This very important chapter discusses both physical and mental illness and the influences of karma and spiritual lessons. Practical answers are given as to the causes of disease, the mercy of death, and the opportunity that illness and disease afford us in developing the path to Truth, enabling us to change both the present and future states of the karmic landscape. Below is an exceprt of the Chapter 2 of the book,“The Healing Power.”

1.Illness and Death, the mercy in your life plan

A major Buddhist premise is that illness and death are unavoidable.
In the past, I had Happy Science branch managers submit a report on “questions posed by members that you could not answer”. Having examined them, I found that many of the questions the branch managers failed to answer were regarding illness and negative spiritual influences, especially issues such as bringing neurosis related illnesses under control. So I felt the need to give further lectures on this point.

First, I must mention a major Buddhist premise, the idea that ‘illness and death are unavoidable’.

This idea by itself can sound terrible and therefore, an embodiment of unhappiness. But taking a wider view of life from the perspective of Truth, including the process of reincarnation, one must realize that it is also a manifestation of mercy.

Imperishable things are not necessarily always good.

 

Death due to illness is one kind of mercy

Much like how people replace old cars for new ones, we desire new bodies for the purposes of spiritual training. People desire a body fit for that era, work, and a new life plan.

That such new possibilities exist is a form of happiness, and we pay the price by shedding our old bodies. It would be a problem if our old bodies did not perish, much like a new car ages and is eventually scrapped. In this manner, in view of our life plan, death by illness is a form of mercy. We must learn to accept this.

The important thing is whether you can “live a life of happiness and fulfillment while not causing others trouble at work and in the household.” While we must accept illnesses that cannot be cured, but religion can become involved in assessing whether certain illness are curable or not. So here, I would like to explain about the relationship between illness and negative spiritual influences.

 

“Past Life Regression” Used Against Illnesses That Modern Medicine Cannot Cure

In America, there are psychiatrists who use something called ‘past life regression’ therapy for illnesses that cannot be cured by modern medical science. In it, the patient is put into a hypnotic regression whereby their consciousness is transported back in time to their infancy, through which the therapist is able to trace the source of their current illness in painful childhood experiences such as emotional scars and physical abuse from parents or others. Once these causes are brought to light, the patients undergo a noticeable improvement. In addition, during hypnosis, some people begin to realize that they have had past incarnations, and some experts have been delving into research of past lives through hypnotic regression.

 

Symptoms Subside By Understanding The Causes Of Illness From Past Lives

Thus, through the emergence of past life regression therapy, it is becoming popular in America and Canada to search for causes of a patients illness by looking at their past lives. This is one kind of hypnotic regression.

It has been reported that memories from past lives come through quite successfully. Examining this further, it becomes apparent that for a surprising number of people, illnesses that are incomprehensible from a modern medical perspective have their roots in past lives. Here, in many cases, once the patient realizes and understands this fact, the symptoms show a rapid improvement. In one sense, this is a ‘destroying karma’. So, once the patient understands the reason why they are suffering from a particular illness, the symptoms disappear.

The above is a medical science approach, but from a religious perspective, this amounts to ‘self-reflection’. That is, it is a grasping of the tendencies of one’s soul; and the grasping of the causes of the illness through self-reflection and meditation, through which the illness is cured.

 

2. Illnesses And Phobias That Arise From Karma

Atoning For Past Lives Through The Laws Of Karma
The laws of karma are not only experienced in a religious context, but also appears in a medical context. These appear in the form of atonement for wrongs committed in one’s past lives. For instance, a person who physically abused or killed others in their past lives will indeed often live a life where physical abuse is inflicted upon them, or they are murdered. So there is a high chance that people who caused another person to become disabled through physical abuse, breaking others’ limbs, or decapitating people with a katana would, in this lifetime, be born with similar disabilities. Thus the laws of atonement are reflected almost perfectly. It is truly terrifying.

You Are Placed In The Same Or The Opposite Situation As In Your Past Lives

If one were to ask such people to write a scenario for their lives, there are two possible outcomes: one is that the scenario would be the complete opposite of his/her past life; the other is that they will recreate the same situation as their past life, and see what will happen this time around.

The latter is particularly applicable to people who killed others in their past lives, as such an experience is stored in the depths of one’s soul. Often, the person will be placed in a similar situation to train themselves to change their mind about murder. Some people will still commit murder no matter how many times they redo the situation, and such people may be ‘caste’ into a role that experiences being murdered.

Thus it is easier to understanding thinking of this as the law of compensation. There are two situations: the same or the opposite. People who continuously fail in the same situation will be given the exact opposite situation.

 

The Suffering Inside Your Soul Changes Your Body

Another major factor of the cause of illnesses in this lifetime is how the person died in their past lives; whether they died from illness, by accident, or something else. Such things influence the symptoms of an illness. Of the things that are etched into a person’s soul, deep pain and suffering has often affected the soul, and this can come seeping through even while living in a physical body in this lifetime. This can cause changes in the spiritual body, which in turn can cause changes in the physical body.

Influences From Past Lives. Case No. 1: People With Characteristic Birthmarks
Characteristic birthmarks most often correspond with how the person died in their past life. If they were struck by a sword or killed with a spear or arrow, that part of the body will have the birthmark. Such cases are often reported.

 

Influences From Past Lives. Case No. 2: Skin Disease, Asthma or Bronchitis

For people who have died in a fire, the sensation of the whole body burning in the last moments remains strongly in the soul. These people may be born with marks all over their skin. Other cases are skin diseases and those with skin allergies.

People who suffocated to death in smoke and died in pain can suffer from respiratory illnesses such as asthma and bronchitis.

 

Influences From Past Lives. Case No. 3: Fear of Water

Some people have a fear of water. Conducting spiritual readings of such people, it is apparent that in most cases they have experienced death related to water. For instance, drowning, dying in water-related accidents, killed by someone using water, or floods.

 

Influences From Past Lives. Case No. 4: Acrophobia

Another common condition is acrophobia: the fear of heights. Spiritual readings into their past lives reveals that these people have most often died falling from high places.

 

Influences From Past Lives Case No. 5: Claustrophobia

Some people have claustrophobia. Spiritual readings into the past lives of such people show that they were cornered into an inescapable situation before they were killed. Nazi gas chambers are one example. In ancient Egypt, they had a tradition whereby a pharaoh’s servants and ladies-in-waiting were buried alive along with treasures. Such people may also have claustrophobia.

 

Influences From Past Lives. Case No. 6: Panic Disorder

People who, in their past lives, were killed by surprise attacks can become subject to panic disorder, or become very susceptible to anxieties and fears. Some examples include those who were suddenly attacked and killed by mountain bandits during a hike, killed in a surprise attack, attacked by burglars in an alleyway, or killed by a robber that entered the house.

Thus, disorders are often due to the accumulation of abnormal experiences that have happened in past lives where the things do not quite add up, or the causes are unknown.

 

The Large-Scale Karma From Events Such As War

As it can be seen, how the person died has a significant effect on the symptoms of illness. In this sense, wars generate a lot of karma, so even from this standpoint war is undesirable. Many people kill or are killed in war, and new karma is created causing much distress in the incarnations to follow.

 

3. Spiritual Influences That “Past Life Regression” Fails to Pick Up

 

Life’s Sufferings Are Akin to Paying Liabilities from Past Lives

For serious illnesses, often it is part of your life-script, and is therefore unavoidable. As aforementioned, to alter this script, is it important to solve your life’s problems by contemplating why such an illness has manifested itself. From here, through much thinking and with the intention of making amends to your life, it may become possible to do so. Some things, however, cannot be amended. And so even if you were to die from illness, in one sense it is an act of atonement. If this didn’t happen, it would just be postponed into your next life on Earth.

Suffering during this lifetime is something like paying your own liabilities. In some cases, these things may be part of your life assignment.
Looking at it from one step back, this kind of suffering contains within it the seeds of happiness, so you must find ‘God’s will’ inside this suffering and return your liabilities.

In fact, one should aim to accumulate “savings”. There is a need for “happiness planting”: planting seeds of happiness. It is not enough to simply return your liabilities. Please live a life where you can also bring happiness to others. In this lifetime, we must aim to live a life of planting happiness.

 

4. Mental Illnesses Occur Due To Possession By Evil Spirits

 

A Person Possessed Shows The Same Symptoms As That of an Evil Spirit

In religion, we think about negative spiritual influences, and consider how a dead person’s spirit can latch onto a living person. So aside from the possibility that the cause of illness comes from past lives, another possibility arises; that the illness is caused by a spirit that is currently possessing the patient. If the possessing spirit was unable to rest in peace after death, the patient will show the same symptoms as those of the possessor right before its death.

 

Schizophrenia Is Not A Brain Disorder: Negative Spiritual Influences Are The Cause

Doctors think that schizophrenia is a brain disease, but in reality it is a condition caused by evil spirits. This is why those specialists are unable to find a cure.

 

Mental Illness Is A Condition Where The Body Is Taken Over By A Different Spirit

The following is an analogy describing this disease:

There is a single house. This house has windows, a roof and a door, and the inside is completely isolated from the outside. Then one day, the front door is smashed, the windows and sash are broken, and the roof caves in. Despite the fact that people were already living inside the house, now that there is nothing stopping others from trespassing, thieves can come in at will.

Mental illness is one such situation. In this situation, there is no protection from the outside, and so anything can intrude at will. That is, the wall protecting the person’s character is destroyed, so other spirits can enter the body just as they like. The person may maintain their own consciousness for one part of the day, but then other spirits take over the body.

The original person’s soul is connected to the body via a silver chord (a spiritual wire that connects the body to the soul) and thus should be the most strongly affiliated spirit, but in a mental illness the soul is frequently away from the body. It would have been fine if the soul went away from the body for a short while during sleep, but if this continues throughout the day, it becomes easy for other spirits to take over the body.

 

Possess By Ancestors And Family Members Who Were Unable To Move On

Sometime we talk of mental diseases as genetic diseases. It is true that one may be born with a spiritually sensitive constitution, but this is not inherited. The spirits of ancestors or family members who were unable to move on to the next life causes this to happen. For instance, if an ancestor from a few generations back died a miserable death, it is quite possible that they were unable to move on. Then the spirit would go to his or her descendants and possess them, causing evil spiritual disturbances. This leads to disease.

 

Countermeasures For Possession By Evil Spirits

The Roots Of A Wavering Mind Lie In Self-Centeredness And Insufficient Knowledge Of Truth

One reason for a wavering mind is self-centeredness. That is, not living for others. At Happy Science, we teach ‘love that gives’, and self-centered people are those who do not put this into practice.

Also, in life, not knowing how to live life as a human being in the ‘Right Way’ as taught at Happy Science, not knowing that a person is actually a soul, that there is a spiritual world, and that people become spirits after they die, are the roots of a wavering mind. It is the insufficiency of such knowledge of Truth that causes the mind to waver.

For people like this, their family must show them how to give love by explaining the truth in a comprehensible way, and through example.

For people who have already died, just praying for their peace at home is not enough, so it is important to come to a Happy Science branch or temple and hold a formal memorial service with an officiating branch manager. Happy Science memorial services both allow the dead to amend their wrongs, and teach them the Truth of the spirit world.

We must admonish those that have strayed from the path of Truth that self-centeredness causes others suffering, and thus sows seeds of evil; so people must do good things.

 

Thinking Of Unhappy Illnesses And Mental Diseases As A Turning Point In Life

Basically, the key is to study the Truth, to hold the correct view of life, and to enter spiritual training with that correct mindset. To repel evil spirits, a certain level of ‘power based on truth’ is required, so there will be a need to borrow that power from people who have undergone spiritual training.

In any case, even if your life ends in tragedy, it is important to make the effort to restrain that misery as much as possible, and to leave no karma behind for the next life and your incarnations henceforth. If unhappy illnesses or mental diseases come about, it is true that the misfortune is trying to say something to your family. If you can accept it as a good thing, then please think of it as a turning point for your life. In this sense, unhappiness such as poverty, illness and conflict is the gateway to Truth that serves to remind us of the importance of faith. It becomes a chance for you to make a change to your life, and rewrite your life-script, thus clearing the karma from your past lives.