Spiritual Lending and Borrowing is Troublesome

In Japan, there are customs called Ochugen（お中元） and Oseibo（お歳暮）, both of which mean sending a gift to someone to whom one is indebted. A person given the present wonders what to send in return. In the case of not sending one, the person has to return a favor in some way.

How to return a favor is a difficult problem. If the person given the gift is a politician, he can be apprehended by bribery. How to return it is difficult enough to be fatal. This can be said about the Spirit World, too.

The more often you visit a shrine for the purpose of praying for something, the more sickly you can be. Bogus gurus of cult groups, more often than not, die in a strange way. Why is it so? Because they haven’t paid their debts or their debts haven’t be returned yet. As long as they don’t return the favor, they lose something important in return, such as life, health or offsprings.

People pray for something very hard, but once their wishes are realized, they are apt to forget to repay the obligation. The problem here is that just paying a visit to the shrine for expressing thankfulness is not enough.

For example, in case you visited a shrine three times to make your wish come true and it was realized, you are likely to revisit the shrine to show your thankfulness just once. When you visit the shrine, a spiritual being who helped to realize your wish can be absent. And in this case your debt has not been paid yet.

In this sense, if your wish is realized because of your visit to a shrine, it’s advisable to remind yourself of thankfulness toward the spiritual being there every time you remember that your wish has come true thanks to the spirit.

Spiritual lending and borrowing is really troublesome. After all, you had better not borrow anything from spiritual beings. It’s wise only to give something toward them without borrowing anything. Whatever happens, be grateful toward any spiritual being for your being kept alive. This is enough.

A mirror with holy energy is enshrined in well-maintained shrines. When you express gratitude for being kept alive in such a shrine, your energy of gratitude is reflected by the mirror and reaches your Inner God. Then, it appears on the surface and all the things around you begin to change for the better.

You must not visit a shrine for the purpose of realizing your wishes. It’s too risky. If you have done such a blasphemy before, you should visit a shrine just to show gratitude from now on. You can “overwrite” what you have done by holding memorial services for your ancestral spirits and reminding yourself of gratitude toward God.

To try to depend on gods, or turn to some spiritual way, to make the spiritual beings do something in favor of you will do you harm in the long run. This world is where things go around by lending and borrowing. Salaried workers are paid by the company in return for their labor.

You gain nothing without paying anything, which is a universal law. Living life with the clear consciousness of “giving” or “taking something out of yourself” will cause you to gain something good in return.

生かして頂いて　ありがとう御座位ます

I Ka Shi Te I Ta Da I Te A Ri Ga To U Go Za I Ma Su

I AM GRATEFUL FOR BEING KEPT ALIVE

Many of the Japanese "Gods" were Made up by People in Power

Many people may think that there are too many gods’ names in the world. The truth is that many of the “gods” were made up by people in those days. Persons or family lines that possessed powerful authority made up many imaginary gods for the purpose of ruling the people or protecting a particular business world. They fabricated a lot of gods and their names.

Only the Imperial Household has been inheriting genes leading to the World of Gods since ancient times and has something to do with the creation of human beings by a certain spiritual being from outer space.

I feel that Tenson Korin（天孫降臨）, the myth about the descent to earth of the grandson of the sun goddess, is a metaphor of gene conversion and that human beings originated from a gene coming from Mars, on which there is still a huge tomb that looks like the Emperor Nintoku Mausoleum. The size of the tomb on Mars may be more than 100 times larger.

In Japan, there has been a kind of custom, or a tragedy I think, since ancient times that those in power make people worship a human spirit as if it were a god. For example, a famous god named Nigihayahinomikoto（饒速日命）often appears in Japanese myths. There are still a lot of psychics or Shintoists who worship the god.

The Mononobe clan（物部氏）, who was very powerful in the ancient Japanese governments, established their own new religion Mononobe Shinto, calling themselves descendants of the god. They had a strong influence on the national administration in those days. This kind of thing can happen in the modern society, too.

However, it can be said that Mononobe Shinto is one of the old, honorable schools of Shintoism.

Is Nigihayahinomikoto, a symbol of authority, a true god? The answer is No. There is no such a god in the World of Gods. It’s just a human spirit. I feel that he came to Japan from Korean Peninsula in ancient times and he was an armed warrior.

People living in the continent were basically hunting people and their weapons such as bows and arrows and spears were highly developed. Japanese people in those days were agricultural people with a sense of respect for harmony. So once in a battle, the ancient Japanese were defeated easily by hunting people.

It was the Mononobe clan that inherited the weapons from the continent and manufactured ones. They, as the arms manufacturer, ruled the Shinto world and became a magnate for a certain period of time in the history of Japan. A lot of Norito（祝詞）, shinto prayers, were made up in this time.

You might wonder if this or that god is true or if it’s OK to visit this or that shrine. But don’t worry. As long as you devote gratitude for being kept alive to a god, any shrine is harmless, for a spiritual being in any shrine is mainly a local spirit of nature. It is nameless but a genuine spirit of mother nature and holy energy itself.

Local spirits of nature can reside in shrines of the Mononobe clan that observe the forms of ancient shinto. That is, names of gods in shrines are meaningless.

The true God is one and its holy energy appears in three ways. In this sense, you can say there are three types of gods. In Hinduism, they are called Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. In Christianity, God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. And in Shintoism, Amaterasu-oho-mi-kami（天照太御神）, Tsukuyomi（月夜見） and Susanoo（須佐男）.

The Original God exists in each human being. Your emotions, such as joy, sadness and anger, are the appearance of the three gods. You can choose which emotion you show in life.

Live life taking good care of God inside.

生かして頂いて　ありがとう御座位ます

I Ka Shi Te I Ta Da I Te A Ri Ga To U Go Za I Ma Su

I AM GRATEFUL FOR BEING KEPT ALIVE

Do Not Use God!

Many people mistakenly assume that praying to God for others’ health or world peace is a sacred thing. They think it’s good to pray for others, as long as not for themselves. But what I want them to realize that such a pray means trying to use God. Aren’t they trying to force God to do something?

If someone near you is sick in bed, you have to do something to help him/her first before praying to God. It’s advisable that you should be thankful for the sick person being kept alive after supporting the person.

Whether you are sick or unhappy now, you have to be grateful for being kept alive. As long as you try to use God, things won’t change for the better. You have to know that trying to use God itself is blasphemy. Mother nature, or God, is working hard to maintain this world where we live.

When you were born into this World of Reality, the karma you made in your previous life was balanced by the action of Ubusuna Kami, a local god of your birthplace. So once you are born, you don’t need to care about your previous life any more. What you are now is the result of the total of your own karma. All you have to do is do your best as long as you are alive, which is your mission in this World of Reality.

In this sense, it’s a foolish act to pray to God or a bogus cult figure in order to escape from reality without making efforts. If you are such a person, what were you born for? A “sacred” prayer to make God work for your own sake is far from it.

Imagine you work hard every day to get a small salary to provide for your children and they are always complaining to you ” I want more! I need you to work harder!” What would you think about them? Wouldn’t you feel sad? Wouldn’t you feel like leaving them? On the other hand, if your children are always thankful to you for working hard for them, you are sure to want to work harder. God would feel the same.

Too many people put pressure on God into working for them. It is the thankfulness of children (human beings) that makes parents (gods) feel happy. Direct the following words toward God, and everything will turn out all right ;

生かして頂いて　ありがとう御座位ます

I Ka Shi Te I Ta Da I Te A Ri Ga To U Go Za I Ma Su

I AM GRATEFUL FOR BEING KEPT ALIVE.

Light Exercise Gets Rid of the Spiritual Magnetism of Wandering Spirits

The other day, I was watching a TV program that featured a famous critic. He, over 70 now, makes it a rule to go up and down the stairs of a high-rise apartment he lived in. He used to take a walk for exercise, but since he was attacked by a ruffian, he has been doing the exercise of going up and down the stairs instead. The inside of his apartment is secured, so it’s a good idea, I think. What impressed me most is that he tries to keep healthy in spite of his old age. He might take more exercise than an average young man.

In the country, people move about by car and as a result they walk less often than people living in the city. When I stayed in a city where my office was located, I may have walked more than five times as long a distance as I do now. I walked a lot more every day though I went to office by train.

In the animal world, being unable to walk means death. people had better walk more so as to keep the strength of their legs as long as they can. I make a dash on a slope every day to get rid of my lack of exercise.

By the way, I called on an acquaintance of mine the other day and found a large treadmill in his living room. He told me that the machine weighed as much as 100 kg and it was the second one. He had owned another lightweight treadmill before, but as he got used to it he came to want a more powerful one.

He searched the Internet for a high-end treadmill and found a lot of expensive, large treadmills sold online. According to him, those treadmills are good ones whose speed is six kilometers per hour. I think treadmills are useful for the old. After checking a lot of treadmills he decided to buy the present treadmill sold in a mail shopping catalog. Its speed is ten kilometers per hour and cost him about fifty thousand yen.

I ran on his treadmill three times in all. The surface on which you run is very soft unlike the one of asphalt pavement roads, which is very important for the knee. Running on the road can hurt your knees and cause chronic gonalgia.

While you run on a treadmill, you should be conscious of the inside of your legs. The next day, I had a muscle ache where I hadn’t had it before. Muscles I couldn’t train just by walking on the road were trained due to the treadmill.

The only problem with a large treadmill is noise. There was a thick rubber sheet under the machine, but it was making a big noise because of its rotor and vibration. I thought I wanted to buy one, taking into consideration the membership fee of the sports gym and the danger of a car accident in running outside.

Walking or taking a light exercise can get rid of the spiritual magnetism of wandering spirits. Bad circulation causes your spiritual body to become impure. To drink hot water and take exercise makes your mind very stable. Well, in this way, it’s true that devoting yourself to your job with sweat on the forehead is the best.

Take exercise in your daily lives. Remember that you have rented your physical body from your ancestors. You must keep your body healthy in order to grow your mind.

Sitting all the time for mediation never makes your Inner God reveal itself. It’s essential that you keep both of your mind and body healthy. You don’t need any religious rituals or ascetic trainings to do it. Just as Buddha suggested, taking the golden mean – keeping balance in anything you do and never sticking to anything- is important in life.

生かして頂いて　ありがとう御座位ます

I Ka Shi Te I Ta Da I Te A Ri Ga To U Go Za I Ma Su

I AM GRATEFUL FOR BEING KEPT ALIVE.

Producing a Good Spiritual Magnetism

One scene from the movie Forrest Gump, which I saw several decades ago, was impressive. Having had his a relative die and become lonely and nihilistic, he suddenly began to run without reason. He just ran and ran straight, and finally he ran across America. Though he succeeded in crossing America as a result, he didn’t began to run with a such goal.

He running through the great nature of America looked like Christ.Trying to see him running with silence, people who got interested in him began to gather around him.

What I thought watching the scenes of the movie was how beautiful a man looks devoting himself to something. When he was nihilistic, no one paid attention to him. People avoided him and he was lonely. But, no sooner had he been absorbed in one thing, enjoying doing it and moved by the great nature, than people began to gather around him. He had no intention of attracting people or becoming famous.

In the modern world, there are a lot of people feeling lonely. As long as you wonder how you become friends with others and how you can make people like you, people will pay no attention to you. People who tend to feel lonely should try to enjoy something in the present situations. The mind is like a creature, and is also Inner God. You can make it “small” or “large” at will.

When you please your mind by devoting yourself to something with gratitude toward the present situations, your spiritual body begins to give off magnetism comfortable for others.

The essence of the human mind is conscience, or a thoughtful mind. People, wanting to touch its magnetism, will be attracted to such a warm-hearted person. On the other hand, when you try to depend on someone or attract people, your magnetism is heavy. People feel its heaviness and can’t enjoy themselves.

Directing your gratitude toward your ancestral spirits and gods every day can be a practice to give off the comfortable magnetism. As you do it every day, your spiritual body comes to take on a good magnetism that attracts others naturally.

What kind of magnetism do you put on today?

生かして頂いて　ありがとう御座位ます

I Ka Shi Te I Ta Da I Te A RI Ga To U Go Za I Ma Su

I AM GRATEFUL FOR BEING KEPT ALIVE

Making Efforts in the Dark Makes Your Soul Develop

You might think that living in this World of Reality is really tough. But it is not true, for everything is not accidental but has its own meaning. Since you don’t know its meaning or reason, you are apt to think that life is tough and harsh.

Everything happens as a result of some cause. Each family, whose members share the same spiritual line of their family line, is affected by other dimensions.

For example, a boss who has been distressing a lot of subordinates and people around him receives a negative energy of grudge from them. Any deed against his conscience, or Inner God, no matter what reason he has or what situations he is in, is sure to cause himself the negative energy, . It is possible that he will fall ill, have an accident or be distressed by another.

If the boss has a son, the son can commit violent acts against him when the boss gets old. Or his wife can be hard on him and abandon him in his old age. This is because there is a kind of karma, a balance sheet of cause and effect, among family members. If karma is not offset in the present life, it is carried over to the other world. Causes and its consequences have a very complex interrelation because the cause of a consequence happening now is not always due to a cause in the present life.

But you don’t need to worry, trying to know the reason or cause of a thing. If you’re worried too much, you may fall a prey to a bogus psychic or a bad religious group that squeeze money from you, adding to your bad karma. To get involved in such a person or group makes you lose a chance of sublimating your karma. Also, trying to know your previous life can revive your bad karma that would otherwise have been sublimated, making it your another mental burden.

Accept your present situations as they are. Everything, good or bad, has its own meaning. As long as you think “I could bear it if I knew the reason,” you cannot sublimate your bad karma. Making efforts even in the dark makes your soul grow up. Not being allowed to know the reason itself is important and has some meaning.

After you die, you’re to know all the currents of causes and consequences. In the other world, anyone will be convinced of the meaning of everything that happened in the past and strongly regret what they did.

When you come to an end with gratitude toward everything that happened to you, a great sublimation will occur. The words that offset your bad karma and improve your future are:

生かして頂いて　ありがとう御座位ます

I Ka Shi Te I Ta Da I Te A Ri Ga To U Go Za I Ma Su

I AM GRATEFUL FOR BEING KEPT ALIVE

It’s Energy of Gratitude and Ancestral Spirits that Save You

People live worried about something, for they’re not sure about the future. But thanks to the anxiety, they can make efforts every day.

There are some people, trying to know their future so as to feel relieved, who visit a religious group, a psychic or a fortune teller. However, since they come to slight their important housework job, health checkup or medical treatment gradually, they will find themselves having lost a lot of time and money and gotten into new trouble. All they have to do is just do what they have to do, after all.

Well, is there a strange, sacred power that helps you to do things? Yes, there is. It’s the energy of gratitude that you accumulate by having the right faith, or being grateful for your ancestors and your present situations. When you’re in trouble, the energy works unconsciously together with the help of your ancestral spirits.

God never shows favoritism. It regards the whole human beings as one entity , so it doesn’t pay attention to each person’s desires. It is shameful that many people and bad religious groups try to make God do something in favor of themselves, which is blasphemy. Such a selfish pray will have an adverse effect on them.

Also, right deities never save your ancestral spirits or spirits in agony in exchange for money. Bad psychics threat their clients by saying “Your ancestors are suffering,” ” Your problem is due to spirits” and recommend them to pay for an expensive memorial service. Can’t the poor hold a memorial service for their ancestors? It is clear that such a service has nothing to do with the right kind of deities. To pay a lot of money to bad guys who use God only makes them rich and fat.

To survive this tough world, it’s best to make efforts working on practical problems and to accumulate magnetism of gratitude in the invisible world. If you do this continuously, your future will change for the better. It’s you that help yourself just like “God helps those who help themselves.” God doesn’t pay any attention to personal desires, but helps people who try to live, for it’s God that has control over all living things.

In this world of Reality, you cannot see the future and it makes you uneasy. But this is the reason you can train yourself very well. If you lived in a world where you can see the future, you couldn’t develop or evolve at all.

Any trouble happening in this world will come to an end without exception. The grace of God lies in this fact. Now is the time when souls of people making efforts positively even in difficulties evolve dramatically, so that human beings will separate into two groups: those who evolve and those who degenerate.

生かして頂いて　ありがとう御座位ます

I Ka Shi Te I Ta Da I Te A Ri Ga To U Go Za I Ma Su

I AM GRATEFUL FOR BEING KEPT ALIVE