Spoiling Yourself and Forgiving Yourself Are Two Different Things.
You want to know the difference between forgiving oneself and spoiling oneself.
Every human being has a tendency to want to indulge themselves.
Suppose you make a mistake. You want to indulge by thinking, “It can’t be helped. Everyone else is doing it, too.” This is a form of self-indulgence. You may not have the courage or energy to take on the challenge. Then you may want to blame others, saying that the environment is to blame or the society is to blame. This is also a form of self-indulgence. You are protecting yourself and passing all the blame to others.
Some other people make excuses, saying that they were born bad, that they have no talent, or that no matter how hard they try they will never succeed, and they keep to themselves. They do not have the courage to look at themselves clearly. So, they cover it up. They cover themselves up.
To truly forgive yourself is not like that. It is not to blame your Hon-shin*. Here is an individual. It is not the divine branched self of Divine Life, but the self that is acting on its own habitual thoughts and feelings, which you think you are. The self that thinks that you are weak-minded, short-tempered, or stubborn is not the divine branched self of Divine Life.
Hon-shin: The true mind, literally translated, is the divine self of a person, or real you, that comes from the Divine realm.
Therefore, you should not allow such things to spoil you. If you allow your Gō-sōnen* self, which is always circulating in the physical and subconscious realms, you will never become a perfect person.
Gō-sōnen: Karmic thoughts which came to exist when we defined ourselves as physical entities. They have been accumulated in the subconscious realm of humans from the past lives up to the present.
To forgive yourself is not like that. Suppose you lose your temper, speak ill of others, become overbearing, resentful, hateful, and so on. If you blame yourself saying, “Oh, I shouldn’t think like this. I shouldn’t. Oh, I’m no good. I’m no good,” you are getting away from your Hon-shin, grabbing the Gō* that is appearing in reincarnation to disappear, and imposing on your Hon-shin that you are no good, no good. They are all Kieteyuku Sugata. So, let us think, “Oh, I will not have them again. They are the process where our past Innen* have just appeared to vanish. Let us not bring them back. Let us live a bright, righteous, and courageous life. May peace prevail on earth,” and throw all our negative thoughts and actions into the Prayer for World Peace. Such is to forgive yourself, and then you do not blame your Hon-shin.
Gō: A law of the universe that a cause takes an effect as ‘you reap what you sow.’ It also means Gō-sōnen.
Kieteyuku Sugata: The process of fading away, literally translated, which is the essential view in the practice of praying the Prayer for World Peace.
Innen: The cause that brings an effect.
Hon-shin is life that has been branched out from the Divine, and it is perfectly rounded and flawless. There is not a single defect in it. To blame your Hon-shin is to insult the Divine, and it is a thing to be sorry for. All negative thoughts and actions are just Kieteyuku Sugata while the true self is perfectly rounded, right, and bright.
There is a tendency in humanity to indulge in bad habits, in drinking, in weakness, and to sink into loneliness. But if you just allow yourself to sink into them, they will not go away. Indulging yourself means allowing yourself to be immersed in them.
If you truly understand the truth of Kieteyuku Sugata, there is no way you will allow yourself to be spoiled by Gō. It is a spoiled mind that defends your Gō.
Kieteyuku Sugata and the shift in perspective
The perspective and practice of Kieteyuku Sugata do not confront Gō. It is not you. The principle of Kieteyuku Sugata is that Kieteyuku Sugata is the process by which your Innen from your past lives appears to vanish and that the real you is one with the Divine; perfectly rounded, bright and shining. Therefore, it is a misinterpretation of the truth if you say that short temper is Kieteyuku Sugata and cannot be helped and do not try to erase it at all. Then you are not practicing Kieteyuku Sugata, but you are spoiling yourself.
It is not Kieteyuku Sugata if you say Kieteyuku Sugata in words but continue to hold it in your mind forever without letting it go. The truth is that no one is born lonely, no one is born sad, nor is there such a thing as a short-tempered nature.
They are not there, but they remain from past lives as habitual thoughts. They remain, but when they appear, they are Kieteyuku Sugata, appearing to disappear. Because they are something created, they are not infinite but finite, destined to disappear and fade away. What we can do to make them disappear more quickly is to throw them into the Prayer for World Peace as you have them. Or you can turn them into bright thoughts. You just change your view. But it is not so easy to change your point of view. So, you can put all your thoughts into the great and universal love of humanity, like the Prayer for World Peace; the wish for peace and happiness for all humanity.
You can just throw your Gō-sōnen into the prayer: May peace prevail on earth. Once you have thrown them in, that is all there is to do with them. That is all. If you still say, “I am short-tempered,” or “I am weak-minded,” you bring them back. You understand, don’t you?
Divine Love and emotional love
When I say, “Don’t allow yourself to be spoiled by Gō,” I do not mean that it is wrong to be innocently easy with your loved ones. When I say, “Don’t allow yourself to be spoiled,” I mean that you should not allow your Gō-sōnen to spoil you. It is a pleasant and meaningful part of life to be innocently pampered by your parents or to be sweetened by one another with your best friends. If you say that we should not pamper at all, we will not be able to exchange love at all. It is impossible for human beings to do such a thing.
Where people love each other, there is Amae*. The Love of the Universal God is the Law of Great Harmony. Harmony means to fit. It is harmony that everything is going to fit, horizontally and vertically. From the perspective of the Universal God, that function is Love. In the human world, it is emotional love. I wrote in Kami to Ningen, or God and Man, (Byakko Press, 1953) that “Love does not function as it is.” If Love, or the Law of the Universe, worked as it is, you could simply say, “That’s Kieteyuku Sugata. It’s your religious practice.” when someone gets sick, for example, and that would be it.
Amae: The state or action of being or wanting to be sweetened. Japanese people can exercise amae much more widely in all aspects of life.
But that would not work in this world of humanity. In this world, it is impossible to express the Divine Will, or the Mind of the Universal God as it is because the physical human mind and body are so far removed from the subtle, deep spiritual vibrations of the Divine Will. That is why there are guardian deities and guardian spirits, who stand in between and help people. Their work is invisible. They work in the form of parents, siblings, friends, teachers, and so on, as visible work. So, when friends love each other, it is expressed in the form of love and affection. When parents love their children, it works as affection. When children love their parents, it works as affection. So, it is not that Love works strictly as it is. Religious teachers often work only on the strict side of Love. When old time monks deviated from the strict Law, they were scolded, “That is not the Law! That is not right! Look at yourself carefully!”
But there is something left to suffice if it is only that. There remains something missing. It is affection. That is why Love works as emotional love.
Not to deceive yourself
So, there is Amae in the emotional love, and there is also an emotion that allows Amae. But it is there as Kieteyuku Sugata. So, if both parties know that it is Kieteyuku Sugata to the end, they will go into the prayer mind, thinking, “Oh, this is Kieteyuku Sugata.” And then things will be just fine.
Even when we give instructions, there is also Love and emotional love involved. We should not be too compassionate or too harsh in love. So, we manage to find the right balance between the two. This is the most difficult task for a leader. If you are too compassionate and indulgent, your students may become spoiled and develop the habit of being too pampered, which will be harmful to them. On the other hand, if you are too strict, they will not be able to come close to you and you will not be able to help them.
It would be nice if they could eliminate their karma themselves. But since they cannot, they come to you. It is no good if they cannot come to you because you are too strict. So, good instructors guide their students by tactfully arranging their affections. A great leader is a person who can do this well.
I will remind you one more time. Don’t think of yourself as short-tempered, weak-minded, or lacking in spirit, or any of such Gō-sōnen. They are just Kieteyuku Sugata; your habitual thoughts from past lives that appear to fade away.
If you notice you are having, for example, a short temper, please realize that it is Kieteyuku Sugata. So, if you feel sad, lonely, or resentful thoughts, or if you notice that your bad habits have appeared, you should think, “Oh, this is Kieteyuku Sugata,” and place all such thoughts in the Great Light of the Prayer for World Peace.
When you pray, “May peace prevail on earth. May peace be in our homes and countries. May our missions be accomplished.” your short temper, your negative temper, your sadness, your grudge, your resentment, and so on will gradually fade away in the Light before you know it. Then your true self will come out and you will be able to live your life as a well-rounded person. This is why our teaching includes “Kieteyuku Sugata.”
Kieteyuku Sugata is not meant to comfort oneself. Nor is it a way to cover up one’s own pampering. Amae, or pampering, will really disappear in the end. The thoughts of pampering one’s own Gō-sōnen will become Kieteyuku Sugata and the Light of the Prayer for World Peace will come in, and you will become a courageous, bright, and truthful person. Such a way of life is “the Prayer for World Peace with Kieteyuku Sugata.”
To summarize, to pamper oneself is to pamper Gō-sōnen, and to forgive oneself is not to blame one’s Hon-shin and not to oppose one’s Wake-inochi* which is the Divine Mind.
Wake-inochi: A branch-life of God.
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