Gospel of Heaven written and spoken by Mokichi Okada
Part 2: Teachings in 1935~3 February 1950

Recently, the idea of birth control is strongly advocated in Japan. Since eighty-two million people live in Japan, the present experts think that something has to be done. From our point of view as religionists, they have a very materialistic idea and they never take a step forward from it. That is a problem. Then let me explain what I mean.

I mean, why are human beings born in this world? Two billion people are living in this world and none of them is born of their own will. They must be unconsciously dwelled in a female womb and born. These newborn babies grow up and they are involved in their own works. In that case, they naturally have their own personality such as wise or foolish, superiority or inferiority and so on. Then they also naturally engage in their suitable works as needed for society. In this way, human society has developed its culture from primitive times until now and achieved a brilliant one. When looking at people, whatever they become a great politician, a member of the Diet, educators, an artist, an industrialist, a government official, an engineer or a worker, they have their specialised characteristics and are well allocated, which are always balanced and unchanged in any period. Why does this happen? What’s more, the number of very talented people are small and the number of people who have a lower profession increases. It is like the shape of the pyramid. If you compare it to a plant, the number of beautiful flowers is small and whereas, weeds are grown thick in anywhere. As for trees, those of general-demand such as cedar and oak are well grown but high-quality trees are less. How about metals? Precious metals such as gold are produced less than general metals such as iron, lead and copper. What surprises us most is that the ratio of men and women is roughly half and a half no matter the era. Therefore, when quietly observing such various natural phenomenon as above, what do you find there? Some say that it is the truth and some say nature. As for philosophers, they would say that it represents the universal will. However, all of them only explain just the phenomenon. We would not be satisfied until finding out the mystery hidden in it. Then let me reveal what it is.

In the first place, there is a centre part even in this great earth where human beings live. There must be a chairperson or ruler there. Then who on earth is the ruler of the earth? That is God who is absolute. He is also called Tentei or Jehovah. What is called the universal will is the will of God. Under this will of God, human society never stops developing and we never imagine how superb it becomes in the future. However, when comparing today’s progressed culture to that in the primitive era of more than thousands or tens of thousands of years ago, we can see that human society has been very developed. Therefore, we can roughly imagine what the future will be like.

Form those facts and what we guess from them, it would be said that the whole creations including human beings are born and brought up under God’s intention. If so, human life and death must depend on it. Therefore, no matter how many people are born in a certain region, they should never have a lack of foods to feed them nor starve to death which will be never dreamt. In this sense, people are sure to get sufficient food to live in the region where they live, no matter how much the population grows. If a food shortage is caused, there must be something wrong with food production. People just don’t notice it. Assuming that all men and women of all ages have one hundred fifty kilograms of rice for each in a year, 12.3 million tons of rice must be harvested as eighty-two million people live in Japan. However, people don’t notice it as the most important and fundamental point. Therefore, they try to control childbirth, which is just the opposite of the logic. They consequently go off the way of God and commit mortal sin against God. What a terrible thing they try to do! For this reason, people who advocate birth control say just nonsense of the atheists who are caught in materialism.

As described above, if the food shortage occurs, the farming method must be wrong. When it is changed to the method I advocate, the problem is solved. Nevertheless, people are blind for it and they are consequently encouraged to use fertiliser. As a result, the land of Japan becomes thin. On the other hand, when people change the way of cultivation to that of fertilizer-free one I advocate, the yield will easily increase by thirty or fifty per cent. This year’s yield of rice is 9.45 million ton. Therefore, the yield becomes 12.285 million tons if it increases by thirty per cent and 14.175 million tons if it does by fifty per cent. The problem is easily solved like this. In that case, it is not necessary to develop new farmlands because each rice plant has more grains. The interesting thing is that one rice plant had only tens of grains more than thousands of years ago. As the population grows, the number of grains increases and now a rice plant has usually one hundred fifty to three hundred grains. In Shiga prefecture, a certain farmer got four hundred and tens of grains of rice in one rice plant last year. He has broken the record. From this fact, the rice yields can become about twice as much as before, which depends on the cultivation method. An old man told me that the number of grain rice between the beginning of the Meiji period and the end of the Edo period was smaller than that of today. From these facts, there is no doubt that the appropriate amount of food is given by God.

Let me give you another example, a pregnant woman who suffers from tuberculosis or other illness often have an abortion because she is told that she would be in danger if she didn’t do so. In my opinion, she becomes pregnant because her unborn baby can grow and she can deliver it safely. If she didn’t have the ability to do so, she would be never pregnant. For this reason, I am against abortion. In fact, dozens of pregnant women gave birth under such a circumstance but none of them failed to give birth. God never creates human beings in an inadequate way. Therefore, He never makes a woman get pregnant if she has no ability to give birth. You should believe that the Creator never has any surface knowledge nor stupidity that human beings think. In conclusion, we declare that we are totally against birth control. (30 April 1949)

Translated by N.H.