Gospel of Heaven written and spoken by Mokichi Okada
Part 1: Teachings from 4 February 1950 to 1954

Recently, Mr Yumiji Hongo wrote about me. I sometimes call a believer “disciple” and he psychologically describes this name in various ways. I found it interesting and write a little about it. Now I mainly act as Komyo-Nyorai. You just think it means I work as one of the ten great disciples of Shaka-Nyorai at the same rank as Shaka-Nyorai and Amida-Nyorai. When I describe me like this, it helps to distinguish those who specialise in Johrei from just believers.

As he mentioned, I used to be called a great teacher. It was all right because I acted as Kanzeon-Bosatsu at that time. Now I became Nyorai so that I changed my name into “Meishu.” “Jikan” is another name of mine and it means that I act as Kannon. My pen name for poems is “Akemaro,” which I named after Crown Prince Akihito. He was born on 23 December 1933 and I was born on the same date. I never forget that I held my birthday party at believes’ recommendation for the first time on the same day when Prince was born. I named it to commemorate for the birth of Prince. I also have another humorous name “Akegarasu-Aho” for short funny poems. This name has a story, too. At the beginning of the Meiji era, there was a master of the short poem called Kanmurizuke in Osaka. His name is “Asanebo-Kiraku”. He was quite famous at that time and Mr Deguchi Onisaburo in Oomoto-kyo inherited his career. His poet name was “Asanebo-Kanraku.”  He promoted to make short poems among believers in Oomoto-kyo very much and I became one of his disciples. I liked to make short poems and worked hard. My effort was fulfilled and I succeeded him. He gave me the name “Ashanebo-Kigetsu.” I once encouraged dozens of my disciplines to make short poems very much and compiled a collection of funny poems as a selector. It is known as “Fountain of Laughter.” At that time, I woke up late as the name of “Ashanebo” shows. As I wanted to get up early, I changed my name from “Ashanebo-Kigetsu” to “Akegarasu-Aho.” “Asanebo” means to get up late and whereas, “Akegarasu” means a crow in the morning in Japanese. After that, I got up early and it’s still the case. The power of words exerts. This mysterious power cannot be underestimated.

In this way, God gives me a suitable name depending on my spiritual rank or work. It means my name might be changed in the future. I think it might not. When coming to think of it, since there is little difference between “Meishu” and “Meshiya” regarding the power of the word, my name might change into Meshiya. (12 September 1951)

Translated by N.H.