Great Construction

MYSTERY OF THE SPIRITUAL WORLD

　　The spiritual world has very mysterious, subtle and wondrous existence, so the people in this world could never understand it with their common knowledge. Now, as to this, I will write about how the thoughts and intentions of humans reflect themselves in the spiritual world.

　　Since the spiritual world is a world exclusively of thoughts and intentions, from nothing appears something and something disappears into nothing, so it is a world of infinite metamorphoses. By way of example, suppose that a figure or a symbol of a god or a Buddha, as the main object of worship, is created in the form of picture, sculpture or something. And yet, the divinity of the god's or Buddha's spirit that settles down at this worship object will level up or level down in accordance with the quality of the creator's personality. If the creator's personality is in the highest rank, a divine spirit of high rank, corresponding to the rank of personality, descends on the object. Therefore, even if the visible configuration is the same, when the creator's personality is in a low rank, corresponding to this rank, an agent or a derivative of divine spirit comes down to that object.

　　One more thing: when a Goshintai (an object of worship as a divine body) is prayed from the heart with makoto (sincerity and truth) by worshippers, its power of the divine spirit, that is, the divine light will exhibit its great power; on the contrary, if the prayers' thoughts and intentions have nothing but formality and no cordial respect, its power of the divine spirit will be lessened accordingly. And further, the more people worship the Goshintai, the more brilliantly the divine power will radiate its divine light.

　　From old times, it has been commonly said that "Anything can be deified." What this really means is: if a person of no qualification and of inferior nature makes a Goshintai and carries out propaganda in a clever way, so, for the time being, a good many people come to worship it, and their thoughts and intentions form a figure of god or Buddha in the spiritual world. As a result, it exhibits some great power and benefits the worshippers, which is totally caused by the human thoughts and intentions; I cannot but say that it's a real mystery. However, these religion-like things prosper for some time, yet they are not real. As they are temporary and illusory, they will eventually lapse away. Everyone knows there are not a few examples of such things. What is called a trendy god implies this kind of thing.

　　The above mentioned is about divine spirits, and next I will also comment on evil spirits.

　　One of the most common affairs in the world is that there are too many immoral people who make trouble to other people, afflict, and put others into miserable situations only because they want to satisfy their own desires. Of course, these are the consequences of materialism that does not believe in what is invisible, which we have always pointed out, but if we look at this in terms of a spiritual dimension, it turns out to be very strange and horrible enough.

　　Since these people give others sufferings, the sufferers hold a grudge and hatred against them, and intend to be revenged on them. Their thoughts and intentions run through the spiritual cords and hit against the others. Seen from a spiritual aspect, their looks of anger and hatred are very awful, and if they were visible to the naked eyes, even an utter villain would die at once having a look at them. Besides, when the number of sufferers is not so small as one or two but amounts to the thousands or the ten thousands, a multitude of thoughts and intentions would congregate and make even more dreadful, extremely grotesque monsters, and they would form various shapes, surrounding the villain to be terminated, which is unbearable to anyone whomever. Thus, no matter how heroic and daring a man may be, he has no choice but to end up in his own destruction under the miserable fate. This will be evident if you look through all ages on the so-called great figures in history; with no exception they met the same fate as I have just described.

　　You can understand well from other cases too: not to mention tragedies of the crooked politicians and bankruptcies of the emergent newly rich, the end of such fellows who deluded and made a plaything of many women, vicious money-lenders, etc.

　　By contrast, if a person does good a lot and receive thoughts of gratitude and intentions with deep emotion from many thankful people, their thoughts and intentions will be brilliant to become light which surrounds the good doer, so that his virtue grows greater and greater. Thus, evil spirits and devils are afraid of the light and unable to come near him, who becomes a man of great happiness. The halos which the images of gods or Buddhas often have at the back around the head symbolize the very light.

　　From the above written too, it can be understood how much importance we must attach to human thoughts and intentions.

Heaven on Earth,No.9, October 25, 1949 (the 24th year of Showa)
(06/10/7 UL)

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

“Mysteriousness of the Spiritual World,” Foundation of Paradise, 1984, page 303.

“The Marvels of the Spiritual World,” A Hundred Teachings of Meishusama, no date, page 171.