Master Okawa’s Lecture: How To End Religious Conflict
Master Ryuho Okawa, founder and CEO of Happy Science, gave a lecture on the 7th of January at the Happy Science Tokyo Shoshinkan. It was a lecture on the book “The Laws of Faith” — the “Laws” Series book for this year — and it marked his 2,700th public lecture. The lecture was also broadcast live to numerous venues across Japan.
The subtitle of “The Laws of Faith” is ‘El Cantare, God of the Earth’. El Cantare is the highest God at Happy Science and the book explains that El Cantare’s central consciousness was born on Earth 330 million years ago with the name “Alpha”. Alpha taught the Primordial Laws as the first leader of humankind.
What Does “El Cantare” Mean?
In the lecture Master Okawa explained that “The Laws of Faith” was difficult to grasp for its wide variety of topics, and went on to explain the meaning of the words, “El Cantare”.
“‘El’ is frequently used to mean God or Light, and ‘Cantare’ means ‘the love, the mercy, the mystical and the miracle that envelops humanity’ . . . The name signifies the power of God that protects all humankind on Earth.”
“Tolerance” Needed to Overcome Religious Conflict
In the book, Master Okawa emphasized that to overcome the current religious conflict between Christianity and Islam, each religion must realize that they believe in the same God.
“It is true that each religion has differences that arise from racial and cultural differences. But the origin is the same, and each person is in the same position: everybody is undergoing spiritual training on Earth to polish their souls” (from Chapter 6).
In the lecture, Master Okawa spoke on the conflict between Islam and Buddhism happening now in Myanmar. He said the cause was differences in the idea of idolatry. “Humans have a need to worship something,” he said. “And it’s fine for there to be different forms of worship, but that also means we need to have tolerance”.
El Cantare Is Jesus’s “Father in Heaven”
Master Okawa described worship in Christianity. “Jesus is separate from the Father in Heaven,” he explained. “And that Father in Heaven [who guided Jesus] is none other than El Cantare”.
There is a similar passage in the book: “I want to get this clear: the being whom Jesus called “Lord” and whom Muhammad called “Lord” are the same being . . . That very being is now living on Earth by the name El Cantare”.
Such That You Can Say You’ve Achieved Something This Year
Master Okawa said in the lecture that earnest, hard work will bring results and that “in the end it’s day-by-day step-by-step. The secret to advancement is to keep asking yourself to see if you’ve achieved something that day.” “I also will work hard to complete over 2,800 lectures [total number] this year. Everyone must similarly work hard this year such that you can say you’ve achieved something this year,” he said to close the lecture.
In the lecture Master Okawa spoke on the following additional topics:
- The Laws of the Universe exclusive to Happy Science
- Why many global political topics are discussed in “The Laws of Faith”
- On the idea of ‘self-help’ and ‘divine help” in Christianity
- How to think about illnesses with unknown causes
- How only 1 in 5,000 companies can survive for over 30 years in Japan
