Awakenings

by Father Thomas Keating

Events in Jesus' Ministry

Chapter 13

The Great Commandment

One of the scribes, when he came forward and heard them disputing and saw how well he had answered them, asked him, "Which is the first of a1l the commandments?" Jesus replied, "The first is this: 'Hear O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with al1 your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." The scribe said to him, "Well said, teacher. You are right in saying, 'He is One and there is no other than he.' And 'to love him with your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself' is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices." And when Jesus saw that [he] answered with understanding, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." And no one had the courage to ask him any more questions.
(Mark 12:28-34)

    How can we possibly love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength unless the false self has been significantly dismantled? If our strength is divided by all kinds of desires, this commandment is impossible. In any case, it is not something we start to observe on the first day of our conversion. It presupposes a process of liberation from selfishness. To be more specific, we cannot exercise the love of God emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, as this commandment demands, while under the influence of the emotional programs for happiness. For example, on the first rung of human consciousness, to feel secure is the chief concern. In the first year of life, consciousness is chiefly concerned with the ever-recurring round of desires and gratifications surrounding food, drink, shelter, and concrete signs of affection.

    As we move on to year two or three, pleasure, affection and esteem, and control also become primary focuses of desire. From four to seven acceptance by family and peers is foremost in our value system.

    As we evolve to the rational level with its capacity to climb out of the childish programs for happiness, reason tends to be dominated by the programs already in place. The word of God has to come into our hearts to touch us with the determination to dismantle the emotional programs for happiness, over identification with our group and the false self that was built up during early childhood. God graciously comes to our aid and begins to show us the basic selfishness of each of those programs and invites us to acknowledge them and to give them to him to take away. All of the afflictive emotions are rooted in the false self, and all of them begin to disappear once the values of the gospel that lead to true happiness are firmly established.

    What Jesus is saying to this young scribe is that his abstract understanding of the primary precept of the Old Testament is "right on" and that if he pursues that course, the values of the false-self system are gradually freed from their fascination with pleasure, power, and security One then moves into the awareness of the presence of God within. With that movement comes the capacity to love God with our whole mind, heart, soul and strength. By accessing the mystery of God's presence within; we are capable of perceiving the presence of God in others. The presence of God in us recognizes the presence of God in everyone else. Then it is possible to love them as ourselves.

    The second precept flows automatically from the first. If we truly love God, we can love our neighbor as we love the true self that we have found through the process of liberation. The whole movement from the tyranny of Egypt to the promised land in the book of Exodus is a parable of the movement from the tyranny of the false self through the desert of purification into the promised land of interior freedom.

    There is an intriguing second section to this text. Although Jesus approved of the first commandment and its corollary to love one's neighbor as oneself and congratulated the young man on his insight, he also said, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." In other words, the kingdom of God requires something more than to love our neighbor as ourselves. To love our neighbor from the perspective of the true self, as one possessing the image of God, is a great insight, but it still is not the fullness of the kingdom of God according to Jesus. A new commandment characterizes the Christian faith which carries the insight of the scribe a step further. It is to love one another as Jesus has loved us. This is much more difficult. This is to love others in their individuality, uniqueness, personality traits, temperamental biases, personal history, and in the things that drive us up the wall, to love our neighbor, in other words, just as they are with each one's grocery list of faults, unbearable habits, unreasonable demands, and impossible characteristics. The new commandment is to accept others unconditionally; that is to say, without the least wish to change them. To love them in their individuality is the way Jesus has loved us. He gives us the space in which to change and the time to confront the obstacles that prevent further change.

    There are actually two approaches. One is to deliberately dismantle the emotional programs for happiness as we see them at work in our lives. A further practice and one that needs to be applied at the same time is the positive precept of unconditional love. This is the ascesis that Jesus himself suggests as the best way of dismantling the false self. It is to show untiring love beginning with the people that we live with and those who depend on us in one way or another, Jesus extended this ascesis to personal insult, injury, persecution, and even to death itself. This is the commandment that manifests whether or not we are fully in the kingdom. To be in the kingdom means to be at the disposal of the divine presence and action and to continue Christ's revelation in the world by how we live. This is the insight that was missing in the young scribe; it is the insight that Jesus gave to his disciples as his final will and testament. By exercising unconditional love, the dismantling of the false self takes place. This love is what Saint Augustine calls "bearing the unbearable." This is the mature Christian practice that is not put off by anything. By showing love unwearyingly, no matter what happens, we imitate and pass on the mercy that Christ has shown for us.

This chapter is taken from the book Awakenings by Fr. Thomas Keating. You can obtain a copy from the Bookstore.  See Awakenings