Master Ryuho Okawa Presents:

An Excerpt From a Spiritual Message and a Public Report on Its Implications
“Asking Jesus Christ: The Same-Sex Marriage Issue, Regarding Gender and Love”

Recorded on July 31st, 2013

This year, the movement to permit same-sex marriage has been gaining pace. In April, legislation to authorize same-sex marriage was established in France, and gay couples were also granted the right to adopt children. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed for the expansion of gay rights by deeming federal laws that don’t permit the same rights to homosexual spouses as to heterosexual spouses, such as spousal tax deduction and social security laws, to be unconstitutional.

While more and more people are voicing support for the same-sex marriage movement, there is also deep-rooted opposition based on religious grounds. One reason is that the Old Testament is thought to have condemned homosexuality as a sin. In response to growing interest, Pope Francis of the Roman Catholic Church said: “If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge”. He avoided stating whether homosexuality was right or wrong at the time; however, this issue is threatening to split the Christian Church in two.

Ryuho Okawa, founder and CEO of Happy Science Group, channeled Jesus Christ in Heaven and asked him his thoughts on the same-sex marriage issue and issues on current world affairs. (The video “Asking Jesus Christ: The Same-Sex Marriage Issue, Regarding Gender and Love” can be viewed at any Happy Science Center or Temple in Japan and around the world.)

 

Spreading Throughout the World: The Movement for the Legalization of Same-Sex Marriage

Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law, for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal, as well.

Through these words, in his second-term inaugural speech in January this year, President Barack Obama expressed his understanding toward the homosexual community. Obama’s speech has had a strong influence on this year’s growing interest in the same-sex marriage issue. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court made a ruling that recognized the equal rights of gay and straight married couples. Same-sex marriage is now permitted in thirteen states including Washington, and gay couples who have married in those states can now avail of spousal benefits such as tax deductions, and preferential treatment with regard to social security, income tax and inheritance tax. In addition, this year also saw the passing of laws permitting same-sex marriage in New Zealand and Uruguay.

Homosexuals were formerly treated as a minority in society. However, it seems that same-sex married couples now constitute about 600,000 households in the United States (U.S. Census Bureau). That is my no means a small number.

The movement to “certify” homosexuality through the institution of marriage started with the Dutch same-sex marriage law in 2001 and has progressed steadily from there. This is because disadvantages inevitably arise when gay couples are not permitted to participate in the social system known as marriage. For instance, they cannot have children (or adopt children); they cannot receive pensions or social security benefits even if they have lived together as a committed couple for many years; and as they are not considered relatives, the partner cannot give consent when emergency surgery is required. The legalization of same-sex marriage is thus a critical issue for the gay community.

 

The Stance of World Religions Toward Homosexuality

53% of Americans are currently in favor of legalizing gay marriage, but there is also deep-rooted opposition among 45% of the population (Gallup Poll). It seems that religious reasons do indeed play a role in this opposition.

In the Catholic Church, homosexuality is viewed as being sinful: former Pope Benedict the 16th took a firmly hostile stance, saying that gay marriage is a threat to “marriage as the union of a man and a woman” and “causes serious harm to justice and peace”. The Protestant stance differs by denomination, and conflict is arising between the liberal and conservative sects. The Baptist Church, which is the biggest Protestant denomination, takes a fundamentally oppositional stance.

In Islam, there are passages in the Koran that condemn homosexuality, and so it has traditionally been considered a crime. There are even Muslim countries where homosexuality is punished by death. Although in some Buddhist texts, such as the Ojoyoshu, it is written that homosexuals go to hell, Buddhism is tolerant compared to Christianity or Islam. In Thailand, where 95% of the population is Buddhist, there is a social foundation of tolerance and acceptance of homosexual couples. However, they have not yet gone so far as to legalize same-sex marriage.

Regardless of whether they are conscious of it or not, it seems that there are many people who, experiencing a kind of religious guilt, are cautious of supporting same-sex marriage.

 

The Spiritual Background of Homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder

Touching on the truth of reincarnation, a concept that is not taught in traditional Christianity, Jesus revealed the spiritual secret of homosexuality and gender identity disorder:
It can be thought that, in terms of the spiritual background of those who, although a man, are attracted to other men, or although a woman are attracted to other women, there are many who are living as a different gender from that of the body their soul occupied in a past life, and who feel a sense of incongruity at that.

According to Happy Science’s spiritual inquiry, the soul has around it five other sibling souls. Through repeated cycles of rebirth the soul accumulates a lot of experience, and in each individual’s life plan, we decide whether to be born as a man or woman. However, if a soul that had predominantly been born as a man is born for the first time as a woman in this life, the soul might experience a sense of incongruity. Also, from the point of view of life training, there are rare cases where people are born into the opposite gender to that which they had desired. In such cases, a discrepancy arises between the person’s body and soul (heart), recognized medically as gender identity disorder: they may feel attracted to members of the same-sex, who had been the opposite-sex in their previous lives.

From the point of view of spiritual background, homosexuality is not something that should be condemned as wrong on religious grounds. What follows is an excerpt from the sermon “Asking Jesus Christ: The Same-Sex Marriage Issue, Regarding Gender and Love”.

 

Asking Jesus Christ: The Same-Sex Marriage Issue, Regarding Gender and Love

July 21st, 2013: Spiritual messages from Jesus
Happy Science General Headquarters, Tokyo, Japan

 

I Must Examine The Same-Sex Marriage Issue

 

The New Pope Made Confusing Statements On Same-Sex Marriage

 

Jesus Didn’t Say Anything About Homosexuality in the New Testament

 

One Reason for the Trend Toward Homosexuality Is a Sense of Guilt Toward the Opposite Sex

–Homosexuality and same-sex marriage are really causing a stir in Western countries. This reaction might be rooted in peoples’ confusion on where the Lord Jesus stands on these issues.

People all over the world, especially Christians, are yearning for answers, “Now more than ever, we want to know what Our Lord Jesus thinks.” Today, we’re hoping Jesus can tell us his opinions on varieties of issues. We look forward to hearing from Jesus.

To begin with, when a spiritual person looks at the soul’s aspects, where can he or she discover the setting for homosexuality? How does it form?

Jesus Christ: In religion, whenever there’s been too much guilt placed on people over heterosexual sex, homosexuality has spread. That’s happened so often in history.

For example, if community leaders overstate, “have sexual intercourse and you’ll go to hell” too much, then, as those leading an aesthetic life will wish to avoid [such consequences], people will naturally pursue things that aren’t forbidden. In that sense, the spread of homosexuality is something that has probably occurred in Christianity, Buddhism, and in other religions, too.

It has occurred in all boys and all girls’ schools, in the other worlds where the genders are educated and raised separately, and even in the military. These social circumstances might have given birth to the problem of homosexuality.
It’s an extremely difficult point to put across.

 

In Past Lives, People Have Been Different Genders From What They Are Now.

Jesus Christ: The cause of it is exactly as our spiritual search has found.

As a phenomenon, our body is either male or female, but in the past… well, this hasn’t really been preached in Christianity, but there were previous incarnations of the soul, and within them, there have been some souls that have experienced lives as both men and women. Or, if there were someone who was male in this life, but in previous lives had only been female, then the soul would have had some sense of a “permanent home” as a woman. The opposite also occurs, where someone who was always a man becomes a woman.

When genders have been switched at birth, they’ll appear as gender identity disorders later in life if diagnosed as diseases. Those people will say, “We just can’t see ourselves as men,” or “We just accept that we’re women,” and they’ll undergo gender transformation surgeries, and sex changes. People in this age do these things.

With this regard, the secrets of the soul have not been made clear yet. Areas exist that haven’t been sufficiently explained, and there’s this problem.

Plato used to share an old story, “In ancient times, human beings had a single body that was both male and female. They had four hands, and four legs, and they were a mixture of both male and female. One day god split them, and ever since they have been drawn to each another.”

Is this a physical fact? Or as a spiritual problem, is it that people are a mix of both male and female? Although this is difficult to understand fully, perhaps Plato has gotten to the bottom of the reality that we’ve been spiritually investigating.

The spiritual background behind a situation in which, although he is a man, he is attracted to men, and although she is a woman, she is attracted to women, could possibly be due to the gender of a person in this life having been reversed from what it was physically in previous lives. That must feel strange, and many people walk the Earth with that problem.

 

Where Will Homosexuals Go After They Die?

–I’d like to ask one more question. When you look at people who are homosexuals, how do you divide them into those who will go to heaven, and those whose who won’t? It’s not that all homosexuals will simply go to hell, but they won’t all go to heaven either. How do you make the separation between heaven and hell?

Jesus Christ: Well, Christians have that impression from the tale of Adam and Eve in the Book of Genesis. In other words, God first created Adam as a man, and then, “because Adam was alone,” God used a rib bone and created Eve. God separated Eve from Adam, thus creating man and woman.

Afterwards, some people thought that God had made humans when He kneaded clay to create their bodies, and blew souls into them.

In Christianity, which also includes the Old Testament, there’s the concept that God separated woman from man. If the cycle of reincarnation does not enter into this concept, then the idea is, even in modern times, that new types of people are endlessly created, and men and women have been created separately. Then, isn’t homosexual thinking against the will of God, because Adam and Eve were clearly separated? If people were just to look at the New Testament, then it doesn’t go all the way there, but because Christians certainly read it together with the Old Testament, the ideas have had an influence on their way of thinking.

Of course, in places that haven’t been exposed to Christianity, there have been many examples of explanations that did not contain similar teachings.

In conclusion, those people, who wish to live as homosexuals, to some extent, even if viewed from standpoint whether they could bear some positive thing in his or her life and turn out to be the betterment of the soul, have been as a result nothing more than examples of depravity and moral decay.

If we look at it from our experiences, then it appears that so many people, who did indulge in homosexuality, were already headed in the direction of moral decay and depravity.

 

In the End, We Must Look At the Fruit One Bears, and Judge Accordingly

Jesus Christ: Now, it’s possible to inseminate artificially, to take a cell from one person, and add a separate egg and sperm to create a child. Of course, a child cannot be created from homosexual activity, but a child with the genes of just one person can now be created. Our values have really been shaken in this age when medical progress has made it possible for even a same-sex marriage to raise children now.

We are entering into a realm in which we have no experience, a realm in which even the monks and nuns in the past will also lack experience.

In the end, however, as I have also preached elsewhere, whether the tree is good or bad, we must judge it by looking at the fruit it bears.

The system of same-sex marriage will likely spread, and as it continues for several generations, say, for two or three generations, we’ll see whether it’s been good or bad for society. I think it’ll be clear whether it’s good or bad, and we can make whatever corrections are needed as we examine the fruit.

 

How Contradictory of the Pope, Who Has Never Married, To Speak of Marriage!

— Earlier you said that judgment is made after looking at the fruit that has been born. But I’d like to ask your opinion about what Pope Francis said.

Jesus Christ:It’s truly unreasonable for the Pope, who has himself never been married, to speak about the problems of marriage. Since the time of Peter, those people, who had guilty feelings towards women, have spoken too much about marriage, and hardened the system. Of course, I can’t help but feel that there has been a sense of paranoid among them.

That’s to say, truly, it’s contradictory for clergy, who have never actually been married, to preach about marriage and systematize it.

 

We Should Judge the Good and Bad Fruits of Heterosexual Marriage, Too

Jesus Christ: Just now I said that it depends on the fruit. And as we know, we can sense that something feels bad about homosexuality, and it appears as something that is depraved and corrupt. I believe that has historically been the case. However, the numbers of people are rising that have tasted misfortune through heterosexual, traditional marriage, not homosexual relationships.

There have been problems with that fruit, and of course, it can’t be said that some relationships were right just because they were heterosexual.

Some indicators suggest that it might have been better if heterosexual marriage vows didn’t include promises to stay married forever.

The point is that just as we should judge the good and bad fruits of a homosexual marriage, now we should judge the good and bad fruits of heterosexual marriage, too. We might not go back to our original marriage traditions if we don’t find another solution on this matter.

 

It’s Hermeneutically Possible to Absorb Homosexuality Into the Teachings To Love Our Neighbors.

Jesus Christ: As a form of love, there’s the instinct to be attracted to someone of the opposite sex, but within the feelings included when we love someone, there are obviously many kinds of love: love for our families, love between husbands and wives, love between parents and children, love for our neighbors, etc.

Of course, love for the opposite sex doesn’t hardly means loving our neighbors, and neighborly love does not discern between genders.

In Christianity, here’s the most important thing that we must do, “Love Our Lord, our God, with all hearts.” The second most important teaching is to love our neighbors. It’s taught that we must love, and when we love those around us, just what does this involve? To begin with, it’s the teaching that it’s holy to have the disposition to love others beyond those around us, even people who haven’t harmed or benefitted us. If we expand the idea of loving our neighbors, then we must accept the existence of love beyond that of our love for men and women, for the creation of our families, and for the establishment of the “nests” that we hand over to our descendants.

Therefore, if we hermeneutically incorporate homosexuality into Christianity, then we must demand that there be no distinction between male and female in the concept of loving our neighbors.

 

To Conclude With Regard to Same-Sex Marriage: It’s Our Choice, but That Bears Responsibility

Jesus Christ: In the end, I didn’t answer your question.
Am I for or against same-sex marriage, right?

–Well, since it’s ok to ask Jesus, then we’ll conclude with his comments.

Jesus Christ: I believe that it’s free choice.

Go ahead, and decide for yourself. But there is responsibility that comes with the results of what you decide. If the decision to have a same-sex marriage is a benefit to people, if it’s a benefit to society, then it’s fine. But if it leads to overall moral decay, then it will also transform into evil.

Of course, I think that the peaceful expansions of normal, heterosexual relationships are best, but today, the fact is that many big problems have been wrapped into the traditional notions of marriage, and everything depends on whether we can overcome them.

At any rate, in focusing on what’s at stake regarding the problems of true love, many distortions occur because we’re thinking in terms of our interests in this world.

When we come to think just about the benefits and demerits of relationships between men and women, we can’t claim that such relationships have actually been a composition of true love.

If any of us lean toward same-sex marriage, however hard we think, to some degree, let’s try to say that’s an acceptable lifestyle to pursue.

We can’t necessarily say that it’s all bad, because it’s not impossible that in previous lives, souls that had been husbands and wives, could have been born again as opposite to try new experiences.

In order to justify their own standings, it’s mistaken for people to say, “Everyone, please do the same as everybody else!” Of course, heterosexual marriages and love toward the opposite sex should be the mainstream. We must also keep in mind that it’s possible that our nation will invite the risk of decline as a result of same sex marriage.

However, I’m not saying that this behavior is illegal. (This is to be continued to Part 2)

 

We Are Currently Caught Up in the Turmoil of the Grand Civilization Experiment

Jesus admonished us that “with freedom comes responsibility”.

If homosexuality and same-sex marriage lead to the happiness of the individual and the development of society, then to some extent they should be affirmed; but if they cause the inflation of desire and self-interest, they cannot be accepted limitlessly. Furthermore, if we consider the fact that God (Buddha), by dividing men and women and having them love each other, created a mechanism for the nurturing of offspring, it is to be feared that homosexuality and same-sex marriage could pose a threat to the survival of the nation if they were to become the norm.

Jesus said:
“In the same way that the fact of being a melting pot became the vitality of the U.S., leaders are experimenting to see if treating gay and straight people equally will, as they believe, add to the power of the nation. Because everything in this world is a grand civilization experiment, political and religious leaders must go on bearing that responsibility”.

Ultimately, the results of having chosen same-sex marriage can only be judged by how this choice bears fruit in terms of individual happiness and national development. The issue of same-sex marriage is asking us to examine the nature of freedom and responsibility.

Apart from that, Jesus spoke about the following points:

• Problems in the life sciences.
• Why is leftist liberalism quick to support same-sex marriage?
• How to balance individual freedom and national development.
• How does Jesus see Catholics and Protestants?
• Why were the Gnostics, who preached spirit-world thought, destroyed?
• What is behind President Obama’s support for same-sex marriage?
• The statements of Pope Francis.
• What kind of person does the Pope seem to be from Jesus’s point of view?
• To what extent is Jesus guiding the Christian Church?
• Is Jesus advising the U.S. President?
• Was Jesus married in his lifetime? Did he have children?
• Was Wilson a disciple of Jesus in his lifetime?
• Will same-sex marriage have an influence on population dynamics?

 

Jesus Christ, 4 B.C. – 29 A.D.

Jesus was one of the great spirits from the ninth dimension. Although he was crucified on the cross, he was resurrected. Afterwards, part of that living body was born on earth as Quetzalcoatl of South America and as the great author Tolstoy of the Russian Empire (see, The Laws of the Sun, The Golden Laws, and 2012: Will the World Really End?; Happy Science Publishing).