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Overview
Illustrated with examples that we typically find at home, at work, and in business, he discusses basic mental attitudes that will help you manage stress, improve relationships at home and at work, and cope with your fears of an uncertain future.
Chapter 1 looks at the stresses caused by relationship problems, financial difficulties, and aging, and discusses how we can develop a healthier relationship with stress. We can stop stressing about life’s difficulties when we shift our focus away from our worries and toward serving others for the better.
Chapter 2 focuses on healing human relationships and gives us three constructive perspectives we can cultivate: being aware that others may have different opinions, looking at the positives within others instead of their faults and weaknesses, and drawing healthy boundaries between ourselves and others to help promote inner peace for each other.
Chapter 3 shows that comparison with others is at the cause of unhappiness, and discusses the importance of practicing a heart that blesses others’ happiness and accomplishments. A mindset that isn’t always obsessed about others’ flaws and faults is a key to freeing our mind of worries and jealousy and achieving happiness.
In chapter 4, Okawa talks about how we can overcome many of life’s storms of adversity. Becoming aware of the mindsets that attract unhappiness to ourselves, will lets us conquer egoistic attitudes and choose the right path in life.
Chapter 5 is about accepting our difficult experiences as part of our life’s workbook of problems we must solve, so that we can open our mind and path to miracles and the precious guidance of heaven.
The practice of these key spiritual mindsets will free yourself from worries and open your path to the guidance of heavenly miracles and a life of peace and happiness. Let this book help you face the sources of your stress and unhappiness positively and constructively by accepting them as precious experiences to cultivate your mind and soul.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781942125518 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Irh Press |
| Publication date: | 05/15/2019 |
| Pages: | 224 |
| Sales rank: | 1,083,620 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.20(w) x 7.10(h) x 0.70(d) |
About the Author
In 1986, Okawa founded Happy science as a spiritual movement dedicated to bringing greater happiness to humankind by uniting religions and cultures to live in harmony. Happy Science has grown rapidly from its beginnings in Japan to a worldwide organization. The spiritual workshops Happy Science offers are open to people of all faiths and walks of life and are rooted in the same principles of happiness that inspired Okawa’s own spiritual awakening. Okawa is compassionately committed to the spiritual growth of others; in addition to writing and publishing books, he continues to give talks around the world.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
coping with stress
1
How to Deal with Relationship Stress
Stress Is the Main Cause of Many Modern Problems
The topic of managing stress transcends religion, and the ability to manage stress is a blessing to everyone living today. This topic is probably of great significance to not only Japanese, but also Americans and people from other countries.
The problems we face in today's world vary, but no matter how we describe them, the distress they cause us is the result of stress. Some of you who are reading this may just want to find out how to deal with stress; you may feel that's all you need to know to achieve enlightenment in the modern world. And you may believe that you don't need to belong to any organization such as Happy Science to achieve enlightenment. But things don't work that way.
This chapter will certainly give you a glimpse of the world of enlightenment, but please know that just reading it won't help you achieve a higher state of awareness immediately. Behind what I discuss in this chapter, there is a deeply religious, profound, and mystic background.
This chapter is based on a talk I gave at the Happy Science Matsudo temple located in a suburban city in Chiba Prefecture in Japan. Before the lecture, I asked the audience to respond to questionnaires about the kinds of worries they had and what they felt stressed about.
The results revealed that their two main concerns were personal relationships and financial or monetary problems, followed by some concerns about old age. We would probably get similar results if we asked people on the street. These are relatively basic but essential issues that many people want to know about, so I would like to offer solutions to these kinds of problems in this chapter.
Among the people who filled in the questionnaire, the most common issue they felt stressed out about was relationship issues, specifically with the people they worked with in their jobs or within an organization.
In general, employers measure and classify employees using a range of criteria, such as expertise, educational and work backgrounds, past achievements, and the number of years the employee has worked for the company. Employers use these criteria to assign each employee to appropriate positions. And this is where employees face relationship issues.
My Experience of Conflicts with a Senior Colleague
I remember feeling considerably stressed out during the six years I worked for a trading company during my twenties. When I think back on that experience now, however, I feel completely free from the stress I had back then. All the issues and worries that I felt stressed out about have disappeared. There is not a single unsolved problem that I have carried over to this day, which means that I have not stayed the same myself. I have been taking on new challenges one after another, so what was once a cause of stress or worry for me has all passed like a flow of river and has become trivial.
Back then, several alumni of the University of Tokyo, my alma mater, were working for the same trading company. One of them, who was my senior colleague, was the main source of my distress. Now that I look back, however, I feel very grateful to this colleague for putting me through the mill, because that experience made me who I am today. He probably felt that he should give me a tough-love lesson by pointing out my weaknesses piercingly, as if to deliberately stick pins into my heart. Thanks to his tough-love lessons, though, I was able to gain wisdom and truly learn a lot.
At the same time, there was very good chance that my colleague treated me harshly simply to relieve his own stress. It would most likely have become a big issue had he treated others in the same way. He probably expected me to bear and listen to his unreasonable demands because I was younger and we had graduated from the same department at the same university. In any case, he offered many tough lessons to train me.
For example, I remember that when I helped with the hiring of new graduates, he severely derided me for recruiting a fair number of talented new graduates from my alma mater. He said something like, "You'll suffer later if you hire so many capable people now. Don't you know that those who join the company five to ten years after you will all eventually become your tough rivals?" I was shocked to hear him say that, because such a thought had never crossed my mind. I simply thought that my job was to hire talented people who could contribute to the development of the company, so I dedicated myself to recruiting capable and intelligent people.
I was especially skilled at hiring candidates who had received offers from other companies. As was proved later on, when I started my own organization, Happy Science, I could win over even those who had received offers from many other leading companies. Hiring was one of the assignments given to me back then, in addition to my regular work. Although I didn't receive much compensation for this type of work, I was happy to help, simply because I enjoyed it. So when that senior colleague shared his thought with me, I remember thinking, "I see. I guess wise people see things differently. I didn't think that far ahead."
Another case of his tough-love lesson had to do with my spiritual powers, which I already possessed at the time. But I didn't openly share that fact with my coworkers. I did tell a few people I could trust about the spiritual phenomena I experienced. But somehow the rumor spread, and my senior colleague heard about it. I remember him scolding me fiercely, saying things like, "You need to repent! Take back all the spiritual things you said!" He tried to force me to deny the spiritual phenomena I had experienced.
Now, I often talk about the "sunny" side of my days at the trading company, and I don't usually talk about the "dark" side, because almost all my talks are recorded and they may leave deep impressions in listeners' minds. Many of the people I worked with at the trading company are still alive, and I don't want to cause them any trouble by talking about them.
The Seed for Significant Self-Growth Lies in Criticism
Now that I think about it, however, many of the difficulties I had with others, especially those who caused me distress and hurt me deeply, became nourishment for my soul later on. Today, I seldom receive direct criticism, but in those days I faced relentless censure, and I learned a lot from it.
It would take a lot of guts for someone to criticize me head-on today; even a head of state would be terrified to do so. If he made a negative remark about me — for example, "I despise Ryuho Okawa's facial expression" — and his comment were published in the newspaper, he would probably receive a flood of com- plaints from the members of our organization at his office, and so would the newspaper company, and all these complaints would be very difficult to handle. Even if I agreed with what he said about me, Happy Science members wouldn't forgive him so easily.
In any case, you may suffer from relationship issues at work, but if you do, it should help to know that not all the criticisms you receive are wrong. In fact, their criticisms are the seeds of drastic growth that can turn you into a more splendid person. What you need to do is to simply draw a lesson from the criticisms and use them to improve yourself. Even if you receive criticism from not-so-great people, their criticism can still be beneficial.
Democracy wouldn't work if we only received criticism from people who are more distinguished than ourselves. In a democracy, average citizens can elect or reject outstanding candidates for office. In other words, democracy functions on a couple of premises: first, even ordinary people can often point out the shortcomings, weaknesses, and failures of remarkable individuals, and second, we can see other people's characters as clear as a glass bowl, even if we are not aware of our own character.
So in a democratic society, the more distinguished you become, the more you will need to listen to criticism. As your social standing increases, what is acceptable for an ordinary person becomes unacceptable for you, and after a certain point, you will start facing censure even for a minor slip of the tongue. This experience can be quite painful, but in a sense, it shows how we need to bear the weight of responsibility that comes with high social standing. It's essential that we know this.
The more important a person you become, the more criticism you will receive. You will be criticized even for things that you previously weren't criticized about. Certain actions or behaviors are acceptable if you are a subordinate but unacceptable once you become a leader. Especially when a woman takes on a leadership position, she may hear things that she would not want anyone to point out. But this is inevitable when you are in the position of a leader. As your social standing goes up, you will inevitably receive complaints and criticisms from a variety of people.
Try Not to Take Harsh Criticism Personally
There are several things I have come to realize by experiencing criticism. One of them is particularly important for people with a religious disposition, because those who are pure of heart tend to take other's words too seriously and get hurt excessively. Those with a religious disposition often impose on themselves such precepts as not speaking ill of others. As a result, they become vulnerable to criticisms and verbal assaults, get deeply hurt, and allow the pain to linger for a long time.
I was like that when I was younger, but when I think back now, after a certain number of years, I came to realize that being too vulnerable and prolonging the hurt for a long time is a type of sin. Sometimes people say things without much thought. In many cases, they just say things that pop into their heads because of a certain situation or mood they were in. So you don't want to allow the pain of others' remarks to linger for ten or twenty years. The people who said the words that hurt your feelings probably had no intention of tormenting you for decades or making you suffer for a lifetime.
Of course, it sometimes happens that someone has an intention to curse you for the rest of your life, targets you, and shoots an arrow of criticism at the best possible time to inflict pain for maximum effect. But that kind of thing will only happen once or twice in a lifetime, if that. Usually people don't think that far ahead or that deeply in their day-to-day lives. Most of us are ordinary people and not necessarily saints, which makes it inevitable that we sometimes get hurt by each other's remarks. But even if we take their words personally and find them offensive, we need to try to forget about them after one night's sleep, because many of the things people say are not well thought through.
For example, when you're criticized about your work or your company, you may suffer as a leader, but it could be that people are simply complaining because they want more attention. They can't take it when things don't go the way they want, and sometimes this feeling of frustration turns into attention-seeking behavior and comes out as criticism of their senior colleagues. We probably shouldn't ignore criticism completely, but neither should we take it too seriously. This is one of the important lessons I learned when I was younger. People of a religious disposition with a pure heart, in particular, can be very sensitive, so these people may need to learn to become a little tougher.
It helps to think about how you can equip yourself to defend yourself against the arrows of criticisms that come flying at you. If you observe aquatic creatures, for example, slimy fish such as catfish and eels have no scales on their bodies. Other types of fish do have scales, and other marine creatures such as turtles have shells on their backs. These creatures equip themselves differently to defend themselves.
In my case, although I do sometimes get hurt by criticism if what I said has been fundamentally misunderstood or has made anyone unhappy, I am no longer hurt by the common criticisms we receive every once in a while. This is because the level of the things I am worried about has risen to a higher dimension. My main concern now is how to bring happiness to many people, so little things no longer concern me.
Have the Fortitude to Let Go After One Night's Sleep
But this was not how I was when I was younger. In my student days, I even felt hurt when I found out that the girl I admired had gotten a higher score than mine. I was so devastated that I skipped dinner — I couldn't eat. It sounds silly now that I think about it. It was probably the very time I should have nourished myself and studied harder. That would have been the positive attitude that I should have adopted. I was simply naïve enough to be shocked into not being able to eat, just because the girl I admired had a higher score than mine.
If you get depressed about things like this every day, you'll perplex people around you and even prevent them from making an effort to do well. It wouldn't be right for them to study while thinking, "I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, so I shouldn't study hard," or "I should hold myself back from achieving a good score, because I may offend others' pride." Your student days are a time of friendly competition. There are times when you do better than your friends in exams and other times when your friends do better than you, but from a larger perspective, these are like games you play and opportunities to improve yourself. So it's no good to hold a grudge about exam results. Especially those with a religious disposition should keep in mind that they shouldn't get hurt too easily or hold onto an emotional wound for too long. It's essential to know that doing so is a form of sin.
On the other hand, those who have hurt you may also feel bad that they've made a slip of the tongue and upset you. But even if they regret what they said, it's not always easy to apologize. Occasionally, they may find a chance to tell you they're sorry, but if they miss that chance, they may not have another one. In other words, seeing you get hurt can make them feel just as hurt. So it's essential to build a strong enough mind that you can forget what others have said to you after a good night's sleep. You will be able to develop that kind of inner fortitude if you make a conscious effort to do so.
Without scales, even fish cannot repel water. So first, we need to cover ourselves with a "skin" that will protect us from criticism. Next, we need to thicken our skin till it's as thick as the skin of the giant South American fish, the pirarucu. And to really protect ourselves, we need to make it as strong as a turtle's shell.
When you're working to achieve a big goal, obsessing and fretting over trifling matters only works against you.
The Higher Your Position Becomes, the Bigger Your Issues Become
In a sense, those who obsess over little things, get hurt, and cling to the hurt for a long time have a lot of time to kill. Hearing this may hurt them even more, but it's true. They have too much free time on their hands, which is why they can spend years and sometimes even decades distressed over what someone once said. Busy people simply can't afford to spend time on such trivial things.
For instance, a rank-and-file employee may anguish over and suffer from a reprimand he receives from his supervisor. But when a recession hits, the CEO of a big business with tens of thousands of employees has more serious issues to think about. The mental anguish you suffer from teetering on the brink of bankruptcy that would leave tens of thousands of employees jobless is on a completely different level from the pain you feel when someone scolds you. While most employees are often oblivious to the crisis the company is facing, executives usually know ahead of time that their company will collapse if it stays the way it is.
In fact, a certain Japanese airline was facing this kind of financial crisis around the time I delivered the lecture this chapter is based on. In January 2010, this airline filed a petition for protection under the Corporate Rehabilitation Law because it was expected that the airline's funds would fall short by ten billion yen at the end of the month. This meant that the company was on the verge of bank- ruptcy — of having its airplanes under lease seized, becoming unable to refuel, and having to withhold its employees' salaries. The airline had to quickly apply for protection under the Corporate Rehabilitation Law to avoid falling short of funds. You can probably imagine the suffering the executive managers had to go through. Naturally, they would have to resign, but they also found themselves in the difficult position of having to let go of one-third of their approximately fifty thousand employees. I am sure the management team at the time must have suffered many sleepless nights.
As we have seen, when you hold an important position, you no longer have room to think about each of the criticisms you receive or negative things others say about you. You have bigger issues to think about, and matters concerning a great number of people start to occupy your mind. When you look at the issues that trouble your mind right now from this perspective, you'll probably see how trivial they are compared to the kinds of problems that these top executives are struggling with.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Worry Free Living"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Ryuho Okawa.
Excerpted by permission of IRH Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
PREFACE, 9,
CHAPTER ONE Coping with Stress,
CHAPTER TWO Improving Your Relationships,
CHAPTER THREE A Heart of Blessing,
CHAPTER FOUR Living through the Giant Waves of Adversity,
CHAPTER FIVE Feel the Miracle,
AFTERWORD, 175,
About the Author, 178,
About Happy Science, 180,
About IRH Press USA, 187,
Books by Ryuho Okawa, 188,