The Spiritual
Cord
Many people seem to
be unfamiliar with the term "spiritual cord," probably
because the existence of the cord is not generally known. While
spiritual cord is invisible, being of exceedingly fine texture -
finer than atmosphere - its role and influence in all phases of
physical life are so great it cannot be lightly regarded. The cord
influences the fate of a human being and even of the world's destiny
at large. Therefore, it is important for us to know its significance.
Before
going into detailed explanation, I wish to point out that this concept
of the spiritual cord is scientific as well as religious. In the
future, it will be a subject of much study, for relativity, cosmic
rays, and all matters concerning people individually and society
in general are related to the spiritual cord.
Let
me explain first the relationship of the individual to other individuals
through his and their spiritual cords. Suppose we take you, the
reader, for example. There are innumerable invisible cords connecting
you with the people around you - hundreds, thousands of them. Some
are large and some are small, some are positive and some are negative.
All exert constant influence on you to a certain degree, causing
changes of a vibratory nature. Therefore, it is not too much to
say that your very existence is being governed largely by the influence
of the spiritual cords.
In personal
relationships, the cords usually are strongest between husbands
and wives, then between parents and children. After these in diminishing
strength are the cords between brothers and sisters, other relatives,
friends and acquaintances. There are exceptions, such as the cords
between friends who are spiritually very close. Japanese expressions
such as "cords of love" and "to bind the cords of
relationship" no doubt originated from someone's recognition
of these invisible ties.
The
spiritual cord is changeable, sometimes growing larger and stronger,
sometimes becoming smaller and weaker. When all is harmonious between
husband and wife and they are living together happily, the spiritual
cord is very large and luminous. If there is discord and quarreling
between them, the cord becomes smaller, losing luminosity to a certain
extent as it shrinks. The same thing can be said about the spiritual
cords connecting parents and children, brothers and sisters, and
all others.
New
cords are formed when new friends are gained or new acquaintances
are made. An especially strong spiritual cord is formed when two
individuals fall in love, and when that love reaches it greatest
degree the cord becomes exceedingly large. Through it alternating
currents of sentiment flow strongly between the two lovers. This
creates a subtle and happy sensation, and a kind of longing or yearning
goes back and forth until the spiritual cord is of utmost strength
and size. It is then that lovers become so close they feel they
are indeed one and can no longer be apart. At this point, if relatives,
friends or anyone else tries to separate them for any reason, the
attempt only draws them closer together.
The
mutual love of two individuals is analogous to the positive and
negative poles of electric power, with the spiritual cord acting
as conduit. I was once able to save two girls from committing double
suicide over their homosexual relationship, working spiritually
to negate the positive electricity. My treatment was totally effective
in about week, the positive individual returning to normal in that
period. The negative person all recovered normalcy once the stronger
one had done so.
The
spiritual cords between non relatives can be cut or broken, but
those between blood relations cannot be severed.
There
is something special in a parent-child relationship which you should
note. Since parents and children are inseparably connected, many
of the parent's characteristics are transmitted to their children
through the spiritual cords. For this reason, if people expect their
children to be good, they must first be good themselves. Some parents
admonish their children to be good while they themselves do wrongful
things; then they wonder why their words have little or no effect.
Sometimes
a seemingly wonderful couple produce a very delinquent child, and
we wonder why this happens. Often it is because the apparently find
parents are acting virtuously for ulterior reasons and the excessive
clouds on their spiritual bodies are reflecting through the spiritual
cords on their offspring.
Again,
we sometimes find two children of widely different character in
the same family, one good and the other bad. There are two possible
reasons for this situation. One is connected with the children's
previous lives and the other is karmic, a purification of the clouds
of the parents.
Before
going into further detail, I must first explain the principles of
reincarnation.
Simply
stated, after death every human being enters the spiritual world;
that is, he is born into the spiritual world. There each one has
to go through purification of all the clouds that were accumulated
on earth from the negative deeds of various kinds. As a general
rule, the individual reincarnates when he has achieved a certain
degree of purification and his vibration has been raised.
Suppose
a person who committed a lot of evil deeds in the previous life
changed at the last moment because of the penalties inflicted or
for some other reason, had a deep sense of repentance for having
done anything negative, and passed over with the strong determination
that the next time he incarnated he would be good, would act only
in a virtuous way. He would then come back as a good person. So,
it is possible that an individual who is virtuous by nature in this
lifetime may have been extremely wicked in the previous life.
There
are many people who do not believe in life after death while they
are living here. After death these people cannot easily adjust themselves
in the spiritual world and often come back prematurely, in a state
of incomplete purification, because of their undue attachment to
physical life. They return retaining quite a lot of clouds from
their previous lives and they have to go through purification for
these clouds. (Any kind of suffering is purification, as you know.)
This explains why some individuals are born very good people but
lead quite unfortunate lives.
Some
people are born crippled or deformed. For instance, there are some
who enter this life blind, deaf, or handicapped in some other way.
They are reincarnations of individuals who died unexpected deaths
in their previous lives, such as in accidents, and were born again
before they were purified sufficiently, not completely healed of
their injuries.
Let
me write about another situation which is an interesting illustration
of reincarnation. Some babies are born with the features of elderly
people. This is because they are reincarnations of those who died
at quite advanced ages in their previous lives and came back too
soon. Their features, however, change and become baby-like within
a few months. I am sure anyone who has observed this can easily
understand the above explanation.
Earlier
in this article I mentioned the possible differences between two
children of the same family. As I said, one may be good and the
other bad. The reason may be that the positive nature of the parent's
character may reflect in one child, making him good, while their
negative nature may reflect in the other, making him bad.
In another
instance, in a rich family where the parents have accumulated wealth
by dishonest means, one of the children may turn out to be a prodigal
son. If so, this is caused by the spirits of the family forebears,
who are making one of the children squander the money like water
until all of the fortune is gone, knowing the eternal well-being
of the family cannot be achieved as long as it possesses the ill-gotten
wealth. From the spiritual point of view, therefore, the son chosen
to be a prodigal is really playing a wonderful part, for he is saving
his family. He is to be sympathized with for the wrong thoughts
directed toward him by people who consider him merely a profligate
squandering the family fortune.
Spiritual
cords connect people not only with other living individuals, but
also with those who have passed on to the spiritual realm. There
are also those which connect human beings with good spirits, divine
beings, and those which connect them with evil spirits, dark forces.
Working through these cords, the good spirits encourage mankind
toward right deeds, while evil spirits tempt mankind toward wicked
deeds. Thus, all human beings are continually influenced by either
good or evil spirits.
Before
birth every person is assigned a guardian, who has been purified
to a certain degree. In Japan, it is selected from among family
members in the spiritual world. This spirit protects the human being
in its charge through the spiritual cord. For instance, if an individual
is unknowingly approaching danger, his guardian spirit will try
to save him by giving him some kind of signal or warning. Suppose
a person plans on taking a certain train. He is late for some reason
- some obstacle prevents his reaching the station in time to catch
it - and he is obliged to take the next one instead. Later, he learns
that the train he missed met with a serious accident causing heavy
casualties. Such an escape from trouble is due to the activity of
the guardian spirit. It can foresee any possible disaster threatening
the individual in its charge and it tries to warn him of the danger
in advance.
The
spiritual cords differ in number according to their positions and
the activities of individuals. For instance, the head of a family
has more cords than the other members; he has cords not only with
all members of his family but with all relatives, servants, friends
and acquaintances. The president of a business organization has
connecting cords with all his employees. A public figure such as
a mayor, senator, governor, prime minister, president of a nation
or a king has innumerable cords connecting him with the people who
are in his charge or whom he represents. The higher his rank, the
larger are the number of spiritual cords he has.
For
this reason, any leader should be a person of noble character. If
his spiritual body is clouded, his condition reflects upon those
who are connected with him and upon the thoughts of the public at
large, and so he has a demoralizing influence on everyone.
The
head of any government should be a man of wisdom and high spiritual
awareness, one of high character, one who will manage the affairs
of his office with good will and integrity. If the general trend
of thought in a country becomes corrupt and undisciplined, if criminal
activities increase, the administrator is responsible to a large
degree. Those in charge of education especially should realize what
an important influence they exert upon their students and do their
best to cleanse their spiritual bodies, set good examples, and be
worthy of educators.
I would
like to make a special mention here of those who are engaged in
spiritual work. Founders of religious groups or orders, presidents
of religious organizations, priests and ministers all have an exceedingly
strong influence on members or devotees because they are held in
such reverence and are looked up to with so much respect. These
individuals should be more conscientious than anyone else. Should
they take advantage of their high positions and do something unworthy
of their own teachings, their actions not only reflect on all their
followers but can even result in the total disintegration of the
organization itself. I am sure some of you have seen examples of
such situations.
There
are not only spiritual cords between human beings but those which
connect human beings with divine beings. The difference between
the cords of divine beings and of human individuals is that those
of divine spirits are exceedingly luminous, while those of most
individuals tend to be grayish-white, lacking luster, and the cords
of wicked people are blackish. The cords of human beings of especially
high character are partly luminous.
Human
beings generally wish to have only good people as their friends.
This is because they know that they are influenced in right ways
by associating with good people and in wrong ways by associating
with bad people. This is due to the vibrations which are conveyed
through all the connecting spiritual cords.
The
primary object of our worship should by the Supreme God. As stated,
in the spiritual world there are divine spirits and evil spririts.
The spiritual cords which come from divine spirits are luminous.
Through worshiping these higher spirits constantly, the spiritual
beings of the humans become more and more purified, whereas evil
spirits send out negative vibrations, and those people who worship
them receive these low vibrations, which make their thoughts bad
and cause their lives to become more and more difficult, due to
the clouds they create. Everyone should be very careful in his choice
of the object of his worship, always remembering that God is the
most important of all.
Even
amount the divine spirits there are higher ones and lower ones and
according to their levels there are differences in the degrees of
their light. The higher the rank, the more miracles their followers
experience because the spiritual cords are luminous.
This
explains the spiritual cords which connect human beings with divine
spirits and with evil spirits, and also those between humans. Now
let me say that there are spiritual cords between human beings and
inanimate objects which also have influence on our lives, such as
the houses we live in and the utensils and tools we use daily. Those
articles as person treasures highly are especially strongly connected
with the owner, and the more dearly he loves them, the bigger grow
the connecting spiritual cords, through which the strong vibrations
of the owner are conveyed. This is true of our clothes and personal
ornaments, too.
I once
read in an American magazine of a woman with psychic ability. She
could tell from holding an object or article its owner's features,
age and even his recent actions. As she gazed at it, she could perceive
all these things impressed on it like a photograph. These were the
vibrations impressed on the object through the spiritual cords.
From this account we can understand how wonderful and subtle the
actions of spiritual clouds and the vibrations conveyed through
them are.
Recently,
scientists have begin investigating more and more what they call
cosmic rays. According to my understanding, these "cosmic rays"
are the spiritual cords connecting the earth and the stars. The
fact that the earth is kept in equilibrium in space is due to the
spiritual cords of the satellites which are drawing on it. So, the
earth must have an infinite number of spiritual cords - how many
thousands, millions, even billions of them nobody can tell - and
all these cords penetrate the crust and reach its core.
Now,
let me refer to the relationship of the earth and the heavenly bodies.
These
are like counter-mirrors, reflecting each other. There are both
bright stars and dark ones. Dark stars are invisible because they
have no light. Every year, however, some of them turn into bright
ones, thus, bright stars increase in number.
Dark
stars turn into bright stars because of the solidifying action of
matter, which follows one of the natural laws of this universe -
that all matter goes through a process of solidification. When the
solidifying process reaches its maximum, matter begins to emit light.
It is by the same process that the hardest mineral on earth is the
diamond, which is the brightest of all gems.
At the
time the earth was created, there were only a few stars visible
in the sky. The number of stars gradually increased in proportion
to the population on the earth, because heaven and earth are counter-mirrors.
For this reason, stars will continue to increase in infinite numbers
- as will the population of the earth.
When
astronomers think they have discovered some new stars, the truth
is that they have only found some stars that have been dark but
have turned into bright ones and therefore have become visible.
Meteors
are caused by disintegration, and a meteorite is a segment created
in the process.
There
are all kinds of stars of various sizes - such large ones as Jupiter,
Mars, Saturn, Venus and Mercury, and innumerable smaller ones, all
of which influence the human beings on earth. The five big stars
above mentioned correspond to the world's five leading figures of
each age. There are expressions in Japanese in which human beings
are called stars metaphorically, such as, "A great star has
fallen," meaning a leading figure of the world has died, or
"Great stars meet," meaning leading figures of the world
meet. It is interesting to think of the meanings behind these expressions.
In the
West, there was a time when astrology was in great vogue. It was
usually practiced by priests, who used it for fortune-telling and
also for diagnosing diseases. Chinese divination, too, was based
on astrology. There is a spiritual meaning in these practices and
therefore it is not without significance that the ancients were
interested in the stars.
January 25,
1949 Meishu-Sama
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