Great Construction

God Is Justice

     I write here under this self-evident title because not only people in general, but even missionaries and followers often forget that God is justice. Our religion especially emphasizes justice and virtue, but some followers, though very few, deviate from the highway of religion faith and stray in mistaken directions. They invariably receive warnings from God. If they ignore these warnings, they will be given a crushing below from God.
     Followers are generally very honestly impressed while they are still in the stage of novices by the divine virtues and miracles. If they earnestly continue their religious faith and as far as it continues to be correct, they will be abundantly blessed with divine bounty and respected by others. Their living will also be greatly improved. They should be more grateful for divine mercy and do their best in answering for it.
     Alas, however, here comes the human weakness. With the lapse of time, they become callous to divine mercy. They become self-centered and unguarded. Evil spirits are watching for such a chance and enter and occupy them. These spirits can a\now handle such bodies as they please. How dangerous it is! Evil spirits like to possess people more, who are ambitious and of great use. However, if followers continue their correct religious faith, they are safe, because evil spirits can do nothing with these followers and they have to abandon the hope of possessing them. There are, however, a few followers who are possessed by evil spirits. One can never be too cautious on this point.
     There is a standard by which a person can know whether he is safe or not. The standard is whether one possess selfish love or not. If one is motivated by the cause for God and mankind, and not by one’s own interest, evil spirits can do nothing with one. However, with small success, one can become conceited and consider oneself great. This is the critical moment. One becomes ambitious and wishes to give the impression of greatness and influence many people. This is horrible. Evil spirits will enter more and more deeply into such a one’s soul, and completely occupy it in the end. Moreover, if these evil spirits happen to be influential ones they can command spiritual power of considerable magnitude. They can even cure, though temporarily, invalids or show other miracles. Such a person becomes therefore more and more conceited. In the end, he begins to consider himself as a representative of a certain god or that he is a living god.
     Almost all of founders of new religions are “living gods” of this type. As they are not true gods, soon their time comes and they are ruined. If one carefully observes founders or so-called “living gods” of questionable religions, one can easily find the criteria distinguishing them from genuine ones. Their most outstanding features are: lack of love; their religious faith is of the “Shojo” (See note)[*] and ruled by severe commandments; they try to maintain their followers by threatening them with punishment by their gods, or that followers who leave their organization or abandon their faith will perish or lose their lives. They try to stop rebellion in their followers by threatening them. This maybe called a forced religious faith. If one notices any trace of the forementioned, one can safely say that such religions are being influenced by an evil god.
     Correct religious faith, as I always maintain, should be of the “Daijo” (See note)[*] and free. Followers should be completely free in maintaining or abandoning their religious faith. They should be bright and cheerful; they should look something like the inhabitants of Paradise. To the contrary, if any religion is ruled by severe and strict commandments, such a religion is an evil religion. Followers of such religions are living infernal lives on account of their religious belief. Should any religion have secrets of which followers are admonished not to reveal to outsiders, such a religion is also a foul religion. Correct religious faith has no secrets, and is thoroughly bright and cheerful.

The Glory, Number 004, page 1, February 1, 1955

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*”See note” in text refers to a piece to the right of “God Is Justice” on the same page that contains excerpts of three different essays on the subject of daijo and shojo.