Tag Archives: Happy Science

Ideal or attachment

Posted on by
Reply

di0908027

“What are you making efforts for?” This question must be answered before entering the sixth dimension in the animated movie “The Laws of Eternity”.

For some days now I have privately watched a 5-minute inspirational video from Happy Science. (It is actually an excerpt from The Laws of Eternity, the anime.)As the characters pass into the sixth dimension, the realm of extraordinary accomplishments, a question appears in the accompanying song: “Is this my longing ideal, or is it an attachment?”

This is a good question. When we are attracted to something and want to attract it, it may be either of these. It could be an expression of our innermost soul, a part of the reason why we live in this world, and achieving it would bring happiness. Or it could be a distraction, something that would keep us trapped in our illusions so we never get to be who we really are, and thus bring misery.

The placement of that line in the video is probably not an accident. Or if it is, it is a very lucky accident. Ryuho Okawa writes in more detail in his book “The Laws of Happiness”. Here he writes that a politician may be unhappy because he is not president, and an office worker may be unhappy because he is not company president. But if they found themselves in the position they coveted, they would actually soon become very unhappy. This is because most people are not qualified for such a position, and the higher you climb, the more harshly people will judge you. They may not expect too much of some random pawn in the bureaucracy, but they have very high expectations to a leader and will show little mercy if he fails, or even if he succeeds only moderately well.

Okawa believes that there are some people who are born to lead, born to achieve greatness in this world. This may not at all be apparent at the start of their life, but it is apparent in the way they act in their circumstances. These people, according to the somewhat unusual worldview of Happy Science, actually belong in the Sixth Dimension (or above, in extraordinary cases). While this is a notion of the afterlife, the useful part is that people actually live in this world according to their nature in the “real world” as Okawa insists on calling it, the spirit world. So even if you don’t believe literally in the intricate dimensional ladder, it still describes people in this world.

(A few words on that dimensional stuff. It is not quite as sci-fi as it sounds. Yes, the fourth dimension is time, but in this context it mainly means that the spirits after death are unbound by time. They are, in other words, eternal. This is a pretty common belief. In the world of Happy Science, the afterlife is not necessarily Heaven or Hell. People who don’t really have much depth may simply just keep going on as before, barely aware that they have died. The fifth dimension adds spirituality – hardly a physical dimension. The sixth dimension is true knowledge. So you see, these could just as easily describe someone still in this world.)

So a person who belongs to the category of souls that are classified as the “sixth dimension” will have a natural drive to excel. They seek excellence, leadership or dominance not out of a foolish illusion that it will make their lives easier. They know that the opposite is true, but their sense of mission or purpose spurs them on even so. For them it is their longing ideal, and they will sacrifice what is needed and do what it takes to accomplish their life dream. But when someone less spiritually evolved tries the same thing, their motivation is off, and they are seeking an attachment. They want to be admired, respected, looked up to, to have lots of money and things they can buy with money, to be able to boss others around and give orders without having to obey anyone themselves, and men are often motivated by their mating urge as well. It is all about themselves and feeling as much pleasure as possible in this life. But this rarely goes well, because such an attitude does not prepare you for the price paid for excellence.

More happy science books

Posted on by
Reply

di0908026

Received two more books in the mail from Amazon.co.uk:Guideposts to Happiness and The Laws of Happiness.Well, actually these were the two first physical books, the other two were e-books from ebookmall. Since I am still in my Happy Science fad, these are books by Ryuho Okawa. And they are quite good too. Of course, I expected that, as I had read excerpts from them on Google Books before ordering them.

These books have no interstellar travel or sinking continents. Even the detailed strata of the spiritual world are toned way down. Instead they mostly contain heaps of practical advice for modern people, with some theoretical groundwork of why some things lead to success and others to failure, some to happiness and some to misery.

One thing I noticed is that Okawa does not use aphorism. There are few if any short soundbites that you can underline and make into a motivational poster. Instead he usually conveys a point over 2-3 sentences of average length. Just too long for a snap quote, but very easy to understand.

Another part of his writing, which is very refreshing, is how freely he admits that he has had to grow with his tasks himself. When Happy Science was a new and small organization, he had only a moderate number of followers who were all spiritual but with fairly simple needs. He felt quite adequate to the task and confident in his abilities. But then all kinds of different people started joining, and the first ones started to become quite advanced. Suddenly he found himself at his limits, but as soon as he acknowledged these limits, he began to surpass them. So even though he sees himself as a kind of Messiah, he has had to improve himself a lot. The good news is that anyone can do that, with the right mindset.

Overall, I find it hard to deny that this man has a high spirit. He seems genuinely interested in helping people improve, and has the wisdom to do so in a simple, practical way. He does not peddle a quick cure, like you see in some modern self-help books. And he certainly doesn’t go “Just believe in me, your savior, and things will get easy”. Not at all. For a supposed sect leader, he is amazingly practical and realistic in these books. In so far as he mentions himself and his organization at all, it is as examples, drawing lessons from his own history.

The Laws of Happiness even has a section on how to succeed in your job. That was quite an eye-opener for me. Perhaps I will write about it in more detail later.

The last half of the book is unabashedly religious, but still fairly generic, using well-known concepts from Christianity and Buddhism. Once again, there isn’t much sectarian about this. If you believe you have an immortal spirit (or immortal soul, as most westerners erroneously calls it) then most of it will make sense. If not, well, the book is cheap and the first half should be useful even for those who break out in rashes on seeing the word “God”. There is also a good deal of practical advice in the last half, if you can read it without getting upset. Taking time to reflect on what you have done, or believing that our thoughts affect our lives, is not something that requires a specific named god. Although having one does not hurt either.

For the curious, there is a section about IRH, the Institute for Research in human Happiness, the precursor to Happy Science. (The Japanese name was always the shorter version.) One amusing fact is that they originally required a written application and a test, but when they expanded overseas, they were told that religions are not supposed to have tests, they are supposed to be open for anyone. So they changed their policy on that. I must admit I kind of liked the original approach. If people had to take a thorough Bible quiz to become Christians, we might be spared some pretty noisy and offensive people claiming to represent our religion. Actually, I think you need something like that to convert to Catholicism, but don’t quote me on that, I have it secondhand. (Third hand for you, then, and who has three hands?)

Still reading Guideposts, but it has some fascinating stuff too. Things that make me go “Wow, I never thought of that, now it makes sense!” That is kind of disturbing, but I accept what I can use. I cannot afford to reject truth just because it comes from an unlikely source. I don’t believe just any spirit, but seek to try everything and keep what is good. Light willing, I shall try to share some of the goodness in the near future.

Or you could get the books yourself, I guess, but I don’t know… If I had read them 20 years ago, would they have helped me at all? Almost certainly not. Even five years ago, I am not sure I would have been able to see some of what I see now. It is as if there is this huge puzzle and I have been able to see an outline for a good long time, but only the last few years are a lot of pieces starting to come together at great speed, as if handed to me just in time. So I cannot guarantee that the books will do you good, or even that they won’t do you harm. But me, I am impressed.

Simulated angel

Posted on by
Reply

di0908023

OK, this is going to be a bit weird.   Then again, so am I.

Regular readers will know that I have played the Sims games from the start in 2000, upgrading to Sims 2 in 2005 and until I got Sims 3 this summer.  Over time I developed a special way of playing, where I was always looking out for the happiness of my imaginary characters.  This culminated in the Prosperity Challenge project, where I took on the role of “Guardian Angel” for a whole neighborhood of Sims, simulated people “living” in my computer.  For each and every member of each and every family, I would seek to provide a balance between their free will, their immediate needs and guiding them toward becoming the most they could be within their aspiration.

The neighborhood started as six small families, broke and deep in debt, with no skills, no jobs and no friends outside the family, and all of them having lost loved ones before seeking refuge in the small mountain village.  From this foundation I gradually nurtured a village filled with love and friendship, where the various talents worked together to create a better future for all.  A good education, a harmonious family, a career fitting to fulfill their lifetime wants.  Befriending the randomly generated, computer-controlled characters they met in school, college or work, they drew more and more people into their society, starting to take the shape of a small town. And I would still take care of each of them individually, sometimes taking into account things that had happened much earlier in their lives (and months ago in my own timeline).

What was it that tempted me to take up such a hobby?  And why did it take this particular form?  Many players of the game will torture and even kill their characters, or use them to play out scenarios of casual or uncommon sexual relations. In a way this makes sense since they play for the enjoyment of the player, who is real, while the little computer people are not.  Or not by our standards.  To me, they were conferred a secondary reality, a thin and wavering one for sure, by the virtue of living inside my mind.  They were, as I see it now, inhabitants of the second dimension.  And it was natural for me to want to treat them the way I would want someone from a higher dimension to treat me.

***

If we for a brief time suspend disbelief (lots and lots of disbelief) and imagine that I lived in the world described by Ryuho Okawa in his “Laws” books… suddenly this all makes more sense. Why was I drawn toward acting as an angel toward lesser beings?  Because I actually was a higher-dimensional being myself, incarnated in this world as part of my education. Probably not an actual angel from the seventh dimension, but not all that far off:  Quite possibly from the Realm of Light in the sixth dimension.  Regular readers will know that I constantly make references to the Light where others might say God or Buddha or The Almighty or some such. This fairly lofty origin (though still far from the top) would explain why I was born with unusual intelligence and a deep longing for knowledge and insight in the workings of the world, or why I wanted to be a prophet at an age where other boys wanted to be fireman or pilot. It would also specifically explain my programming skills. Perhaps I was sent to Earth merely for my own education, but probably not:  I may have had some specific task in sights when I incarnated, something that would benefit many people, as is frequently the case for those who descend from that sphere.

But unfortunately, something went off track and whatever I was meant to do, never happened.  Instead I ended up alone, watching the world as if from a distance, while helping my Sims achieve the happiness and prosperity I was sent to give the humans of this world.

Where did I go wrong? What caused me to turn my back on the human world, to “bury my talent” (to use an expression from one of Jesus Christ’s stories)? How did I forget my purpose on this plane of existence? I honestly don’t have a clue.

***

Of course, my cluelessness could simply stem from not living in a world where Atlantis and Mu were real continents and where most of the world’s gods and heroes were at some point real (albeit somewhat different from how they are remembered today). That instead we each only have one life in this world, and then a final judgment, if even that.  Living in a world where talents are bestowed by genetic lottery rather than celestial hierarchy, a world that will eventually be deserted and share the fate of Venus, and where all our words and all our works will be utterly wiped from the visible universe like footsteps in the sand before the rising tide.

In such a world, playing angel for small computer people may well be the most reasonable thing for one such as me to do. Probably not, though, but “it felt meaningful at the time.”

Books: The Laws of the Sun / Eternity

Posted on by
1

di0908022

A world where benevolent spirits regularly assist humanity, and where humans again can become angels and help others? Who wouldn’t like that? (Picture from the anime “The Laws of Eternity”, based on the book with the same name.)

I got my first two Happy Science books! (Although it was called Institute for Research in Human Happiness at the time the book was printed, it is the same organization, Kofuku-no-Kagaku.) I mentioned this briefly on Thursday. As I try to write a review of sorts, I will treat the two books together, as they are very similar. The Laws of the Sun is more focused on history and giving an overview, while The Laws of Eternity goes into more detail on the Spirit World, but they are both set in the same world. They are part of a trilogy, with The Golden Laws still missing from my collection. That one is supposed to go into recorded history in greater detail, chronicling the lives of Moses, Jesus, Gautama Buddha etc.

First let me mentally prepare the casual reader that these books can be read in two very different ways. You can take them as a description of our reality, or think of them as describing an alternate version of our world. If so, it is a world with far more depth: This planet alone exists in 10 dimensions, of which we live in only 3. Our biosphere is surrounded by that of the fourth dimension, which again is surrounded by the fifth and so on. The total population of humanoids in these spiritual realms exceeds the people on Earth by a factor of ten, so it is no wonder the spirits are constantly interfering in life on Earth.

If you have a hard time thinking of anything supernatural that you have seen or heard of from sane people, you are probably going to treat this as science fiction. But with Happy Science already having about 10 million members after a generation, there seems to be a good number of people who think otherwise. And I can certainly see why: It is a world I’d love to live in myself. Unlike some religions, it really has a happy attitude. Hell is considered a corner of the fourth dimension, and plays the role of a temporary purgatory rather than eternal damnation. The vast majority of spirits are benevolent, and many of them are quite powerful. The people in this world can easily have the same kind of experience that I have of not being alone and receive encouragement and advice from an invisible companion.

The Laws of the Sun also presents a world with a far longer history of human habitation, going back to the age of the dinosaurs, and mentioning several waves of immigration from other planets. And continents rise and sink several times per million years, unlike the leisurely pace we are used to. This is because the planet Earth has its own godlike consciousness and reacts violently to human crimes, such as killing Jesus. We got away easy last time, but the Atlanteans were not so lucky when they buried him alive with most of his family. Jesus, Buddha, Newton and several others are fairly regular visitors according to these books.

When I just present these things out of context, you probably get the distinct impression that you have to be an idiot to believe these books and Happy Science in general. While it is certainly not hard to imagine there being 10 million idiots in the world, or even in Japan, this would be a grave failure. The books have a completely different side that I will now go into. They are deeply pious and contain treasures of wisdom.

This is the thing that keeps me confused about the books and the organization in general, as I already said before. When it comes to human life, there are profound insights that are likely to help the average person improve their lot in this world (and the next, if any) greatly over time.

There is also a calm acceptance of human weakness and folly, quite different from the fire and brimstone anger found in some religious books. It is as if the author has no dark repressed wishes that comes out the back door in the form of flaming hate against this or that particular type of sinner. For people familiar with American religion, for instance, this difference is pretty dramatic. Sure, you can go to Hell, but it is for your own good. Not because God is angry, or even because you deserve it. In Hell you get to play out those dark fantasies that you secretly believed in, and see what they result in. Hopefully you sooner or later wake up to your true nature as a shining diamond, a child of the Creator, and everything will make sense.

Now the Christian reader may find this theology unbearably liberal, but instead of going on and on about the eternal damnation, the books go on and on about the glories of Heaven. Or the Heavens, rather, as these are the afore mentioned higher dimensions. And Okawa manages to make them seem really attractive, places you’d want to go even if it means spending your free time polishing your soul. Whereas most people probably at one time or another has questioned the fun of playing harps on a cloud or singing Hallelujah for an indeterminable length of time, any good-hearted people would probably feel right at home in one of the many heavens described here. Take pride in your work? Like to make others smile? Come to Heaven! We have limitless job opportunities for people like you, and you can continue to improve yourself over countless eons until you have godlike powers to bless others. Of course, you won’t be able to use those powers for selfish means, but blessing others is the true happiness anyway.

And this is the red thread that runs through the books (and also other books I have read excerpts from). It is a deep and real understanding of what happiness is, what love is, and how it corresponds to everyday life. According to Happy Science, the primary source of happiness is a love that gives. Receiving love is important to humans, and can make the difference between despair and joy. Receiving love is like getting water in the desert. But far greater is the love that gives: It is like a river itself, that flows in cascading waterfalls from the higher heavens through the lowers until it reaches us here on earth, and even Hell itself will become a Heaven if reached by love. A person who is full of giving love will belong to Heaven already in this life.

I agree without reservation with this. As does Jesus Christ, evidently, since he is quoted in one of the oldest books in the New Testament as saying, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Jesus is, not by accident I think, also a favorite inspiration in Okawa’s books, despite his own Japanese background. Or perhaps because of it? I sometimes think that we have become immunized by the contemporary religion so that we don’t see the revolutionary message of Jesus, while a stranger may be astonished by it.

Apart from a theory of happiness, there is also one of the best definitions of love that I have seen so far (and I have written quite a few of those here over the years, as my own view has changed, generally becoming more cynical over the years.) To Okawa, love is the power that unites. It unites man and woman, parent and child, teacher and student, doctor and patient, coworkers, entire nations. Wherever we are pulled together into greater unity, the power of love is at work. As we ascend through the heavens, love intensifies, because we become more at one with each other. At the very top, after all, God is One, the Father of all. Therefore, the closer we come to The One, the closer we come to each other. Elementary, my dear Watson!

I hope you now see my dilemma. The clarity of this man’s practical spiritual wisdom is embedded in books that read like the manual of a science fiction roleplaying game. Which is it? Of course, some of the more blasphemous readers would say the same about the Bible. Woe unto you! Fire and brimstone… oh, wait…

Quite different, eh?

Posted on by
Reply

di0908013

Angels of different religions are working together?  Wouldn’t that be nice. This is how the  new Japanese religion “Happy Science” sees the world, although their concept of angels is closer to bodhisattva, or saint in English.

Google is very helpful.  For instance, they have a wealth of information regarding Kofuku-no-Kagaku, or “Happy Science” as it is now called in English. Admittedly some of it is from people who are generally worried about sects, not least after another Japanese sect gassed the underground, killing several and sending hundreds to the hospital.  But I ought to know that sects are not all the same.  After all, I spent some of the best years of my life as a “sect member” in the Christian Church.  Even Christianity itself was described as a sect when it was new (it’s in the Bible, mail me if you can’t find it).  So that is not my worry.  But there are bound to be doctrinal differences, given that they are not even Christians.

Then again…  Let me quote from “Bibliography of Japanese new religions” by Peter Bernard Clarke:

“Kofuku-no-Kagaku considers, therefore, that humans have chosen the most appropriate life environment in order to practice their own ‘soul-training’. In this sense, their view on life on earth is quite different from that of the Judao-Christian tradition, for example.”

(It is spelled Judao-Christian now?) I cannot speak for the Judaists, but we Christians believe that it is God who chooses the most appropriate life environment in order for us to practice our ‘soul-training’.  So yeah, there is a difference.  If we chose it for ourselves, we might make a mistake and end up with a less than optimal environment.  If God chooses, then “we know that all things cooperate for the benefit of those who love God, those who are called according to his design.” (Romans 8:28.) So yeah, there is a difference.  But it is also strikingly similar, at least compared to the common view these days that all things happen by blind chance and that things cannot possibly be good unless they feel good.

Well, I prefer things that feel good myself, but I try to learn from other things too if they are not so bad that I am fully occupied with panicking…

Obviously the extensive mythology of Atlantis, Mu, the Greek gods etc is something alien to me.  As I’ve said before, if they want to be literal about it, I can’t follow them there.  (In that case, they should probably also avoid a job in geology and related sciences. Then again the same applies to Christians who are literal about Noah’s Flood.) But interestingly, Happy Science seem to accept central parts of the Bible, including the story of Moses and Jesus.  I saw a trailer for one of their movies on YouTube, and it showed short sequences from those two.  There is also a snippet from their movie “The Golden Laws” depicting the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  (Albeit with two somewhat confused kids from the future as spectators.)

Anyway, it is kind of interesting that people living so far apart agree on so many things.  I mean, until a few centuries ago our ancestors hadn’t seen their ancestors since the deep of the Ice Age.  Why don’t they for instance think it is more important for your eternal life to eat with chopsticks than to be faithful to your spouse? According to the experts, religion is just a social glue, right?  Obviously I don’t believe that.  I believe that certain “laws of eternity” are written inside us, much like instincts are written inside animals, but we have much greater freedom in whether or not to follow them.

Happy Science and hard work

Posted on by
Reply

di090809

“I’ll show you the kind of work angels do” – they are always ready to help people become more happy.  Even in Europe.

Late Saturday night I got a mail from the helpful contact person at IRHH Europe.  The abbreviation is for Institute for Research in Human Happiness, recently updated to the shorter, more catchy “Happy Science”, which supposedly is also a translation of their Japanese name, Kofuku-no-Kagaku.  I don’t know nearly enough Japanese to say for sure. Luckily they have a European branch, in London. I inquired there as to buying their movies, but I had not expected them to be working late at night on a Saturday.  Clearly other people’s happiness is more important to them than relaxing on the weekend. Perhaps they are like the bodhisattvas of the anime, whose joy was in helping others.

Unfortunately, the movies are only available in Japan, but they would try to see if there was a way to buy them from there.  They also told me that there will be a showing of one of their movies in Oslo on August 29!  Unfortunately this is in the Swine Flu season, and I still have all the other problems with travel because of my digestion.  But it would certainly been interesting to see it on the big screen, and meet some of the locals.  Although I fear this might disappoint me.  I have found religious organizations that proselytize tend to have a disturbingly high content of glassy-eyed people with a dysfunctional relationship to things like work, humans, and self-image.  (As in, the self-image is grossly exaggerated relative to the  rest.)

At least Happy Science encourages people to study and work hard and act in the best interest of other people. Do the actual members live according to this?  I don’t know. If they do, they would certainly soon have a noticeable effect toward a better world. And in any case, it certainly seems the European branch office lives the way it teaches.

The Laws of Eternity (anime)

Posted on by
Reply

di090807

Get on this spiritual elevator…  I think that is what the movie was meant to be too. But like this contraption, it will probably not work for everyone.

This animated movie is beautiful, preachy, thought-provoking, and made by a religious organization that encourages selfless service and high technology, thus their name “Happy Science”. The movie, as a good spiritual elevator, starts at the bottom, assuming that you know nothing about Happy Science. For most non-Japanese (and probably most Japanese too) this is a pretty safe assumption. In fact, the movie does not require more than the most cursory idea about religion at all.

It starts in New York, as three friends visit the Edison Museum. They read a newspaper article from when Edison was alive, claiming that he was working on a “spirit phone” that would let people talk to the dead. (Evidently this was a joke Edison really pulled on reporters, not just in the anime.) The three friends are the Japanese Ryuta, his blond Caucasian friend Patrick, and their dark Hispanic friend Roberto. Given that this is a Japanese movie, feel free to guess who the main character is. When they come home, they are joined by the girl Yuko, a friend of them all but particularly Ryuta. (She is Japanese as well.) But before that, they have met a Native American shaman with a message from Edison: How to build the spirit phone!

Through hard work and genius (and a little prayer from the girl, who goes to a religious school), our friends complete the spirit phone and make contact with Edison. He congratulates them, but fades away while saying something about trouble, danger and help. But how will our friends help someone who is in the other world? Luckily, the machine activates again and brings a message from an ancient Incan shaman, God Eagle. After Yuko teaches them basic meditation, God Eagle is able to take their minds to the spirit realm without dying first. This is where the adventure really takes off.

They arrive in the fourth dimension, which we may call the first heaven. People here get used to living as spirits. Because they can now move freely along the time dimension at all, the people here have much more freedom than those on earth. However, not all are found worthy to get here. Probably the most disturbing part of the movie is the judgment of the recently dead. They are required to watch a movie of their lives, with their thoughts in life as soundtrack, together with their deceased friends and relatives. After that, the audience advises them on whether they should go to Heaven or Hell. O_O This is where I think the movie loses its otaku audience: If you’re an otaku, you know quite well that your dead great-grandma would tell you to go to Hell, if she saw you spending your days watching anime instead of studying. You would not feel inclined to take her advice though.

Actually, you don’t need to. Because the afterlife is entirely maintained by the mind, you can go to Heaven and still end up in Hell if that’s where you fit the best. This is shown on two occasions. First, right after arriving in the fourth dimension, Patrick and Roberto get into a quarrel, and the ground opens beneath their feet. They are snatched in the fall by God Eagle. However, having failed to learn their lesson in full, they eventually get jealous when their Japanese friends get through The Narrow Gate to the seventh dimension and they don’t. This time they go to Hell proper and are captured by Nietzsche and later chased by Hitler and an enormous, evil armored elephant. Hey, it’s an anime after all!

Unlike Dante, however, this movie is much more interested in showing off Heaven than Hell. So before this problem with Hell, all our friends move on to the fifth and sixth dimension. They find a place of striking beauty and a heavenly laboratory where scientists continue making inventions and artists continue making art. To get to the world of the angels and bodhisattvas, however, they need to do selfless service. This is where our foreign friends fail: They do their service, but they expect to be thanked and rewarded. They could have stayed in the pretty sixth dimension (that would be the third heaven), but they just could not get over being snubbed by God. They grow evil inside and utter blasphemy. Down they go!

Meanwhile the angels in Dimension 7 explain the meaning of many things to our main characters. Trying to improve the lot of others through selfless service is what angels /bodhisattvas do. (In this movie, angels are treated as former humans, rather than separate creations. Actually they correspond more to the Catholic and Orthodox notion of saints. But again, this is translated from Japanese, so give them some room. Even many westerners don’t know the difference.) These holy beings may choose be born on Earth to make some difference here. Some of them even go down to Hell to rescue the damned who have had some time to reflect on their present condition.

This is borne out in the movie, and we have some high drama and action. Ryuta turns out to have unsuspected spiritual powers, and his girl friend (who is by now starting to realize that she is also his girlfriend) seems to amplify them. They defeat Nietzsche, then Hitler by the power of their love and escape from Hell with their friends, an army of demons on their heels. Luckily the angels have been warned and stand ready to defend Heaven from the dark incursion. Order is restored, and Ryuta and Yuko are rewarded with a ticket to the the ninth dimension, the home of the world’s highest humanoid gods: Jesus, Moses, Confucius, Newton, and the big boss himself, El Cantare, formerly known as Buddha, Hermes and several others.

Unfortunately, this is where the movie goes downhill in my eyes. Not that the 9th dimension is not impressive, but our hero goes there specifically to learn the reason for the world’s existence and secrets like that. In the end, however, the secret knowledge he is given, is unlocking his memory of his incarnation in Atlantis, and finding out that Yuko was his girlfriend already then.

Perhaps I am just crazy, but if I got an appointment with GOD in Heaven, I would not be interested in who my soulmate was, but rather something more cosmic, please. Then again, this may be because I don’t have a soulmate. Or perhaps this may be why I don’t have a soulmate… Anyway, Ryuta and Yuko seem very satisfied with the revelation, and vow to live lives worthy of the truth they have seen in the spirit realm. They seem to also have gained the ability to see the radiance of angels that are incarnated as babies. After a long love song, the movie ends.

This review may sound cynical, but the truth is that I found the movie surprisingly uplifting. Part of it is probably that its worldview has so much in common with my own, what with the successive layers of reality being ever more luminous and powerful, but also ever more demanding of those who would visit them. I have written a lot about this already, have I not? I was around 20 when this notion started to burrow into me, and pestering me to write a novel about it. I still haven’t managed to write that novel, but now I have realized that we all visit other worlds with our mind, that the body can not follow. As such, the plot of this movie hits home.

I don’t see myself bowing down to worship El Cantare, honestly. But I feel that I have gained an added respect for my own religion, and many other. This would probably not have happened if I was at the “science must die so Noah can live” stage of religion (the Blue level in Spiral Dynamics), but at the “Adam & Evolution” stage (Yellow level) I am willing to try everything and keep what is good. And that, frankly, is what one should do even if not religious at all. If it makes you feel like you want to do good to people and be impressed with the universe, it is probably worth watching. And watching again.