This
lecture was delivered at the Second Sunday Service on May 5, 2013.
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Thank you very much for coming to this Sunday
Service. In Seicho-No-Ie we learn about the True-Image World and that there is
no deadlock in that world. However, in our everyday life we see many people who
have no way to move forward. They seem to be stuck at a dead end. We learn how
to get out of a dead end bring out our inner power which dwells in us by fully living
in the present moment. If we want to live our life fully, we put everything in
one moment and one thing. In the third article of Seicho-No-Ie Articles of Faith, it is sated: “I am sincere in my
every word and action! –Troubles do not come from the outside. When sincerity
is not manifesting—that condition is in effect trouble. It is not that one has
no sincerity within himself. It is just that he does not manifest it. Sincerity
means with one’s entire mind, total power, all one’s might. Sincerity gives
life to now. Wherever sincerity is demonstrated the place becomes a heavenly
paradise at once.”
In other words, when we demonstrate our
sincerity, it is the same thing as living our life fully. Then, God’s salvation
comes to us. In the Truth of Life Volume 7¸ Rev. Masaharu Taniguchi
wrote about this as follows:
“When
a person puts his entire body and soul into what he is doing, a certain
sincerity of intent is displayed. Sincerity in Japanese is makoto, which literally means the ‘total mind,’ or
‘wholeheartedness.’ It is an attitude that would concentrate one’s entire power
on one thing. That is the power to which Lord Michizane Sugawara alluded in his
poem:
If only with the way of sincerity the mind
accords,
Even without praying, God protects.
When
one’s entire strength is concentrated on one thing, completely, the infinite
power of God goes into action.” (Ibid., p. 82)
It is essential for us to live this way of life.
Then, without praying God protects us. When I was in Southern California, I
went to a restaurant in front of beach in Malibu for a wedding. It was a very
small wedding only for the couple, their parents and family members. There were
10 people including the photographer and me. I was asked to officiate the
ceremony by Mrs. Shigeko Sasamori who is a Hiroshima Atomic Bomb survivor.
According to Mrs. Sasamori, almost all people who were within 1.5 km of the
bomb explosion were killed. However, she was an exception. Her life seemed at
an impasse because although she survived from Atomic Bomb, she has been a bombing
casualty since then and has had to live with its consequences. Fortunately, she
was able to be grateful to everyone and everything and her life was changed
completely.
When she was 13 years old, Mrs. Sasamori and her
friend saw something falling from the sky. Then, suddenly a big explosion
occurred. Her friend died instantly. Mrs. Sasamori’s entire upper body was
exposed to radiation and her skin was all black. It came off and was partially
hanging. She wandered around, and fell down in front of the elementary school.
She murmured her name and address. Someone heard her and four days later her
parents were able to find her. Her upper body was keloidal like scars from a
fire.
Fortunately, Mrs. Sasamori found a church whose
music brought healing of her mind. Then, she was selected for an aid program
started by Norman Cousins and was able to go to the United States after World
War II to have surgery. She had surgery over 20 times. When I saw her, her face
remains with little scars like burns and some of her fingers are shorter than a
regular person’s. However, because of this surgery her attached fingers were
separated and implanted skin from her legs was applied to her face and upper
body. She was saved by kind American doctors and nurses.
Through this experience she decided to become a nurse.
Norman Cousins helped her. She went to a nurses’ college in Connecticut and
started working in New York. Later she married and had a baby boy. She named
him Norman. She later divorced and moved to California. Through her life
experience she was able to forgive America and decided to live in the United
States.
In June, 1980, Mrs. Sasamori was asked to speak
of her experience of the bombing first and then she has helped whatever she
could to contribute to world peace. Last year she was not able to come home for
6 months because of her business trip sharing her experience. She went to
Europe, Japan and South America. One time she had a layover at the Los Angeles
airport from South America, and she decided to go back to her home to exchange
her summer clothes for winter clothes, so she was able to continue her trip to
Japan.
She is almost 80 but works hard to help others
and world peace through her experience. In 2010, she was invited to the
graduation ceremony at Winona State University in Minnesota.
At first she declined because she didn’t think she was a person to speak at a
university graduation. However, they insisted and persuaded her saying
“Students will graduate by listening to your experience.” She gave a speech
and, at the same time, received an honorable doctor’s degree of humanities from
the university. I believe she deserved it. She lives her life fully with honest
and heartfelt gratitude toward the people who helped her. At the wedding reception
where I officiated, she told me that she totally agrees how important it is to
be grateful to our parents and everyone and everything in the universe as described
in the Divine Message. Our founder wrote:
“When we say that sincerity is lacking we
mean that a person is not doing his best. He can put forth much greater effort,
that is do much better, but he is only trying to get by. He who tries only to
get by does not live the Seicho-No-Ie
way of life. He does not tread the path of spiritual growth. He does not walk
the road to victory.” (Truth of Life Volume 7,
p. 83)
Mrs. Sasamori’s life was once destroyed by the
bomb, but her thoughts of gratitude and actions changed her life completely. Let
us walk the road to victory by living sincerely. Then, although the situation
seems to be at an impasse, everything will go well because God appears when we
can be grateful to everyone and everything in the universe, i.e. reconciled
with the whole universe. In the Divine Message of Grand Harmony it is stated,
“To be reconciled with the whole universe means to be grateful to everything in
the universe…If you wish to call on me, first be reconciled with everything in
the universe. Since I am Love, I shall appear when you have become reconciled
with the whole universe.” Please share this teaching of gratitude to as many
people as possible and let other people who encounter difficulties become free.
Thank you very much.
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