Educating in an interiority made up of proximality
“Do we educate to achieve serenity and peace?” These are the opening words of this brief, dense book; they end with a black question mark and are surrounded by a white, empty space. In that white space of the question, the reader becomes trapped, suspended, attentive to silent, white emptiness. And calmly. That is where these pages by our friend Txemi Santamaría are taking us.
He is a theologian, a psychologist and a psychotherapist. In short, an educator. I mention the author’s “qualifications” only to highlight the essence and purpose of the book, namely, that we should learn to enter the silent emptiness of the question and there discover what we really are or what we are capable of being, and that we should set out along the road to the depths of ourselves and of everything, to the emptiness and fullness of our being, to the freedom of proximality, to peace. And so let us all be theologians, psychologists, psychotherapists, educators.
Who is really a theo-logian, “someone who talks about God”? Not someone who knows and offers the answers of a so-called “Lord above” [the literal translation of the Basque word “Jaun-goiko”, i.e.”God”], but someone who turns the answers that come from afar into questions that have to be asked by his/her neighbour: “What’s the matter with you? What’s hurting you? For “God” is nothing but the infinite question mark made up of compassionate proximality. Whether we are “believers” or “unbelievers”, we can all truly be theologians, compassionate questioners of what is, peacefully transcending all answers and beliefs.
And who is a psychologist, in other words, an “expert in the human mind or psyche” (intelligence, will, feeling, mysterious memory)? He/she is not, primarily, the academic expert who looks at and explains the sinuous, confusing areas of our problematic nature from the outside, from above; but someone who, enlightened by the awareness of his/her own shadows, has learned in the school of life and compassion, to understand with empathy the weaknesses of the other, to turn the other’s erring ways into directions, to be a humble neighbour of the neighbour, to be a faithful travelling companion. Because only by knowing ourselves deeply will we be able to understand our neighbour, and vice versa, only by knowing our neighbour will we be able to understand ourselves.
And who is a true psychotherapist, in other words, a “healer of the human spirit or psyche”? Not someone who has easy recipes at his/her fingertips to solve any problem, but someone who, by putting him-/herself in the shoes of his/her wounded neighbour, is able, through eyes of kindness, to see pain and helplessness as if they were his/her own, because they are indeed his/her own. Someone who looks through merciful eyes at the faults and shortcomings of others as wounds, not through accusing eyes as faults. We are neither “guilty” nor “innocent” beings, but incomplete beings, travelling and wandering towards the All in search of merciful eyes. The ointment of compassion is the best medicine. Compassion makes us good, healthy and fulfilled. The compassionate person is healthy, even though he/she is unfinished and travelling. And he/she is a healer. Who cannot be a compassionate fellow traveller, despite his/her shadows, wounds, limits and powerlessness?
This is the vision of the world, of the human being, of life, that we find at the heart of this book. It is a proposal for education inspired by a profound gaze and compassionate proximality. The first sentence opens with this question: “Do we educate for serenity and peace?” Education is obviously not limited to the classroom. The family in all its forms, cultural action, work, politics, the media, leisure, social networks… are all spaces for education. No matter where we are and no matter what we are, all of us can and should be educators, as well as “theologians”, psychologists and psychotherapists.
And what is involved in being an educator? Teaching how to live well, i.e. in goodness and happiness. It is our true self arising out of happy proximality. To educate is to learn and teach how to grow by decreasing, so as to accompany along the path towards that revolutionary nature arising out of compassion and peace, emptiness and plenitude. Otherwise we will be devoured by our need to grow, that unstoppable, aimless pace of growth that drags us along. The speed of what we call “progress” ruins the good life, the common good. Do we educate to breathe, to be compassionate, to be happy brothers and sisters, to live in the justice of peace or in the peace of justice?
Interiority is the basis of integral education. But the term interiority is misleading insofar as it suggests dualism and isolation. Interiority is not closed intimacy, it is not mere introspection. Interiority is not the search for and exercise of transcendence beyond immanence. Interiority is not isolation, it is not opposed to exteriority, because “inside” and “outside” do not exist in themselves, but in our way of seeing. Interiority is neither stillness nor inaction, because nothing is still and inactive. Interiority is not opposed to materiality and corporeality, for without some form of body or matter nothing exists –neither feeling, nor intelligence, nor will, nor memory, nor God–; and conversely, nothing exists that is not at its core energy, breath, “soul”, the potential to be, to live, to act. Let us therefore eliminate the interiority-exteriority conflict, just like the materiality-spirituality dualism.
“Interiority is an integrating space,” says Txemi Santamaría. Interiority is not a part or a dimension of what we are, but the consciousness that unites all the parts and dimensions of our being with all that is. It is the experience of the All. It is the awareness that we are one with Unity, Communion, the infinite cosmic interrelation –with stone, water, air, trees, birds, all human beings; with atomic particles, gigantic galaxies, the infinite universe or multiverse.
We are one with everything. We come from the All into this short life, in communion with all other living beings. We head towards the All, in union with the Vital Breath of all, through the liberating transit or Passover we call death. We are tiny lungs of the endless Passover of life.
If we were to observe and feel all that is, and our own being as one with the All…, if we were to develop a cosmology, an anthropology, a psychology, a philosophy of universal communion –or a “theology” of the Mystery of Good and Happiness, beyond the separate, metaphysical “Lord God from above”, beyond religion–…., if we were to learn and teach how to stop, be silent, listen, look, admire, feel, be moved, as the first lesson and subject in all curricula…, if we were to implement a pedagogy of universal communion, of compassionate proximality in all life and social areas –education, science, politics, economics, the whole culture–…, if we personally and publicly were to practise what Ken Wilber calls “integral spirituality”…, everything would be transformed. The breath would open up to us. We would live.
This is the great challenge of today, the most serious challenge of all times: either we grow and educate in that interiority arising out of proximality or we suffocate ourselves and each other in the accelerated competition for growth. Undoubtedly, the infinite Breath of What is will continue to inspire even without us. But as far as we are concerned, it is also up to us.
Aizarna, Basque Country. 21 March, 2023
(Foreword to Txemi Santamaria, Isiltasunean jolaska, IDTP, Bilbao 2022, pp. 11-14)
(Translated by Sarah J. Turtle)