Herein our love is made perfect that we have boldness in the day of judgement: because
as he is (that is: Jesus), so are we in the world. There is no fear in love. But perfect love
casteth fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
1Joh 4,17-18
Dear professors and students
Ladies and Gentlemen
It is a great honour for me to have your precious time and to have the chance to address
some words to you. I feel very grateful to Prof. Tsuji, who has invited me and has given me
the opportunity to share my faith and my mystical consciousness with you.
Let us start with a common experience! Please remember a situation when you had to
prepare for an exam. You have books to read, papers to write, information to understand
and memorize, and you have to train yourself to answer all kinds of questions about the
topic of your studies. Even though you may study hard, you may keep the fear that you are
not prepared well enough. With this fear you may increase your preparations to an
enormous amount, but yet the stress does not go away, because you keep thinking of this
or that which you may have forgotten or left out. The question that will show up sooner or
later in such a moment is the worrying question: When is it good enough?
This is the question I am concerned about. It is a question that arises in many different
ways. You can prepare for a job interview, a difficult meeting or a competition at sport, and
you can always have this uncomfortable feeling that you are not prepared well enough.
Besides these stories from daily life this question may reveal a much deeper problem, too.
Deeply ingrained in the body of a human being – at least in the body of a Western human
being – there is what we can call: the will to knowledge. Michel Foucault, the brilliant
French philosopher, who died in 1984 and who has studied the development of Western
rationality all his life, has written about this. The will to knowledge is obviously an old story.
You might be familiar with the Biblical story of Adam and Eve and the tree of knowledge. It
is a story that tells us about this basic will to knowledge that we as humans seemingly
have a hard time to resist. It is evident that the will to knowledge includes much more than
to generate rational or scientific knowledge: it is rooted in body-centred experience and
focuses on extending our sensual perception to embody new information. I guess not only
in the Western world is the leisure time filled with this hunger of experiencing new things.
And at the same time the latest technologies offer better and better tools to gain greater
experiences. Whether it be pills that allow you to dance a whole night without getting tired
or medical appliances to extend the time before our death to satisfy our hunger of longer
and longer life or electronic tools for experiencing virtual worlds that computer sciences
offer.
Let me make myself clear: It is not at all my intention to condemn these opportunities
which the will to knowledge has created. My concern is the question: When is it good
enough ?, or more pertinent: Is it now good enough ?, or even: Am I now good enough ?
I would like to bring this question into the context of the Christian metaphor of the
judgement. I guess you know that the metaphorical scenery of a court is deeply rooted in
Jewish-Christian belief as it expresses there the fundamental situation of human
existence. Of course, the Biblical authors when using this metaphor were thinking first of
all about the real, institutional court of the Jews and Romans. But at the same time this
experience offers the metaphorical frame in which human existence is considered before
God. The situation at court is metaphorically speaking the situation of a human being
before God.
Using this kind of metaphor to express the situation of a human being before God has a
strong impact. You may know that with this metaphorical background in Christian history a
lot of evil has been committed and still is committed. What is important to me is that the
question: When is it good enough?, Is it good enough now?, or even: Am I good enough
now? is the question we are facing in God’s Judgement. When asking this question we no
longer focus on the objectivity of good and evil, but draw the attention to the attitude that
finds the right measure. Neither a human being nor a thing is good or bad in itself, but it is
the attitude with which we deal with life that is good or bad.
It is true: it is frightening to see ourselves in the metaphorical frame of a court when
asking: Is it…/ Am I good enough? It confronts us with our insecurity, with our fears, with
our doubts. And as we often get stuck in the fear that we have not found the right way, we
keep thinking and acting and achieving more and more. But instead of dissolving our fears
we get more and more greedy and start living out the will to knowledge. We may not even
be conscious of it. It just feels that there is something pulling us to do what we cannot stop.
Fear drives us to go on and on, but we will have to stop sometime. Nevertheless it may not
be because we feel that it is enough, but because we break down. We may feel exhausted
and burnt out, and we do not consider it as a good ending. It is a defeat, a failure, a
surrender, and we may feel ashamed and guilty. But our feelings of shame and guilt are
only the other side of our fear.
In Christian thinking there is an alternative possible. It is the change from knowing to
having faith. To have faith does not mean: to take things for granted we cannot know for
sure. It means: to transcend oneself into a different level of consciousness. This altered
state of consciousness is expressed by the metaphor of love. I do not say love, but the
metaphor of love, because it cannot be described in precise terms. But when you really
love somebody including yourself, you may get a taste of it. This is the beginning of a
different consciousness that happens when you start transcending yourself, transcending
from knowing to having faith.
An idea written in the New Testament expresses this very clearly. I would like to read to
you from the 1st epistle of John, chapter 4, verses 17-18:
Herein our love is made perfect that we have boldness in the day of judgement: because
as he is (that is: Jesus), so are we in the world. There is no fear in love. But perfect love
casteth fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
As you see in this text, the metaphorical frame of the Judgement is set. It is clear that the
day of judgement is coming. But there is no need for us to let us be oppressed by our
fears. We can be upright and open and speak boldly there and then what there has to be
said. The power that makes it possible, is love. As the New Testament says, love makes
perfect in us the boldness in which our fears are dissolved. What Jesus, our master, has
experienced, we, his followers, can experience ourselves. Because – this is the main point
– there is no fear in love. Love turns fear and its pain away. This is the offering given to us
when we transcend from the consciousness of knowing to the consciousness of having
faith in love.
Realizing this won’t make our thinking and acting more successful, more powerful, more
beautiful. Love does not get rid of the question: Is it… or: Am I good enough?, by giving us
the victory in the competition with others. Instead it is the spirit that enters through the gap
between yes it is enough, and no it is not enough.
Whenever we feel insecure as to whether we have done enough or not, there is always
this difference between yes and no. Without this difference there is no perception and no
cognition possible. There would be only chaos. The will to knowledge is based in the
human ability to distinguish and to put a thing into a relationship with another. All mental
activities start with distinguishing, with perceiving a difference. And this difference is
exactly the space of love I was talking about.
We may experience this, when we manage to step back from asking: Is it… or: Am I good
enough?, and start realizing the space in between. I am not talking about escaping from
facing the question. I am talking about realizing oneself in the space between this side and
the other side of the question and realizing what life feels like from the power of the space,
from the power of love in between.
In the house you are living in the empty space is the most important part. Of course, the
walls are needed to feel the empty space. But our life takes place in the space between
the walls. As long as we see the walls we feel like in a prison. It is not the house, not the
walls, not the bricks that are the essence of our lives, but the spirit, the love that is there in
between the walls.
That is the reason why the Bible says that love gives us boldness in the Judgement of
God. Love is the empowerment to go beyond the threatening question of the court: Is it
good enough?, Am I good enough?, Did I do enough for the house and walls and bricks?,
and it brings us into life. Realizing this, there comes a personal sovereignty into being and
a mastery in our business. We are in touch with what we have to deal with, but we are not
ruled by fear and insecurity, but moved by love. We may start with fear, but we end with
love. This is how one of the greatest European Christian mystics, Saint Bernhard of
Clairvaux, has taught us.
You see: My message is not to forget about being good enough. My message is to ask
consciously: When are we good enough?, instead of being drawn (and seduced) by the
will to knowledge. Asking this question brings up the fear of failing in the Judgement of
God. That is true. But this fear is the beginning of wisdom, the Bible says (Prov 9,10),
because it calls us back from our egotistical trips and shows us the space between the
walls, the space between different options, the space between myself and myself.
Experiencing this the door is open to transcend ourselves into the space of love that
empowers us to become the masters of our lives.
Let us therefore pray and ask God to give us the necessary fear at the start, and the love
needed to end. Amen.
Chapel-Hour of July 12, 2005 in Nishinomiya, Japan
Bernhard Neuenschwander