Tenrikyo-Ofudesaki - Illness, Madness-
The
efficacy of the use of ritual magic to cure the supernatural causes of
the evils of illness and trouble was a
widely accepted " common truth of the world" in Miki's time and nobody in
her village would have thought her to be mentally unbalanced or crazy for advocating for it.
- To provide some context, the poems below were written in 1869; Miki was
born in 1798, in the United States the last attempt to go to trial for witchcraft was in Salem Massachusetts in
1878 and took place in the same town made famous for the trials of persons
accused of witchcraft near the end of the 17th century.- The fact that Miki was often in trouble
with the civil/religious authorities is often referred to in Her Model Story
but I think that there is a great deal to be gained by asking ourselves what the
immediate reason was for Her
family and those close to Her to think that she had become mentally
unbalanced.
The problem was and continues to be one of expectations of what we individually and as a community consider to be truths of our world. That is, how much or how little ordinary truths of our world, truths appearing in our self-centered imagination, color our experiences of our world. The publication called the Life of Oyasama, Manuscript Edition contains information about the life of Miki Nakayama both prior to her awakening and after Her awakening. Other than the crucial true sincerity that she exhibited as the cause for Her awakening it should be recalled that the point of view of Her awakened mind had nothing in common with the point of view of Miki Nakayama's mind prior to awakening. It is fruitful then to ask myself if I am aligning my thinking and efforts with Her mind or with Miki's mind and the ordinary common truths of Miki's world.
When we think seriously about it the problem we can see that as long as Miki Nakayama thought and acted as something of a model citizen, even though her family struggled with illness and trouble, she was seen as a well balanced representative of the common truths of her world. Miki was of course also a major influence in her family and she raised her children with the expectation that they would also be well balanced and trained in the appropriate common truths of the world just as she was.
Once awakened however She quite suddenly began exhibiting an entirely different point of view from the old Miki. This was immediately very apparent to Her family members who found themselves living with a contrarian who was not only at odds with her community but also with the beliefs and common truths of the world that She had instilled in Her own children. What else were they to think? Certainly, Shuji, her son, in exasperation, would have mentioned something like; if your going to be curing illness, how about curing my lame leg like Ichibei Nakano used to do?
Recall that in the Poems Miki's son Shuji is presented as a model of the kind of thinking that views the world from the point of view of someone who lives in a world where both good and evil can be handed out by supernatural forces. Though Shuji thought himself powerless to face those powers as a truth of his world he believed that those powers could be placated by the kind of ritual incantations that his family had previously purchased from a practitioner of ritual magic for his benefit. His thinking might be summarized as: My body is cursed by some unknown evil spirit and there is nothing that I can do about it. To make matters worse my mother will no longer employ the ritual magical services of a healing monk for me, so I deserve to be more or less depressed in my outlook. Everybody in the family and the in the village knows that this is so and agrees that my view is well balanced, correct and in line with what my mother taught me before she became mentally ill.
The view from the original parental mind is that was given in response to Shuji's way of thinking could be summarized as: If you calm down your mind and replace the foundation of your self-centered thinking and ordinary truths of your world you will awaken to the true origin of your mind; the very nature of which is high spirited joy. From that point of view it will be apparent that illness as you currently think of it doesn't exist and neither do curses, evil spirits and the like. In fact you will find that what you call your body is in fact, like everything in the universe, God's immortal ever changing body a bit of which is intended to be on loan to you to use as an instrument of joy in life. It is just this view then that was and still is seen as contrarian, embarrassing and mentally unbalanced.
A great deal of effort was put into trying to bring Her back to Her old self and to make Her conform to the common truths of the world as they existed at the time. Clearly, unless ways were found to settle the minds of Her family, friends and community there was no way to communicate the way of quickly awakening to the true origin of human beings, the true origin of the human mind and the joyous life that is intended for all human beings equally.
It is none other than the means to salvation of all kinds.
Do not think this salvation is for the present time alone.
It will be the Divine Record for eternity.
Just a word: you are saying that it is a fit or madness.
It is not an illness but the urging of God.
In a variety of ways, I have taught the truth of
single-heartedness with God, but you still do not understand.
