Published in 2018, The Laws of Faith was an important contribution made toward Ryuho Okawa’s “Laws” series of books. As the name implies, The Laws of Faith is a book that discusses the importance and dynamics of having faith in something higher than oneself. Despite the title, however, Ryuho Okawa does not infer that humanity allow their faith to prevent themselves from making efforts on their own and being self-reliant.
The Laws of Faith
How can faith unite all people? Ryuho Okawa reveals that his spiritual name, El Cantare, is the genesis of all world religions and has been guiding humanity since antiquity. Understand the one source that we all share, overcome differences and become one people on planet Earth.
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Early on in the book, Okawa discusses the phenomenon of miracles; such can only become manifest where there is very strong faith in a higher power. It is mentioned that miracles brought about by a powerful sense of faith can cure sickness and cleanse the physical body of damaging cells. However, it is also stated that humanity should not be completely dependent upon miracles to get through life, and that even the power of miracles has its limits, in that the physical human body must eventually cease to live. A true sense of faith will likely bring many miracles, but faith should exist regardless of the manifestation of miracles.
Love is discussed at length in The Laws of Faith, and in the second chapter of the book the reader is treated to a reflection of the early years of Happy Science, including the difficulties that Ryuho Okawa and some early members faced throughout the process of building a new religion. It is described that love was discovered between members of Happy Science, but in some instances was lost, perhaps due to jealousy, which can be considered the opposite of love. Love is explored from various angles, including how it can nourish and harm us, as well as the many variations of it. The most important form of love is stated to be the Love of God, which is present wherever genuine love is experienced by humans. Okawa explores how in atheistic communist nations love is lacking and humans are simply viewed as material tools through which work must be forcibly performed. Humanity can benefit well from reflecting upon how love can become manifest within certain political systems and can be entirely absent in others.
In the third chapter of The Laws of Faith, Ryuho Okawa describes the concept of living one’s life with the awareness that, on average, it will consist of about 30,000 days. Okawa posits that humans strive to treat each of those 30,000 as an opportunity to make this world a more benevolent place. A main precedent for this that Okawa describes exists in being mindful of one’s true and inner thoughts, which shape the reality of each individual and have the ability, when empowered by faith, to enact changes on a larger scale.
As the book continues, there is a discussion of the spiritual concept that all people are children of God, and it is affirmed that the theory of evolution, as it is conventionally taught, is ultimately a hypothesis, and an incomplete one at that. Okawa’s The Laws of the Sun explores human evolution in a very thorough manner, and is a great accompaniment to the ideas presented about human evolution. Because all humans are children of God, Okawa posits that when the light of God is felt through faith it may be mediated into the world for the sake of compassion. Okawa likewise states there is likely to be less harm, such as in the form of natural disasters, brought into regions of the world where the faith of humanity remains strong amidst accelerating tendencies toward secularism, which speaks of the immense power of faith where it is maintained collectively. As a Japanese citizen, Okawa discusses the spiritual situation of Japan at length.
The Laws of Faith is a work that seeks to bring peace to the world through the power of love and faith. As Okawa states, the God of many quarreling religions is the same God, and God would not want His people to fight amongst themselves. Many wars are waged in the world today, with many factors involved, but at their root and in their origins there is always a religious conflict. Okawa states that one of the most important qualities of Happy Science is that it helps to bring the religions of the world together so that there can be greater peace and love between people from all walks of life who, after all, are not so very different from one another underneath the surface.
