New Philosophy of Life
Written by Okada Jikan Mokichi, 1950

There are many types of wisdom, which are roughly divided into five types. The best wisdom is called ‘Shin-chi’ and then ‘Myo-chi’, ‘Ei-chi’, ‘Sai-chi’ and ‘Kan-chi’ in order. I call them ‘Go-chi’ or five wisdoms. Let me explain them one by one.

Shin-chi or God’s wisdom is the best one that ordinary people cannot acquire. An only special person is given this wisdom by God because they are given an important mission by Him. People say from a long time ago, “Human wisdom is gained by learning but God’s wisdom is the one to know without learning.” This saying is well explained what God’s wisdom is.

Myo-chi is also called Kannon-Myo-chi-riki. Compare to Shin-chi, this should be called Buddha’s wisdom. Assuming that God’s wisdom is masculine, this wisdom is feminine. Myo is “妙” in Japanese Kanji that consists of “女” and “少.” This is very interesting as “女” means a woman.

Ei-chi is the wisdom of wise people. In Buddhism, it refers to wisdom and enlightenment or just simply being wise. However, few people even have this kind of wisdom in our current world. Needless to say, it is because people can hardly make a correct judgment due to their distracting thoughts. Let me give you an example. At the meeting, any expert, as well as current politicians, can hardly come to a conclusion to solve the problem. Many of them spend so many hours discussing even a trivial problem. Dozens of or tens of people gather and have a violent argument about a rather serious problem. They have a meeting so many times on so many days but can hardly reach a conclusion. It proves how dull they are.

Come to think of it, there is only one conclusion for any problem but not many. Nevertheless, many brains and many days are needed to reach the conclusion. That is really pathetic. This happens due to a lack of Ei-chi. The lack of this wisdom is caused because human brains are cloudy. Their brain becomes cloudy because they have distracting thoughts. They have distracting thoughts because they believe in materialism. They believe in materialism because they don’t admit the existence of God. They don’t admit the existence of God because there is no religion to make them believe in Him. If so, when religion really informs the existence of God, it must be a practical religion. People have become so dull that I have to give such a verbose explanation.

In this sense, a person with Ei-chi can draw a conclusion in a few or dozens of minutes at the longest no matter what kind of problem they come across. Regarding this, I always tell my subordinates to make a conclusion in about 30 minutes, no matter what kind of problem they discuss. If they spend more than an hour discussing, I tell them to stop discussing once and have a meeting again on another day, or directly ask me for advice. I am afraid to sing my own praise but I come to a conclusion in a few minutes even for any difficult problem. I sometimes cannot draw a conclusion soon. On such occasions, I don’t push myself to do it. The conclusion is temporarily suspended. Then my inspiration brings the conclusion, which never failed to happen to me.

As everyone knows, Sai-chi is surface knowledge. It might work temporarily. When time passes, however, a person always fails or loses their credibility due to that. Therefore, Sai-chi is called foolish wit or dull wit in other words.

Kan-chi literally means evil wit or cunning. It is quite a lot in our society, especially in intellectual and leaders’ classes. For this reason, our society cannot improve. When such a wit disappears in people’s minds, a bright society emerges and a nation becomes a good one. Then can we execute Kan-chi and how? It is very easy. We just eradicate all places where Kan-chi emerges. Only a religious act, which has the ability to make people believe in the existence of God, can do it.

Translated by N.H.