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| 2020/08/17 |
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Conscience-Suffused Strong Young Men, May You Rise and Come!
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These words were by Jo Nijima, founder of Doshisha University, written and sent to one of his students on November 23 1889. I first encountered these words when I entered Doshisha University as a young girl. I found them inscribed on a monument as I entered the main entrance of Imadegawa campus. Ever since, I have not forgotten his dictum and tried to suffuse my whole being with conscience.
These words are now considered to be the basis of education at Doshisha University and are placed at many places, so you may have seen them yourself. Jo Nijima founded Doshisha English School in 1875, which later became a university, but he himself died in 1890 at the age of forty-six. But we can feel a strong passion in his words and his determination to foster ‘conscience-suffused’ young men.
What does conscience mean? In my view, it means a desire to pursue truth, goodness and beauty, and above all, a passion to follow love in all things. Conscience is the source of our energy and steers us through our course when we set our purpose (a social objective whatever it may be). Without conscience, we cannot achieve any meaningful work.
One hundred and thirty years have passed since Jo Nijima’s death, and more than twenty years have passed since the turn of the century, but the world is under the influence of neo-liberalism, which seems to forget the spirituality of man and seeks materialistic prosperity as if intoxicated with it. More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown the world into fear. We are all afraid of the disease and live in fear of future. Our social activities are seriously hindered, and no one knows when the epidemic will come to an end.
Under these conditions, I should like to encourage young people who are seeking jobs. I wish them to start their professional lives with a clear objective in mind and a hope for future. To everyone who wants to attend the recruitment meetings of Shinseikai, I should like to say, “Get free from the neo-liberalism. Its age is coming to an end. You cannot find your true objective till you do this.” When you do this, however, you will find conscience at the bottom of your heart. It will tell you what you should do. Listen to its voice and fear not to follow it. Accept any challenge and any risk you may encounter in your way. You never know what you yourself want until your heart is ‘conscience-suffused’ and filled with its voice. Under this condition alone, you will find your true self and mission.
What is most important in this world, where your activities are strictly limited by ‘do-not-do-this’ and ‘do-not-do-that’, is to listen to the voice of your conscience and follow it in making your own judgements, in studying and in working. I have chosen my present job by following the voice of my own conscience, and every time I encountered social evils (neo-liberalism, for example, which tries to set a price even to conscience), I tried to recall Jo Nijima’s dictum and tried to be worthy for his ‘conscience-suffused men’.
Under the COVID-19 pandemic, we must all endure. To endure means to be patient. However, when we endure hardships with hope (and faith), we find the voice of conscience arising from the bottom of our hearts and our true selves following it. Like Jo Nijima, I am hoping that ‘conscience-suffused’ people will join us. Let us put our hands together to create a social welfare institution truly worthy of its name. Our task in future is to pursue real happiness for every individual ---what I should like to call radical social welfare. It is my sincere hope that Shinseikai will be a place where everyone can feel the joy of the conscience-suffused heart.
August,2020
（Translated by Nobuyuki Yuasa）
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