Tenrikyo Dynamic Mission - Illness and Trouble                " The Truths of My Childhood" pg.4

We human beings in many ways act according to the dictates of  the worldly common truths that were taught to us as children. That conditioning and education being the best efforts of our parents, family, friends and community to provide us with true protections from illness and trouble and other evils that are known to inhabit the world in our time and place. It cannot be repeated enough times that no two human minds are the same, though historically there have been many attempts to make all of the minds - at least in a single family or culture - conform to a single set of worldly common truths.  The means employed to accomplish conformity to worldly common truths usually involve well intentioned education or indoctrination of the young and intimidation or force when dealing with transgressors or outsiders.

As a child I wore a protective amulet, which itched, and  which was  later updated to a nice sterling silver medal and chain - my favorite - and then to a gold cross, all now lost. Those well meaning true protections and many many more that are designed to ward off evils tend to accumulate as being complimentary to natural first principles. Those apparently natural first principles are drawn from the worldly common truth of the existence of supernatural beings that can either help us or hurt us and from which other worldly common truths can be derived. With those principles as a foundation I was then, as both a child and an adult, able to further build a world view that was supported by ever more complex worldly common truths to be used in every matter.  Those worldly common truths of the world then acted as rational  means to inform the way in which I understand my experiences and interactions with true supernatural powers, other people and with the world. 

My early education exposed me to the existence of other civilizations both past and current. I clearly recall laying on the living room floor and "reading" a collection of true Bible Stories. Like many people living in Western Civilization they formed my first impression of human history and they formed a foundation for yet more supernatural and moral, ethical truths to be built upon. I can still clearly bring to mind some of the images and the tales of the true wondrous and miraculous events which they graphically represented. If there was any doubt that they were all totally true stories I wasn't exposed to that doubt either at home, at school or in my immediate community. When it came to the evils of illness and trouble there was no doubt that miraculous intervention was and continues to be available to the sincere believer. The tradition of my childhood is full of true stories and true places of wondrous  divine power where God appeared and where instances of miraculous healing took place and which stand to prove those truths. Interestingly as one travels about the Christian world it is not unusual to come across churches and cathedrals build on top of the ruins of older places of true spiritual supernatural power.  Such places of true divine power are common in the world and often have great staying power in the human imagination that can be passed down through generations, some can even to outlive the collapse of the civilizations that gave birth to and cultivated them. 

As my childhood education progressed it became apparent that when one looked all over the world through all ages not everybody held the exact same set of truths concerning the causes of the evils of illness and troubles and their relief and cure. In fact in every age culture and civilization stories of miraculous supernatural interventions and cures of illness and trouble and instances of their sure proofs abound, often in proven true traditions that had and have lasted for thousands of years. In light of that fact it is something of a wonder- and an indication of the way in which the self-centered imagination works- that I was able to see truths of my world as they existed in my immediate neighborhood as totally true as opposed to other truths from around the world and in all ages as being the mistaken antique beliefs of inferior and less advanced cultures. That I was able to do that is a testament to the power of the human self centered imagination to accept conditioned truths and still function in awareness of contradictions that may flow from those conditioned truths, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. 

As I ponder this it occurs to me that though my education exposed me to the truths of wonders and miracles of healing illnesses as they were revealed to the Roman world my education was sketchy and doubtful about the existence of the true wonders and healing miracles that motivated the rest of the world. For instance, around the time that Constantine was selecting Christianity for the Mediterranean world a different sets of Christian truths were already very popular in Egypt, Palestine, the Persian empire and some of the fringes of empire including some of the Central Asian tribes and east into what is now Afghanistan.  In all of those places there were instances of wonders and miraculous healing that proved the validity of the new truth and discounted the the truths of the older traditions of truths. Though I am not a historian or a theologian it strikes me as being an interesting aspect of worldly common truths that over time loyalty and interest in them has often changed much like the course of rivers or shifting sands. If our truths of the world could be compared to a structure it would appear that their shifting foundations were not secure.

What might make a person whose fundamental true stories of spectacular wonders and healing miracles - stories that even in the twentieth and twenty-first might centuries still warrant major motion pictures - convert to a new true God and new true wonders and healing miracles? In the view of my admittedly amateurish pondering it occurs to me that the promise of good health, of wealth, of successful family relations and community security have always had an immediate appeal to individual needs. In my own culture the changes in loyalties to true Gods were accompanied by new opportunities and access to wonders and miracles that were traditionally only available to the cults of a ruling elite.  Not everyone changed loyalties at the same time as it is almost certainly the case the those who were recipients of miracles and wonders would most likely hold onto those true proofs for a lifetime; however those who had not enjoyed such true wonders and healing miracles and military victories  may be drawn to new true stories and proofs of wonders and miracles in the hope that in the future they too would be be able to have access to receive divine supernatural favor.

As concerns the causality of both good and evil and the ways in which they relate to illness and trouble I can say that as a child I was conditioned to the duel truth that there is both a spiritual cause and cure for illness and trouble as well as the relatively new scientific way that involves the intervention of doctors and medicine in determining the causes and cures for illness and trouble.   How fortunate I was to be born into a community that knows the duel true causes of illness and trouble and that has provided me with access to an inside track to gain preferential divine treatment by showing me the way to properly address God, the Angels and Saints so that they can work in response to my pleas for divine intercession and alter causality for my benefit. Also, because of the current wealth of my community I can, as long as I can afford it,  have access to some cutting edge scientific medicine. Reasoning in that way, with myself in the center and the subject of all of my thoughts, it is natural that in times of illness and trouble that I might have wondered: Why me? Am I being punished? Am I being taught a lesson? What can I do to make this better for myself? Should I pray? Should I make oaths to appease God? Should I make some kind of sacrifice or offering? Will praying to the saints and the mother of God to intercede on my behalf help? If I get better and forget about my sincere oaths and promises will that be held against me in this world or the next? What if I don't get better, should I blame myself or should I look for a new and better God?  If I'm OK why should I worry about anyone else? The groundwork for all of those true questions and concerns was laid for me in my childhood just as it was for the great majority of self-centered imaginations in the world. In that regard they are questions and concerns that are common in the world and the multiplicity of answers to those questions represent sincere worldly common truths of the world.

From my child's point of view it was reasonable and clear that there exists one true God and holy family as well as true angels and saints that if properly appealed to and appeased could and perhaps would miraculously intercede and alter causality on my behalf, or on behalf of my family to cure illnesses and troubles, or on a larger scale to win wars, or ward of natural disasters on behalf of my cultural group or civilization. Depending upon the circumstances I could be guaranteed an eternal happy life in the hereafter in heaven or blow it and end up in an eternal hell. Mine was a full program of worldly common truths. Thanks to my childhood education I also knew the true origin of the world and the origin of human beings from the original primal couple, Adam and Eve.  Much if not most of the knowledge that I enjoyed being derived from the truths revealed through true Biblical texts and the true ideas of thinkers such as Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine and the true interpretations of the fruits of their imaginations. All of them sweet truths, ordinary and the kind that have been common in the world through all times and places.

Pg. 5 Illness and Trouble: The Point of View of Our Original Parent

 

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