The Light is a source of absolute power, as I am sure I have told you repeatedly. But this time it is an illustration from the anime “The Laws of Eternity”.

I have thought about this so often the last month or two, I almost believed I had written about it already. So I better do, or I will think I have said all the words that should be spoken, and then they are lost forever.

I’ll use the concepts from Kofuku no Kagaku (Happy Science, formerly IRH) to look at a part of my life from a different angle. I don’t really expect westerners (or indeed most Japanese) to believe that the sect leader is actually from Venus etc. I certainly don’t, but then again I will just let that rest, because I honestly don’t know how literally that is meant. He does say right out that his description of the spirit world is NOT some kind of “other world” that we go to when we die. I already knew this. It makes a lot more sense if, as he says, these dimensions are all in your mind. (That does not make them any less real: Everything is contained by the human mind, even this “real” world. This is why Democrats and Republicans live in different worlds and cannot even agree on measurable facts, such as whether the planet is warming or cooling.) People think they have to go somewhere when they die, but we are actually “there” already. In my case, I think, somewhere in the lower reaches of the sixth dimension, although I am not sure if I can stay there.

Now, what do I really mean by “dimension”? We already agreed it was not a physical thing.

If you really were a materialist – which nobody really is in practice – then you would basically be like an animal. You would have no goals or values above what your instinct told you from moment to moment. But all of us actively remember the past (while most, if not all, animals only recognize it when they see it) and think about the future. This means we all have access to Time, the fourth dimension.

But according to Happy Science (and this is the least happy part of it) many people these days don’t have access to the fifth dimension, which is spirituality. For some reason, this is also called the realm of good (or realm of the good). I guess “spirituality” is not a perfect translation of the Japanese concept? I mean, ouija boards etc should probably not be included. Intriguingly, the voice in my head reminds me that the Bible (Jude, vers 19) supports the view that there are “natural men who don’t have spirit” (or “the Spirit” – obviously one must have some degree of spirit to be human at all, much less religious.) So, since I still have not found any explanation in Okawa’s book for this feature, I rely on the voice in my head (or heart) for the following: The fifth dimension is characterized by the ability to reflect on your life, see your imperfections and repent. Without this there cannot be progress or true spirituality. The “natural men” cannot do this. They will excuse or explain away their mistakes and not grieve over their sins unless they are caught and punished, in which case they grieve over their lost reputation and opportunity, but not their lost purity, otherwise they would have repented alone as soon as they became aware of it.

Well, even though calling me “good” would be a bit of an overstatement, I do keep afterthought, or self-reflection, and I do pent and repent over and over. (Sometimes even without being sick! No, really!) It is just that some things seem to find their way back in. Still working on this, but it does not seem to be unique to me. And as Smith’s Friends say (this is another group of people again, and pure Christian, no Buddhism at least that they know of): The sin you see as most grievous is the one you first get victory over. This seems to be perfectly, accurately true. If you think your sin is not a crime and God is just easily squicked, then it will come back again and again, like muddy footprints in a house where the children never learn to take their shoes off.

The sixth dimension, finally! It is the Realm of Light. All who live here know that there is a higher power, which they may call by different names, but they are all aware of it. And not just in a theoretical sense, like when you learn in geography class that in Japan there is a mountain called Mount Fuji, but more like living in a place where you can view Fuji-san from your window. In the same way, one who lives in the sixth dimension, or should we say, the sixth dimension lives in him, is well aware of the Light. This divine Light is different from the light of the material sun, and it has two unique properties. One, it is able to create. Two, it is able to grow. When the divine Light meets a soul which has affinity with it, that soul will radiate more Light than it received, as if the Light was a living, growing thing. When the Light shines on a group of souls that are drawn to it, it can move from one to the other and back, growing all the while, so that they together radiate a great amount of Light. This is how a true religious organization should work. But this is not restricted to religion. Andrew Cohen talks about “enlightened communication”, and says that there is a greater consciousness beyond ego, which can be reached by groups of people who dedicate their talk to a greater purpose and abstain from making references to themselves. This greater consciousness has abilities beyond what each member of the group has, and even beyond the sum of the members of the group. I will add that exceptional cases of teamwork all over the world may be caused by Light amplification, for the Light has many projects going on.

People from the sixth dimension are active in various areas, doing exceptional things. They tend to be leaders in their fields, or outstanding artists or inventors, people who create something of lasting value. They do this not only by their own inherent connection to the Light, but also by the inspiration of their fellow spirits. Each of us has a guardian angel and many of us has one or more spirit guides, according to Happy Science. These are high spirits from the sixth realm or above who assist us when we seek to achieve something worthy but which we would have a hard time doing on our own. The muse of an artist or writer could be such a being from the sixth dimension, who is currently not in the flesh but is aching to contribute to the world through acting as inspiration (a word clearly related to spirit). I cannot swear that this is true, but long time readers will vaguely remember that I have written about this years ago.

When I was creating the debt reclamation software that later helped numerous companies here in Norway save millions, I would frequently get revelations on how to write a particular piece of code. It was as if someone had figured it out for me and placed it in my brain, and I just had to write it down and test it. This happened many times and I found it remarkable. At the time, I ran rings around a 20-man team of educated programmers with expensive equipment. Alone with a few workers who tested my programs as soon as I had coded them, I made this masterpiece on my free time and mostly for the joy of it, as well as helping an old friend. Because my motivation was pure and my creativity was beyond material rewards, it would seem that the high spirits of programming would quietly pitch in. If you believe in the afterlife world of Happy Science, it may be that spirits like Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace were looking down from Heaven and decided to give me a hand. Of course, this is figuratively speaking. Remember that everything is in our mind. But the effects are very real.

The sixth dimension is the dimension of truth, or true knowledge. People who love knowledge for its own sake, not as a tool to success in the material realm, will be blessed from time to time by random moments of bliss or ecstatic joy that comes for no reason or is out of proportion to its trigger. I call these “joy attacks” or “pleasure attacks” as a pun on the well known phenomenon of panic attacks. Actually, Okawa is the first other person I know of who has mentioned this! But we are not alone. A few days ago I had a poll on my LiveJournal to find out whether my friends had these experiences too, and whether they really only happened to people know loved knowledge, as Ryuho Okawa says. Not many answered, but all who did had these “joy attacks” and loved knowledge. One even commented to ask whether there were still people who did not love knowledge for its own sake. There certainly are, and I think you can ask any high school or college teacher about that if you are in doubt. Even better, look at advertisement for higher education. We may not know our motivations, but the advertisers know. They study humans with the same professional detachment as scientists study lab rats, because their success depends on knowing what really makes us tick.

Anyway, how do I know that I belong in the sixth dimension and not the seventh? That is easy: The seventh dimension is forgiving love. This is where the bodhisattva belong, and their western equivalents, the saints. (For some reason, Okawa always refers to the Christian version as “angels”.) Let us explain how love reacts at the different levels here. At the fourth dimension, you love your family (natural love). Apart from that, you expect tit for tat. At the fifth dimension, you expect gratitude. If people don’t praise you, you quickly lose your motivation, but if you can see that other people are happy and grateful, you get motivated to keep helping them even if they don’t pay you for it. At the sixth dimension, you don’t need gratitude, just acceptance. I have elsewhere compared this to a young mother whose breasts are full of milk. She does not need the baby’s gratitude, she is aching to let him drink, it is a need of her own. In the same way, we of the sixth dimension have a need to create and to share with the world, and all we ask for is that our gift be accepted. But those in the seventh dimension are not so easily turned away. Their love is unconditional, so that they will keep giving even if they are loved less the more they love. If you look at the official saints of the Catholic church, you will find that a disproportionate number of them were persecuted and many even became martyrs. This makes perfect sense because it is a kind of final proof that they were indeed saints. Normal people would have stopped well before it got that badly out of hand. But there are many other saints, and because they were never tested in such a dramatic outward way, they are not officially known. But those who have met them may realize it in time.

I am not a saint. I pray to God repeatedly that I may never be severely tested in forgiveness. As a Christian I am required to forgive everyone, and I believe this is needed even if you do not belong to this religion. If you cannot forgive someone, there will be a spot of evil on your soul, and this would put a serious dent in any plans you may have for your afterlife. But some of us, like me, are better off the less we are tested, as we could break easily and be overcome with evil. Therefore I pray that I not be tested in this regard, except for the most trivial situations which we all have to face. Like my bosses not respecting my vacation, for instance. To forgive is to forget, so don’t be surprised if I forget to show up for that mandatory training course that is slated inside my vacation… ^_^* But that’s a far cry from being persecuted for the Truth. I just know I could not possibly take that, at least not in the long run. They say that it is easier to die for your faith than to live for it, but I would rather prefer not to test that. Well, perhaps I could die as a martyr at the age of 90… Somehow I don’t think that would impress God or the angels very much though!

As I said, you can (and perhaps should) be a saint without being a martyr. But I also know that I simply am not that kind of person. I don’t have that level of love and dedication. It is a human trait to want to see oneself at the top of the pyramid, or very nearly so, “next to God”. But I cannot honestly believe that I am anything more than a barely sixth-dimensional programmer. Can I even stay at that level constantly? I don’t know, but I sure hope so.

Of course, that’s just one way of looking at it. I have used many other descriptions in the past, my favorite probably being Spiral Dynamics. But they don’t quite say the same thing. Also, one is more dry and scientific, while the other is colorful and filled with the mythos of several cultures. Even I see myself from different angles, and perhaps someone will understand me better one way than another. Is that not a big part of why we are on Earth in the first place, to understand and be understood?