I just came back from a short stay in Japan with my wife and daughter and would like to share a few reflection/realizations. Maybe only one to start, since it may cause sufficient dissension so as to shut me up.

First: a lot of debate has taken place over the Japanese notion of unity. There has been reactionary interpretations about the nature of their idea of unity. I would like to say from the first that I think that westerners rarely if ever have really understood Japanese in this area. This is not to suggest that I now do, but I would like to offer some thoughts.

One western notion about Japanese is that they sacrifice the individual for the sake of the whole. This is an erroneous observation and has nothing to do with the Japanese except to demonstrate western values when confronted with behaviors that seem similar to behaviors that westerners may engage in. But there are serious problems with perception, interpretation and the resultant values, positive and negative assigned to the behavior of Japanese so observed.

First of all, Japanese do not sacrifice the individual for the sake of the whole. Neither the individual involved, nor those in a position to move the individual in a desired direction participate in ANY sacrifice. There is no sacrifice being asked nor given.

This idea, while seeming simple, straight forward, but meaningless is critical to grock. Japanese do not sacrifice themselves in the way we think they do. I think even the kamikaze pilots of World War II were incorrectly portrayed in their attitudes towards their actions for their country.

Instead, a Japanese merely does what they have to. It is their place in the universe. Their role. No sacrifice, not even an obligation as we understand obligation. It is their accepted place. It is what they must do to maintain their place in reality, to maintain the harmony of the order of which they belong to by birth, not by choice. Choice, as we know it in the west, in their past makes no sense. It is an oxymoron, a mind trick one plays on oneself. It is ultimate delusion, not even illusion.

Thus, when Japanese hear us talk of sacrifice, I suspect that on some deep unspoken level they consider us slightly mad. For those more intellectually inclined Japanese, I suspect that they feel a certain sadness when they encounter us, if they can even puzzle past the emotions we attach to our self importance we give ourselves or others when we speak of sacrifice and its value as some spiritual reality.

The closest analogy to their true state of mind might be referenced by the idea of mothering. A mother cannot classify her actions of "self denial" towards her children as self sacrifice.

This speaks of one giving up something that normally one would be entitled to, that one somehow normally owns. A mother, in becoming a mother, gives up nothing. Rather, she becomes something, and that something can only act in ways that attend children in such a way that we call her mother. Nothing else matters. There is no other way of thinking, except in the fallen world with it misuse of free will stemming from a fallen view of free will.

Only then will we see a mother claiming the option of denying being a mother, to keep that something for herself that she senses she loses in becoming a mother. But this is a fallen mother, acting on fallen nature.

I suspect, not without good cause, that Japanese are closer to true free will, even though it paradoxically appears just the opposite, than we westerners are. This notion is in complete opposition to my own perceptions about Japanese and westerners. I now stand on water, not clear about any direction except by intuition, and that seeks to further me into deeper more uncharted waters.

The result of this speculation without discernable fact, and incomplete understanding, is to suspect that our own notions of sacrifice are keeping us from the kingdom. In our arrogance, as Lucifer, in our naming of things, we name those things which we yet have no understanding of, yet pride ourselves in our naming.

Sacrifice, to be sacrifice, never names itself. The naming changes the thing. It gives it attributes of the namer, not inherent in itself. As namers of fallen nature, we thus imbue our named world with our fallen nature.

Thus, many of us, of the west, naming our actions as sacrifices, seeking recognition of such actions as sacrifices, seeking even compensation for such as we call sacrifices, show we never understood our roles as Unificationists. There is no compensation for doing what is right. There is no recognition to be expected, hoped for, demanded of.

From whom do we demand, expect from? God? God asked nothing. Only gave all. As is the nature of God. As could be our nature. When we ask, expect, demand, from true parents for our offerings, we indicate we never let go of those offerings. This is our shame, if we reflect on it. It is here that we could benefit from the Japanese idea of belonging. Of unity. Of being.

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