on level 3 – that of values – and carry it to perfection on level 4, the strictly religious level. As the young people realize the immense possibilities that have been opened to them in this stunning development process, they will oppose those who try to reduce their life to the scarcity of level 1. See how precisely and clearly we helped them walk the road to fulfillment and happiness.

31

“See how precisely and clearly we helped them walk the road to fulfillment and happiness.

When we turn to believers, we can base the development of young people’s affectivity directly on the figure of Jesus, who perfectly embodies the ideal of unity. It is the path followed by leading writers and speakers today. When we turn to a wider audience, which may include non-believers or those who do not much practice the faith, I think that it can be very useful to go step by step, climing from level 1 to 2 (encounter) and from this to level 3 (values), and then to level 4 (religious experience), with the powerful forms of transfiguration that it presents. Such significant questions as the unique expressiveness of biblical language, eloquent parables like that of the prodigal son, St. Paul’s conversion and transformation in Christ, the “resurrected” condition of the life of the Christian faithful according to St. Paul... can be lived with unexpected depth by young people if they experience the various transfigurations that take place at levels 2 and 3¹⁰.

10. You can see a fairly comprehensive description of these topics in

expand and delve into the defining issue of transfiguration in the book

the final chapter of the introductory course of the religious education

La ética o es transfiguración o no es nada [Ethics Is Transfiguration or

courses offered at the UNIR (International University of La Rioja). I

Nothing] (BAC, Madrid, in press).

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SIGNS OF ADMIRATION

Directing our desires rightly The above discussion may give the impression that the method gives primacy to the effort to overcome intellectual confusion by cultivating the art of thinking with rigor, thereby clarifying concepts and mindsets, and hardly helps with what might be called “affective emergency.” It is true that today there is a widespread “anarchy of desire,” especially among the youth. Many people act as if their desires are their own own justification and consider them determinants when making choices. Hence their compulsive desire to satisfy them without delay, as if they could not tolerate the frustration of not filling them.

To overcome this narcissistic and hedonistic tendency at the root, my method considers it essential to work for ethical development through a series of transfigurations that lead us into authentic modes of encounter, which, with its splendid fruits, give us light and energy to discover the ideal of unity and decidedly opt for it.

This idea, as we know, is not a mere idea; it is a driving idea that transfigures everything. Let us recall the seven transfiguration that this ideal engenders, and that give our behavior a touch of excellence.

When, after a process of ethical maturation driven by a desire to transfigure realities, concepts, and attitudes, we take the ideal of unity and its companion values of goodness, truth, justice, and beauty as the canon of our life, our desires and impulses stop wandering around anarchically in the background and tend to be ordered under the magnetizing power of our ideal. In light of her extensive training experience, Chiara Lubich, the

“Many people act as if their desires are their own own justification and consider them determinants when making choices. Hence their compulsive desire to satisfy them without delay, as if they could not tolerate the frustration of not filling them.

SIGNS OF ADMIRATION

33

charismatic founder of the Focolare of unity, said that young people’s struggle for purity usually calms down when their life is polarized around the ideal of unity. Certainly, the ideal regulates desires insofar as it integrates various corporeal and spiritual energies and puts them at the service of the same lofty goal.

From the above, it follows that the proposed method allows us to live a worthwhile ethical life and transmit it to others. Thanks to this method, we discover how fruitful to our development process is when we discover encounter and the ideal of unity, and firmly opt for it. The fruitfulness of the method allows us to draw swift, lucid, and convincing conclusions. This is only possible after a long effort to clarify the logic of the various levels on which we can live. Anyone who wants to apply this method needs to know this logic very well and be aware at every moment what level each one is on. The method is not a key to open doors expeditiously. It is a guide that tells you how you can get to know the human development process in a well-articulated and pervasive way. But it does not spare you the work of going down that road.

As you start walking, you will find many reasons to continue it with ever growing enthusiasm. But it is you who must start and persevere. The method teaches you how to accommodate your style of thinking to each type of reality. The author has endeavored to structure it so that it is accessible and easy to take on, but he cannot guarantee that it will be fruitful. The method’s fruitfulness depends largely on how well its followers assimilate it. Such assimilation requires some effort. But it immediately gives us a hundredfold.

Do not, therefore, reject the method because it seems complicated. Simple methods, when applied to complex matters, often prove to be very simplistic and ineffective. By contrast, those that are well nuanced, when the solution fits the difficulties, end up becoming clear, because when they are applied, everything fits.

The effectiveness of the method I offer will soon be discovered when applied in an intelligent and creative way. You will see that you are growing and gaining new horizons as you put it into practice.

4.2 The configuration of behavior around values from the Qualfon shield The supervisors will discover here with me that by choosing the ideal of unity and taking it as the goal, guide, and encouragement of our existence, we experience the seven transfigurations that we have seen. This impresses us. We seem to have risen to a high hill, and from that vantage point, we get an overview of what we should do in our life to fully develop it.

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SIGNS OF ADMIRATION

1. The first thing we see is that our ideal in life – that is, our goal, our canon of life, our criteria of behavior – is not to make use of others for our own purposes, but to serve them in order to create higher forms of unity and be truly happy.

R.

“Any company that wants to rise to a level of ethical excellence in the aforementioned sense needs to have authentic leaders.

Servitje, founder of the large international company Bimbo, attaches great importance to the issue of leadership in the company and regrets the shortage of leaders, which he defines as people who put their intellectual, emotional, and volitional qualities and skills of all kinds at the service of the common good. “The legitimacy of authority is the will to serve,”¹¹ since “a leader is born to serve.”¹² “I vehemently assert that healthy leadership is vital, that we must be alert in any area in which we act so as to choose, appoint, accept, and support only leaders who truly meet the requirements... And to oppose with all our might and possibilities letting undesirable people to fill the positions.¹³ [...] I am convinced that everything depends on the head that leads.” ¹⁴ Any company that wants to rise to a level of ethical excellence in the aforementioned sense needs to have authentic leaders, guides who can give the business a permanent drive toward what is valuable. R Servitje writes: “The backbone of the company is its philosophy. A company must have something that drives it, that injects life into it, and that gives the employees meaning, a worthwhile purpose.”¹⁵ This ideal is the mission of the company, its task. For Bimbo, its “soul” is the firm determination to “serve others well,” the deep conviction that “quien no vive para servir no sirve para vivir” [whoever does not live to serve is of no use in life].¹⁶ Upon receiving the Erasmus Prize for best European humanist, that teacher of high style Romano Guardini stressed the need for Europe, after centuries of brilliantly cultivating art, philosophy, and science with a desire for power, to dedicate itself now to taming the desire for power and cultivating “another way of exercising power, namely: service.”¹⁷ Seen in the light of the ideal of unity, serving is not a servile task proper to servants, but a lordly one, as befits those who have sovereignty of spirit.

As people who want to serve others, business people have to start their work

11. Cf. Estrategia de éxito empresarial (Pearson Educación, México

16. Ibid.

2003) 203.

17. Cf “ Europa. Realidad y tarea” [Europe: Reality and Task] in Obras

12. Cf. o.c., 205. 13. Cf. o.c., 210.

de Guardini I [Works of Guardini I](Cristiandad, Madrid 1981) 13-33.

14. Cf. o.c., 218. 15. Cf. o.c., 147-148.

Original version: Europa. Wirklichkeit und Aufgabe (Eggebrecht Presse, Maguncia 1962) 26-27.

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35

by situating themselves on level 2, taking care to obtain the necessary benefits to sustain the institution (level 1) and to continue the generous work of service (level 2) inspired by the unconditional option for goodness and justice (level 3). This integration of the three levels opens the way for the future: “The next era in business management,” writes C. Francis, belongs to those who consider success in terms of the greatest possible service to the greatest number of people.” According to E. Welbergen, president of the German Schell, “ a corporate policy that does not take into account the social needs of the community and focuses its activity only on economic objectives is doomed to fail... (...) Society expects high cash benefits for the company; however, at the same time, it affects their social responsibility.”

This relational mentality leads to the type of “new man” who has been designing and longing intensely from the famous decade of 1920 to 1930. “Man,” Marcos Arruda writes, “is no longer conceived as an isolated individual in constant competition with others; instead, he comes to be seen as a being in relation, aware of the common challenges to face and of a common existence to share.” ¹⁸ Precisely at this time of globalization, it is imperative to decisively cultivate an intense and authentic personal life that is able to replace the spirit of hostile competition with a desire for friendly and efficient collaboration. This simultaneous intensification of the globalized nature of the world economy and of friendly, sincere, and efficient ties between people, due to an internal desire for communion, means true spiritual growth for humanity.

In this way, we radically surpass the risk that the type of rationality proper to the capitalistic economy, effective at increasing productivity, could overshadow the “reasons of the heart,” the determined tendency to cultivate community life.

“ «At stake is the human condition of the economist or the politician,” writes Joseph Aloys Schumpeter, “because the economy as a human activity cannot ignore its own purpose: the good, the happiness of man; that is, it cannot do without ethics»¹⁹.

18. Cf Pliego, in Vida Nueva [New Life]. August 2000, p. 29.

19. Apud Gerardo T. Farrell: “El empleo. Economía solidaria y economía de mercado” [Employment: Solidarity Economy and Market Economy]

in CONSUDEC (Buenos Aires, nº 814, June 1997).

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2. By making unity the goal, that willingness to serve leads to teamwork, not out of the hope that unity will make us stronger, but because unity is, in itself, one of the great values that vitalize our life and give it meaning.

3. We know that this teamwork gives surprising results in family life, in schools, and within all institutions, including companies of all kinds. There are now institutes in various nations that are dedicated to studying the fruitful relationship between ethics and business. It is often said, as an axiom, that “ethics is profitable” in the sense that it increases the company’s competitiveness. Today it can be seen on a daily basis that when we promote the dignity of workers, their motivation and inner attachment to the company increases.

This is clear from the story that Roberto Servitje tells in the aforementioned book about the path that the international company Bimbo followed to success, under the leadership of his brother Lorenzo. But, if we have raise this important issue precisely, we should note that the word “profitable” belongs to level 1, and the secret of fertility that comes from the nexus of ethics and business is seen precisely when we begin to live the ethical life itself, when we rise from level 1 to level 2, that of encounter, and we base it on level 3, that of the great values. We will see this further below.

4. The ideal of unity becomes stronger thanks to the religious belief that a common Father created us in his image and likeness, and thereby gave us a dignity such that we cannot lose it, even if we try to by surrendering to deranged behavior. This discovery of man’s high dignity inspires an attitude of respect, esteem, and collaboration, which is proper to level 2, the level of creativity and encounter.

5. If we strive with all our might to live the ideal of unity, thus understood, it becomes a major source of stimulus to perform charitable work and fill our life meaning and happiness. One of the tasks of the ethical life consists in opening our eyes to see that the truly fruitful stimuli do not come from the instinctual forces that drive our nature, nor from the goals that we may set in our desire for power, control, ownership, and management for our own purposes. The most fruitful and persevering stimuli are those that come from the energy that the great ideals irradiate: unity, goodness, truth, justice, beauty. That is why it has been so important to our training to see, step by step, how we discover the ideal of unity and its related values, and how it actively transforms our whole life when we take it on.

6. Only when we link our instinctual forces and the energies radiating from the ideal of unity do we act with peace, serenity, and determination. Such a link, if it is deep and not just tangential, is called integration.

We unite two melodies and as a result we get the amazing phenomenon of musical harmony. We do not add the melodies, but integrate them. A bride and groom join their lives with a formal promise of marriage and become spouses. They have not added their lives together; they have integrated them

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7. Consider how the person who acts consistently is also integrated with his values, mobilizing all his energies to serve the values that struggle to assert themselves in the depths of his being. Such a person is integral because he mobilizes and brings together and values all the implications of his personal reality: the desire to reach the truth and live in truth and from the truth; his efforts to enforce justice, beyond all selfish interest; his decision to seek the good of others while seeking his own good, or even beyond it... When faced with several possibilities of action, an integral person does not only choose according to his own preferences, but considers above all the good and happiness of others. He thus irradiates an exemplary form of dignity.

8. We owe this fruitful form of union to the spirit, an aspect of our personal being that is nourished by the great values: unity, goodness, truth, justice, beauty.

“The spirit,” Romano Guardini writes, “has a special relationship with truth, goodness, and justice. (...) The spirit is alive because it is able to know the truth, will the good, and do what is right. The more it exercises this capability, the richer and purer its life becomes.” ²⁰.

9.

All of the above will be evident if we apply it to the business world. It stands out in the following testimonies of renowned entrepreneurs.

4.3 The ideal of service and the success of the company To round off our preparation, we should carefully analyze some testimonials from business experts. In the models, we see reflected the values that have to model our behavior if we want to promote the success of our companies and the happiness of the people that are linked in some way to them.

In his famous book Made in Japan, the eminent Japanese businessman Akio Morita writes this programmatic paragraph: “To create interest in workers, they should be incorporated into the family and treated as respected members of it.” “We must treat people as adults, as partners, with dignity, with respect. Treat them not as investment capital or

20. Cf. Ética. Lecciones en la universidad de Múnich [Ethics: Lessons at the University of Munich] (BAC, Madrid 1993, 22000) 144. Original version: Ethik. Vorlesungen an der Universität München (1950-1962), 2 vols.

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like tools to be used, but as the primary source of increased productivity. These are the fundamental lessons derived from our research on the outstanding companies. In other words, if you want to increase productivity and reap the consequent financial rewards, treat the workers as the most important asset in the portfolio.” ²¹ In his desire to put his company on solid anthropological bases, Roberto Servitje closely analyzed several of the most successful companies in the world. The result of this trip was the following consideration: “I think the success of entrepreneurs in this country (Japan) is mostly due to the respect for people. (...) They are allowed to participate. And they dedicate themselves with all their heart. They think that their company is a place that they have to take care of, that it is part of them (...). Undoubtedly, the most important thing in this miracle is that instead of using people, it involves them.” ²²

“Education not only imparts knowledge but also instills spiritual values and moral principles.

Upon stressing the importance of having good leaders, Servitje insists on the idea that “the big problem is education.” He who is well prepared has sufficient means to learn and communicate quickly and cheaply, to simplify the process without losing “the capital of a well-trained staff,” ²³ to seek affordable but duly compensated labor (with the conviction that profit is not the company’s only purpose, but also the promotion of people’s dignity and happiness), to make the necessary changes in order to last and improve, thus prudently advancing to the forefront of research and production. “It is tempting to keep doing things the same when they go well. You have to take

risks if you want to last. Today it is impossible to close in on oneself and not be in danger of perishing.” ²⁴ Achieving excellence requires making the necessary changes to maintain a high level of quality in various situations. Prudently making such changes requires solid training, not only intellectual but also emotional and volitional.

“We must first understand our educational system and then do everything we can to support its continuous improvement. Let us work firmly so that education not only imparts knowledge but also instills spiritual values and moral principles” (255).

21. Apud T. J. Peters and R. H. Waterman: En busca de la excelencia [In

23. Cf. o.c., 228.

Search of Excellence](Ediciones Folio, Barcelona 1990).

24. Cf. o.c., 238.

22. Cf. o.c., 115.

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39

The innovative Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev also seemed to go along the same lines when he wrote in his book Perestroika: “At present, our main job is to raise the individual spiritually, respecting his inner world and strengthening his morale.”²⁵ In his encyclical Centesimus annus (43 b), John Paul II condensed in this way the conception of the company identified above: “The integral development of the human person through work does not impede but rather promotes the greater productivity and efficiency of work itself, even though it may weaken consolidated power structures A business cannot be considered only as a ‘society of capital goods’; it is also a ‘society of persons’ in which people participate in different ways and with specific responsibilities, whether they supply the necessary capital for the company’s activities or take part in such activities through their labour.”

This was the constant conviction of the founder of the Mapfre Group, Ignacio Larramendi, as demonstrated in a lecture that he gave shortly before he died, at a course on values organized by the Spanish Society of Axiology. “Without ethics, he said, “the company cannot succeed in the long run. It is not that with ethics we can sometimes succeed, but that in the long run, without ethics we cannot succeed.” If we compare the smooth running of his company in various nations with the failure of others that adopt unethical procedures, the accuracy of this statement seems confirmed. It is no wonder that this happens, since ethical values order life according to the requirements of any qualified human enterprise.

For a full understanding of the above we now offer very suggestive contributions from studies on the different forms of intelligence. These studies include Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence and R. Stenberg and W. Williams’ Group Intelligence. Golemann stresses the idea that knowing how to relate properly to others, stir up constructive feelings, and engender creative affections... is more fruitful to human life than possessing a high intelligence quotient. Inspired by this idea, he says that the new standard of the professional is to assess “the way we relate to ourselves and others through personal qualities such as initiative, empathy, adaptability, and persuasiveness.” ²⁶ Stenberg and Williams write along the same lines: “An important conclusion is that a work team’s success and effectiveness are related to the fact that there are people who can motivate themselves and motivate others, organizing their informal networks into teams. Informal networks refer to the communicability and trust between people in a job. In this context, being fine, feeling fine, is a prerequisite for working happily and being efficient. Speaking in business terms, it is said that a person who has a positive and optimistic attitude produces much more than another who is merely fulfilling his obligation. The new work culture that is now recommended, or so it seems, is a more human culture since it considers that the person is the key to interpreting the information and transmitting knowledge in continuous renewal.” ²⁷

25. Apud Servitje: o.c., 255.

27. Apud Manuel Cuenca: Ocio humanista [Humanist Leisure]

26. Cf. La práctica de la inteligencia emocional [Working with

(Universidad de Deusto, Bilbao 2000) 262-263.

Emotional Intelligence] (Círculo de Lectores, Barcelona 1999) 15.

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4.4 The ideal of unity and conjugal love The route we have followed to discover the place of affectivity in our personal development – 12th discovery – now enables us to thoroughly clarify how we should live the training process for love. It is a transfiguration process that culminates the series of transfigurations lived throughout the twelve discoveries.

Let us closely follow two young people who feel the flutter of mutual love and want to walk the way of courtship toward the high point of marriage. Let us suppose their names are John and Mary. For brevity, I will address only John, but whatever I say also goes for Mary, of course.

I see John and I ask him if he loves Mary. He answers that he really enjoys being with her, seeing her, talking to her. I warn him: “Be careful, John, because finding her appealing is not yet love!” But “is it wrong to feel attracted to someone?” he asks. It is not, I explain to him. But neither can it yet be considered love. It’s just the beginning of the love process. Attraction is proper to level 1. And do not forget that the attitude of this level is to dominate, own, manage, and enjoy. If I’m hungry and have a sweet tooth, I take a cake and eat it eagerly.

The cake is gone, but I do not keep saying: “What a pity that I will not see it, I loved it so...!” No, I did not love it; I enjoyed it, which is quite different.

This distinction reminds me of the following anecdote. Two young people get married and seem to get along well, but on a bad day, the husband tells the wife: “I’m leaving, because the person I really love is my colleague.”

Does he truly love her? Or, rather, does he fancy her because she is better looking and more “profitable” for him in bed? Recall that the adjective “profitable” is proper to level 1 and its use is meaningless on level 2. We must appraise the concepts well, for if we do not, we misrepresent reality and it becomes clear that we do not know how to think with sufficient precision.

“The training process for love is a transfiguration process that culminates the series of transfigurations lived throughout the twelve discoveries.

SIGNS OF ADMIRATION

John then asks me, “What must I do to turn my desire – that is, the initial attraction – into true love?” “When you’re dealing with a girl,” I answer, “ask yourself seriously: What do I intend with this relationship? To spend time together, have fun (level 1), or create a true encounter with her, a relationship that can lead to a high degree of creativity, such as founding a home and giving life to new beings (level 2)?” This last point – founding a home – is something great, and it involves a high degree of creativity. The previous option of reducing the other person to a means for one’s own purposes is stingy, since it means lowering her to level 1. Truly loving a person is an attitude proper to level 2. Taking another as a mere source of amusement and gratification is a haughty form of manipulation, an excess that degrades the perpetrator. It degrades him because it is not creative. It creates nothing and is reduced to a romantic flare. But true love is very fruitful, because its fruit is encounter, seen in all its richness.

The Training for Love is training for encounter, properly understood. John asks me, then, what he must do to create a relationship of encounter with Mary. My answer is clear: “This is the great task of courtship. To carry it out, decide to be generous with Mary. Generosity is the key to any real human relationship. Do not ever stay in the first value that you find; do not cling to the immediate gains. Go beyond that. Rise to level 2, that of generosity. It mobilizes the imagination to discover what really makes Mary happy and to set the goal of achieving it. Behave in an open, honest, faithful, patient, friendly, participatory, communicative way... and you will see how you stop wanting only the pleasure you get from Mary’s good qualities; you will want Mary as a person. This is the big change that elevates us from the level of desire - level 1 - to the level of love - level 2.”

It is a true transfiguration, a transformation vastly superior to what we have done at first with a tablet and a paper. Thanks to it, you no longer see in Mary just an adorable body; you see the person, and everything her name suggests: Mary. This elevation of spirit allows you to make the big decision and say these decisive words: “I have many reasons to love you, but now I love you, Mary, for being who you are, not just for what you are. That is why I want to create a home with you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health.”

And he unwittingly uttered the formula of sacramental marriage.

“Generosity is the key to any real human relationship.

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John is already on the level of true love – encounter – but perhaps he fears that this love could fail, and he asks me if there is any guarantee that his love will endure. My response is clear: “In human life there are no absolute guarantees. Today I am in great shape and tomorrow I could wake up exhausted. But there is a very strong guarantee that our loving attitude will endure when our love is authentic. And it is authentic if we meet the conditions of encounter (level 2) and unconditionally opt for the ideal of unity, which also implies goodness, truth, beauty, and justice (level 3). If you choose these values with the strength of firm decisions, you will be prepared in all circumstances to fulfill the conditions of encounter: faithfulness, kindness, loving communication, generous participation... Upon rising to level 3 – well founded for believers on level 4 – our ethical life achieves a very high degree of maturity. This interior maturity is the great assurance that our love is real and enduring.”

Marriage, a school of unity If you do this, dear John, and live your married life at levels 1, 2, and 3, well connected, you will turn your home into a school of unity. You and Mary will live your life with creative freedom; you will fill it with meaning and creativity; your language will be inspired by love; you will not let yourself be carried away by vertigo but lifted up by ecstasy; and your affection will always be the living expression of your personal love.

To love with authenticity, we must be interiorly free, able to choose not only from our desires but from the ideal of encounter, from the serious decision to create a very high form of unity with the other person.

This excellent way of living will turn John and Mary into “spokesmen of the universe.” When a plant gives off its fragrance and displays its lovely form, it gives glory to God but does not know it or want to. The same is true of the star, as it faithfully traces out its orbit. Those who know and want it are people, who knowingly and freely create higher forms of unity, knowing that by doing so, they complete the work of creation. When Mary goes to the church on her wedding day to promise to create a life of unity with John, she is certainly carrying a beautiful bouquet of flowers in her hand, and she would be able to tell them: “You give glory to the Creator but do not know it; John and I know it and we invite you to come with us because we will give you a voice.

We will be your spokesmen to the people, and this will grant you a moment of glory because your true self will become luminously clear and you shall be in the truth.”

That is why weddings tend to radiate so much joy, for “joy always announces that life has triumphed,” as the great Bergson said, and there is no greater triumph on earth than to create higher forms of unity.²⁸ When you see yourselves elevated to this high dignity, you will thoroughly understand the greatness of conjugal love when the its four connected constitutive elements are present:

28. Cf. Henri Bergson: L´énergie spirituelle [Spiritual Energy] (PUF, Paris³² 1944) 23.

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1. Sexuality, the instinctive tendency to bodily unite ourselves to another person because of the attraction exerted on the mind and the pleasurable sensations it arouses. This union can be very emotional, exciting, intoxicating.

But the intoxication takes us out of ourselves to merge ourselves with the seductive reality. Fusion is a perfect mode of union on level 1 (as seen when two wax balls are melted and form one larger ball), but highly negative on level 2 because the union between persons requires respect: namely, being close while keeping a certain distance. In order to see a picture, I must not glue my eyes to the canvas; I have to put myself at the distance that aesthetic rules indicate. Similarly, if I want to talk to a friend, I should approach him, but keeping the distance required to open a space of communication between us. On level 2, we achieve true union when we mutually enrich each other, offering and receiving possibilities.

Sexual energy can closely unite people on level 1 but not on level 2 if it is not joined to the purpose of creating this form of personal unity we call friendship.

Sexuality, exercised alone as a mere source of sensory and psychological satisfaction, does not increase our generosity towards the other person; rather, it foments selfishness and eliminates the possibility of encounter.

Selfishness inspires the desire to possess and dominate that which dazzles the instincts. That will makes us cling to the attitude of level 1, a utilitarian attitude that only concerns itself with the gratifying qualities of the other person, not the person as such.

2.

Friendship. To make friends with someone who attracts us, we must consider their appeal not as a call to turn them into a source of immediate, easy, superficial gratifications, but as an invitation to enter into a relationship with that person as such, not just as the holder of a collection of dazzling qualities.

We thereby renounce the freedom to satisfy our instincts immediately – without the will to create a genuine friendship with the other person – and we put into play a more valuable form of freedom: inner freedom or creative freedom. Such a renunciation involves a sacrifice but not repression, because setting aside a lower value in order to receive a superior one does not block the development of our personality; it promotes it.

To willingly give primacy to some values over others, we need to stir up in our spirits from childhood a sense of astonishment at everything a value holds: the homey atmosphere of unconditional love and tenderness, beautiful

43

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scenery, friendly people, a quality artistic or literary work, a game lived with creative spirit, a witty conversation, a beautiful day, a noble action, a popular feast or liturgy that is lived authentically... This capacity to be moved when we see the high quality of beings and everyday events gives us enough interior energy to overcome the tendency toward immediate gains and to dedicate ourselves to the founding of more demanding modes of union.

Upon ascending to level 2 and focusing on making the other person happy through encounter rather than granting ourselves all sorts of sensory enjoyments and psychological emotions, we discover a new world, different from the heady world of sensations and superior to it. It is superior insofar as it opens the possibility of creating a friendship, that is, of mutual understanding and support, of planning and executing shared projects, of deep affections that are not reducible to sensory enjoyments. In this sphere of friendship, we see that the sexual powers are no longer merely a means to obtain sensitive pleasures and become the medium in which we express our desire for personal union. Then we discover lucidly that the instinctual forces are called to collaborate with us in our great task to grow as persons. If the ideal of our life is to create higher forms of unity, it is obvious that we must overcome every loving expression that reduces personal union to a mere sensory smearing.²⁹ If we are accustomed to moving on level 1, we fear falling into the void if we give up such smearing and ascend to a form of unselfish behavior (level 2). This is understandable, because from a lower level we cannot grasp or sometimes even guess at the richness held on a higher level with its higher range of realities and corresponding human attitudes. Therefore it is crucial for us, at some point in life, to come into contact through some specific model with the wealth that is to be found on level 2. When we decide to change our attitude and treat others with friendship and the sincere desire to promote their personality, we are surprised to observe how our life expands, since encountering others involves an exchange of all kinds of possibilities.

On level 1 the expansion of a reality – for example, a farm – takes place at the expense of the surroundings. On level 2 when one reality enters into the field of another, it does not invade it, but increases its interior richness. The selfish man advances towards others with the intention of sucking out their vital space (level 1). The generous man relates with others to enhance their radius of action (level 2). Hence, on level 2 when we are around other people, we are

29. The grief that we feel in our spirit at the reduction of personal love

de la literatura [A Guide to Ethics Training Through Literature], pgs.

to mere physical sensations is highlighted in a sobering way in Jean

287-308.

Anouilh’s work Eurydice, which updates the myth of Orpheus. You

30. Now we fully understand that friendship comes when the

can read a separate commentary in my works Inteligencia Creativa

conditions of encounter are met, seen, and experienced as values

[Creative Intelligence], Pgs. 169-172; Cómo formarse en ética a través

and as virtues. With profound reason, Aristotle indicates in his

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grateful that they exist; we do not experience any resentment at the fact that they can surpass us and diminish our self-esteem. ³⁰ When one is grateful because others exist, he is willing to give his love a community dimension.

3. Love’s outreach to the community. When the first attraction that we feel towards a person becomes authentic love, we are embedded in the dynamism of this type of relationship and ascend to a plane different from that of sexuality and friendship. In fact, humans proceed from the amorous encounter of our parents, who, as such – and not just as progenitors – called us into existence. Our life must consist in responding gratefully to this invitation.

If thanking means being reciprocal in generosity, our response should be to create new forms of encounter. This is the deeper reason why personal love develops by creating forms of community life.

Personal love is ignited in the privacy of our spirits and increases around us through mutual confidences. But a time comes when it seeks to acquire a community outreach, to reveal itself, to found a space of life within society, that is, a home, a place of refuge where the fire of love burns and is passed on to other related areas, thus forming the “big family” of relatives.

Here is how, upon reflecting about a love-filled life, its intrinsic creative power immediately stands out. We have made two jumps: from level 1 to level 2, and from the private, intimate attitude to the community attitude. This, in turn, urges us to give a new dimension to love, which touches on the enigma of the highest creativity.

4.

The fruitfulness of love. Since it happens on level 2, the marital relationship is powerfully creative: it increases the friendship between the spouses and creates new lives. In weighing the importance of both activities, we are amazed to discover the power of marital unity. About friendship, Lope de Vega wrote: “I have always said, and I will say and do say, / that friendship is the greatest human good.”³¹ Moreover, giving life to a person is an overwhelming event. When we notice that two people, even the simplest, can generate a being who is able to think, feel, want, develop projects of all kinds, love, take a stand against the entire universe and even against himself,

Nicomachean Ethics (1156 b) that “perfect friendship is found between

goods (...); because what good is that kind of prosperity if it is deprived

good men who are equals in virtue; because they want the good of

of the power to do good, which is exercised preferentially and in the

each other insofar as they are good.” Friendship is “ a virtue, or is

most praiseworthy way toward friends?” (o.c., 1155 a).

accompanied by virtue, and in addition, it is most necessary for life. No

31. Cf. La Circe, con otras rimas y prosas, en Biblioteca de Autores

one would want to live without friends, though possessed of all other

Españoles, vol. 38 (Madrid 1950) 373.

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his parents, and the Creator, it seems we hit bottom in the enigma of reality and feel immense respect for that region of origins.

These four aspects or ingredients of conjugal love must be so interlinked as to form a structure, that is, a group of elements that mutually require and complement each other such that if one of them breaks off, the whole collapses. If, to procure isolated perks, we mobilize the first element of conjugal love – sexuality – and leave the other three aside, we strip our love relationship of all creativity and we move away from the ideal of unity, placing our lives on level 1, where love is reduced to passion.

That unilateral attitude is unjust toward the human being, who lives as a person by creating all sorts of encounters. By my condition as a human being, I am embedded in a powerful dynamic that leads me to join in conjugal union with another person and make myself independent from my family roots. Is this biological, psychological and spiritual energy intended solely to satisfy a primary individual need, such as happens with eating and sleeping? These needs pursue the goal of conserving our biological existence, not that of shaping our personality, because they have no ability to create relationships of encounter. However, sexual activity puts two people into an intimate relationship and subjects them to a peculiar shock. What is the purpose of this stirring connection? Without any doubt, the creation of a valuable mode of unity, a relationship of encounter.

Seen in the overall context of the process of integral human development, sexual power has an open condition, and tends to overflow our individual limits and establish ourselves as people, in the sense of community beings.

But this community life goes beyond the friendship between spouses because, like all forms of life, it carries with it the demand to live on, which implies the need for renewal through procreation. The inner dynamism of personal love requires that those who are conjugally united by love remain open to the creation of new life and not turn the attraction of their relationship into an end. This openness to fruitfulness means orienting the sexual powers to ends that overflow the private area of the person and bring him to fulfillment. Such orientation generates an unsuspected energy that is able to integrate the various aspects of personal loving process.

Linking these aspects does not diminish the strength of the instinctual drives, which carry a certain value; it directs their energy to achieving the splendid

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goal of creating a life of deep personal unity, with all the fruitfulness that it implies. If the ideal of our life is to create relevant modes of unity, we must mobilize all our energies to achieve this goal (level 3). We must assume this duty with love because it is not imposed from without, but suggested from the depths of our sexed nature, which is ordered to creating loving environments.

The theme of human love shows its splendid greatness when we see it in the dynamism of our personal growth. Gustav Thibon accurately stated: “We do not want a sexual fulfillment that is purchased at the price of human fulfillment; we do not feel any taste for customs that, under the pretext of fully satisfying the sexual instinct, empty man of everything else.

Only marriage can simultaneously satisfy the instinct without degrading the person.” ³² This degradation begins when, out of an unthinking eagerness to exalt sexual potency, it is isolated from its natural context, which is the structure formed by the four ingredients of love: sexuality, friendship, community outreach, and fertility. Such isolation impoverishes the life of love, and all unjust impoverishment is an act of violence against reality, in this case against our own personal reality. It is not at all suprising that, both in everyday life and in its literary and cinematic expression, the cultivation of sexual relationships outside of personal love, the creator of friendship and community life, often go hand-in-hand with acts of violence.

“Giving life to a person is an overwhelming event.

32. Sobre el amor humano [On Human Love] (Rialp, Madrid 3 1961) 64.

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It is a calamity, indeed, that many children and youth do not have the doors of wonder opened before them to see the imposing grandeur that our life acquires when we link level 1 to 2, and 2 to 3. Discovering these heights of greatness that our lives can acquire when we take a “deep look� and are interested in the hidden side of things and people is the colossal task of a Pedagogy of Admiration.

To be happy, we must broaden the horizon of our life, opening our interior to the highest realities. This is the focus of the educational project that I am promoting under the title School of Thought and Creativity (www. epc-online.es)

SIGNS OF ADMIRATION

Index of Topics and Authors Anguish, 24 Aristotle, 43 Arruda, Marcos, 33 Basic discoveries 9 ss.

Beauty (the) 15 Bergman, Ingmar, 6 Bergson, H., 40 Body (having a), 27, 28 Communication, 14 Community projection of love, 43 Company (the soul of the), 32 Consecrate, 22 Creativity 11 Creator (the), 16, 40 Deep gaze, 45 Definition, 7 Desires (correct orientation of), 30 Desperation, 24 Dignity, 34 Disappointment, 24 Drugs, 25, 27 Ecstasy, 16, 17, 23, 25, 26, 27 Opposition to the process of vertigo, 26 Enjoyment, 27, 28 Enthusiasm, 15 Euphoria, 24 Europe, 32 Excellence, 36 Festive joy (jubilation), 15, 27, 28 Formation, 28, 36, 38

49

Francis, C., 33 Freedom, 6 Freedom to maneuver, 11, 12, 27 Creative freedom, 11, 12, 23, 27 Friendliness, 13 Friendship, 41 Fruits, 15, 28 Gambler, 7, 23 Generosity, 13, 25, 38, 39 Goleman, D., 37 Good (the) 15 Gorbachev, M., 36 Growth process, 9 ff., 12, 42 Guardini, R., 32, 35 Guide (leader), 7, 8, 32 Happiness, 6 ff., 15, 22, 28 Having, 27 Hedonism, 8 Ideal of life (or ideal of unity), 15, 17, 32, 34, 38 Discovering the ideal, 28 Imagination, 39 Inner fulfillment, 15 Integration (of energies), 34-35 Interior peace, 15 Intrusiveness, 8

18-21 Positive levels, 18 Negative levels, 20 (-1, -2, -3, -4) Lope de Vega, 44 Loyalty, 13 Manipulation, 8, 28 Marriage, school of unity, 40 ff.

Mastery (attitude of), 24 Meaning, 7 Meeting, 12, 25, 39 Conditions for encounter, 13 Morita, Akio, 35 Open realities, 11 Openness to others, 13 Participation, 14 Passion, 16, 44 Patience, 14 Pedagogy of admiration, 7, 8, 45 Personal love, 16, 38 The fruitfulness of love, 44 Playing, 11 Poem (experience of the), 11 Possibilities, 11 Powers, 11 Procreation, 44-45 Rahner, Karl, 23

Janis Joplin, 6, 27 John Paul II, 37 Joy, 15, 26 Justice (the), 15 Knowledge of Human Life, 6 ff.

Language, 16 Larramendi, I., 37 Level 1, 11, 17, 28 Level 2, 11, 15, 28, 38 Level 3, 15 Level 4, 16 Levels of reality and behavior,

Reductionism, 8 Relational (thought), 10 Reversible experiences 12 Sadness, 24, 26 Schumpeter, JA, 33 Second-degree illiteracy, 6 Selfishness, 24, 26 Service (attitude of), 31, 32 Servitje, R., 32, 34, 36 Sexuality, 41 Shelter, 15 Silence, 6, 8, 26

50

SIGNS OF ADMIRATION

Silence of meditation, 26 Silence of dumbness, 26 Simplicity, 13 Solitude, 24, 25 Spirit, 35 Spiritual blockages (overcoming), 23 Stenberg, R., 37 Stimulus, 34 Talisman (word), 28 Teaching via discovery, 7, 8, 9 ff.

Teamwork, 34 Thibon, G., 45 Transfiguration, 15, 39 Transfiguring power of the ideal of unity, 16 Transformation, 11 Trust, 13 Truth (the) 15 Unamuno, Miguel de, 26 Unconditional (goodness, righteousness, truth, beauty), 16, 35 Values, 7, 15 Blindness to values, 25 Qualfon shield, 31 Vertigo, 16, 17, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 Violence, 45 Virtues, 15 Welbergen, E., 33 Williams, W., 37 Wonder, 42 Youth (two groups of), 28-29