Great Construction

The Origin of Social Wrongs

　　The most pressing problems in Japan at the moment are social ills, but before I start to discuss them it is necessary to examine the measures that politicians and the thinking classes take to eliminate the wrongs in society.
　　Politicians make and enforce laws and regulations, and when these prove to be insufficient, to making and enforcing more regulations and laws to control social problems, but because the rules they establish do not go to the heart of the problems they wish to control, evildoers can concentrate on skillfully evading the laws, looking for holes in the net of regulations and laws. The authorities strive to make the holes smaller, trying to make them impossible to get through. What results is surely an ongoing battle of wits between good and evil.
　　When speaking of the evildoers who try to penetrate legal loopholes, it is easy to imagine that I am talking about criminals with prior records, gangster bosses, and other types of delinquents, but the reality includes not only these lower-level types, but covers the whole spectrum, from government ministers at the top, to politicians, Diet members to bureaucrats, and to well-known figures in the business world. It seems as if there is hardly anyone who does not commit crimes. The criminals who appear on the surface today are just one small part of the evil that persists throughout society. People often say that those arrested for crimes were merely unlucky, but most crimes never appear on the surface.
　　Moreover, when we look into those who are caught we observe that these criminals have no fear of the consequences of their acts, and they cause damage to the state, harm society, and make others suffer, but they are not ashamed of these actions. They may blame others for shortcomings, but they never blame themselves. One example we often hear about are the bureaucrats who live it up at sumptuous banquets at the expense of average citizens who struggle to pay their taxes.
　　Those who do not blame themselves for the offenses they commit, who are not ashamed of the wrong acts they do, and who are not remorseful for the sufferings they cause others have forfeited their qualifications as human beings. No matter what intricate theory they may expound or how much knowledge they may boast to possess in order to justify themselves, if they do not have the faculty of reflection and repentance, they are merely materialistic entities without souls. Evil is rampant in society and our world is like a hell because we have too many materialistic beings. Japanese society as a whole may be compared to a very sick individual.
　　One of our tenets holds that this deplorable condition exists because of the materialistic education as practiced today for which there should be no room for any doubt at all. No complex or difficult methods are needed to eliminate the evils of society: merely to destroy the ideology of materialism from the world, only this. The way to destroy materialistic thinking is to carry out an education based on an awareness of spiritual matters, that is, to recognize the existence of God and believe in the existence of the spiritual world. These two fundamental activities are intrinsic to religion and its most vital mission. But merely to expound religious theories, preach sermons, or chant prayers is not enough to awaken the self to the existence of God and spirit. There is no other way to destroy materialism than through the demonstration of miracles and the receipt of material benefits.

 Light (Hikari), Issue 9, May 14, 1949
translated by cynndd

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This essay has previously appeared in translation twice. The citations are given below for reference.

“The Cause of Crime in Society,” Foundation of Paradise, 1984, page 189.

“The Source of Social Evil,” A Hundred Teachings of Meishu-sama, no date, page 45.