December 14, 2013
This lecture was given at Makuhari Messe in Chiba Prefecture

On the 5th of December, 2013, Happy Science held an El Cantare Festival, and Master Ryuho Okawa gave a lecture in Chiba Prefecture entitled “The Challenge of Wisdom” to the guests of Makuhari Messe. Happy Science broadcast this event to 3,500 locations worldwide via satellite.

We hold The El Cantare Festival at the end of the year to give our heartfelt thanks to the Lord El Cantare. We pledge to establish a utopia on earth based on the teachings of Lord El Cantare who descended to earth in order to save all of mankind.

Despite the cold weather, many people stood in a long line before the lecture, and the hall was completely full.

At the beginning of the lecture, Master Okawa pointed out that due to highly specialized and career-driven academia, an increasing number of people who have mastered their own specialty do not understand, and have not been taught the fundamentals of who they really are. For instance, while their knowledge may be encyclopedic in their own professional field, they cannot answer the basic question of: “What is a human being?” or “Why are human beings born into this world?”

The fundamental questions, such as: “Why are human beings unable to stop striving, even if they wish to?”, and “If human beings are thrown into this world merely by coincidence, why do so many seek to love one another” are the real questions, and illustrate ‘the true right to know’.

Master Okawa stated that knowledge is really neutral, and emphasized the true power of wisdom – in contrast to academia – can distinguish the intrinsic truths that make people happy as opposed to those which makes people suffer or sad.

Master Okawa pointed out ‘the right to know’ includes not only the things of this world, since we lead “traveler-like existences” going back and forth between the realms of the “Real World”, (known as the other world), and the “Earthly World”, (known as this world). For people who are able to live this life remembering the value of ‘the other world’, this universe will appear as a world created by God or Buddha, and come to understand that differences of skin color, gender, salary, social status, education or place of birth are not of importance to the spiritual self, and know we are all equal as souls.

With this perspective in our mind, how should we regard the countries that still treat others with hostility?

Master Okawa emphasized the importance of ‘forgiveness’, saying “if we are able to exert the power to love and forgive people who wish to be unforgiving for 1000’s of years, we have already triumphed in this world.” “It matters not whether there is a country that disdains Japan (or any other country) for 1,000’s of years. We shall forgive such a country for 2,000 years.” (Applause from the audience)

Master Okawa also stated that the removal of hatred, born from differences of religion, is a central mission of El Cantare.

Furthermore, he called upon the expansion of missionary work to places where the Truth has not yet been attained, stating: ,“The life on this earth is limited. But the Truth shall never die.”

In addition to the above points, Master Okawa spoke of the following (and if you watch the lecture, you will experience the manner in which the knowledge of love, forgiveness and universal truth is expressed with such veneration):

• The way of life that shows us a glimpse of the characteristics of angels;
• The reason why from time to time the guiding spirits of light descend to earth; and
• The “Challenges of Wisdom” that academia is now facing.