Live Naturally

While saying that all religions are together as one, I said nothing but natural things that anyone can do like that love yourself or love your family. But that's OK, I guess now.

"Live naturally."

God is gracious. Buddha is mercy itself. Such merciful One cannot ask week humans like us for deeds which require superhuman efforts. Such gracious One like Him cannot force on us hard penance, hard stoicism, hard doctrine which only one out of a thousand can do. In fact, real happiness consists in common daily lives, natural deeds that anyone can do.

"God cannot burden so heavy with us!"

That's I have felt through various scriptures. Leave burdens to God, to Bodhisattva. Depend on God, fawn on Buddha, and do what you can do at your own pace.

"Depend on God. Fawn on God."

If you can do so, happiness will come of itself. But because we cannot do so, various religions show various ways. And in case one is bound by worldly desires so hard, drastic measures like penance are sometimes necessary. If only one can feel God's love, one may say,

"Why have I been worried about a thing like that so far?"

and say goodbye to the fake world where one cannot measure one's position and happiness without always comparing oneself with others and the blissful days will come when one does nothing but appreciate God with one's whole life. To be alive itself becomes absolute joy. Then worldly desires completely melt down, and one comes not to speak ill of others, and does nothing but hope for peace. Worldly desires do one harm, and as one who is bound with them is destined to perish of itself, you may give way mercifully to one who pushes one's claim by force. God is really tender. God created this world so that we need not try so hard and may take it easy, need not make so haste, need not be so greedy to become content enough and happy. And even now, throwing yourself on God, throwing yourself on Buddha, happiness will come of itself.

Love Your Family

Loving all begins with loving oneself, and if we can love ourselves, then we will advance to love neighbors. To love all humans is nothing more than ideal thought itself. Concretely, objects for us to love emerge as neighbors. When we recognize objects as humans, they appear in front of us, within our reach, in relation to us, as perpetual succession of neighbors, not to say all human beings. That is, to love all is present in continuous series of loving neighbors. Only through loving neighbors can we reach to love all. But who are neighbors? People who have the closest relationship to us are the most intimate neighbors. They are people who are here in front of us now.  They are a wife and a husband and children, a father and a mother, brothers and sisters, relatives, friends and colleagues and so on. That is, love family first. And love friends. It is again a little different to religious spirit which preaches indiscriminate equal love of all human beings, but how can one love other humans who cannot love family? How can one love humans who cannot love one's wife and husband, children and parents? If you ignore the base of human love which consists in love for yourself, love for family and love for friends, and pursue ideal thought of love for all notionally, you will after all embody yourself that saying, "To love all is to love nothing."  While preaching people to love all, you cannot but hate humans so hard. In oder not to be so, don't make light of love for family as the first step to love neighbors. I admit that religion sometimes preaches to abandon self or family, but it has profound meaning and we will consider it another time. But briefly speaking, to desert them once is to find real value of them. Negation is an inevitable way to affirmation. In this way we dive from total negation into total affirmation. To tell the truth, one may desert oneself and one's family in order to love oneself and love one's family really. One may love God rather than humans in order to love humans truly. Anyway,

"Only one who loves one's family can love humans."

So folks! Take care of your family!

Love Yourself First

Now, I said, "Love humans rather than God," or exactly "To love humans is just to love God," but what can we do to love humans? To love humans is concretely to love oneself and to love neighbors. Thinking just in head, we cannot leave reasonable thought and at the worst we might conclude, "To love all humans means to love no one. " Our reason can recognize objects only relatively, loving all equals to loving nothing because both have no relative object. In order not to fall into its trap, let's begin with loving oneself to love all. One may feel somewhat out of place with it from the point of religious view of self-sacrifice, but if one were worthless yourself, is it worth while sacrificing yourself? One who cannot love even oneself cannot love others. You yourself is also a human. And God love and cherish humans as his own children, as long as you a human yourself, you are loved by God. So If you like that don't take care of yourself, you will make God  very sad. If God hopes one's happiness, He hopes your happiness (not only yours of course). So it is your duty which God imposes you to become happy yourself. You cannot love others if you belittle yourself and say, "I am a nothing," and grow desperate. In inferiority complex, you see others superoir and happier and jealousy makes you hate humans, far from loving them. One who cannot love oneself cannot love humans. God's love has nothing to do with our value like talent, ability, wealth, status, superiority and inferiority to others. God loves us because we have life, just we are alive, placing abusolute value on life. Being alive is being loved by God unconditionally. And not until we feel that we are loved by God can we love ourself and not until we really love ourselves can we love humans.

"Only one who can love oneself can love humans."

So folks! Take care of yourself!

All for peace

Love humans rather than God

Amiyan established this principle, all for peace. Not to let one drag religions, words of scriptures, into human conflict and let them excuse for war. Not to let one say that pagans are to be killed. I will take peace rather than justice. Take peace rather than reason. Take peace rather than pride and honor. Take peace rather than profit. Take peace even if I am said to be coward. Take peace even if I must concede all. And take peace rather than God. Take peace no matter what scriptures say. For God tried to save us at the sacrifice of His most dearest sole son, for Buddha, in his Bodhisattva, always threw out his life to save other lives no matter how little they were, God must save humans at the sacrifice of Himself, by throwing out His life, with killing Himself.

Take humans rather than God

That's what God, Buddha, showed Himself.

"When it comes to the last moment, live for humans rather than Me."

I hear like this with my spiritual ears. Only in peace, human true happiness can be. So, even if I disobey God, I will take peace. It is truly what God wants us to do. It's not to disobey after all. Follow  love rather than words.

Which should we take, God or humans?

Well, in scriptures, there are words which deny other religions. And there are also words which affirm other religions. When words of anger conflict with words of mercy, which should we take? I always take mercy ones.

anger < love

That's the principle I always follow. Moreover, when I am forced to make an ultimate choice between to love God and to love humans, I make it a rule to chose humans.

Love humans rather than God.

It comes from my personal experience. I devoted my love to God. I confessed that I loved God. But He turned down my love softly and said,

"I don't need your love. If you have time to love me, love humans."

I feel like having heard so in my spiritual ears. I was jilted by God. Love is God. My love belongs to God from the beginning. What does it mean for God to be given it back now? God gave me love not to make me love Himself but to make me love humans. Agape, with which God loves us, is love for nothing. It demands no return. God never wants humans to love Himself. Although humans forget God at all and think there is no God, if a human loves a human, if humans loves each other, that's OK. And He only hopes so. God is concerned just about humans' happiness. So if humans are happy, there is no need of religion. Even if people have never thought of God, that's OK if only they are happy. God, Buddha, thinks so. Why still scriptures tell humans to love God is to turn their love to God once and then hear,

"Love humans rather than me."

To say "God, God," without loving humans is notional pipe dream. God inhabits us humans, neighbors, even enemies. So, to be specific, to love God is to love humans and to love humans exactly means to love God. We cannot love God without loving humans. If one devotes one's love to God beyond humans saying, "I love You,"  He won't accept one's love like that.

A method for becoming one

What should we do to become one beyond difference? Let's think about methods for it.

It is true that there is no need to say methods if only with love, if only with mercy, everything is achieved. Now, what should we do to get true love, to get mercy? Believe in God, Buddha. And now if we get belief, to overcome differences among various religions is the next big subject to come. Our precious belief is useless if Jewries and Christians and Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists deny and fight each other. That is not real love and mercy after all. Then a method is to be thought. As far as Amiyan's personal experience, it is

"to see the same light in every scripture."

Open the Buddhist scriptures, open the Bible, open the Koran, open the Hindu scriptures and Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. I mean to consult original sources. Those are a ways of letters, but of course there are other ways. I entered from letters just because it was easy for me to enter, because God, Buddha, prepared and waited for me to open the gate, but Sri Ramakrishna seems to have entered from deeds, religious austerities. More than 100 years ago ahead of Amiyan, he entered Hindu, then Islam and Christianity to practice religious austerities and saw the same light in each religions and was convinced that all religions are together as one. After that, he returned to Hindu and kept on telling people to love God. In the case of Amiyan, I entered from Shinran, who is a Japanese Buddhist saint, which Ramakrishna had not gone through, then went to Islam and Christianity to fall into rapture over seeing the same light and be convinced that all religions are together as one, when a viewer of Amiyan's site introduced me Ramakrishna and again fell into rapture over knowing that he also had experienced

"All religions are together as one."

Whether to enter from letters or deeds or both, it depends on one's surroundings. Anyway a road must lead the light from whichever gate one may enter and on and on. And in the case of letters, read bibles and scriptures in an affirmative and spiritual way. Nowadays, it is easy to get bibles, so the gate is open to many people relatively. But Buddhist scriptures are enormous and some of them have not been translated yet. Besides, Buddhism are divided into many sects in Japan, so entering from deeds, one may enter this and train then enter that and train, now enter Islam and train and enter Christianity and train and enter Hindu and train... Whether from letters or deeds, roads seem to be so far, but once one can see the light, he can go fast after. It doesn't mean that one cannot see the light unless one reads everything or practices every religious austerities, but advance just for one thing eagerly with crying for help to God, throwing oneself on Buddha, and God, Buddha, will surely open one's spiritual eye on the way, that is, God will bless one, and from that moment on, whichever scripture one may read, one will experience a succession of rapture, a sea of joy. Deeds will surely the same. Now that a spiritual eye is open, don't stop there but advance every scriptures of other religions with the spiritual eye. Don't stop at Buddhism, don't stop at Christianity, don't stop at Islam, don't stop at Hindu. And then, one is convinced that all religions are one. Spiritual ability is to feel absolute love, mercy. Don't read scriptures logically with reason. With spirit, receive God's love, Buddha's mercy,  hidden behind words. That is, to see the same light with a spiritual eye. And difference will disappear such as between words and deeds. Words and deeds are no more than one of infinite ways to see the light. All religions are no more than one of infinite ways to see the light. Difference between like God and Buddha, among Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and Hindu, not to mention various sects in a religion,  will disappear. And then, only love, mercy, remains.

Beyond difference

I have written this and that logically so far, but everything comes to an end if we see the same light spiritually. I just want to say two things. One is, to people who don't believe, to tell God's love to them, to tell that God doesn't desert people like them and loves them. The other is, to people who believe, to tell that all religions are in the same one light, to beg them to stop religious conflicts and reconcile. In modern world globalization is here to come and different cultures, different peoples, different religions come to contact with each other whether we hope or not. Difference is sure to brings about conflict. In order to keep peace in such situation, it is often said, "Respect each other's difference as it is."  It is often said, "Recognize others as different existence." It must be so. But something is missing if we just recognize others as different existence. That is something superficial understanding, I wonder. Unless we advance more, dig down deeper, and reach to be convinced that though we appear to differ each other, our essence is the same, that though we seem to be different on the surface, we are connecting with each other in the root of existence, that however different we may seem to be, you and I are together as one indeed, the true world peace cannot be achieved, so Amiyan feels.