"When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man" - ye are of more value than many sparrows

 

Around Tokyo and the Tokyo Sky-Tree Tower

ye are of more value than many sparrows

This world is under supervision of the God; this world is under authority of the God.  And the God governs not only this material world but also the spirit world.  This is stated in the Gospel.  

28 And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
29 Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.
30 But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
31 Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows. (Matthew 10)

These words of Christ Jesus means that death in this world is not real death where one loses his body and mind.  But, the true death means losing one's soul and body in the hells.  And, the real death is caused by the God. 

Therefore, after death in this world one can continue to live in the spirit world with his soul and spiritual body, although his physical body with the head might be destroyed in the material world.  

Furthermore, the God loves victims of criminals or those who have sold their souls to Satan.  Without approval of the God, one cannot be victimized.  There must be a deep and complicated reason for you to be victimized, since the God finds more value in His follower than criminals or those who have sold their souls to Satan.  It is because the God knows every detail of life of anybody; the God should know when and how one sells secretly his soul to Satan.

Finally, followers of the God or believers should not be afraid of anybody who has power and ability to kill him.  

In addition, true death means that one is forced to fall into the hell after physical death to be destroyed there by the God.  According to other words of Christ Jesus, any rich man or elite person who has sold his soul to Satan should face this final and decisive death in the hell.  There should be nothing after this second and true death in the hells.  

But, more importantly, one's fate is governed by the God.  So, there should be reasons for any incidents in your life, which the God has taken into account.  Your fate is determined by the God based on His detailed observation and judgment.     

So, we should find true reasons for any unlucky incidents we might think to have been caused by the God.  They should happen to increase our faith in the God or to cause future incidents where the glory of the God appears.  Bad luck at present might lead to good luck in the future, since the God loves us more than sparrows or persons who sold their souls to Satan.  

However, what we should learn from those passages is that it is the God who can destroy men's souls and any forms of men's bodies in the hells but not human enemies or Satan.  If we are killed in this world by human enemies or Satan, we can continue to live in the spirit world or Heaven while those killers should be destroyed in the hells by the God.  So, we should have fear in God as well as faith in Him.     

Indeed, I am afraid that that the God night finally find that all the mankind have lost value as they have all come to seek and revere money which is another form of Satan.  The more we become rich, the more we should resemble sparrows sold for a small amount of money to the eye of the God and Christ Jesus.        

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Luke 11, King James Version
23 He that is not with me is against me: and he that gathereth not with me scattereth.
24 When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out.
25 And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished.
26 Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first.
27 And it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked.
28 But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.

"Have faith in God" - Disaster-Prone Era Requires Individual Spiritualism

 

                                                Around Tokyo

Disaster-Prone Era Requires Individual Spiritualism

In 2011, Japan suffered a great natural disaster caused by the great earthquake and tsunamis around Fukushima, etc. in the north of Tokyo.  And about 20,000 people died of the disaster.  What should be noted is that after the disaster, many families of those victims experienced spiritual phenomena such as seeing ghosts of the dead or spiritual communications with them.  So, a Japanese journalist made a survey on spiritual matters by sending questionnaires to more than 1,000 monks of Buddhism, etc. to have answers from 65% of them.

According to the result of the survey, 53% of them visited the sites of the disaster; 31% of those who visited the sites heard talks about ghosts or spirits or saw them directly on the spot, and 60% of those who visited the sites performed religious acts at the disaster-stricken areas such as holding a mass and making a prayer to get rid of ghosts.    

From the beginning, 17% of those monks of Buddhism, etc. did not believe in existence of souls and spirits while they had professions in the religious field.  However, 29% of them answered that they found around them other people who were making business concerning spiritual matters such as conjurors and faith healers.

The reason why there are 17% of monks of Buddhism who do not believe in existence of souls and spirits lies in the fact that the Buddha himself did not mention about the afterlife, although he took a never-ending cycle of life and death as a matter of course.  But there are more people than monks or priests of the authentic religions such as Buddhism and Christianity, who are working in business on spiritual matters as spiritualism professionals such as conjurors and faith healers.  Indeed, many local people, especially those in the disaster-stricken areas, have had various spiritual experiences concerning their family members who died in the disaster.  Yet, 30% of monks of Buddhism, etc. who performed religious acts such as holding a mass and making a prayer to get rid of ghosts at the spot in disastrous areas answered that their religious acts seemed to result in repose of souls of the victims.     

The modern monks of Buddhism in Japan are well educated in the modern educational system where modern science and technology are respected.  They tend not to come close to irrational matters such as questions about the afterlife.  But ordinary people have strong interest on spiritual matters and the afterlife.  The 2011 natural disaster in Japan emphasized this contrast.  Nonetheless, Buddhist monks and faith healers with psychic power in Japan play a similar role to that of Western exorcists or Christian priests in getting rid of evil spirits or devils.   

Put simply, survivors of the 2011 earthquake/tsunami disaster in Japan became more spiritual as they faced tragic death of family members, while monks and other people of religion rediscovered their roles in spiritual matters although they had become so materialistic seeking business success and money.

The corona pandemic that started in 2020 contributed also to this general atmosphere, although the ratio of deaths due to the corona-virus in Japan has been smaller than in most of other countries. 

As with Japan, people in the world who have seen the War on Terror, the Ukraine War, and military conflicts around Gaza since the start of the 21st century might become more spiritual, and the Vatican and other religious bodies might rediscover their roles in this period of the early 21st century proceeding to WWIII.

Anyway, the present time or era seems to require us to read the Bible from a more spiritual point of view.  It is not a monopoly of religious people to read and interpret the Bible and religious/spiritual books.  We had better even master how to pray to get rid of evil spirits and Satan.  Indeed, spiritual matters are individual matters.   

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Mark 11, King James Version
19 And when even was come, he went out of the city.
20 And in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots.
21 And Peter calling to remembrance saith unto him, Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away.
22 And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.
23 For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.
24 Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
25 And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.
26 But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.

"if I by Beelzebub cast out devils" - Japanese Deities under the Sole and Absolute God

 

Around Tokyo

Japanese Deities under the Sole and Absolute God

There are about more than 80,000 shinto shrines and 70,000 Buddhist temples in Japan.  And, it is thought that there are tens of thousands of professional conjurors, faith healers, shamans, and persons with spiritual power in Japan who are associated with shintoism or Buddhism.  Indeed shamanism is a tradition of the Japanese culture like in other East Asian countries like China, Korea, etc.  

For example, it was reported decades ago that a woman running a small and humble Japanese cookshop in Kyoto had such psychic power.  She had married a man and divorced him but remarried him again who finally died as her husband in 30 years of troubled family life, while her daughter also died of a disease.  In sadness in losing her daughter, she started to visit periodically a certain temple where Kukai, officially called Kobo Daishi, a historically notable priest of Tantric Buddhism, was enshrined.  And one day she heard a voice of Kukai saying that he would give her special virtue so that she should help other people with her psychic power.  Since then, she could exert supernatural power and heal sick people with her hand power.  Due to her psychic power, many customers with some physical or mental troubles came to her small and humble cookshop.  She found that a spirit sometimes told her where the disease was and how to send power to the affected areas. She cured 100 patients with hemorrhoid and cancer in a decade.  Her life was successfully established as a cookshop owner with psychic power.  Truly there are may legends about miracle works of Kukai in various local areas in Japan.  

Indeed Kukai is still revered in Japan as he founded the Shingon sect in Japan about 1,100 years ago after learning in China and inheriting Tantric Buddhism from a Chinese old master who admitted that Kukai was the only proper successor of Tantric Buddhism, which means Tantric Buddhism came to Japan from India through China.  After coming back to Japan, Kukai performed many miracles to help people and the Imperial Court through healing the sick and making the rain fall during drought.  The tantric Shingon sect had strong influences even in the following era of samurai dominance.  And the samurai Tokugawa family ruled Japan from the early 17th century till the middle of the 19th century based on the Tendai sect of Tantric Buddhism that is another notable tantric sect.  Truly, it is said that the city of Tokyo (then called Edo) was designed by a monk of the Tendai sect called Tenkai who was close to Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa regime. 

And, there are other Buddhist monks, mountain ascetics, and conjurors who got inspiration from Kukai or other deities of shintoism or Buddhism even today.  Japan has been really a country full of spiritual tradition.  And such monks or conjurors are said to have played secret but decisive roles behind historic incidents.  The authority of the Japanese Imperial Family is rooted in this tradition; although special psychic power is not found in the Imperial Family today, it is thought the family had special power given by deities of the Japanese myths more than 2,000 years ago.  In this meaning, the Imperial Family is sacred for the Japanese people, although the family started to rely on psychic power of Buddhism since the capital of Japan had moved to Nara and Kyoto about 1,300 years ago.  Yet, there are still psychic people who have tried to build new religions or sects based on shintoism or Buddhism.  That is why most of Japanese do not find any need to study, believe in, or rely on Christianity.  Japan has already had strong spiritual tradition where spiritualism of today is rooted.        

Indeed, even today there are thousands of conjurors, tantric monks, psychics. oracles, fortune-tellers, etc. in Japan.  People with difficult diseases sometimes would ask help from them if their conditions could not be improved after visiting medical doctors.  Although Japan owes its economic success to modern technology and science imported from Europe and the U.S. since the middle of the 19th century, the Japanese society has not anyhow inclined to Christianity as a religion ruling its people.  In the underflow of the Japanese society, reverence to deities of the Japanese Buddhism, shintoism, etc. never disappear.

Yet, in the world, monotheistic faith is mainstream.  Probably the Japanese people should admit that there is the sole Creator of the spiritual world and the material world, and believe that under this Creator various deities of the Japanese Buddhism, shintoism, etc. exist and work.  So, there should not be contradictions even if Japanese Buddhists started to believe in the God of Christianity.

Truly, there must be spirits of deities of the Japanese Buddhism, shintoism, etc. such as Kukai in the spirit world in parallel with angels of Christianity.  Those Japanese good spirits might come to this world to guide or help pious people like angels of Christianity.  Put simply, paganism can come into effect under the sole and absolute God who created and ruled the spirit world and material world.

However, the concept that Christ Jesus is a human form of such sole and absolute God is not smoothly accepted by the Japanese people.  Nonetheless, although individual or personal matters may be treated well by Japanese deities, more large-scale issues, such as global warming and international wars, must need help from the sole and absolute God in solving these problems.  Furthermore, to solve global spiritual matters should need faith in the sole and absolute God or the Creator of the spirit world and the material world.   

We should hope that the sole and absolute God in any form would help people in troubles like the spirit of Kukai helped and saved the woman in Kyoto decades ago. 

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Luke 11, King James Version
17 But he, knowing their thoughts, said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house divided against a house falleth.
18 If Satan also be divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand? because ye say that I cast out devils through Beelzebub.
19 And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your sons cast them out? therefore shall they be your judges.
20 But if I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you.
21 When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace: