CREATING THE VALUE OF LIFE By Fumihiko Iida Associate Professor of Fukushima National University, JAPAN This book became best-seller in Japan and achieved more than 400,000 copies in 1996. Translated by Muneo Yoshikawa, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus, University of Hawaii THIS EBOOK IS DISTRIBUTED FREELY BY TRANS4MIND.COM Trans4mind.com Comprehensive resources for personal growth and transformation of body, mind and spirit. The site includes excellent free personal development plans, courses, books, articles, quotes and videos ... and our great collection of free ebook downloads. Plus the paid Trans4mind courses and programs for those who want to go all the way! Why Do Personal Development? Part of the nature of humans is to be constantly developing, growing and moving toward a balanced and mature way of being. Our present personality is determined by both who and what we have been and by the person we strive to become. The goal of personal development is to learn and apply that which enables us to attain emotional wellbeing, understanding and effectiveness, and to share this knowledge with others. Personal development is the conscious evolution of human nature, and yet throughout history it has been sorely lacking! Although it is in our nature to learn and grow, we are held back by our culture, which is predominantly focused on survival needs, each of us in competition with others, and our spiritual inner nature is repressed. The animal rules. We make no room for unconditional love. Even though the culture may have evolved with technological advancement and administrative complexity, human nature has not moved forward as it might. We are now paying the price for human selfishness and inconsideration. Going forward, the quality of our lives on this planet - even our survival - now depends on each of us taking responsibility for our personal growth. The human being needs to awaken to the soul that inhabits each body and is our true self and source of inner knowing. Awaken through a process of self-discovery, leading to one's own, self-directed spirituality. We need to become mindfully conscious instead of ruled by the dictates of instincts, past habits and fixed beliefs. We need to throw away dogma, open our minds and reconsider. Instead of fear about our survival and competitive angst, we will then be motivated by compassionate understanding and creative love. For those that do move forward, the next epoch - that is almost upon us as we move into 2012 - will be a celebration of human cooperation and shared love. It's our best hope for the future - and it's in our hands. FREE COURSES, READING & SERVICES TOP RECOMMENDED PRODUCTS COPYRIGHT If you want, you can distribute this PDF file to all around the world, but please do not gain any profit ! Copyright (C) : Fumihiko Iida & Nuneo J. Yoshikawa Fumihiko Iida Faculty of Economics, Fukushima Univ., Matsukawa-cho, Fukushima City, 960–1296, Japan This PDF file was converted from the HTML file of Iida’s HP by Yoshio Umeno. ii UPON THE OCCASION OF PUBLICATION UPON THE OCCASION OF PUBLICATION — Why This Book is Being Sent Out From Japan to the World — Muneo Yoshikawa, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus, University of Hawaii In the latter part of March, 1996, a trusted friend sent me a copy of Professor Fumihiko Iida’s article, ”The Dawn of Meaning.”[1] I read it immediately and was amazed that a traditional academic journal at a major public university in Japan had published a research article on life after death and rebirth, especially since the topic is so remote from economics and management, the journal’s usual genre. I was full of emotion as I realized that the new world-shaking paradigms (views of the world, of the universe, of nature, of humanity and of the corporation) have at last started to make inroads in Japan. On the one hand, I was speechless with admiration for the bravery of Professor Iida in submitting such theories to a journal of economics and management. I have spent over thirty years in the academic environment of a public University in the U.S., and I know very well that a scholar of management must be prepared for the worst when he publishes theories such as Professor’s Iida’s within the discipline of management sci- ence, where they appear out of place, at least at first glance. I contacted Professor Iida immediately because I was convinced that he had some compelling reason, a reason beyond human knowledge, to act as he did. One week later I visited Professor Iida’s office at Fukushima University. As I suspected, Professor Iida did have a reason beyond human knowledge to write his article. I am unable to explain it simply, and Professor Iida has requested that I refrain from trying. However, the overwhelming response to his article made Professor Iida resolve to publish a greatly expanded version of his article as a book. As I spoke to Professor Iida, I felt very strongly that his theories were too important to be confined just to Japan; I felt that Japan must send his ideas out to the whole world. For that reason, I have been asked to write the introduction to this book, a task which I, a non-Japanese, perform with great hesitation. Transpersonal psychology and molecular physics, disciplines on the forefront of global knowledge, are currently dealing with such concepts as the invisible world, the realm of the unconscious and idea of life fields. In philosophy, such concepts are termed the ”celestial” realm and the realm of ”nothingness.” The Japanese have words for these astral realms in the world of art where the concepts are called yohaku (blankness, empty space), yo’in (reverberation, lingering note) and yojo (suggestive- ness, lingering charm). These realms have meaning in a psychological and emotional sense. Fellow Japanese very clearly understand and share this realm of emotion. In the world of business as well, Japanese have a shared understanding in this astral plane of the ”life-field” called the ”workplace.” Just as in the world of art, this realm or life-field of work can also be understood psychologically or emotionally. For that reason, the realm of work has a nature that cannot ask ”why” things happen. UPON THE OCCASION OF PUBLICATION iii As someone who is not Japanese, I think that Japan got so caught up with the question of ”how to” during the days of high economic growth that the nation lost sight of the question ”why.” Corporations fulfilled their destiny as entities with the shared understanding that the goal is the pursuit of profits. When considered from a cultural perspective, there was virtually no consciousness of purpose to generate the question ”what,” nor was there any consciousness of vision to generate the question ”why.” And then one day the hyper-inflated ”bubble” economy suddenly deflated, leaving Japan finally conscious of the emptiness of a materialistic civilization. Now Japan is starting to search for real wealth and seeking to find the meaning of life and the meaning of work. Professor Iida grapples head on with these problems as a scholar of management. The conclusion he reaches is this: it is impossible to find the meaning of life or the meaning of work unless one changes one’s human consciousness and set of values in the most fundamental ¡and basic of ways. This book proposes a ”theory about the meaning of life,” through a comprehensive treatment of scientific research findings about ”life after death” and ”rebirth,” ideas that are found throughout the world. A course on ”Death and Dying” has been part of the curriculum at the state-owned University of Hawaii for the past twenty-five years. Thinking about human life and death has become a respected academic discipline. Japan is behind the rest of the world in this regard; however, Professor Iida makes every effort in this book to elucidate the meaning of ”life” and ”death” in as scholarly a fashion as possible by giving specific examples, based upon the scientific research of scholars around the world. What this book makes clear is that, ”Human beings are creatures that create mean- ing and that create value.” Dr. Victor Frankel, a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps, has stated that the people who survive even the most horrible environments are those people who are able to find value in their lives even in the midst of suffering. By publishing this book, Dr. Iida also hopes to emphasize strongly the following: ”People who discover value in their own existence are strong people. Discovering value in your own existence provides the most powerful reason for living.” It has been reported that the chief cause of death in the U.S. is ”the loss of a sense of meaning.” Japan is no exception in this respect. Japan presently has no vision (why) nor does it have clear goals (what). Japan has lost its way and is buffeted about here and there by the immediate situation. Professor Iida makes us aware of the world we cannot see (past and future lifetimes) and, by thus raising our consciousness, draws our attention to the one, unbroken chain of life that continues forever. This book is essential required reading for most Japanese people because it reveals the importance of attaching meaning anew to the ”celestial” realm and the realm of ”nothingness.” As the author emphasizes, we are linked to all the objects, people and living crea- tures that surround us. When we understand the meaning of our existence, then for the first time, our ways of perceiving, of thinking, of understanding and of interacting spring out of the boundaries of ”humanity,” spring out of the boundaries of ”nation- hood,” and spring out of the boundaries of the ”world.” Heightened in this fashion, our very consciousness acquires a bright and shining hope in dealing with problems which iv UPON THE OCCASION OF PUBLICATION face all human beings such as racial issues and environmental issues.