This book is Part II of the book The Flow of Consciousness. For the past twenty years, I have held seminars primarily in Japan. What I had hoped to communicate through these seminars was the following:
1. People's true essence is consciousness or energy;
2. True essence of people cannot be seen;
3. We must turn our consciousnesses around by changing our belief from thinking of the visible world as real to believing in the invisible world.
Our time is eternal. Our time does not start when we are born and end when we die. It continues forever, continuing without severing. At the point at which we die, it simply continues. We are living as a particular physical identity at the moment for the time being.
This is what I want people to understand with their hearts, and this wish was why I held the seminars. As a product of the seminars, I was able to publish the first edition of The Flow of Consciousness in December 2004, with updated editions in December 2005 and May 2010. I hope that you are able to read the book to learn in more detail about the study and how it progressed. From this point on, I will continue as if the reader has already read Part I of this book. At the end, I will also recommend some good references for additional reading. If you decide to read these books, it should help you understand the study even more.
There are so many books in print, including those that are labeled as best-sellers and displayed at bookstores. However, I wonder if there is a single book among them that can clearly tell you what the truth is or what is true or real?
There are also books that may give you hope and strength. There are many well-written books that deeply affect people's hearts and seem to speak to the reader. At the moment that you read them, you may feel very emotionally moved and even cry, but after some time has passed, you are left wondering what you had been so emotional about. You know for certain that you related to the book and felt strongly moved; but after that, then what? Why is it that these feelings of being so emotionally moved never last? It is because these books are missing what reaches into our true existence, the core of us as people. But if so, then what are people's true identities? I have told people that the true identity of people is their hearts.
Such books may grab you emotionally because they may seem to raise questions, reveal something within their theme, but I feel that they fail to go deep enough to provide answers to our true identity. They fail to answer questions such as, "What does it mean to be human? What is true happiness and true joy? Why do we have pain and suffering?" and "Is there a connection between happiness and pain?" Even if the book's content describes well the human heart, it will not come to the same conclusion that I have come to, that the true identity of people is their heart. The reason that we come to different conclusions is because no matter which book you read, every one starts with the fundamental belief that our true existence is our physical form, and then proceeds to define people based on this belief. These authors' definitions and introspection of people are merely their own observations of people from various angles with some added flavor, which is then composed into sentences. But this is all based upon believing that people's true existence is their physical, visible form. Undoubtedly, if you base your perspective on the belief that people are their physical selves, these authors' books do evoke emotion, and may even make one cry. They may even be recognized as exceptional works and be given an award. No matter how highly they are received, you can never learn about the truth of your existence through those books. This is because we humans are not our physical selves, but are really something that is not visible. Literature based on the understanding that people are their physical form may touch people's hearts or hold readers captive, but they will never reach a person's true heart in its true definition.
On the other hand, work that is written based on the foundation that the true essence of being human is not our physical identity will take time to really reach the depth of people's true hearts. I believe that work written with this belief as its foundation will eventually reach a person's heart and that when it does, it will leave a strong impression and stir strong emotions. This is because within ourselves, we know in our hearts what our true existence is.
Incidentally, I am emphasizing our heart as our heart. You might ask whether there is a difference between the two. And yes, I am differentiating the definitions of the commonly used term "heart" with heart. I am going to discuss the difference between the two through a few questions. When you think of your heart, where do you imagine it to be located? I am sure that there are many people who believe that their heart exists in their head or inside their chest. However, what I am telling you is that your heart does not exist in your head or inside your chest. The heart that I am talking about is not like that.
It is not that there is an individual person that is you, and that this individual person has a heart inside. What I am saying is that the true form of your existence is your consciousness, or your heart. In other words, your identity is your heart itself.
From here on, I would like to reach and speak directly to your heart, your true existence, and not the heart you have in your head or your chest. It would be wonderful if you gained a better understanding of your heart through the process of reading this book. Please keep the following questions in mind as you read:
Where is one's heart located?
What is the heart?
What is human existence?
What is the relationship between people and their hearts?
Why do people exist?
Why are we alive?
Why do people die?
It is my hope that while reading this book, you will find yourself nodding and agreeing, "That's right. That's exactly it."
I do not state this as a prediction, but the world will become increasingly more chaotic from now and into the future. The crazed energy that has been hiding deep inside of people's hearts will start to surface and take form through their actions. At the same time, we are coming into a time when huge natural disasters will happen wildly across the world. Many people will lose their lives within an instant. The scale of these events will be much bigger than such disasters that have happened already. Of course, Japan will not be exempt from these events. I imagine that natural disaster storms will occur throughout Japan, jeopardizing the country's existence. Japan is known as an earthquake country. I leave the mechanics of earthquakes to the experts, but there is a part of earthquake mechanics and earthquake energy that even analysts are unable to decipher. This is because there is a reflection of the state of our consciousness in the earthquakes as well as in all nature and human phenomena. Unless one bases his understanding of these events on the world of consciousness, it becomes difficult to truly understand the mechanism of these phenomena. Eventually, even with people putting their heads together for a solution or praying for resolve, the physical world will crumble and dissolve. There will come a time when people will clearly understand this. We are in a flow of time when, sooner or later, each one of us will be asked in the depths of our hearts the question, What is our true existence as people? I have been calling this flow of events "the flow of consciousness."
There has yet to come a time when we find the answer to why people continue to be reincarnated. In fact, we humans are the only living creatures that continue to reincarnate on this earth without ever realizing our true identity. I, myself, had also been ignorant of the truth until the middle of my life. I had lived for half a century without knowing anything about the truth. The journey of my life had not been a smooth path. But after experiencing many twists and turns and strange events within my own life and having already lived half of my life, I finally came to realize what the truth is. I already had a strong feeling of what the truth was, but at the time, I was still in the process of studying it myself. I believe that I can say that my life existed along with the seminars' progress. I evolved with the seminars; I did not know everything perfectly from the beginning. I have been studying with the people who came to the seminars and with my family, and I have learned from them as well. Every day was a layer upon layer of learning. I have an ignorant physical self, too; so, needless to say, it did take me quite some time.
At around the midpoint of my life, I finally realized the meaning of why I was born and what my real work was. I came to the conclusion that the existence of my real self is different from my physical self—the individual named Tomekichi Taike. Although I just described the two as being different, this does not mean the two are separate and independent of each other. With certainty, I had realized the truth of the world of consciousness, "I am you, you are me," through my physical self. In other words, I sense that I am both the person with the name "Tomekichi Taike" as well as my true Self that is not visible. I came to sense that the "physical self" and the "Self that is not visible" were one inside myself. If the "physical person" is myself, then "the invisible Self" is also myself. But, if one were to ask which one is my "real Self," there is no question which that would be. At this point in my life, I am now certain that I am my true Self, one who is looking and reflecting on my own existence by giving myself a physical form in which to do so.
I have often used the term "the eternal present." By this, I mean that the past and future are together at the present point in time. All of it—the past, present, and future—are, without a doubt, myself. I have viewed and felt everything from this point of view. I am truly living in the present. When I say that I am living in the present, it does not hold the same meaning as it typically does in society. I have the sense that although time passes and changes, I feel that I am not living in that sort of time. For me, I have my own time and space. And I have a sense of what my time and space is, who I am and that you are your own time and space as well. This is a feeling that I hold.
But I think I have gone too far ahead in my discussion, so let us go back to where we were. After having already lived half of my life, I came to realize my true self, and that my true life's work was to communicate the truth to others. It was for this reason that I was born for the first time into a physical body. I was born with a physical body with the name Tomekichi Taike. Unlike everyone else, I had never been born nor had physical lives in the past. I had never experienced reincarnation. I do not mind how you respond to this, but for myself, I have no feelings of being special in any way because of it. I just want you to correctly understand what it means for a consciousness that has never been born in the past to be born to now have a physical body.
I have used the term "the flow of the consciousness." I would like you to understand in your heart that both you and I are within this "flow." There has already emerged one person who can prove what I have been stating. I have continued to convey to people that if you practice doing exactly what I have said, anyone can find the truth and reach real happiness and joy. What it means to turn your heart toward me, and what will happen when you do turn your heart in the right direction to me, please, I ask of you, to become your own proof to yourself of what that will mean.
I have absolutely no intention to guide or save you; to give you power or to brainwash you. I have repeatedly stressed that the person who will guide you is your true Self and that your true Self is the power of joy. And so, I would like to record here, step by step, how you will meet "your true Self." Before I do this, however, let us first think a bit about the reason why people are born, and what it means to have a happy life.