Great Construction

Civilization With a Soul

     To convey the concept of the phrase “with a soul” of the title in another way, I would write ⦿, merely a circle with a dot inside, but actually there is nothing as mysterious and sublime as the shape of ⦿. The circle, or ◯, is the shape of all in creation. To begin, the earth, the sun, and the moon have this shape. When human beings become spirit, they take the shape of ◯ when they move about. When the spirit of the dead become visible to human beings, this shape is often taken. Even God, when moving, becomes the shape of ◯, but even with the same shape, the ◯ of God is a ball of light. The ◯ of human beings are not light but a hazy body of yellow or white color. Men’s are yellow, and those of women are white. These colors correspond to the sun and the moon.
     Leaving the basic explanation at this extent, the essential point is that this world is an ◯, but ◯ is only a circle; the inside is hollow, empty. To compare it to a human being, it has no soul. When a ・, a dot, that is, a soul, is placed in the middle of this circle, it becomes a living human being. Since it is able to function and act, ⦿ is the shape of emptiness that has gained a soul. From long ago, the phrase used by artists, “putting in the soul,” that is, putting on the finishing touches, means this very thing.
    Accordingly, the world did not have the dot, that is, a soul, until now which is the same significance as when I wrote that our culture is only an outline, a contour, and has no content. This logic can be observed in all aspects of culture. One of these are medical science’s symptomatic therapies for disease to which I continually refer where injections are administered to paralyze regions of pain or itchiness, or where ointments are applied, and where fevers are cooled with ice, all instances where purification activity is suppressed with drugs. Pain is avoided temporarily, but the central problem is not addressed, so complete healing is of course impossible, and with time the condition will inevitably reoccur. Medical treatment is only a postponement of disease. Pathology, the cause of disease, is also in the dot, and this fact has not been understood until now.
     Criminality is the same. At present, the only way of handling crime are the methods that chastise and make criminals suffer with penalties. Since these methods are the same as the symptomatic therapies of medical science, after committing their first offense, criminals will go on to commit crime several times or several dozen times. There are even some who have spent more of their lives behind bars than on the outside. The cause is that there is no dot, no soul. War is the same. If enough armaments are amassed, enemies have no chance of winning, so conflict ceases temporarily. Conflict is only postponed, so it is a clear fact from history that some day conflict will inevitably begin. From these perspectives it should be obvious that culture until the present has been only ◯, lacking the dot.
     I am often speak of the ninety-nine percent and the one percent, and when the dot is put in the circle, the ninety-nine will be transformed by the one. In other words, it means that the evil of ninety-nine will be resuscitated by the good of one. Just when it seems that the circle will be covered in black, with the power of the dot, the black will be completely eliminated and the whole circle will become white, so on a global scale, a seed, truth will be put into the vacuous civilization. In other words, a soul will be put into civilization. When such occurs, civilization which until now has been only form, akin to the dead, will be revived which will be the birth of a new world.

Eikō, Issue 173, page A1, September 10, 1952
translated by cynndd

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“⦿ no Bunka,” originally published on the front page of Eikō, Issue 173, September 10, 1952, and while Meishu-sama still alive, reprinted in the essays anthology for ministers Goshinsho: Shūkyō-hen (Divine Writings: Volume on Religion), March 29, 1954, page 212, has appeared in translation. Citation is given below for reference.

“The Civilization of ⦿ (Su),” Foundation of Paradise, 1984, page 47.

“The Civilization of Su,” Teachings of Meishu-sama, Volume Four, 2007, page 72.

“⦿ Civilization,” Meishu and His Teachings, no date, page 11.

“The Point in the Circle,” A Hundred Teachings of Meishusama, no date, page 28.