My Spiritual Awakening

In June 1981, high spirits including Jesus Christ came down to tell me something extraordinary: that I was called to a unique mission. I was called to be a spiritual leader on a global scale.

When a high spirit makes an appearance on earth in this way, it is with a numinous radiance that causes your body to become very warm, and the messages communicated are so filled with truth and light that you are overwhelmed and tears well up. Such was my experience.

The following month, a hidden part of my consciousness—the Buddha himself—began to speak to me in a mixture of Japanese and Sanskrit, urging me to embrace my destiny and to spread the word of Buddha. He revealed to me that I am an incarnation of El Cantare, the supreme consciousness of his group, and that my mission is to save all living creatures through the revelation of the Truth worldwide.

These revelatory experiences were so overpowering and the scope of the mission set out for me so enormous that I could not conceal my shocked amazement. Still, I also realized at once that I am a reincarnation of the Buddha, and that it has been my mission to reorganize the high spirits in heaven while also integrating all the various religions on earth to create a new world religion. It is up to me to gather all the peoples of the world into this new faith, to pioneer the development of a new civilization, and thus to herald the advent of a new age for the world.

However, I did not feel that I was ready to undertake this incredible responsibility, even though I had immediately intuited the authenticity of my calling and accepted it wholeheartedly. I was still in my twenties and working for an international trading company. Hence, I decided to continue working at my job until I reached the age of thirty. I was, of course, experiencing a great deal of inner turmoil as I operated in the everyday world of business while fully aware of my true identity and vocation.

In 1982 I was assigned to my company’s headquarters in New York as a trainee, all the while knowing that I had received a message from Jesus and been commissioned for a cosmic undertaking by the Buddha. Thus, this Buddha-to-be spent many a day working with my fellow operatives on Wall Street in the intense world of international finance. Meanwhile, I learned English intensively and passed the entrance exam to the City University of New York, where I studied international finance at the graduate level.

But, not unexpectedly, I was less than happy in what I was doing. The gap between the mundane realities of my everyday life and the intense experiences of my spiritual world grew ever more unbridgeable. My sense of identity was severely tested.

I returned to Japan and spent the next two years preparing myself for my true mission. From 1985 on I published a series of books revealing the spiritual messages I was receiving, including, The Spiritual Message of Jesus Christ. I was still working for the trading company. So these books were published under my father’s name, with my own name appearing only as a contributing writer.

But finally in June 1986, Jesus and other spirits came down to me one after the other and declared that now was the time to present myself as the religious leader I was commissioned to be. On July 15 that year—just a week after my thirtieth birthday—I handed in my resignation at the company and felt free to fully embrace my life mission.

Toward the end of August, I started writing the initial version of The Laws of the Sun, completing it within a week. Shortly thereafter I wrote the companion volume The Golden Laws. Publication of these works in which I proclaimed my message attracted remarkable attention among people sincerely searching for the truth.

I gave my first public lecture in Tokyo on March 8, 1987. Some 400 people turned up to hear me speak on “The Principles of Happiness.” In that talk I introduced the four basic principles that constitute the core of what I teach—the principles of love, wisdom, self-reflection, and progress.

In Spring 1988, I married my wife Kyoko, who had recently graduated from the University of Tokyo with a degree in English Literature. Marrying my life partner gave my life a stable center that enabled me to concentrate even more on fulfilling my mission.

My lectures, inspired by my mission and spiritual guidance, captured the hearts and minds of more and more people all over Japan. The attendance at the lectures kept growing. By 1988, a public hall for 2000 could not accommodate all the people who came. In 1989 I spoke to audiences as large as 8500, and 1990 the number swelled to well over 10,000.

With the rapid growth of the movement, on March 7, 1991, four years after my initial lecture, Happy Science was officially established as a religious organization. The symbolic head of the movement is the Grand Nyorai Shakyamuni, also known as El Cantare, leader of the high spirits of the ninth dimension and reincarnation of the most revered Buddha.

In 1992 and 1993, I expanded my teachings and clarified how they are rooted in Buddhist principles. I have to attribute our success to the significance and timeliness of the mission and message with which I was entrusted. I wish to offer to people around the world the spiritual knowledge and wisdom that I have been blessed to receive and commissioned to share with the world.