In Japan, “otaku” has become a harsh insult, and not entirely without reason.

I have frequently mentioned the “otaku”, a Japanese name for people who are obsessed with pop culture like comics, cartoons and computer games. There are a lot of people in Japan who are interested in these things, and the word is used in English and other European languages about people with such an interest in Japanese (and sometimes Korean) popular culture. But in Japanese it is a very negative word, and used about those who are so obsessed that they cannot act quite like normal people in society.

Many of my long-standing online friends are otaku in the English sense of the word, but not many of them – perhaps not any, anymore – are really obsessed. I have mentioned the extreme cases called hikikomori, young people who lock themselves in their room watching anime all day. This is the stereotype of the otaku taken to the logical extreme.

Given yesterday’s self-reflection on time spent on a computer game, it might seem that otaku are particularly far from salvation. After all, Heaven is a multi-dimensional “place”, starting for real with the 5th dimension (spirituality); but the otaku lives mostly in two dimensions: the surface of comic books, TV sets or computer monitors. And he spends most of his time in the soft, imaginary, daydream-like lower worlds, to the point where it becomes painful for him even to live in the ordinary human world of space and time, much less the unyielding and timeless higher worlds.

And yet, I believe the otaku has a particular trait that could serve him well if he ever awakens to the Truth: He has the ability to move his mind to a world different from the physical world.

Let me explain. Our animal friends live in a world that is not only real but concrete, in the sense that it can be seen and smelled and touched; a world of the senses. Small children also live in this world. But they grow up and begin to live in the fourth dimension of time, which animals don’t except for a few in short glimpses. You probably don’t understand how significant this is. It is simply too  obvious for most people to see.

The fourth dimension, time, is all in your head. You cannot see that which was or that which is to be, only what is at the moment. (Or the moment light starts its travel from it, which in the case of some stars is many years ago. The principle still holds.) For instance, I will never again see the house I lived in last year at this time. It has been completely destroyed and a new house built in its place. I will never be able to touch the rough, painted walls again, smell the particular smell of old harsh fat in the old stairway, or even see it. I can see photos of it, but not the real thing. It does not exist anymore. And yet I know that it is real in the past. Likewise what will be in the future is as real as that I can see and touch now. This unfailing belief in the reality of things that aren’t there to our senses is unique to humans, and even takes some years to assemble.

The fifth dimension is likewise “in our head”, and there is no way for us to show it to the doubtful or let them touch it or smell it or hear it. And yet like time it is quite real to those who have added the first dimension beyond time. The mind is able to go where the body can not. We know this because all of us do this routinely in the fourth dimension of time. But our travel there is to some degree personal. Sometimes old friends will laugh at something that happened long ago and they fail to explain it to a newer friend: “You have to have been there to get it” they will say. It is the same with the fifth dimension and beyond.

The otaku has proven his ability to reach out with his mind and move it to a different world, although in this case a smaller, softer, simpler world. Almost all of us do this from time to time in the form of daydreams (although autists don’t daydream, I have been told) but the otaku is not just popping into an imaginary world: He is able to stay there for a long time, and become thoroughly familiar with it. An otaku can often remember obscure details of a comic book world even after many years. So there is this ability to move beyond the concrete.

A person who is strongly bound to the senses and the moment will have a hard time ascending to the fifth dimension. He will think “I am this body” and believe that where his body isn’t, he cannot be either. In a sense, such a person is on the side of humanity that is closest to animals. Dogs have many good qualities, but they are strongly bound to their bodies. Likewise a human can be a very good person but strongly bound to the body. This makes it hard to explore the spiritual world. In so far as such a person is religious, it will often be in a dogmatic and theoretical way.

The otaku is able to move between worlds, but unfortunately the “gravity” is stronger the closer you come to the bottom. It is hard to get back up when one is weakened from years of living in a dream. It requires grace, which is luckily still available, and it requires spiritual training or discipline, which is unfortunately difficult for a weak person. Such a soul needs to be gentle but persistent with himself. He may not be able to immerse himself in meditation for long, but he can still do it regularly, a little each day, and it will get easier with time. If he attends a religious service, he will almost certainly begin to daydream of his colorful anime world after some minutes. But as long as he does not do this driven by spite but just by weakness, he can gradually recollect himself and begin to rise toward the Light.

While I am not, and have never been, an otaku in the Japanese sense, I have enough in common with them to understand and sympathize with their plight. It is not easy to be weak, and it is easy to duck down in the lower worlds where one can be strong. For the deeper you go into lower worlds, the more godlike your powers. Conversely, the higher you rise, the weaker you become, and if you rise very high you will feel like a maggot. (Although you will gradually become stronger if you spend time in higher worlds.) But for those who have lived long in lower worlds, it requires strength and patience to live even in the ordinary world. Luckily this is all available, and it need not stop there. Little by little we will be changed into that which we focus intently on. And just as we once focused almost exclusively on worlds created by humans, we can focus more and more on the worlds that have the power to create us anew. In religion these worlds are collectively called “Heaven”, but there are several – one could even say many – of them.

But of these things there are many others who are better qualified to speak than I. For I am like a tourist in a marvelous country, craning my neck at sights that are beyond me. I am still so weak after all these years that it is easier for me to sink down than to rise up, left to myself.