It must be very painful when you realize that "there are many things I can't do better than others."
But before you think, "I am not blessed," try to touch the Words of Truth.
Even if you have a disability, you are perfect as a soul. You have a perfect soul within.
And life has a purpose and a mission.
If you can explore your life that you have planned and realize its value, your life will be filled with light.

From the teachings of Master Ryuho Okawa, we have selected prescriptions for the mind to lighten the worries and suffering caused by physical disabilities or Down Syndrome.

Some are born planning a life of disability to guide others

 

 

Some people are born with a noble purpose and plan for a life of disability, as Helen Keller did with her triple handicap.

There are some people who have such illnesses as part of their noble bodhisattva practice.

For example, some people living in wheelchairs are active members of society. Such people may wonder why they have such bad luck, but some of them are determined to have it to some extent and have drawn such a fate.

Thus, some people choose physical obstacles in order to inspire in others a sense of purpose in life, joy, courage, and the like.

It is a temporary thing from a spiritual point of view. During that time, some people assume such a form in order to accumulate virtues. Then, when they leave this earth, all physical obstacles are eliminated and they return to their free form.

 

From "Seven Tips for Becoming ‘I'm Fine!’" by Ryuho Okawa

 

 

Disabled, but complete as a soul

 

You may be sick or have some kind of disability, but as a soul you are complete. Our souls are all complete.

If you have a disability, you may suffer for decades as an ordeal, and your family may be inconvenienced. However, when you return to the other world, you will return to your perfect form.

Living with such burdens is always contributing to some kind of soul training, so don't think too much about obstacles. We should not take the view that they are "lesser in soul."

In fact, some people who struggle and work hard while carrying such burdens have a wonderful light in them. There are people in this world who are more admirable than ordinary people, who are severely handicapped or seem to be mentally handicapped.

Sometimes angels of light are born in such a form because they have a certain mission. They may appear as such because they need to educate people in the world or educate their parents in some way.

Therefore, we must not judge others simply by their appearance.

 

From “How to Nurture Children’s Individual Personalities” by Ryuho Okawa

 

 

What it means to live with a disability

 

There are many people who currently have physical disabilities, such as those who cannot move their legs, those who have no hands, those who are visually impaired, and those who have hearing disabilities. Some of these people have created some kind of physical karma in their past incarnations.

However, when they return to the other world, they will be cured. Even if you are visually impaired or hearing impaired, you will be cured in the afterlife. You are only disabled for a few decades in this world. This is really true.

Even though we are "cast" in some role on earth, there is training within it.

The model answers to these "workbook of problems" will be presented to you when you return to the other world. Until then, I would like you to do your best to solve your own problems in your workbook.

 

From "Seven Tips for Becoming ‘I'm Fine!’" by Ryuho Okawa

 

 

Advice for those born with disabilities

 

 

Looking at individual cases of a child born with a major disability, the cause is often connected to karma, matters that happened in one of his or her previous lives.

If you trace back through the child’s previous incarnations, in almost all cases you can identify the reason for the disability. At some point, there must have been guidance given that the soul should live with a disability to accumulate a diverse range of life experiences as a training process, or as part of the workbook of problems to be solved.

In fact, the majority of people have lived at least one lifetime with some sort of disability or limitation over the course of their reincarnations. In most cases, it is a result of a past life in which they caused injury to another, or robbed another of their physical freedom in some form.

In primitive times, humans were more barbaric. There are still people today who bully, tease, punch, kick, or slap others. There is almost no one who has never hurt others in a previous incarnation. In other words, there is a countless number of people who have caused unhappiness to others, and even engaged in physical violence at some point in their previous lives…

If you consider only the external manifestations of disabilities, you might be tempted to question why it should happen. However, a disability is sometimes necessary to clear up karma. A life lived with a disability erases karma, and serves to atone for previous actions.

For example, if you cut off a person’s arm with a sword, you might be burdened with a hand disability in a subsequent life; and that life lived with such a disability would effectively erase the awareness of your previous sins, cleanse you of that karma, and enable you to overcome one important challenge in your workbook of life experiences. Then you’d be able to take on the next challenge.

A life with a disability may appear unfair or a burden in the context of the earthly world, but if you consider the long course of reincarnation, you can see that it is not necessarily unfair. Such a life is quite significant. If your child was not disabled, then he or she would have karma postponed into the next lifetime, as it is a challenge which he or she must deal with at some point in time.

Therefore, if your child’s purpose in this life is to reap their karma and struggles with a disability, it is God’s or Buddha’s compassion not to fix it. Our natural instinct is to feel sorry for a person with a disability, but it is worth remembering that God or Buddha is watching over him or her.

Here at Happy Science, we offer various kigan or ritual prayers, but you may sometimes experience that taking kigan does not always bring you a miracle or cure the disability. That’s because the purpose of this lifetime includes the cancelling of karma. In that case, the disability cannot be taken away; otherwise, the karma will be carried into the next lifetime, and the person would have to face the same kind of struggle again.

Generally speaking, this is the basic idea about the issue of disability. Severe or unusual disabilities, illnesses and afflictions are, in most cases, manifestations of retained karma. You may think you have never harmed others in the past and cannot find any reason for such adversity through deep self-reflection, but when you open the window to your heart, you will surely discover a corresponding karma in one of your past lives.

 

From “How to Nurture Children’s Individual Personalities” by Ryuho Okawa

 

 

Children with disabilities teach us the value of being healthy

 

The second point I want to make is that there has always been a certain proportion of disabled children in this world, and we should be grateful for this fact, because it is part of human nature that we forget to appreciate our own good fortune unless or until we see others who have disabilities or are lacking in some way. If we were all in perfectly good health with full possession of our faculties, we would not know how to be grateful for what we have.

If there is someone with a disability at school, those around him or her will see with their own eyes how the burden imposes the parents. That alone would be a great learning experience for them. A disabled child of course will learn for his or her own experience, but also allows other people to learn from it. In other words, the child is playing the role of a teacher. In this regard, society needs a certain proportion of disabled people to teach us the value of good health…

 

From “How to Nurture Children’s Individual Personalities” by Ryuho Okawa

 

 

Live the "best life" within the given conditions

 

 

Physical handicaps disappear when you return to the other world. Blindness and deafness are made right again when you go on to the next world. Our disabilities last only as long as our time here on earth does, which equals the span of merely a few decades. This is the truth.

The role into which you have been cast in this life is a part of your ongoing spiritual development.

Do not become fixated on the thought that if only your physical disabilities were cured you would then be able to become happy. Instead, you must seek to live the best life you possibly can within the circumstances in which you placed yourself in this life.

You may burden others as you move forward towards your own best self, but there will also be things you can give in return. Therefore, I would like you to make efforts to think less of the negative and to focus only on the positive in everything that you do.

Your physical eyes may not allow you to see, but the eye of your mind can never be darkened. There is nothing preventing you from finding the Truth with an inner sight that no one can take away from you. From there, you will be able to produce something positive through speaking or listening or any of the other faculties and senses which remain with you.

This is all a part of the “workbook of problems,” which has been assigned to you. It is up to you to work to solve these problems now, in this lifetime on your own.

The answers to the problems in this workbook will be handed to you when you return to the other world. You will come to understand then, why you were made to undergo the specific spiritual training that you are now carrying out. Until that day comes, devote yourself wholeheartedly to solving the set of problems that have been given to you.

 

From “Healing from Within” by Ryuho Okawa