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.
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.