A Man Can Be Evaluated By His Sense of Righteousness

I believe the surest way to evaluate an individual is by learning how much or how little sense of righteousness he has.  We must measure him as to whether or not we can accept that he will never do anything bad, that he is so trustworthy that we can safely have him in charge of anything.  This is the most accurate way of learning about his character.  I don’t believe there is any better.

A sense of righteousness is, as it were, the backbone of a human being.  A person who has little sense of righteousness is like a jellyfish -- he has no backbone; he is undependable, so we cannot feel safe.

In dealing with anyone, therefore, you should first find out whether what he proposes is right or wrong.  If you discover that it is not right, you should unflinchingly resist it with moral strength.  If you live in the world with this principle, even though you may temporarily experience difficulty, in the long run everything will go in the direction you wish, so you need not have any anxiety.

At any rate, we find there are too many negative people these days who may deceive us when we are off guard, utilize us for their benefit, badly mistreat us, and make us suffer.  Truly, we cannot be too careful in this world.  Weak-spirited people constantly live in fear for this reason; they lack a firm sense of righteousness.

For your information, let me give you a positive proof of this from my long experience in life.  While I was engaged in business, before I became a spiritual leader, I had the unhappy experience many times of being deceived or treated badly by wicked people.  Fortunately, however, I was born with an unusually strong sense of righteousness, so I fought against whatever bitter experience I might be having, disregarding any personal interest.  I did all I could to express the principle of righteousness in my own actions.  Of course, I was sometimes placed in a very disadvantageous position because of this, but it always proved to be only temporary because things invariably improved, and the other party eventually gave up.  As a result, then, I not only recovered any losses I had suffered at first, but gained more profit than the amounts I had expected.

I have always been involved with three or four law cases at a time, including some which are still going on at present.  There was a period during which I was in very straitened circumstances.  One person in particular with whom I had to deal did everything he could think of to harass me with all the strength of his money and high social status.  But in the long run, things turned out to my advantage, and my adversary finally had to give in.

Let me write about some of the other experiences I have had along this line.  When I was in the wholesale notions and accessories business, I created some items and took out patents on them in nine countries besides Japan.  When I placed them on the market, every one became a big success.  This led to a special agreement with the Mitsukoshi Department Store, and they became the fashions of the time.

The Association of Sundries Dealers contacted me with a selfish proposition.  They wished me to sell one of two available designs to the union and let Mitsukoshi have only one.  I did not consent to this proposal because if I had done so it would have meant betraying the trust of Mitsukoshi.  The retail dealers of the entire city of Tokyo, trusting to the numerical strength of their united members, staged a boycott against my store in an attempt to force me to comply with their demands.  But I did not yield under this pressure, although it caused me grave financial embarrassment.  I resisted the boycott steadfastly and after two long years the union finally gave up and came to an agreement with me, so the problem was solved.

I had another interesting experience.  This time it was Mitsukoshi which made an unreasonable demand on me in our dealings.  So, I protested, stating that I would have nothing more to do with that store.  The executives -- powerful as they were -- were surprised at my firm attitude, because up to that time wholesale dealers had always swallowed even their most unreasonable demands.  The executives said they had never met a dealer with such bold resistance.  And since they could not but recognize the rightness of my stand, they made the concession I requested and that problem was solved in my favor.

Later, after I became a spiritual leader, the path I had chosen to tread really became full of ups and downs, as described in the series called Jikan Sosho.  Time and again I moved through extremely precarious situations.  In those difficult days in Japan it was the policy of the authorities to suppress all new religions, and there was no way to escape them because it was a period of military dictatorship.  We had a very hard time indeed.  However, now that the military caste has been disbanded, we can see the proof of righteousness having won.

From these experiences you can see that even though we still have to endure a world in which evil is rampant and good often seems to be beaten, if good will only persist with patience it is sure to win in the end.

After all, in whatever situations we may find ourselves, it is best and most pleasant to keep on the right path, at all times doing things openly and honestly without fear.  This is what we should be able to do.  People with that kind of character can be the pillars of the world and strongholds against social evil.  It is through the strength of such individuals that a wholesome society can be developed, for God always stands by those who are righteous and just.

October 10, 1951