Tenrikyo Dynamic Mission - OPENING JUST A NARROW PATH
Ponder this in all matters.
OPENING JUST A NARROW PATH OF SINGLE HEARTED SALVATION
I cannot do so because there is no path.
Though I desire to open this path quickly,
there is no place else to open it.
On an October evening in 1838 Miki Nakayama, a forty-one year old housewife living in Shoyashiki Village on the Yamato plain, in what was then the closing years of feudal Japan, acted as a medium in a healing ritual that involved the instruction for her to completely empty her mind. Because of her true sincerity she did just that and in doing so awakened the causality that replaced her bound and limited self centered imagination with the true origin of her mind, the free and unlimited original parental mind of God. The Tenrikyo Dynamic teaching recognizes that state of mind as single heartedness with the truth of origin, the original parental mind of God ("Kami Ichijoo"). That momentous event signaled the beginning of a path of intentional single hearted salvation for all human beings so that the intended joy in life can be realized by all human minds in all times and places.
So it was that the path of single-hearted salvation for all mankind was to be opened by engaging and teaching the self centered imaginations first of the Nakayama family and later the residents of Shoyashiki Village, the greater Yamato region and eventually the world. This then became the stage upon which the poetic metaphors of the path were modeled and shown over a period of fifty years. The adjustments and tireless effort necessary for keeping just a narrow path of single hearted salvation open are clear expressions of a model of parental love for all human beings equally.
In the past I often wondered why the teaching that makes up the path to intentional single heatedness with the truth of origin, the original core of the mind, is so deeply veiled in poetic metaphor. The answer that I settled upon is that the identification and ever deepening understanding of the metaphors that make up the poems collected as the "Tip of the Writing Brush" engage and encourage the self centered imagination to sincerely think deeply about the nature and identification of both one's own self centered imagination and its true origin, the original parental mind of God that exists at the innermost heart and core of each and every mind. Since these poems never have a common worldly meaning it is intended that those who intend to be instrumental in spreading this path of single-hearted salvation to the minds of the world understand the meaning of these poems from their innermost heart and not from the point of view of their common everyday imaginings.
ponder over everything from your innermost heart.
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