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Humankind was created by God at Jiba and has ever since been sustained and nurtured by God, the Parent of all humanity. Our worth and dignity as human beings come from the fact that we are children of God. Always embraced by divine providence, we live in the bosom of God, our Parent. God's intention in creating humankind was to see us live the Joyous Life and to share in that joy. The d'être of humanity--that is, the significance of our lives--lies in working to realize the Joyous Life so desired by God. The Joyous Life in which God and humans dwell in perfect union can become a reality when our minds become spirited, thus allowing God to be spirited. God desires only our happiness; in fact, joy that we experience is itself God's joy. We are endowed with a mind and a body. Although the body is something we borrow temporarily from God and is under the direct protection of God, the mind is something we are given the freedom to use in any way we want. This freedom of the mind provides the basis for our autonomy and responsibility. Conscious and aware of our actions, we live as free and responsible beings and are to take responsibility for all our actions. In the Scriptures of Tenrikyo, the phrases "human mind" and "human thinking" are used in contradistinction to "single-heartedness with God." The mind, which constitutes part of our human essence, is the sole avenue for, and holds the key to, understanding God's intention, yet what is termed "human mind" or "human thinking" can potentially cloud the mind and lead us to behave in ways contrary to God's mind or intention. God warns about this tendency to deviate from God's intention and accumulate "dust" and describes the human mind as "shallow." The human mind, we are told, is shortsighted, believes only in tangible things, and refuses to have faith in the teachings of God, who forewarns of what lies ahead. The phrases "human mind" and "human thinking" also imply narrow-mindedness. Nevertheless, humanity is not inherently evil or sinful according to Tenrikyo's Scriptures, which speak of all humans as the beloved children of God. True, human effort alone will not lead to the total elimination of the mind's dust, and we tend to accumulate dust and reinforce causality. Yet given God's offer to serve as the "broom," it is possible to purify the mind if we respond to God's parental love and providence by working to sweep out the dust. God says that there is no one in the world who is evil. Because of "training in wisdom and letters" provided by God over the course of human evolution, we are equipped with self-awareness and reflective consciousness, through which we can examine reality and inquire into the origin of life. By endowing us with the capacity to seek and awaken to God's heart, God made humankind a partner in fulfilling God's intention. Furthermore, in response to our efforts to seek God, the origin of our own being and the source of all reality, God became openly revealed on October 26, 1838--which marked the arrival of the "promised time"--and taught the ultimate meaning and goal of human life. We have since been in a position to make conscious efforts to fulfill the mission of realizing the Joyous Life World. The history of God's salvation thus entered a new phase in which humans, who can develop culture, are to participate and cooperate proactively in the endeavor to realize God's intention in creating humankind and the world. (This article was first published in the October 2006 issue of TENRIKYO.) |
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