A five-year-old boy finely expresses the “ancient Japanese viewpoint on God”! – True religion can communicate with any life!

The article below by In Deep is very interesting. I have almost the same feeling as the blogger does. The boxed article of “fever delirium of a certain Oka(5 years old)” can be called an absolute gem. Please read what the boy says. A five-year-old boy finely expresses Spinoza’s world view: nature is God and the universe is God.

I think that this is the “world view of ancient Japanese people. And I think that this is the original religious view that everybody has.

The blogger In Deep seems to think that Japan has gone in the wrong direction since Buddhism arrived to Japan and Japanese people today is mentally collapsing. I think that we witness “the Japanese people’s mental collapse” in the form of a high incidence of depression.

It seems to me that all religions in the world, not just limited to Buddhism, accelerate mental collapse. I think that the “ancient Japanese people’s viewpoint on God” is actually equal to the religious view of indigenous people. I feel that probably the Ainu people have still held this viewpoint on God of the ancient Japanese people until recently.

To put it simply, even if we come to be able to talk to dogs, cats, dolphins, whales or other creatures in near future, we will not be able to make them understand Amaterasu-omikami, Jesus Christ or Godama Shiddaruta. I think that true religion can communicate with any life.

In my opinion, organized religion is nothing but tool to collect money and control humanity. I think such thing should vanish away.

February 19, 2019

Masatoshi Takeshita

Note:

Shanti-phula has indicated some parts of the following text in black bold-faced type or in red letters.

English translation of a Japanese article: In Deep– February 11, 2019 –

“Japanese spiritual collapse started in the sixth century and is close to completion”: Medical research showing that spiritual beliefs have a protective effect against depression makes me think of “mechanism of disease” rooted in contemporary Japan

Source:www.sciencealert.com/spiritual-or-religious-beliefs-may-act-like-a-buffer-against-depression-in-the-brain 

Spiritual Beliefs Are Linked to a ‘Protective’ Effect Against Depression in The Brain sciencealert.com 2019/02/10
Spiritual Beliefs Are Linked to a ‘Protective’ Effect Against Depression in The Brain 

Religious beliefs, or a sense of spirituality, may cushion some people’s brains against depression, according to new research. <snip> The research is buttressed by a 2005 study, which found that religion served as a buffer against depression in those with poor health.
<snip>The new research used a type of MRI-based neuroimaging,called diffusion tensor imaging, to visualise the white matter in the brains of 99 participants.  <snip>  

Previous research has shown that thinning white matter is a biomarker for depression in the brain, and a 2014 study found that religion and spirituality is associated with thicker cortices in several brain regions linked to depression. 

The findings of the new study simply feed these correlations.  

The researchers discovered that those with high familial risk of depression and with important religious or spiritual beliefs, had brains that more closely resembled participants with low familial risk of depression.
<The rest is omitted>

That’s all.

In a word, “thinning white matter in the brain is related to depression” is taken as a premise. 

And since “people with strong religious beliefs have thick white matter,” they can easily be protected from depression. 

<snip>

I suddenly thought: Apart from foreigners, with regard to religion, “what was ‘God’ like for us Japanese?”I thought a lot about it.

<snip>

I wrote an article in the past, about eight years ago.

When our child, a junior high school student now, ran a high feverat the age of around five, we took care of him beside the bed. He suddenly sat up from the bed at midnight and murmured something as shown below. 

Fever delirium of a certain Oka (5 years old)

A kindergarten teacher says that God is above clouds in the sky.

But it is wrong.

God is transparent and he is everywhere.

He is every here and there.

God is not only above clouds but everywhere.

God is sometimes on a tree like a cicada.

Nobody can see God because he is transparent. But God is there though being transparent.

Everything of sky, sand and tree is God.

After saying that, he flopped into bed.

Incidentally, our child at that time spoke “Tarachan language” (“baby talk”), in which “sa/si/su/se/so” is changed into“sha/shi/shu/she/sho.” 

“Sensei” (teacher)  ➡  Shenshei

“Kamisama”  ➡ Kamishama

“Asokonimo sokonimo iruno” ➡ Ashokonimo shokonimo iruno (every here and there)                                              

He pronounced like that. However, he had never talked like this before. So my wife and I were very surprised and thought “he might be delirious from fever.” 

<snip>

I think that since childhood I have lived with a religious view very close to our child’s view. (When I was young, I thought that “the whole sky is God”. )

However, what is called“religion” entered the world of view on God that ancient Japanese had, around the beginning of the sixth century.   <snip> Finally “a group of promoting Buddhism won” in Japan in the year 590 of the Christian era. As a result, “a faction of seeking isolation and tradition of the state of Japan” that tried to revive Japan’s ancient God was defeated by the Buddhism group.

Subsequently, Japan abandoned our “ancient God” and started building a nation with “a foreign god as the supreme god of the country. The gods that were described by our child as “Everything of sky, sand and trees is God” have ceased to be God of Japanese people since then.

<snip>

Original religious belief of Japanese people was based on the idea: “Something that has no form and exists everywhere is God” and “Everything of shora (sky), shuna (sand) and tree is kamisama (God).In a word, the idea of “nature itself is God” is not the religious view of Japanese but it should be most reasonable to live thinking “it’s quite natural.”

And I wonder if that way of thinking might put gods into a very difficult situation amid “materialism” that controls the world today.

In a word, I wonder if we Japanese today can manage to live every day with a feeling of security,thinking that everything in the world is God.”   <snip>  We can say that Japanese original viewpoint on religion is gradually weakened, and as a result that way of thinking is connected to the medical research mentioned at the beginning of the article – Abnormality occurs in the brain (the white matter I the brain becomes thin).