Tenrikyo Ofudesaki - God Permits You To Seek and Inquire -
and prayed to a great many gods.
should there be anyone who knows the origin,
God permits you to seek and inquire.
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Once again, though not unique in the human journey, this openness to questioning and inquiry is unusual. Ordinarily inflexible truths of the world are taught as absolute and depending upon the time and place people are not only discouraged from questioning them, they are often punished for doing so. The attempts to suppress the teaching that shows the way to reveal the true origin of the human mind offers a good example of well meaning defense of rigid truths of the world that were current in a particular time and place.
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This challenge applies to all who may be encountered in one's efforts to awaken to the truth of origin. Verse I:4 in the Ofudesaki makes it clear that the origin of human beings, that is of the human mind, is not a person, place, thing or concept and that even those within the path may be mistaken in their view. That warning is even more strongly worded in the "Yorozuyo" song as "but you do not know its origin."
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You are calling this place the Jiba, the Residence of God,
in Yamato, but you many not know the origin.
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This open inquiry also invites us to ponder the fact that all human beings in all times and places are expected to awaken, know and understand the true origin of the human mind. That means that eventually there are going to be any number of people who are functioning as "timbers" in their own time and place. They will know and recognize each other from the point of view of single-heartedness and can be distinguished from the teachers of "true ideas", be those truths either persons, places, things or concepts, through the test of the totally purified mind; that is the mind like "clear water".
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I might add that although everyone will eventually return, currently not all minds or self-centered imaginations are interested in doing so. That is fine and no one is forced to return if they don't want to but this process of seeking and inquiring holds out both an invitation and an opportunity for anyone who is ready to awaken to quickly do so.