“Fear Is The Root Of Aggressions”

Salvador Pániker was a Doctor of Engineering, philosopher and author of renowned works on thought, such as Approximation to the Origin or Philosophy and Mysticism (Kairós). Founder of the Kairós publishing house, Pániker also presided over the Association for the Right to Die with Dignity. Before he died he gave us this interview.

The word crisis seems to fill everything. It gives the impression that, beyond an economic crisis, it is also a profound crisis of ideas and values ​​…

Yes. The economic crisis can cause a slowdown in consumerism, giving way to what Anglo-Saxons call slow life: a slower tempo and a possible openness to interiority. But it is not certain that this will happen either. What is certain is that, nowadays, a bonus of creativity is needed that in simpler times was not necessary.

Why are we afraid to be masters of our own life?

I usually distinguish between public life, private life and intimate life. Everyone has a private life, some have a public life and very few have an intimate life. It is to that intimate life that we normally turn our backs on; an intimate life in which the transcendence, the deep erotic experience, the aesthetic experience, the mystique are present.

In the West, almost all of us are helpless mystics, we behave like robotic beings

And then what can we do to stop being robots, to develop greater inner freedom?

Standing in a secular, relativistic and pluralistic society is a task for which we have not been educated, since until recently absolute ideas, concepts with a capital letter -History, Party, Homeland, True Religion …- prevailed, in the name of which the greatest atrocities were committed. We are faced with a cultural question and a pedagogy problem. It is a question, then, of taking pleasure in the difficult.

Any clue how …

I follow a fairly simple rule: I ask myself at all times what is the right thing to do at all times. And then I try to put it into practice.

How would you define happiness?

Buddhists say that the desire for nirvana prevents nirvana. Let’s say that happiness has to do with harmony, in terms of health (physical and mental). A healthy self-actualized person does not envy anyone, he assumes himself as he is, knows what his limits are, plays the cards that have served him, finds his own playing field, enjoys it, does at all times what at all times. touch to do. He is an uninterrupted creative person, he always lives in the here and now and opens up to the transpersonal.

In his book Asymmetries (Debate), he proposes to poeticize everyday life, like the romantics. How is this achieved?

Living each moment as if things happened for the first time.

It also proposes that a new humanism be given way …

Effectively. Today, a new humanism has to be more related to mental health and empathy than to universal moral codes. A new humanism, moreover, must be very open to the adventure of science. Carl G. Jung said that the crisis in the West was due to the fact that Christian myths are no longer alive. Well, the new myths in which we can believe today, provisionally, are provided by science and are called theory of evolution, theory of relativity, quantum physics … There is also the way of transcendence so that being human is realized, as the psychologist Abraham Maslow pointed out.

What would this route be for you?

The gateway to transcendence is the feeling of wonder. We can wonder unlimitedly, and this limitation of wonder is metaphysics. And the art. And poetry. “I know nothing that is not a miracle,” said the poet Walt Whitman. And the absolute miracle is that there is something instead of nothing.

Can you tell us what is your best wish for the human being?

I want a society made up of human beings who are not afraid. Fear is the root of all aggressions.

3 essential concepts

Life

It is a miracle that we usually turn our backs on. Who said that life is what happens while we are busy with something else? We live it intensely when we experience it here and now, with the wonder of a child.

Death

It can be said that death is a catastrophe for the ego. Once the ego is overcome, the drama of death dissolves. As the philosopher Baruch Spinoza said at the time, “the free man should think of nothing less than death.”

Awareness

In a way, consciousness is the supreme identity and it is even possible to think that there is only one consciousness. The sages expand their sense of identity far beyond the confines of their mind and body until they reach totality.