Tenrikyo Ofudesaki
- Speak about things that Never Existed -

Even until now, when I began this
world which did not exist,
I began by teaching things unknown.
This time also, I begin to teach again, speaking only of
things which do not exist and things unknown.
This is the intention of Moonsun:
to teach everything which no one has ever known.
By teaching all of the unknown step by step,
Moonsun will save the world.
- The known universe appears, out of nothing, in the original
conscious mind of God. Whatever is now known by human minds is known
because of that original consciousness but human minds are unaware
of that original truth
- Perhaps one of the easiest ways to
begin to understand "things which do not exist and things unknown"
is to determine in one's own mind to quickly calm and let settle the
common truths of the world that currently hold sway there. There is
nothing to fear in doing that as the warm parental heart is waiting
for us there as the conscious source and true origin of our
mind.
- Human language is designed to describe
ideas, concepts and relationships between persons, places and things
and is not designed to imagine or describe the original
consciousness that makes those ideas and relationships possible.
Among all of the human languages the natural lack of shared vocabulary
that would allow us to describe the indescribable is made up for by
the use of poetic metaphors. In the case of this teaching the
metaphors are never meant to have a commonly understood meaning.
- In this teaching all ideas, concepts,
persons, places and things are intended to be "tested for proof",
metaphorically in "the mind like clear water". When the "test" is
properly, that is sincerely and honestly conducted, what remains as
the "mind like clear water" is the consciousness that permanently exists but is taken
for granted and as such is unknown. In contrast, the thoughts that have
been filtered and
settled out (metaphorically, dust, mud, debris) and which are no
longer there do not permanently exist but are then understood to have been
temporary creations and truths created and exiting only in the human imagination.
- We human beings insist on being taught through the use of
common ideas, concepts, persons, places and things and so in
teaching us of "things which do not exist and things unknown" a
conversation, cast in poetry and metaphor, between our original
parent and the equally beloved children of the world is opened with
the intention of saving all of the minds of the world from the
unintended suffering that has contaminated the joy that was intended
in the creation of the idea of human beings.
- Though those conversations in the "muddy
waters" and the metaphors used were designed for a particular time,
place and level of maturity the core teaching which can be
understood by the metaphors "clear" and "muddy" is universally
applicable in all times, places and for all levels of maturity.
Everybody is conscious and everybody has a self-centered imagination
that is a reflected in and to that
original conscious light.
Sure Guides: Section IVg