A real page-turner.

There is one question that is often asked.  Why do good people suffer?  Most religious people will say that, it is God that punishes or rewards us for our behavior. But in the Ofudesaki, God tells us that God has been on the sidelines, only watching us since the creation of human beings.  Then you may ask, why do we suffer or have joy in our lives? In the first verse of the Ofudesaki, God tells us we do not understand the mune or heart. What is the mune or heart that each of us has?  I believe that the heart is the soul, or is contained in the soul, which is eternal.  It is our own heart that collects our debits or credits from our actions, and then eventually releases them as fate. We reap what we have sowed because of our mune or soul. We do not understand why and what we reap today, because memories of our past lives have been erased. It is like beginning to read a book from a middle chapter. We will not be able to understand, because we have not read the previous chapters.  By asking this question of why Good people suffer, is like one only looking at what they have done in this lifetime. You do not know what they have done in their previous lives. This explanation may appear to be fatalistic, but God tells us that everyone in the world will eventually be saved. Yes, in this story, the last chapter of every book ends with “ they all lived happily forever after.”

How does everyone in this world get saved?  You need to read the Ofudesaki. Please do not read the English translated version by church headquarters. It contains a few errors in translation, which may hinder our understanding of God’s truths. I have attempted to translate into English word for word. You can view it by going to heaventruth.com on wordpress, or view each verse daily in the Tenrikyo Ofudesaki Study Group on Facebook.