the process of learning about themselves and what we humans are while working on a daily short exercise.

This, I think, more than we can imagine, will become a solid foundation for the GLA community in the future.

Those members who did not participate in the seminar are still able to have a glimpse of the sessions by visiting the “One Day One Sheet Special Seminar” special feature page on the GLA website. I also recommend you to read The Power to Know Oneself one more time.

An Underdeveloped Being

As we come to understand ourselves, we realize that no one is perfect from the beginning.

We all have great potential, but at the same time, we have many shortcomings, immaturities, and weaknesses.

By the time we go to elementary school, we have all acquired a certain way in which our mind perceives and responds to the world that is unique to each person. As we go through our life, we change our way of feeling, perceiving, thinking, and acting to be gradually molded into a pattern while we change our way of perceiving and responding.

When we face a similar stimulus—similar in the type of event or encounter, we feel and perceive each one in the same way as we always have, even if we have no intention of repeating the same pattern. As we repeat the same way of thinking and acting, we come to produce the same reality. Even if we do not realize it, we express our way of living tainted by these peculiar habits.

The more we learn about ourselves, the more we may come to feel our limitations rather than our potentials.

However, this “self” is not the final form of ourselves, and that is the view of the humanity of the Study of the Soul² .

We all started out as babies, incapable of doing anything by ourselves, but we have slowly acquired various living skills. In the same way, we are capable of developing our own minds.

No matter what limitations we may have been burdened with through our upbringing, due to discord with families or realities about which we can do nothing, we are still able to overcome these limitations one by one. Not only that, but we are able to evolve our minds precisely because we harbored such limitations. This is who we are as humans.

To Fill Our Own Vessels

There is a way of living that we, underdeveloped beings, must value. That is, to do our best and continue to make the best move every day. In other words, we must continue our daily efforts so that we can fill our own vessels with light and power.

We harbor limitations. It means that the size of our own vessels have their limits. And yet, if we continue to fill our own vessels with light and power, we will notice one day that they have become larger, exceeding their previous limitations.

How about striving hard on the issues we have at hand to the extent of our very limit? How about pursuing the blueprint³ so intensely that we cannot think any further? How about we worry about the situation so much that we can worry no more and continue to make innovations and improvements, and make our utmost efforts in repeated trial and error?

As we accumulate these steps, then one day, we will reach a point when we notice our limitations suddenly vanish. We find our vessels have expanded and filled with more light and power. This is the process of the development and evolution of human beings

Editor's Notes

1. Global GENESIS Project (GGP)
It is a practice-based study opportunity of the Study of the Soul, combining studying and volunteer activities. Once a week, participants learn the latest wisdom of the Divine Truth. At the same time, members can experience hands-on learning of the Divine Truth through Project activities (volunteer activities in GLA).

2. Study of the Soul
The Study of the Soul is a system of theory and practice in which we seek a way of life by connecting the visible and invisible dimensions. In contrast to the study of phenomena, which science represents by dealing with the materialistic dimension, the Study of the Soul goes beyond that, dealing comprehensively with the materialistic dimension and the invisible dimension of the mind and soul. That is a principle that I have discovered from intensive studies of human beings and the individual life journeys of the many people whom I have met. By looking at the soul, mind, and reality as a whole, we observe human beings and aspire to respond to every possible occasion. (Excerpt from p.50 of How to Make Your Life the Best; available only in Japanese)