Interpretation:
Most people do not know that human beings were created to live the Joyous life. They are concerned about themselves only because they have the dusts of regret, covetousness, self-love, greed, and arrogance in their minds.
OFUDESAKI 7-5
Interpretation:
Kami taru refers to those who do not know God’s truth. They believe that they can do anything as long as they do not get caught, or do not care if they get caught. This is called the worldly path which brings upon only suffering.
God Does Not Punish
God tells us that suffering or illness comes from our minds in song 10 of the Mikagura-uta. Most people when they are ill, or when their children are ill, will vehemently argue with you when you tell them that illness comes from their minds. They will tell you that God does not punish. But my question to them is, if illness does not come from the mind, who or what brings it upon them. If they believe in God, why is God letting this happen? What is the purpose of suffering or illness? Is it random, and is its cure also random? I know there are people that would say they were cured because of their belief in God, but what about the many others that died despite their belief in a higher being? Does God favor one person over the other?
There are many people who do believe that God will favor them because they believe in a particular teaching, and God will also punish those that do not believe in their religion. In the Osashizu there is a passage that says that there is suffering and joy in the world; and there is also evil and good in the world. We are seeing both cause (what people are doing now) and effect (fate appearing from past actions) in the world today, but most people cannot see this because the effect of our actions are often delayed. We reap what we have sowed. God for the most part is a spectator watching the world with hope.
But if illness or suffering comes from the mind, by what mechanism does this work? God in the first verse of the most sacred scripture (Ofudesaki), tells us we do not understand the heart or mune. It is the heart we must first understand. God tells us that it is our own hearts that monitors our behaviors. It is not God, or any evil forces that brings upon suffering. We control our own fates. We only need to eliminate the dusts or evil thoughts of regret (oshii), covetousness (hoshii), self-love (kawaii), greed (yoku), and arrogance (komam). It is our own hearts that remind us of these dusts in our minds, by delivering these fates that were caused by acting on these same evil thoughts. This is why God tells us that illness and suffering comes from our own minds! God also tells us to ponder what fate comes from our hearts. God wants us not to blame others, but calm our own minds, and ponder the dusts in our own minds, and not act upon them. This is how we purify our minds, so our hearts will bring upon only positive fate.
In summary, we are not telling you that you are evil and bad because you or your children are suffering or have illness. But we are telling you that these symptoms or appearances are messages from your own heart that there are dusts in your minds. It is these same dusts that created the sufferings and illness that you may be experiencing now. By not taking action upon these dusts, one can purify one’s own minds so only joy comes from the heart.
*in our teachings, we are told that our own children may suffer from our own fates until they are 13 years of age. After that, any illness or suffering comes from their own fates.
OFUDESAKI 7-4
Interpretation:
I believe it is saying that when the permanent Kanrodai is erected, there will not be anything unknown to everyone. Everyone will understand that human beings were created to live the Joyous life.
OFUDESAKI 7-3
Interpretation:
This is true now, where people do not believe that everyone is the world was created to live the “Joyous life”.
Our Little Suitcase
In or teaching, we our told that our bodies are borrowed from God, while our minds are ours to use as we please. This means that God does not interfere, or take away our dust or evil thoughts. These thoughts or dusts are regret (oshii), hoshii (covetousness), self-love (kawaii), greed (yoku), and koman (arrogance). God tells us we need to remove these dusts from our minds. God may help us by weeding (shuri), but overall it is up to ourselves. So from the perspective of reincarnation, if we do not remove these dusts, we take these dusts into our next incarnation or life. We also take our fates that were created by acting on these thoughts into the next life. Some may wonder what is the receptacle in our bodies that carry our fates and dusts into our next life or incarnation. I believe this is the heart or mune which God tells us we do not understand in the first verse of the Ofudesaki and Yorozuyo. See figure 1. The heart in each of us is like a little suitcase that carries our fate/dusts into the next life when our physical body stop. Because of the heart or mune, we live for eternity. But how do we remove these dusts or evil thoughts from our minds, and how do we eliminate negative fate? God tells us we must understand the heart!
OFUDESAKI 7-2
Interpretation:
The causality is that God created human beings to live the Joyous life. God descended from heaven to teach us how to attain this, and also the instructions to share it with the world. This information is all in the Ofudesaki.
OFUDESAKI 7-1
Interpretation:
God descended from heaven in 1838, as promised at the beginning of human beings. God asked the Nakayama family to have Oyasama become the Shrine of God.
Going back in time to change our fate
Many of us believe in karma, innen or fate. The saying goes,” what we sow we reap”. For many, this may sound negative and hopeless in that we have no control over the future. I have heard people say that they do not know what they did in their previous life, and should not be punished in this lifetime. Karma or innen does not appear to be fair, as the effects of our actions may not appear until the next life time. In our religion, most of us are aware tlhat our fate arises from our past actions. We alway worry about what fate will appear in our lives. This brings up an idea which may sound silly. How many times have you regreted what you had said or done in the past? How great would it be to go back in time and change our behavior, so negative fate is not created. I remember television serries on time travel, where the main characters would try to go back in time to change history. But most of us know that it is not possible to go back in the past to eliminate our negative fates. So are we stuck with our fate, or is it possible to change it without going back to the past in a time machine? The following is a sequence of steps that occur to create our negative fates.
Evil thoughts—> action upon these dusts—> negative fates
Greed (yoku)—>steal——————————–>victim of robbery
If we can presume that the evil thought that caused our evil action is still present in our mind today, and that the evil action caused this particular fate. Then we can presume that the evil thought caused this negative fate. The sequence of steps gets reduced to the following:
Evil thoughts———————————————> negative fates
Greed (yoku)———————————————>victim of robbery
This agrees with the song 10 in the Mikagura-uta that say that the origin of illness or suffering is from the mind. So if we can remove the evil thought, can we eliminate our fate?
So if we could concentrate on eliminating our evil thought, in this instance greed, can we erase the karma, innen or fate of being a victim of robbery in this example? In our teachings we are told that if we follow the teaching, a large calamity(negative fate) may only turn into a small misfortune. So it appears that by concentrating on removing our evil thoughts, we can eliminate our fates. This is like going back in the past to remove what we have done. But as we find out, just telling ourselves to remove evil thoughts (regret, covetousness, self-love, greed, and arrogance) from our minds is not sufficient. We must constantly remind ourselves because these evil thoughts are rampant among the people in the world, and are easily transferred to ourselves. For many, the purification of the mind will take time. God tells us to ponder the fate that comes from our own hearts, and not act upon the evil thoughts that are in our minds. This is the way to gradually purify our minds. God does not want apologies for past wrong doings, but wants us to ponder our fates, and not repeat the same actions that resulted in the fate. I will leave you with the last verse in Song 10 of the Mikagura-uta:
konotabi arawareta ya
yamai no moto wa kokoro kara
This time it has been revealed.
The origin of illness is from the mind.
Posted in The origin of suffering is from the mind
Tagged causality, God, heart, heaven's truth church, illness, karma, reincarnation, soul, TENRIKYO
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OFUDESAKI 6-134
Interpretation:
All joy is dependent on the sincerity of the mind. God wants us to purify our minds. Our prayer(Joyous Service) is dependent on our mind of sincerity for it to be effective.
OFUDESAKI-GOD'S TEACHINGS 