Tenrikyo Dynamic Mission  Distinguish / Separate

In order to understand the separation between our original consciousness and the self-centered imaginings that rise up in it we have to first be able to clearly identify exactly what it is that we are talking about. Once we have clearly identified both our self-centered imagination and its true origin we can then ponder the truth of the relationship between them and come to know and understand the way in which each impacts our experience of the world.

Most of us currently take our self-centered imagination, the self-images that we accumulate over time, as being our true identity and understandably mistake our imagined self to be the deepest truth of our self.  As a result we naturally take for granted that it is those self-images that are our only consciousness self. It is through those accumulated self-centered worldly common thoughts, dust, mud, "Kara", and the truths of the world  that they give rise to, that we experience the both the truths of our self and the truths of our world.  In the teaching that is the Tenrikyo Dynamic this is viewed as the truth that the state and truths of our mind become the state and truths of our world.

Consciousness is generally understood then as a self-centered imagination that is both awake and aware. It is common for instance to say that a person who is not experiencing the world self-centeredly is unconscious while a person who is experiencing the world in an ordinary self-centered manner is conscious. So successful has the self centered imagination been for our species that for most of us it hasn't been seen as necessary to go any deeper into its origin. If pressed however just about anybody would say that our origin must be a higher power.  Depending upon the various points of view that higher power might be viewed as an original god or an original energy. Through time various explanations for the creation of human beings and the world have tended towards theories of gradual creation (evolution), instantaneous creation (now is the beginning) and no creation (the universe is an illusion) .

 When we look at the developmental journey of human beings from less than human to our current level of development we see that at some point in our journey from less than human to human the power of our self-centered imaginations increased greatly and moved our ability to survive and alter our environment beyond the capabilities of all of the other species that had come before us.  It is the enormous power of our self-centered imaginations that make us human beings. It is the sole purpose of the Tenrikyo dynamic mission to help all human beings to move to the next step in our development and enhance that power by showing the way to identify, reveal and distinguish between the original consciousness that is at the core of any and everything including the human mind and the worldly common creations of our self-centered imaginations. It is that original consciousness that is the place where we as human self-centered imaginations were, are and will be created. This is called identifying, distinguishing, revealing, knowing and understanding the truth of origin and its true relationship to our worldly common self-centered imaginations and the truths of the world that it has created and it is a very good thing for everyone to do as quickly as possible.

The poems above inform us that up until the truth of origin, God's true heart, is revealed to us as it exists at the core of our own mind we naturally don't know anything about it. The last poem above concerns our ability or inability to distinguish between or separate our original consciousness, God's true heart from the creations of our self-centered imagination. This is crucial for intentionally revealing, knowing and understanding the original cause of all things, the place where human beings were created, the place where God is revealed as distinct from what we by using shallow, self-centered, worldly common thinking imagine the Jiba (place where human being were created), the Residence of God and our origin to mean.

This is probably a good time to take stock of our approach to these poems. Currently in the world at large these poems are either unknown or if known largely ignored or seen as being of no particular import. There are however a small number of people relative to the world population who view these poems as being of life changing  importance. 

Among that small number of people who view these poems as being of life changing importance are those whose true sincerity has been rewarded by being given the ability to know and understand the original cause of all things in detail and also the ability to clearly distinguish that original cause from the creations of the self-centered imagination. It is important to note that for those people that entire process was completed within their own mind.

The remainder of the small number of people who view these poems as being of life changing importance are those of us who have become lost among truths of the world as they have been created in our worldly common self-centered imaginings. The fact that we can become so easily lost and be sincerely attached to shallow, worldly common interpretations of the teaching of single-heartedness makes it difficult for us to be able to identify and distinguish between the original cause of all things in detail and the intentions and creations of their own self-centered imaginations. Indeed it is only because of the deep parental love of our parent of origin residing at the core of our minds that we have not been abandoned to the outcome of our self centered reasoning. 

The vast bulk of the teaching of our true original parent has been tirelessly crafted to hasten the maturity of those who want to hear but who are unable to understand. I mention this because when pondered deeply and sincerely the poems quoted above clearly point out  that it is quite possible to cultivate a sincere mind that does not understand and which does not know what it is talking about as regards the one truth of origin.  That is a pretty harsh judgment, however I think that it can be softened considerably when we recall that it is a hastening and guidance that is coming from the original parental consciousness at core of our own mind. It is not criticism from a stranger, it is from our own heart that we are being told that we are off course and it is our own heart that is there to help us to get back onto the way of quickly realizing the truth that we say that we want to understand but are unable to realize with our shallow, worldly common, self-centered imaginings.

The instruction then is simple. We are instructed to separate and distinguish the creations of our self centered imagination from the original consciousness that they rise up and appear within. To make the distinction clear we are instructed to completely calm or settle our imagination. That means turning our imagination off and then back on again.

Now suppose that our sincerity is such that after thinking it over seriously we can see our self as being addressed by the last poem above. That is to say that we have ideas about what Jiba, Residence and Origin mean but we as yet do not have the deeper understanding that is given to the totally purified mind like clear water.  What then are we to do?

Let's follow the reasoning:

•  We would like to realize the promised benefits of knowing and understanding the truth of what the words, Jiba, Residence of God and Origin mean. 

• Those promised benefits can be generalized as access to God's free and unlimited workings yielding marvelous things like freedom from weakening, illness and death and an all round experience of a joyous life.

• Unfortunately, realization of what the words are meant to identify and mean is hindered by the fact that we naturally convert their meaning into shallow, worldly common, self-centered ideas and concepts and though we may hold such concepts with great sincerity they lack the complete knowledge and understanding of the truth of origin, the truth of any and everything.

• The way to reveal the truth of origin, the original cause of any and everything and to gain the promised benefits is to intentionally identify and "settle", "clear", "sweep out" and briefly turn off the self-centered imaginings that are causally  piled up thus effectively blocking and in the way of identifying and understanding the deeper truth that our shallow, worldly common, self-centered imaginings rise up in.

The Kagua and the Teodori are then examples of the kind of work (Service ) - the "Sazuke" is another - that when carried out sincerely will calm the self centered imagination, settling the worldly common thoughts and truths that appear in the mind, and in so doing exposing the core of the mind, the true parental heart, the truth of origin, the original consciousness that the self centered imagination rises up and appears within.  Once the work is done and single-heartedness is pondered one will be able to distinguish between the original and the imaginary.

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