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     Continually I tell people that paradise is a world of art, but to say only this is rather abstract. Enrichment through artistic works, literature, entertainment, and other such pursuits will play a large role in paradise, but in truth, art must be involved in all aspects of the world of paradise. Nay, unless our lives have become art in every respect, we cannot say we have attained a true paradise.
     The curing of illness through the divine healing that I promote is indeed a magnificent example of the art of life. This is because the essence of art must incorporate the qualities of truth, virtue, and beauty. First and foremost, a sick person is not truth. That the human being should be healthy is truth, and when health is impaired it means that the human being is not the way it should be. Suppose we have a container and that container gets broken. In this case, the container cannot fulfill its purpose. Water will leak from it, it may fall over, or, it may fall apart. It is not in truth a container. To make it usable again, therefore, the container must be mended and made to fulfill its purpose. A human being is the same, and if human beings are not able to function due to illness, they are useless and must be mended. What restores human beings to health and truth is the Johrei of this church.
     The next quality of art that is truth is virtue. When the human being does not possess virtue and performs only evil acts, it is not a human being in truth; it is only an animal. Such a human being harms society, so at the least is unnecessary but may even have to be denied existence. The authority for undertaking to grant and take life, however, belongs only to God. To the extent that human beings fail to live up to the quality of virtue, they are frustrated in their endeavors, suffer from disease, fall to the depths of poverty, and there are even those who lose their lives, but such consequences all reflect the judgments of God.
     To speak of evil, though, we must distinguish the evil that is done consciously from the evil that is performed unconsciously. The suffering that results from performing evil will vary in degree according to the level of consciousness with which it was performed. In this respect, the suffering we meet has been allotted with the utmost impartiality. Last of all is the quality of beauty which is so obvious as to not need any explanation, thus remarks are omitted here, but it should be clear from the preceding discussion that the very realization of the qualities of truth, virtue, and beauty is a fundamental condition for turning the world in a paradise.
     Therefore, the healing of sick that we perform in addition to the revolution in agriculture that we promote and practice are definitely art. Healing the sick is the art of life and the agricultural revolution is the art of agriculture. To which can be added our construction of models for paradise on earth that are the art of beauty. Through the amalgamation of these three qualities will be constructed a world of divine light that embodies the threefold aspects of truth, virtue, beauty. Such a world is none other than the realization of the age of Miroku, paradise on earth.

“Paradise Is a World of Art,” The Glory, Number 022, September 10, 1958.

“Paradise Is a World of Art,” page 42, Teachings of Meishu and Kyoshu, no date given but estimated to be late 1956 or early 1957.

“Paradise Is A World Of Art,” Teachings of Meishu-sama, Volume One, 1960, page 54.

“Paradise is a World of Art,” Teachings of Meishu-sama, Volume One, Revised Edition, 1965, 1967, page 69.

“Paradise Is a World of Art,” Foundation of Paradise, 1984, page 254.

“Paradise Is a World of Art,” Teachings of Meishu-sama, Volume Four, 2007, page 5.