God and Man ～Guideposts for Spiritual Peace and Awakening
ー Written by Masahisa Goi
Chapter 6①： True Religions and Mistaken Religions
The first question is 'what is religion?'
I interpret religion as being the way of explaining, teaching and clarifying the relationship between God (the Absolute Being) and man(※15) Following this principle, I shall consider the distinction between true religions and mistaken religions.
God is the source of human ideas, and is the origin of wisdom (creative power), love, and life. Consequently, God is perfect and integral, and is the symbol of wholeness and harmony.
Although they have within them this perfect and integral power, human beings, caught in the whirlpool of karma, have mistakenly taken that whirlpool to be themselves.
Troubled with worries and agonies, that which tries to free itself from the whirlpool of karma is the image of a physical human being.(※16)
A person who has got out of the whirlpool of karma and let his or her inner divinity shine perfectly is called an awakened one.
Sakyamuni was such a person, and so was Jesus Christ. There have also been other awakened people who manifested their perfect divinity.
To begin with, these people taught the relationship between God and human beings, revealing man's perfect and integral divinity.
They put the truth into practice, and guided others to a state of spiritual peace and awakenment.
If a person awakens to the reality of his or her perfect and integral divinity, it is certain that this human being has overcome karma and attained spiritual freedom.
The spiritual leaders who guide people to this state are apostles of God and are 'religious leaders' in the true sense.
However, what has been happening is that after these awakened ones have completed their lifetimes in this physical world, their various followers have started to hand down their teachings each in his or her own personal style.
As a result, those varied teachings have spread throughout the world as individual religions, sects, churches and so on.
In Japan, Buddhism flourished the most, and it was divided into numerous sects.
Gradually, religious proponents forgot the fundamentals of the teachings and, while carrying on vehement struggles against other sects, they went about busily trying to obtain followers.
In addition to Buddhism, there were also Shintoism and Confucianism, and at present Christianity has become very active.
In this way, religions have taken a variety of organizational forms and have spread to each country in the world.
However, it cannot be said that the religious spirit of humanity has deepened in proportion to the expansion of the organizations.
In ancient times, people used to understand spiritual truths through deeds rather than theory.
They tried to know God by way of direct experience. However, from the Middle Ages to modern times, religion has gradually shifted from spiritual exercise to philosophy.
Theoretical study has taken first place, and direct experience deriving from spiritual exercise has declined.
Humankind has unknowingly drifted further and further from the original religious mind.
In time, religion came to be divided into three streams: in one were the theorists, in another were those who followed after the formalities of a sect or an independent religious group, and in another were those who truly sought to know, through direct experience, the relationship between God and human beings.
If it is only studied theoretically, religion simply remains in the physical brain as knowledge, and the will of the great spiritual founders is not carried on.
If one only follows after the formalities, the divine life withers and loses vitality.
God is all that haslife, and man is also all that has life.
That which lives forever and freely creates the world of shapes is God, and is man.
In a world that adheres to theory and is caught up in formalities, however hard one may seek, God is not found.
※15: In the original, the term used is ningen (人間), which means 'human being(s).' The word has no masculine or feminine gender.
※16: A 'physical human being' is someone who lives without an awareness of his or her divinity.
To be continued in Chapter 6②
Dios y el Ser Humano (Spanish Edition)
Deus e o Homem (Portuguese Edition)
