OFUDESAKI-GOD'S TEACHINGS

Some of you may disagree with me, but I believe that the first two chapters of the Ofudesaki summarize all the teachings, and prophesy of God.  I will give you a couple of examples.  The first two chapters differ from the rest of the Ofudesaki in that they were both written in 1869. Chapter 3 is not written until 1874, which is a delta of about 5 years.  The early two chapters predict the physical demise of Oyasama and her daughter Kokan (see image). In verse, 1-61 of the Ofudesaki, the word parent refers to Oyasama who wanted to continue to train Kokan. The following is from the Ofudesaki and the Life of Oyasama.

This child, 2 years, 3 years, you wish to train,

You are saying. But God has detached.  1-60

Ponder, the parent how much she may desire,

God’s detachment, this will not come true.  1-61

On September 27, Kokan passed away for rebirth at the age of 39. On being notified, Oyasama returned to the Residence by rickshaw. She went straight to her bedside, stroking her lifeless body and said, “What a pity! Come back soon.”

The concept of the heart is very difficult to understand. God even tells us in the first verse of the Ofudesaki that we do not understand the heart.  It is the energies of our own hearts that punishes or rewards us for our actions. God tells us that God has been only been observing us since the creation of human beings.  We reap what we have sowed because of our own hearts. God saw all the sufferings in the world and descended from heaven to teach us how to prevent future obstacles and illnesses that are delivered by our own hearts.

How does God convince the world that there is a heart (soul) in each of us that regulates our own behavior?  In the Ofudesaki, God even tells us that since there are so many people that do not understand the heart and what it does, it will be a mountainous challenge even for God. What would be the best way to help people understand the heart?

God wants to show us what our own heart do. To convince people, God will begin to place illness as guidance to people, so they can understand what their own hearts do for them naturally. God will begin to enter their bodies, and evaluate what dusts or evil thoughts are in their minds.  Comparing Oyasama’s mind to theirs, God will begin to place illness on their bodies, depending on how much dust is contained in their mind.  God is showing them their fate in this lifetime. A loving God that wants people to only have joy calls this guidance.  This is like the movie Christmas Carol, where Ebenezer Scrooge is shown his future by the ghost of the future.

But this is only a piece of the procedure to save the world. What would be the use of God’s guidance if people cannot understand the guidance given to them? This will be unjustifiable! I understand people that criticize and get angry toward me, for telling them that God places illness. This is why God tells us that for God’s blessings of guidance to occur, we need to go out first and spread God’s teachings. We must go out to inform people what God will begin to do. Tell them that God will begin to give out illness as guidance to help them understand the heart. This is explained in chapter 14 of the Ofudesaki. The spreading of God’s truth is called hinokishin in the Mikagura-uta.

When the spreading of God’s truth is completed, the performance of our special prayer, the Joyous Service, brings upon God’s blessings of guidance to the people we have spread the truths to.   But this is only the beginning of our work, as we must reinforce the concept of the heart to these people who come to our places of worship to be healed from their guidance.  We must teach them to purify their minds by understanding the heart, and then teach them the Joyous Service, so they can save others.

There are some of us that believe that all we have to do is believe in Oyasama, and perform the Service for God to purify our own minds and save us. They depend on God to do this. For instance, many believe that we are asking God to save us when we sing the words “Ashiki o haroute, tasuke tamae”. There are others like myself who believe that God descended from heaven to teach us how to purify our own minds. After understanding God’s teachings, we purify our own minds.

The translations or interpretations of verse 7-95 and 7-96 show these two beliefs.  My word for word translation, God is telling us that we must sweep our own minds by what comes from our own innermost hearts. Our fate comes from our hearts, as the heart collects our evil actions, and distributes them as fate when opportunities develop in our lives. When these obstacles (fate) appears in our lives, we should not blame others, but instead ponder our own minds for evil thoughts or dusts.  God tells us that when we do this, we can eliminate our evil thoughts from our minds. Remember these are the same thoughts that created our fate, by our acting on them in the past, many times in our past lives. God depends on us to sweep our own dusts away.

The Church Headquarter translation implies that God will sweep our dusts or evil thoughts away. We depend on God to do this for us. God tells us that by performing the Service, God will sweep our dusts away. This makes perfect sense, we perform the Service, and God sweeps our evils away.  But is this what the Service is for?

In Verse 7-96, God tells us that when we purify our minds and become spirited by pondering what comes from our heart, God wants us to perform the Service. Why does God want us to perform the Service when our minds are already pure and spirited? Could it be that by performing the Joyous Service, we are asking God to help others sweep evil thoughts from their minds. It makes sense; we are spirited so we want others to be spirited. We are asking God to save others!

Evil sweeping, save them please, Namu-Tenri-0-no-Mikoto.