My Father's Depression
In the midst of these unfolding circumstances, yet another turning point awaited me—one that was essential for my awakening of consciousness.
For many years, my family and I had suffered through my father's battle with depression. Over time, however, his condition began to ease. A few years before his official retirement age, he left his job, and from that point on, the frequency and severity of his episodes gradually diminished. On the surface, it might have seemed that the cause lay in external factors—workplace stress and the burdens of human relationships. Yet those were only superficial triggers. The true root of his suffering lay in not knowing the real world of consciousness.
In the midst of such days, a new development came in June 2000. Once again, it was my father—and his illness. Several years earlier, he had been diagnosed with colon cancer and undergone surgery to remove part of his intestine. Now, in June 2000, the cancer had returned. From that time until his passing in January 2001, I entered a period that became my second great turning point—beginning from late 1999, when my heart had grown increasingly sensitive, and leading up to my father's final days.
If my husband's illness and death seven years earlier had been the event that turned the needle of my life in a new direction, then my father's death was the event that firmly fixed that needle in place.
When my father came home from the hospital after about two weeks of treatment for the recurrence in June 2000, I handed him a letter. I believe that the study I was to undertake with my father truly began from that letter. Here, I would like to share the contents of that letter, along with several reflections I wrote during the six months leading up to his passing—reflections born from the time I spent studying together with him—and also some of my father's own writings left behind.
Please note that in the reflections that follow, the name Tomekichi Taike appears frequently. Expressions such as "turn your heart toward Tomekichi Taike," "align with Tomekichi Taike," "Tomekichi Taike is my true heart," "I am Tomekichi Taike," and "convey Tomekichi Taike" may sound unusual. In this context, however, Tomekichi Taike refers to the world of vibration he conveyed—the true world that was transmitted through the physical presence of Tomekichi Taike. To "turn your heart to that world," to "encounter that world," or to "trust in that world"—please understand the expressions in this sense.
(July 2, 2000)
To Father
I'm glad you were able to come home from the hospital.
Let me speak to you honestly about what I feel right now. I know you have your own thoughts, but please read this.
I think you've at least glanced through the pamphlets, but what Mr. Taike conveys is this: Our true form is not this physical body, but consciousness. We are life that lives on eternally. I see your illness now as one of the "learning materials" given to me—not just to know this truth intellectually, but to learn it with my heart through actual practice.
Until now, I have recognized you, Mother, and Shin-chan (our beloved dog) as physical beings, believing that the visible world, beginning with the body, was the real world, and that happiness should be sought there. But I have come to realize that this way of thinking was completely mistaken, and that I am being urged to turn my heart around.
I want to face "death" without fear or aversion—to receive it calmly, even with joy. I want to be able to meet my own death with a heart that can say, "Mother, thank you for giving birth to me. I'm glad I was able to come into this life."
In this lifetime, through my karmic bond with you and Mother, I have been given this physical body and, at last, the opportunity to awaken to the truth. Thank you. Let us continue learning together. The path back to God is a path of joy. From here, I will walk only the path of a child of God, straight ahead, following the guideposts. Father, Mother—thank you. I am truly happy.
I find myself wondering—what is "the physical body"? It's because I have a body that I can recognize all these thoughts that arise. For so long, I believed that the physical body was who I was—that without it, I wouldn't exist, and that death meant the end. I thought that as long as there was form, there was existence; without form, there was nothing. I see now that I have been living entirely in the world of "the physical body."
What comes to me now are only the thoughts of my past—how I lived without the slightest doubt, based entirely on the body as the standard. My task in this lifetime is to speak to each and every one of those thoughts. I need to tell myself: It was because I clung so tightly to the body that I suffered; it was wrong to believe that death was terrifying and meant my existence would vanish.
That, I believe, is kindness. To love myself is to believe, with my heart, in the existence of my true self. Everything I've done so far, thinking it was for the good of my "life as the physical body," was in fact the coldest thing I could have done to myself.
I will turn my heart toward the self that continues to live within me, the self that has been suffering all along, and say, Let's walk together.
I thought I had lived a proper life as a human being, as a person. But I never realized that I had been using a heart full of pride and self-importance. Only now, here at this point in my life, do I see that all those thoughts I have used are an intense energy—completely distorted.
Still, the heart I have cultivated and the longing for God that I have carried are not things I can easily let go of. I have sought God. Through countless reincarnations, I have been one who searched for God. In this lifetime too, through many books, I tried in my own way to awaken to the truth, imagining a world apart from this transient one. And yet, in that world I imagined, I looked down on many people, seeing myself as exceptional, and sought to discover God within myself while holding on to that same heart.
I have looked down on my mother. I never allowed myself to lean on her. I couldn't even express my loneliness to her, instead retreating into my own shell. I grew up carrying a heart that couldn't run into my mother's arms. Without breaking out of the shell of "self," I let the years pass.
I believe God and Buddha reside in my heart. But I don't truly understand what that God or Buddha is. I want to be shown the God and Buddha I have been seeking and chasing all this time. Still, just being able to put this feeling into words now brings me some relief.
My Thoughts
I still perceive my father as the physical body. And yet, somehow, when he speaks, I feel my own thoughts overlapping with his. We are using the same heart, and so, in that sense, there is no distinction between "father" and "me."
Through my father, I believe I am being shown the thoughts I have cultivated in my own heart. I now see that the God I sought was mistaken. I believe my father and I are meant to learn together—in the world of consciousness.
If you'd like, I can also prepare August's diary entries in the same style so that the tone remains completely consistent throughout this chapter. This will make the English edition flow as if it were originally written in English.
(August 3, 2000)
My Thoughts
When I came home from work today, I saw my father and our dog sitting side by side outside. That scene came to mind just now as I was meditating. A very gentle feeling reached me, as if saying, "Be a kind person. I'm waiting for you."
In form, it was simply my father and the dog enjoying the cool evening air. But I realized that, in the world of consciousness, such moments are always sending out gentle vibrations. I am receiving so much love. And yet, I have so often failed to notice it, my heart always wanting more and more.
When I was little, if I had snacks in both hands and someone asked me to give one away, I simply couldn't be satisfied unless I kept both. Even if I had plenty, I still wanted more—always more for me. I have lived with a heart full of nothing but desire, clutching so much in both hands that pieces would slip out through the gaps, and yet still longing to receive more.
(October 28, 2000)
My Thoughts
I now find myself in a situation where I cannot help but think of death as something close and real. Turning my thoughts toward death inevitably brings me face-to-face with my greatest mistake—the belief that I am my physical body. I hit that wall, confronting the deepest obstacle in my heart.
It is a moment that forces the question: consciousness or the physical body? And now I am on the verge of an event that compels me to turn my heart toward consciousness. It was the death of another that first led me to this study. For someone like me, whose attachment to the physical is strong, this is the hurdle I have set for myself. In the past, I have always failed to overcome it. It appears to me as a high, towering obstacle within my heart.
Yet in this lifetime, I am learning that it can be cleared—that death is neither fear nor sorrow. Truly understanding this with my heart is what will save it. All I can do is believe in my own heart. All I can do is take the warmth I have felt and let it spread within me. The peace, the warmth, and the gentleness I feel when I turn my heart to Tomekichi Taike—this is my true self. All I must do is nurture my trust in that truth.
Through this event, I want to learn how to turn a heart bound to the physical body toward the world of consciousness. With a bright spirit that says, "Thank you for this life, and let's meet again in the next one," I want to continue learning together.
Message from My True Self
Let us learn together to release our hearts from the physical body. As long as we cling to the body, our hearts will know only suffering. Are you afraid of dying? We have experienced death countless times. In our hearts, there remains much fear of death. In past lives, all of us feared losing the body above all else, because we knew—deep within—that the world awaiting us after death could be harsh.
While living in the reality of having a body, it is difficult to truly take death as our own matter. We tend to look away, to postpone facing it, telling ourselves we don't want to see it, don't want to think about it. But now, I urge you: bring your own death to mind once more, and hold it in your heart.
You are consciousness. Your true form is consciousness. This is an undeniable fact—a truth. It is the only truth. The thought that you are the physical body is something you have carried in your heart for countless lifetimes, through death and rebirth again and again. That belief has become ingrained deep within you.
Yet you also know, in your heart, how to turn toward Tomekichi Taike, and that he represents your true heart. Your true self is always speaking to the part of you that believes it is the body. The only way to feel this is to close your eyes and align your heart with Tomekichi Taike.
Believe in your true self. I truly want you to understand, in your heart, that this body is not who you are. That is why you, your mother, and your father all took on the physical body and were born into this life—to learn, in your heart, to release it from the physical body.
Death is neither fear nor sorrow. Death is joy. Death is simply casting off the body of this life and preparing to connect with the next. When you die, you will still exist. Your mother and father will still exist. Speak to them heart to heart. Speak to them consciousness to consciousness.
Reach out to your father. In your own words, in your own heart, tell him about the world of the heart you have felt. But remember—he is you, and you are him. Consciousness is one. Simply share what you have understood in your own heart: that we were all together, that we were all blessed beings sustained in the embrace of love. Tell this to your father from your heart. Your father is surely waiting for the gentle, gentle you. Speak to him with kindness, and tell him:
"Father, we are consciousness. We are children of God, returning to God."
(November 1, 2000)
My Thoughts
I turned my thoughts toward the physical cells of a body I could only think must be in a near-death state.
What came back to me was nothing but joy—pure joy. Thank you, thank you, they said, rejoicing. They conveyed to me that being able to transmit love, to pass on the truth in this way, was happiness itself.
A beating heart, moving hands and feet—all of it had always been taken for granted. But I realized that each and every cell of the body had been patiently waiting for me to awaken. They had continued receiving the energy that flowed from my heart.
Without this study, I would never have touched such gentleness.
Physical body—or consciousness? Which will I truly believe in? That question is now placed right before me.I feel as if my suffering consciousness and another are serving as learning material for each other, studying together.
When I turned my thoughts toward the cells of the body, all I felt was their gentleness—how they waited, no matter how much they were damaged or destroyed by the energy I emitted.
When my heart was preoccupied only with preserving my physical body, I could never have felt such gentleness. I see again how foolish I have been—forgetting entirely why I was born into a physical body, taking pride in it, and doing nothing but protect it.
I came into this life carrying the thoughts of many past selves—filled with curses, resentment, loneliness, and sorrow—hoping that someone would receive them.
Mother, thank you. Mother, thank you. Thank you, thank you—I am happy. I am happy that you gave birth to me.
This is my repentance. Even though I was given this body, I misunderstood its meaning. But here, I have been told that I am consciousness. To know in my heart that my life had truly been mistaken—and to feel joy in that realization—fills me with gratitude.
Now, I wish to end this life quietly. I want to carry the warmth that has been conveyed to my heart into my next life, without forgetting it.
Though in this lifetime I never met the physical Tomekichi Taike, I believe that in my next life I will surely meet you. I want to leave this body with words of thanks to everyone: Thank you, thank you.
If you can release this body with a heart full of gratitude, isn't that the greatest joy?
Until the very end, the body's cells are sending you love. Everything is sustained within love. I am happy to be able to tell you this now.
By taking on a body, we have finally been able to meet like this. I will do my work and bring this physical life to a close—and so will you. Keep letting love flow from your heart.
I believe in Tomekichi Taike. Please, in your heart, truly know the vibration that flows from me. Become someone overflowing with love. Love heals everything. The vibration of joy heals everything. I am joy. I, who believe in Tomekichi Taike from the depths of my heart, am joy.
I was the one who understood the least. Even after being allowed to attend seminar after seminar, even after being given the chance to know my own energy in the time of phenomena, I still understood the least. My heart clung to my father's body. I saw him as the physical body and disregarded consciousness entirely.
I neatly separated "study" from "this is this" within myself. In truth, my feelings were simply, "Father, don't die." I clung to his body, asking why only he had to die so early.
And yet, my father was telling me:
"Thank you, thank you. I am happy—happy to have met you in this lifetime. Please, do not grieve. This body is ill and has only a short time left, but we will always be together. Always, always together. I was Tomekichi Taike. I was Tomekichi Taike. Thank you."
Though in my heart I had killed him many times, my father gave me love. He taught me. It was love that showed me the darkness in my heart.
Even now, his body is telling me, right to the very end:
"We are consciousness. We are consciousness. Let us continue learning together. Let me learn from you, and you from me. In this lifetime we were given the bond of parent and child. From you, I learned of Tomekichi Taike. And through this body, I want you to learn—that we are beings who live forever. Learn it well in your heart."
Thank you, thank you, thank you—these are the words I want to tell you. I am happy to have met Tomekichi Taike in this lifetime. In the next life, I will meet you again. Ah, Albert, Albert—I will be waiting for you in America. I will not forget this heart, and I will meet you in the next life without fail. Thank you, thank you. I am happy—so happy.
My Thoughts
Ah, I want to believe, I want to believe—but feelings of resentment toward you arise. I did not believe in consciousness. I am sorry.
The attachment of my physical-body-bound heart to my father's body is unbearably painful. Don't leave me, don't leave me. I don't want to be alone. Being alone is unbearable—so frightening.
Fear and sorrow from being torn apart in the physical body arise. My heart holds sadness and fear too great to contain. It is I who have feared death. It is I who have hated parting in the physical body.
This deep sorrow, this loneliness—I grip it tightly. That is why I did not want to be born. I feared facing once again the time when I would have to part in the physical body. I did not want to remember this heart.
Yet Tomekichi Taike tells me: Accept it with joy. To believe that you are consciousness means exactly that.
Message from Tomekichi Taike
That you were born, that your mother brought you into this world—this is a great joy. In the heart that has lived as the physical body, there remains the fear of death and the belief that death is sorrow. I tell you that death, too, is joy.
When the time comes for you to face death, you will see clearly what your heart is holding. While you have a body, learn well. Know, in your heart, the vibration that flows from me. Practice aligning your heart with mine.
I want you to know true love. Through my body now, and through the way I face death, I want you to learn in your heart. Let us learn together. Please tell me what you have come to understand in your heart.
In this life, I walked the wrong path. Even though I was given the chance to meet Tomekichi Taike, I could not abandon the path I believed in, clinging to pride—and I regret that deeply. Yet I want to believe in the thoughts and vibrations that flow from your heart. Please tell me. Tell this foolish father.
My Thoughts
I understood nothing. I conveyed nothing to my own heart. My father, I believe, is teaching me this.
All I had to do was align my heart with Tomekichi Taike. I think I had forgotten the very starting point of this study.
I will believe in myself. Deepening the trust that I am Tomekichi Taike—that was everything.
In my heart I know: in my next life, I will meet you. And what I have learned in this life, I will surely carry forward. I promised to loosen this belief in the physical body and know that I am consciousness.
In my next life, I will meet Albert in America. I will meet you—without fail.
I am your future consciousness. We have always been together. Together, always together. My heart expands toward the future, and farther into the future still. My consciousness spreads endlessly, endlessly through this universe.
I want to share with you the joy overflowing from my heart.
Message from Tomekichi Taike
In this lifetime, I took on a body. For the awakening of all consciousness, I appeared before you in the physical body. I told you to turn your hearts toward me, to know the vibration that flows from me. Those who have begun to send forth the vibration of joy are slowly, steadily increasing.
From here, everything begins. The universe will change. Consciousness awakened to the vibration of Tomekichi Taike will change the universe. Words are no longer necessary. A world where hearts connect directly will spread.
(December 1, 2000)
My Thoughts
I was born into this lifetime to meet Tomekichi Taike. Father, Mother—thank you. As I had wished, I have met Tomekichi Taike and am receiving abundant love so that I may awaken to the truth. We are consciousness returning together. I am so very, very happy.
At last, I can believe in my heart that I have been so deeply loved, so completely forgiven. Thank you, Tomekichi Taike. I believe in you, and I will accept all my past lives. The future was already within me now, and the past has always been with me. I am truly happy. Meeting you, Tomekichi Taike, fills me with joy beyond measure. I need nothing else. I will simply walk the path I chose for myself, together with the Tomekichi Taike in my heart, and with Albert. I will keep believing in you, over and over again.
From the distant past, I had abandoned my own heart. I had cast away both Tomekichi Taike and my mother. I was the one who discarded warmth. I am sorry—so sorry. And yet, you have always been with me. How many times, and with what feelings, have I cast you aside, even killed you in my heart? Still, you never changed; you told me to remember love, to remember the heart of love. You held me in your arms without change, telling me, "We are always together. You and I are one."
I will open my heart. I will believe in the heart you have shown me. To be able to believe that we have always been together—this makes me happy now.
Perhaps I am now spending the happiest and most peaceful time of my life. Outwardly, the reality is severe. But for me, this is my happiest time. My heart is at peace. My physical cells are supporting me to the very end, continually sending me the energy of love. Everyone around me has been like that—they have all been love. I am only now beginning to realize this.
I am happy now. Through long cycles of reincarnation, I have sought God again and again. I wanted to explore to the utmost the world of God and Buddha. But no matter how much I sought, I could never attain enlightenment. What remained in my heart was self-condemnation. I was a consciousness that stayed in the lonely world, keeping my heart closed.
I looked down on everything. I was always above others. Mother, please forgive me. I have looked down on you time and again. Without ever noticing your warmth, I shut myself away in my own world. Yet you always spoke to me, always wrapped me in the gentle warmth of your heart.
I sought that warmth in my wife. I wanted to lean on your kindness. But you, too, cried out in loneliness. In this lifetime, we were given the bond of husband and wife so that we could see and correct our hearts. I am deeply grateful to you. I think that, for you, I was a most troublesome existence, not a good husband, not able to do anything truly husbandly. Yet meeting you and being your husband has made me very happy. Our children have grown well. And now, at this age, I am glad I have finally realized my mistakes.
From my own body, I have learned the energy I have been releasing. All I wish now is to treasure each day and spend what time remains with you all. Your study, and the presence of Tomekichi Taike, I feel, are what I have been seeking all along. I now believe this is the truth. With the time I have left, I want to continue learning together. And I look forward to meeting you again in my next life.
The following was written by my father at the dining table, saying he wanted to put down his present state of mind while his head was still clear, as he would soon begin taking stronger pain medication. One month later, he entered the hospital.
With only a few days left before my hospitalization and my "departure" into the next life, I will write this brief testament, separate from my previous will.
Looking back over the past forty years, I reflect on what a completely inadequate husband and father I have been, and with that as a springboard, I now find happiness in being able to spend what remains of my life interacting with my family with a pure human heart.
To be able to recognize that human beings live under the watchful care of a comprehensive "love," and to be able to face death quietly with such a state of mind, makes me feel deeply what a fortunate person I am. My one wish is to maintain this feeling until the very end.
I will live each day with the desire to lessen, if only in part, the depth and weight of the "karma" I carry.
I hope to enjoy the joy of meeting my family again in my next life (including, of course, Shin).
After I am gone, please take utmost care and continue your path in the "world of study."
With deep meaning in the word joy, I close this note with: "Thank you, farewell."
December 4, 2000, 11:50 a.m.
That my father wrote such a piece shows that, through his illness, he was indeed facing himself until the end of his physical life. Though he never once attended the seminars my mother and I went to, I believe he felt in his heart that this study was telling us the truth.
While he still had some strength left, my father had already completed most of his personal affairs. He himself told his son and his brothers that no funeral or memorial services were necessary. I believe this was a sign of something he had realized in the six months since leaving the hospital—he had come to know in his heart that such rites were unnecessary. In accordance with his wishes, we three—my mother, my brother, and I—along with a few family members, held neither wake nor funeral.
From yesterday into today, whenever I close my eyes, tears come—though not from a leaping joy, but from a quiet, deep happiness. All that comes is gratitude. And in that, my thoughts go to my father. Father, thank you. You allowed me to bring out so much darkness from within. You conveyed so much to me. Through his physical body, my father gave me countless opportunities to awaken.
Even though I had cursed his illness and cursed him, now there is nothing but gratitude. I have hated him, resented him—but still, I love him. Many physical-body-bound thoughts still arise, wanting both my father and my mother to live long lives.
My thoughts go to my father's cells. They have done nothing but convey love to us, nothing but give us time, enduring strong medication. Truly—thank you.
Learn. Please, learn together with me. In this lifetime, we were given the bond of parent and child. Everything was planned by us as consciousness—a path toward awakening to our true selves. Please go forward joyfully. I exist now for the sake of learning together.
In the past, I released unspeakable feelings, committed acts of extreme cruelty over and over, and lived with a heart that would neither forgive nor be forgiven. Yet through it all, something remained unchanged—an energy that supported my very existence. I had forgotten that I was living within it, and in forgetting, everything went wrong.
In this lifetime, I have met Tomekichi Taike. I am joyful. To my father and my mother, I have nothing but thank you. You kept your promise to me. You believed in me. That has made me happy.
I took on a physical body so that I could meet Tomekichi Taike. In my heart, I knew I would meet him in this country, Japan. It was a scenario I had given myself. I have written many more scenarios into my heart so that I might awaken to the truth. That is why there was never anything to resent—everything has gone exactly as scripted, for the sake of awakening to the truth.
It has been a long, long journey—a lonely, painful journey. But from now on, it will be different. We will always be together, I was told. And now, at last, I can believe it. I am happy. To feel that we can walk together—that makes me truly happy.
(January 14, 2001 — One Day Before My Father's Death)
My Thoughts
Right now, I am here with my father. The physical body's flesh has fallen from his cheeks, the muscles from his arms, his spine stands out sharply, and only his eyes seem large now. The only thing he can take by mouth is thin rice gruel; even medicine can no longer be swallowed and must be given by suppository.
And yet his mind is still clear, and we can still have actual conversations—so there is still some room in my heart. I do not know what feelings will arise when I am faced with the final moment itself, but when I turn my thoughts to my father, to the cells of his body, the feeling that comes is: You have done so well to come this far.
It makes me happy to know that through this illness, even if only a little, my father has turned toward Tomekichi Taike. I still have many attachments within me. I do want him to live longer, but I also know that if he or my mother were to linger long in illness and dependency, I might have the opposite feeling.
If I can firmly know the truth—the real self—within me, then no matter what situation I face, I believe I will not lose myself. A person's death, and the moment of facing one's own death—these are the times we can learn the most. The heart that cries, "I don't want to die"—and the heart that can release the body with gratitude—what heart we hold in that moment depends entirely on whether, while we still have a body, we truly feel and believe in Albert's vibration.
(January 15, 2001 — Early Morning)
My father passed away.
Father, Father—being your daughter is something I am truly proud of. You drew out so much of the darkness in my heart. Your body poured love into me, saying, "Awaken."
You were irreplaceable to me. I want to cherish and nurture the heart I received from you. I directed toward you thoughts of hatred and curses, killing you over and over in my heart. Yet you embraced it all, accepted it all.
Determined to let us feel as little as possible of the pain and fear of your own death, you faced it head-on and reached a state where you could accept it with joy. I bow my head to your attitude and your heart. Thanks to you, I think I was finally able to take this study seriously and make a great turning of my heart.
You often said, "A person's life is defined at the time of their death." We will all face the time when we must cast off the body. Each of us will return to our own world of consciousness.
Now, I want to tell you: "We are consciousness. Joy is our true form."
I believe I was given the bond of parent and child in this lifetime to convey to you true love. And you helped me so much in that. We are happy consciousnesses, given bodies in this world so we might awaken together to the truth. I am only now beginning to truly know this in my heart.
Father, I was so happy to have this parent–child bond with you in this life. I will not forget your heart. Even after the body is gone, I am happy that I can still speak with you like this.
We were consciousness. We are life eternal, beings of joy—and that is what I want to tell you. Let us continue learning together. Thank you for pouring so much love into me.
When the time comes for me to cast off this body, I, too, want to hold in my heart the thought: "Thank you, body. Thank you, everyone."—and end this life quietly.
I do not yet know what kind of death I will face. But as I go forward in this study, I want to keep my eyes on my own death, and walk a life of joy.
Father, thank you for this lifetime.
The Meaning of the Vessel Called the Body
In this way, I was allowed to learn together with my father's consciousness. I believe that only when a person comes face to face with death do they truly look back at themselves. My father's passing, I understand, was something that served to make the path toward truth—already beginning to sprout within me—more certain.
The months I spent learning together with my father's consciousness held profound meaning for me. They gave me the chance to truly feel, in my heart, what it means for us humans to possess the vessel called the body, and what the state of its contents will be once the vessel is discarded. They taught me the importance of coming to know these things in my heart while I still inhabit this vessel.
Furthermore, in the time between my father's release of the body and his being placed in the coffin and cremated, the words his consciousness spoke through me struck me deeply. It was, without question, an event that became the beginning of my turning toward consciousness. "A human being is consciousness"—that is what I felt clearly when I turned my thoughts to my father only hours after his death. At the same time, I could not help but see that my own attitude toward this study had been lacking.
When one regards the body as the true self, death is an unbearably heavy event. There is a heart that shuns death, always wanting to postpone it. But the moment of death will surely come for everyone. Only by facing squarely the thoughts that arise in our hearts in that moment can we truly savor, from the depths of our being, the meaning, importance, joy, and happiness of having been born into the body.
"A human being is not the body. We have simply taken on this vessel, and the breaking of the vessel does not mean our extinction." This was something I wanted to come to know in the reality of daily life. I believe this is why, during a period of ongoing seminars, it was set that I would face the death of someone close to me and learn through that event. As planned, I was able to fully experience the joy of learning through such a phenomenon. My father's illness and the time leading to his death were exactly that for me.
Seven years earlier, when my husband died, I had no space in my heart to consider what I might feel and learn from a body afflicted, its cells failing, wasting away. But in this case, I believe I was desperately trying to face death head-on. If we spend that precious time with our hearts devoted only to begging for life, all we will taste is suffering. In the face of death, the way to feel gratitude for having been born is to devote oneself entirely to turning the heart toward consciousness.
At that time, I had finally reached a point where I could fully feel, through my own body, the energy I had been storing within me. The more I released the energies of "Damn you" and "I'll kill you," the more I could sense that, deep beneath that ferocity, there remained the warm, genuine gentleness—the warmth—that was my true self. My heart was surely coming to grasp what real gentleness and real warmth are. I think my father, sensing his own death drawing near, was acutely aware of these changes in me.
"One so proud as my daughter has changed," my father wrote simply in a brief letter to Tomekichi Taike on a summer's day, expressing the joy in his own heart. He sent those few lines to someone he had never met. He did tell us that he had written to Mr. Taike, but my mother and I only learned what he had written when Mr. Taike told us himself.
My father's wish to meet the man who had changed his daughter, if only to say a word of thanks, was conveyed to Mr. Taike. But in the end, it never came to pass due to my father's physical condition. "Though I was the one who requested it, I could not keep my promise for my own reasons. I am sorry," my father said in a short exchange with Mr. Taike over the phone.
I believe this chain of events happened because my father's consciousness had begun, however slightly, to move toward the truth. And because these things happened, his consciousness moved further still, leading to the letter dated December 4, 2000. That final writing is proof that, in his own way, my father was learning up until his death. That was his scenario for this lifetime—a scenario necessary for taking steps toward the truth.
In our daily lives, we may idle away our time, or pursue only the pleasures and joys of the physical world—and no one will reproach us for it. Yet, I believe, there is a restlessness deep in every heart. That restlessness will take form in daily life—in incidents, accidents, illness, and many other ways. Because we do not know what it truly is, we carry it to the end of life, closing it away, and thus close our lives in self-deception.
In this lifetime, I was able to unravel that restlessness within myself, because my longing to meet my true self was so strong. That restlessness led to my father's depression, my failed university entrance exam, my marriage, my husband's early death, my encounter with Tomekichi Taike, my participation in the seminars, and finally my father's death. Every one of these was a piece and a measure of time placed exactly where it belonged—my own pieces, my own allotted time.
This is not something that applies only to me. Each person has their own pieces and their own allotted time, and all of them are placed without error. Still, there are cases where we pass them by without recognizing their value. Each piece is telling us something, but sadly, the consciousness that believes the body to be the self is too proud to receive it straightforwardly as a message to oneself. Unless a warning bell is sounded loudly enough, it becomes difficult to turn our attention to the truth. The belief in the body wastes both our pieces and our allotted time.
How we use the pieces and the time we have prepared for ourselves to grow—that, I believe, is each person's life. Growth does not mean becoming an admirable figure or amassing wealth; it means being reborn as someone who knows the true reason for having been born.
If you were to ask people in general, "Tell me about yourself," most would probably recount the path from their upbringing to the present, and then perhaps share what they are currently thinking or what dreams they are pursuing. But in the end, no matter how much of that you list, it does not amount to truly telling who you are. One's upbringing, circumstances, family, work, and dreams are merely adornments. No matter how much you talk about the adornments, you do not touch the core of the person. They are all shadows, and no matter how much you describe a shadow, it is still a shadow—something that will vanish.
Looking back, my father was born with a sensitive heart. He did not know how to manage that sensitivity within himself, and because of that, he was labeled with what society calls mental illness, while he himself was merely tossed about by his own sensitive heart.
As for me—immersed in the physical world—I feared and despised my father's state, as though he were possessed by something, and I hated and killed him in my heart countless times. Through my father, I was being taught about the muddy depths of my own consciousness, yet I spent my days in sadness, resentment, and despair. I made no move to free myself from that state, living instead immersed in it. All of it was the foolishness of someone who could see no reality beyond the world that treats the body as the self.
Somewhere in this world, there must be the truth. The scenario I set for myself was designed to make the foolish me—who believed the body was the self—turn my thoughts toward the voice of my heart, which was seeking the truth. That scenario included my father's illness and death, and my meeting and parting with my husband. I had prepared for myself the chance to ask, in the most thorough way possible: Why was I born into this world? How should I live so that I can be truly satisfied in my heart?
A Life According to Scenario
Looking back, I see that, as the physical self, I lived many days filled with sorrow, hardship, worry, and lament. Yet now, I can feel that I have not been weighed down or sunk by those feelings. The memories are there and cannot be erased, but I believe my path was the right one. No—more than that—it has been exactly according to the scenario. I rejoice simply in having been able to walk in loyalty and sincerity to my true self.
There are countless thoughts I have cultivated by regarding the body as myself, yet now, because of them, I feel no need to condemn myself or think that I am no good. It was only that I did not know the truth. Because of that ignorance, I crawled through the depths of hell. And I came into this life having resolved to turn my consciousness around within the time and space of this lifetime. My mother gave birth to me. I have been only faithful and sincere to myself.
I have walked the path set out for me, and I will continue walking it calmly from here on. To all the consciousnesses I have encountered along the way—my father, my mother, my husband—I can only say "thank you." I was made to meet the pitch-black self within me. How often did I shout, "Die! Die! Disappear from my sight!" Toward the physical form before me, all the thoughts from my past rose up in unison, crying out from the reality of my world of consciousness. It is something beyond words to describe, and I can truly say that I have climbed up from the very depths of hell. Now, in my heart, there echoes a cry of joy: I was born into this darkness; I was given life.
I have never thought of myself as a chosen consciousness, nor as one with a special mission. I have simply climbed up from the depths of hell. I had utterly denied warmth, because I believed that warmth would ultimately betray me. I carried in my heart a deep resentment, convinced that warmth had cast me into hell. But all of that warmth was only the warmth grounded in the physical world. When the heart becomes truly sensitive, such things can be felt and seen in the heart. And so it was with the physical form of Tomekichi Taike—it existed to convey the truth. Thus, no other physical form caught my attention. My sole focus was the physical form of Tomekichi Taike.
Of course, when the heart truly becomes sensitive, it is as if one is not even looking at that physical form, though it is before one's eyes. By seeing the body of Tomekichi Taike—his appearance—by hearing the sounds he uttered, and ultimately by meeting his gaze, I could feel, through my own body, the energies welling up and surging forth from my own world of consciousness. That, I believe, is what it means for the heart to be truly sensitive.
Such a sensitive heart will surely come to grasp the message: You are warmth. You are joy. Yet I could not accept that immediately. Having utterly denied and rejected warmth, I continued to challenge Tomekichi Taike to the very end. Each time I saw him, energies would erupt from within me like magma: "I'll gouge out your eyes! I'll strangle you!" In fact, there was even a time when I placed my hands on his neck and tried to strangle him with both hands. I experienced myself countless times as a mass of energy so intense it made my insides boil.
It may sound strange, but it was not strange at all. It was because I myself am energy, and so is Tomekichi Taike. Energy reacts to energy—repelling, and eventually, merging. I have walked that process within my own heart. And this, precisely, was the channeling I had long awaited.
Predictions, prophecies, reading others' consciousness—these no longer satisfied me. What I came to feel in my heart when I broke through the shell of the physical self—if that is called channeling, then this is the true channeling. And it goes without saying that this was the world I had truly longed to meet. Now, I am certain that this world is Albert.
The energies I had cultivated within myself had denied all warmth—but that was a great mistake. The reality of meeting the self that can say, I am warmth. I am the energy of joy—this is something immovable within me.
And now, I have arrived at this point.
If I were asked now to speak of myself, I could say plainly: I am a consciousness born from the depths of hell, and I am a consciousness walking in joy together with Albert. But that is only if I am asked. In daily life, I live quietly and ordinarily. And in those calm, uneventful hours, I feel an indescribable joy. Perhaps it is because I am certain that my true essence is consciousness—something that exists eternally within the endless flow of time—and that to reach this state is what it means to live a true life.
And now, what about you? What kind of life have you walked until now? And how will you live from here on?