How does one spread God’s truth? How does one get one foot into the building, before it is slammed closed? What are the secret words that will lend you someone’s ears? It has to be something that is beneficial, and provides hope. A cure for cancer and a miraculous healing may be subjects, which may open the doors? Christianity began with Jesus healing the hopeless; opening the door to preach his doctrines to the masses. In the Heaven’s Truth Religion (Tenrikyo), God tells us the opposite; he tells us that he will begin to place illness on our bodies!   You may be wondering how this helps us? God tells us that he places illness on our bodies to help us remove sin/evil (greed, arrogance, and self love) from our minds. This is called God’s guidance. If we ponder, and remove these evils from our minds, our illness will be healed, and our minds will become more pure and spirited.

The following is my guideline in spreading God’s truth to the world.

HINOKISHIN (Spreading God’s Truth)

God tells us in Chapter 14 in the Ofudesaki to tell people that he is going to work. We must tell people (plant the seeds) that God may place illness to guide them to sweep evil from their minds. We must tell them now; how do we expect them to understand if they do not know the meaning of each occurrence?  This is called hinokishin. Tell people, the following:

1. God has descended from Heaven to save all mankind.
2. That illness or suffering may be God’s guidance to remove evil (greed, arrogance, and self love) or sins from your mind. This suffering is not punishment but God’s guidance.
3. If you make an effort to remove evil from your mind, that illness may go away. We also have a prayer (Osazuke) if you want us to perform that will also help in the process to heal and help you remove your evils.
4. If you remove evil from your mind, you will become spirited and happy: You won’t need drugs or alcohol to make you happy; and your depression will go away. This is an immediate benefit; one does not have to wait until the next life or Heaven to benefit from purifying your mind.
5. When your mind is pure, the future will only be Joyous (On earth/reincarnation or heaven/afterlife).
6. Sometimes removing evil from you mind is difficult, because some of us have so much. The evil in our minds may be compared to the dust that is ingrained in a mirror. It is hard to remove immediately.
7. If you do not act on your evil thoughts, you can eventually eliminate them from your mind, and you can become spirited. Due to negative karma (suffering), or God’s test (more suffering) on us, we sometimes regress and continue to accumulate dust. Don’t be disappointed if this is a slow process. This is the difficult part of purifying our minds. We continue to need God’s help in accomplishing this.
8. Shared joy is true joy. We need to spread God’s truth when our minds become pure. God has given us a special prayer (Joyous Service) to do this. This will further be explained at our churches.