New Philosophy of Life
Written by Okada Jikan Mokichi, 1950
Our motto is to construct the world without disease, poverty and conflict and realize Paradise on Earth. That would be a fool’s dream for most people. Christ said that heaven was approaching but didn’t say that he created heaven. Sakyamuni said that the world of Maitreya would come after Buddha’s death but didn’t say that it was coming soon. He said that it would happen 5 billion and 670 million later. What a distant future it is! Jews pray for the nativity of the Messiah but the time is uncertain. The Indian ancient legend says that Chakravarti will appear. Other than these, the religious founders made a prediction that the ideal world would come; the world Kanrodai in Tenri-kyo, the world of Gino in Nichiren sect, the pine world in Oomoto and so on. All of them didn’t say exactly when it came. We have to think deeply about why they didn’t. We learned a lot from their prophecies. However, they didn’t say to fulfil their prophecies. There is no declaration to put in action nor execution plan. It implies that it was too early to realize such an ideal world. As you can see, various sects of religions are found today based on their theories and deeds.
The religious founders created the principle, form, method and so on to spread the doctrine, which was supposed to adopt for each race or nation all over the world. They took the means and methods according to age, region, race, tradition, custom and so on. Needless to say, they did so under the will of God. They contributed to cultivating the spirit of harmony and therefore, the flamboyant culture like today has developed. If religions were not found in countries all over the world, how rampant evil things would have been. In the worst case, the world might have been already collapsed and extinct. Considering these and those, we shouldn’t underestimate the achievements of founders and saints until today.
In this way, the existing religions have stopped the destruction of this world until today. However, I doubt that they can stop it from now on and forever. It is because people are suffering from hellish anguish in the present world. The existing religions no longer have the power to save them. It proves that it is impossible for them to stop such a state and raise it to heaven like one. As a matter of fact, only limited ethnic groups are blessed with today’s brilliant culture. It is because people have poor harmonious spirit. They are just absorbed in fighting each other. When observing such a present world, sensible people cannot help but expect the time to come when a great light appears and it eliminates the darkness with no light. That light refers to the salvation power of a super religion. In this sense, we realize that Meshiya-kyo takes the role of this super religion and we are steadily achieving amazing results.
Translated by N.H.