What happens to those who do not believe in Spirit or the Spiritual Realm when they die?

The Spiritual Messages Series currently stretches over 200 volumes. As the series expands, the more influential it becomes. Yet, there are always those who say, “enough is enough.” That is because those who find spiritual messages hard to believe don’t realize that what they find unbelievable is having a profoundly negative impact on them. This battle has been going on since the beginning of time.

As an example, it is not difficult to see what would happen to someone, who dies at 80 years of age without any belief in the spiritual realm or the soul.

Such a person upon dying, would find him or herself totally lost, without knowing who he or she is, where, or even what he or she ought to be doing. Inevitably this utter devastation to the newly deceased will cause “calamities” to occur to their own families and acquaintances left behind. They start to precipitate many negative actions after they die, but by then it’s very difficult to stop this behavior. Since most of the living are not mediums, few know what to do.

If by chance such a spirit had understood or experienced even a little bit of what is taught in the scripture, Equation of Hell (Japanese only) then there would be a way to assuage the tormented soul. However since the deceased is drifting around without any understanding whatsoever, then he or she wouldn’t even know how to heed the guidance of an angel.

People who had not taken to heart discussions about the spiritual realm, or the spirit while in this world, will be lost when they enter the spiritual realm. And this can go on for eternity. Such spiritual malaise is one of the root causes of much of the unhappiness in this world. Evil permeates causing all kinds of dire consequences..

The spirit itself becomes upset because it’s ignored despite its presence. Such desperation might even cause a traffic accident to occur in order to get noticed. Or such lack of spiritual peace might cause sudden sickness, drive someone to suicide, or other terrible outcome just to show that it does indeed exist. However they are absent the ability to judge right or wrong.

Faith is the ticket to the Next World

So, it is imperative for those who do the preaching to thoroughly understand the importance of their work. They must teach that belief in the spiritual realm or in the spirit is the only path to avoid the trouble that would otherwise await them.

I would hope that senior citizens have some kind of faith. There are so many different religions out there, so it does not necessarily have to be Happy Science. If it’s a somewhat established religion, and not some idiosyncratic religion of the moment, then I think it should be okay.

To put it bluntly, having no faith is akin to not having a ticket to the spiritual realm. It would then mean staying in this realm, or descending into a permanent hell. Apparently in most cases those lacking faith end up staying in this realm and facing infinite sorrow and calamity.

Further, the number of senior citizens is increasing with better health care available. A large portion of these senior citizens do not believe in the spiritual realm, and if they do not believe that they are a spirit, what will they do after their death?

There may be situations where people end up living together with a spirit in their homes.. It happens often where housing is built over former cemeteries, causing many people to live in disharmony with spirits. It is thus important to keep preaching the realm of the spirit.

To publish Spiritual Messages as they are is also to validate the Spiritual Realm

I understand clearly that rather than “spiritual messages”, if I were to publish my teachings as my own writings, then they might be more acceptable to the public. However facts are facts, and truth is indeed truth, so we must continue to teach this. In as many ways as possible I want to try to help people realize that there really is a “spirit”, and so I continue to publish these truths as spiritual messages.

Even journalists with an affinity for Happy Science sometimes say, “We sympathize with your ideas, but please stop talking about guardian spirits and spiritual messages.”

I can stop. But if I do, you will still have to study about the spiritual realm and the spirit after you die. Without me the message is still the same.

We are in these fleshly bodies for the purpose of training. To maximize the extent to which we can become enlightened about the spiritual realm is the main task of each person’s training in this life experience.

It then becomes a question of persuasiveness. My credence alone is not enough. The reason for there being a religious community is that with a large gathering of people, each person can use their voice in service of advancing the missionary work. We each bring so many things to the table: credence, age, experience gained from a particular line of work, credence of family and relationship, etc. If people think, “Wow, a great person like this is also a believer,” then this also adds to the credibility, and around this body of shared belief, the missionary work gets advanced. So it also becomes necessary to have an organization.

The problem, though, is that ever since the war, teaching related to spirituality has been criticized heavily. Things have not gone well for a long time. We must somehow reverse this trend.

Selflessness does not mean “Without Soul”, but is an emphasis on “Detachment”

The reason why so many spiritual messages are being put out there right now is because there has been no one who could demonstrate the true existence of the spiritual realm.

For instance, the Jodo Shinshu type of Buddhism tends to be spiritual, but if there is no spiritual realm after death, then Jodo Shinshu wouldn’t work. They may teach that the Amida Buddha will come to save us, but what can that mean if there is no spiritual realm?

There are even chief priests who carry out empty rituals, while thinking “Does anybody really believe in this in this day and age?” Many even think to themselves, “I’ve never seen or heard the Amida Buddha. Never met him. Nobody has. Does he really exist?!” while carrying out their rituals. It must be difficult to reach Buddhahood if the scriptures are being chanted in such questioning states.

Within the Zen style too, there are many who deny the spiritual realm and the soul. Dogen taught mostly the methods of zazen rather then concentrating on content so it often ended up being very materialistic. The essential point of it is lost.

There are also many philosophical Buddhists who say, “Shakyamuni’s Buddhism is ‘self-less’, and so it is soulless and materialistic,” but if the Buddha is soulless and is a materialist, there’s no way he can have six higher knowledges. The six higher knowledges refer to the ability to understand what is beyond this world. This is written everywhere in Buddhist scriptures, but the connection is not being made.

Selflessness is an emphasis on detachment. It is a call to give up attachment to this world.

Shakyamuni knew many a ghost who could not leave this world and helplessly kept causing trouble and suffering for people. In most cases there is an attachment to their earthly home, work, estate, or family. The teaching is telling us to give up such attachments. I say all these things precisely because I know the spiritual realm well. Unless attachment is given up, we cannot move on to the spiritual realm.

We must strive to help those spirits who cannot accept the fact that they have died to leave this world and return to the spiritual realm. That is why there are spiritual messages. My work with these messages is a way to communicate that, “the spiritual realm is the real world”.