Hello, everyone. Today, the order of service was a little different from the usual, wasn’t it? Just now, we heard Mrs. Yoshinami’s Declaration of Resolve—thank you, Mrs. Yoshinami. As the president said in his greeting, the election that takes place once every three years for the executive directors and directors has happened. That’s why our order of service is different today. You may think that this election for the executives is something that only happens at the senior levels and has nothing to do with us members. But that’s not it. That’s because these executives are representatives of all of you, the members. Isn’t that right? Before whom are they representing you? It is Kyoshu-sama before whom they stand as your representatives. Each one of you belongs to a specific church. At that church, the lead minister obviously represents all of you and serves Kyoshu-sama. At the same time, the lead minister guides all of you on behalf of Kyoshu-sama. Of course, it would be great if Kyoshu-sama or I could go to various churches all around the country every day, but that is not possible. Although we are able to meet you at times like these grand services, it is usually the lead ministers who guide all of you on behalf of Kyoshu-sama and also serve Kyoshu-sama representing all of you. Then, the ones who manage the lead ministers are the missionary area chiefs. The ones who manage the missionary area chiefs are the regional directors. The ones who manage the regional directors are the executive directors, and the ones who manage the executive directors are the president and the one who assists him/her, the vice president. So the executive directors are, without a doubt, serving Kyoshu-sama as your representatives. In other words, a change in the executive directors means a change in the people representing you in serving Kyoshu-sama. So it is certainly not an unrelated matter to all of you. As I just said, it is difficult for me to meet each and every one of you directly, so when I listen to the president’s reports, I listen with the thought that all of your thoughts, all of the members’ thoughts, are in there. Also, if I would like to convey something to all of you, there are times I will do so through the president. And while we hear a lot about the board of executive directors, we don’t normally hear about this board of directors, right? This time, the members of the board of directors are now all women, but this is not for display. Some may just think, “Ooo, all the directors are women!” and end it there thinking there is no meaning to it. But it is not like that. If the directors feel that something is wrong with the executive directors or the president, by the wishes of the board of directors, they are able to remove members from the board of executive directors including the president. The opposite cannot happen. The board of executive directors is not able to remove a member of the board of directors. So depending on how you look at it, it is not too much to say that the board of directors has more power. President Narii, you are now cornered. (everyone laughs) In that sense, the members of the board of directors up until today who held this heavy responsibility for the last three years—although the Church has been stable for the time being and nothing in particular has occurred so far—I am appreciative of the big role they had to fill for three years. We talk about being “born anew,” don’t we? Regardless of whether or not we understand the meaning of these words, in any case, we talk about being born anew. To be born anew means that the masculine and the feminine must become one obviously, otherwise a child cannot be born. And this time, the board of executive directors is all men, so it is precisely the masculine board of executive directors and the feminine board of directors that will work together—of course, there is a kind of tension from these checks and balances—but the masculine and feminine elements will become one and go forward. This is how it must be. We ourselves want to accomplish being born anew as children of God, and we are also trying to bring this to the attention of the world. Although it is true that this organizational structure being made means that we have certainly become better suited for the 21st century with women now working in the open in these positions, at the same time, I also believe that this organizational structure is one model that expresses the masculine and the feminine becoming one, joining forces and advancing. So for us who are trying to advance on this path of being born anew—and for our faith—I believe this new structure will be a great source of strength. So this election for the executive directors and the directors is not something that is happening with the higher-ups, in a place that has nothing to do with you, no. Quite literally, this is a new start for all of us, and it is a great opportunity to make further leaps forward. In this sense, I strongly feel that today is a deeply significant Grand Autumn Service. To change the subject, there is something I would like to speak about to all of you today. And that is what we call this “human world.” There is this human world, and by contrast, there is the world of faith where we believe in God. Between these two worlds is a gap, a gulf, and right now, it seems rather difficult to fill. In the world of faith, they say “I believe in God” and go forward. In the human world, they say “I don’t need God” or “By human power and effort, we’re going to make this world a better place step by step” or “Let’s all work hard and cooperate with each other. Then we can make a better world little by little.” Well, of course, human effort is important. As such, there is a gap between society and the world of faith. Particularly in Japan, let alone the gap, people are negative toward religion, or I should say, they have a sort of discrimination against religion. So there seems to be no sign of the gap between these two worlds being filled. Then again, in society, just because they say they don’t believe in God, it doesn’t mean that anything goes. People live with a kind of moral standard, if you will, a set of rules. It is a world of do not lie, be honest, keep your promises, treat your parents well, be useful to someone, do good deeds, etc. These are the moral standards of society. For us who have faith in God, this is not an irrelevant issue. From childhood, we ourselves have had this kind of thinking driven into us by our immediate family members or from school or from other various places, right? Driven in. “Let’s become useful to someone” seems like it could be a slogan put up at a school or something, but “Let’s turn our hearts to God” as a slogan would seem rather difficult in those places, right? This is how much these moral standards of society exist in such very strong forms. Everybody lives with them, including us who have faith in God. And I don’t think there is anyone who can say that they have not violated any of those moral standards their entire life—I have never told a lie; I have done nothing but treat my parents well; I have never done anything to disappoint my parents; I have only thought about the benefit of other people; I have never been selfish thinking only about myself. I don’t think there is anyone like this, right? On the other hand, the opposite type of person doesn’t exist either. I only tell lies—someone like this would be hard to find, wouldn’t it? This is kind of a strange way of putting it, though. In reality, everybody lives somewhere in between for the most part. “I remember that time when I broke such an important promise, so from now on, I don’t want to break any promises” or “I unintentionally said such cold things to my parents, so from now on, I will treat them well” but after thinking that, your parents pass on and you find yourself in regret, not able to have an opportunity to honor them properly. Or “I regret the time that I hurt that person, but I want to be a better person somehow.” This is the way we live. We pass on carrying these kinds of thoughts. And we are under the belief that this is what life is. While feeling joy, anger, grief and pleasure, experiencing the bitter and the sweet, we live for years and decades and then die a natural death. We believe that this is life. We assume this. We ourselves live with this mindset. We live in this kind of world like it is normal. But the truth is, this way of living is a dead end. And that’s because we are aiming for something that cannot be reached. We believe that this is life, that this is the spice of life. But it is actually a dead end. There are some rules, you try really hard to follow those rules, but you can’t follow them perfectly. Still, you feel that you must—the fact that we live in this way actually shows that we are at a dead end. All of society, all of humanity, is actually at a dead end. So then why are these moral standards or rules driven into us from a young age? We are tasked our whole life to achieve something that cannot be achieved—is that how our life ends? No, it isn’t. So these standards are driven in, and there, we are conflicted, we are at a dead end, thinking, “I regret telling that lie that time” or “I broke a promise with that person” or “I was not able to treat my parents properly.” In actuality, these are for us to realize at that moment, “Ah, all these standards and rules exist because they matter to God.” “Do not tell lies”—to whom, actually, should we not tell lies? “I have to keep my promises”—with whom, actually, should we be keeping our promises? “Treat your parents well”—whom, actually, should we be honoring? “Live for others”—for whom, actually, should we live? So as you can see, the fact that we are at a dead end living by these standards and rules of society means that, actually, it is God who is asking us these questions. When you reach a dead end, God is wishing: “Won’t you remember Me?” God is wishing: I don’t want you to lie to Me. Keep the promise you made with Me. Recognize Me as your Father. Why don’t you and I unite as parent and child? Won’t you think of My sake, as I think of yours? In order for us to realize this, truth be told, God has made us hear these standards and rules from a young age repeatedly, until we are sick and tired of hearing them, until we die—you shouldn’t do this, you’re not supposed to do that. The truth is, all these things are about our relationship with God. It’s just that it isn’t expressed in words that way. But even if we are told this, you may be wondering, then what does it mean exactly “to not lie to God.” To say it in a phrase, for God it means “Show Me your honest, undisguised self, as you are.” That is to say, we are always trying to show our best selves. “I practice faith” or “I believe in God” or “I am a person with resolve.” But if you are told to show yourself “as you are,” you may imagine something dramatic and think that it is very difficult. Isn’t that true? But this “as you are” is actually not that complicated. It is about thoughts like “It’s hard for me to make up my mind” or “Oh, how great, that person made up their mind” or “We are told that everything belongs to God, but I simply cannot believe that everything is His.” Even though this is what “as you are” means, we make assumptions that make it hard for us to move forward: “If I don’t believe that everything belongs to God, I won’t be able to surrender things” or “The me that can’t believe that everything belongs to God is not honest.” I mean, there really is no one who can make the switch right away. That’s why God is saying, “I know it is not so simple. So with those confused thoughts and feelings, those half-hearted, incomplete thoughts and feelings as they are, come to Me.” If you are able to do so, God may then say, “Ah, okay,” and grant you His blessing of freeing you from those half-hearted, incomplete situations. But we hold on to those half-hearted, incomplete thoughts and feelings tightly, don’t we? (Masaaki-sama picks up the moistened hand towel, oshibori, that had been placed on the podium and holding it tightly, says,) That’s why we are unmoving, sitting in one place for so long. “That person is great. I can’t make up my mind. I’m not able to believe that everything belongs to God, so I can’t surrender”—that’s where we are stalled. We have assumed that “as we are” is something incredibly noble. That is why we are stuck. And on keeping our promises with God, we might say that we don’t remember making any promises with Him, but actually, we did. We may have forgotten, but we really did. After all, we are parent and child. We were told, “I will send you to the earth, but come back to Me bringing everything along with you.” We said to God, “I understand. I promise.” Then we left heaven and came here. This is not a made-up story. While I mentioned treating your parents well, God is, no doubt, the true parent. This means that if you want to honor your parent, then at the very least, you must first recognize that God is the true parent, otherwise you will not be able to start honoring your parents properly on earth either. Living for others, too, actually means that we must live for God. If you leave out “for God” while saying “for others in society,” God will say to you, “Aren’t you doing that to enhance your own virtues?” Then that’s the end of it, right? It is the same for doing good deeds. Out in the world, they say things like “Do one good deed a day.” But to God, to do good is for us to return to God and call Him “Father.” For God, this is the best good deed. That’s because God is our true parent. Leaving this out while doing one good deed a day only in this human world will accomplish nothing, to tell you the truth. Without the power of God to begin with, there is not one good deed we can do. It is useless to do anything without paying due respect toward this God. I think all of you have a sense of what I am talking about now, right? You may think, “Ah, okay. The matters of this world actually have to do with God.” And from now on, you’ll think, let’s live like that; let’s honor our true parent, God. Until now, you have been living for human beings, but from now on, you will live for God. If you think it will be smooth sailing from there, God will tell you, “Hold it right there.” Why would He do that? God will say to you, “Haven’t you all been lying to Me until now?” “Haven’t you broken your promise with Me?” “You left Me and said you would come back, but you have been doing as you please for the longest time.” “You forgot Me. Actually, didn’t you think this whole time that it would be better without Me?” “Didn’t you think that My existence was inconvenient?” So that is where our impurities are, our sin. Sin. God is asking us, “Don’t you have sins? What are you going to do about them?” This is what is left. God is telling us, “You say, ‘From now on, I want to do my best and live for God.’ ‘I want to go forward with the true good deed of always turning my heart to God.’ That’s fine and good, but what are you going to do about those stains? Your clothes are dirty, aren’t they? You won’t be able to come back to Me like that.” It is sin, isn’t it? So now you may be wondering, what should we do then? Thinking about it even a little, we wouldn’t be able to see our own lives as spotlessly white or wonderful, right? In life, there were many things we did that we could not help. Circumstances escalated, something you couldn’t imagine happened, and we said things that we shouldn’t have or we ended up doing things that we shouldn’t have. These have happened to us, haven’t they? Each one of us is burdened with these kinds of things. And we can’t take them back, can we? So what do we do? God is telling us to cleanse those sins before anything else. “Clean yourself up first!” This is the number one step. This is where the Lord of Atonement comes into the picture. The Lord who atones for our sins. The Lord of Atonement. Even Meishu-sama recognizes the existence of the Lord of Atonement. The one who atones for sins. And how did God atone for our sins? As all of you know, He made Jesus Christ go on the cross, and with the blood that Jesus shed, He atoned for humanity’s sins. This is the Lord of Atonement. Jesus. Jesus, the Lord of Atonement. If that is the case, then we must first accept Jesus as the Lord of Atonement, we must accept Jesus’s crucifixion, we must accept Jesus’s blood—otherwise, we cannot go to the next step. That’s because we are still dirty. “Until now, I lived for human beings, but from now on, I will live for God”—if you think that you can get right into it, full blast, you can’t. God is telling us to first wash ourselves, to clean our clothes—stains still remain. God is telling us, “I have prepared Jesus and his atoning blood so that you can be made clean and brand new, so why don’t you receive it, and from there, let’s make a new start together.” So in a nutshell, you try to follow the standards and rules of society, but it’s difficult and you get stuck. There, you think, from now on, you will live for God. But then you find out that there is a you that is not able to live for God, that was not able to live for God—this is where you accept Jesus and make a new beginning. This is what I mean. I mean this for everything. Take today’s piano performance for the prelude of the service. You may have thought that it was an unexpected song, but it was “I Only Care About You” by Teresa Teng. (Masaaki-sama begins singing the lyrics to the song in Japanese) So I ask of you, keep me close to you. (applause) Right now, I can only love you. Something like that? (applause) I apologize, it was like I was trying to force applause. (everyone laughs) This is of course a love song, but this “you” in “Right now, I can only love you” can also be seen as God, actually. Earlier this morning in my hotel room, as I knew that the piano performance before the service would be this song, I looked up the lyrics and thought these are some really romantic lyrics, and I automatically took notes. (everyone laughs) I am sure that there are some of you who know this song, but the first lyrics say, “If I had never met you, what would I be doing?” If we had never met God, what would we be doing? “It may be ordinary, but perhaps I would have been in love with somebody and lived a normal life.” We may have been living life in this world of ordinary mortals and ended it without knowing the love of God. Then it goes, “I yield myself to the flow of time, colored by you.” Who are we colored by? God, right? We want to be colored by God. Isn’t that so? “Even this one life, I don’t care if I have to give it up.” For God, right? I don’t care if I have to give up my life for God. And then it says, “So I ask of you, keep me close to you. Right now, I can only love you.” Then a little later, it says, “I am now wrapped in your arms, and I have become beautiful. With just this, I don’t even need my life.” So these lyrics are saying, now that I have found my true love, my heart is aflutter, and I have become a beautiful person. But we, too, actually, found God, our hearts were aflutter, and we became beautiful. So we are hopeless, full of blemishes—“full of blemishes” might be a little misleading (everyone laughs) as there may be some people who still don’t have blemishes from age. (everyone laughs) As we get older, all kinds of things happen due to increasing age, right? But with God, actually, each one of us also has a face and a body that are shining gloriously, without any blemishes. So when you meet someone special in this world, your heart flutters and you can become beautiful, enough that your skin glows. In the same way, if you think, “Ah, I was able to meet God, and He made me truly beautiful,” and if you are able to receive the body that is shining gloriously in heaven, then it may turn out that the blemishes on your face of this world disappear—yes, really. This could really happen. The fact of the matter is, I am not bringing up Teresa Teng to talk about nonsense to you. I mean, Meishu-sama composed the following hymn: “In the past, / I loved someone with all my life. / Now, / I know a love that far surpasses that of before.” Meishu-sama, too, had also experienced a love in the past where he gave his all. But he says he came to know a love that surpassed that. Meishu-sama says this. And what kind of love was it? The next hymn: “Only when you have the passionate heart / To love someone / Could you love God, / Sacrificing even your life.” The lyrics to “I Only Care About You” are a bit similar, aren’t they? In Teresa Teng’s words, she says, “I don’t even need my life.” Meishu-sama says, “. . . love God, sacrificing even your life.” I mean this is Meishu-sama’s frame of mind toward God. Or here’s another hymn: “The ultimate love / Is to fall in love with the true God.” This hymn talks about how people on this earth fall in love, but the ultimate of that is falling in love with God. The next one: “I discarded an unstable, mundane, this-worldly love. / Now, / I only love God, and Him only, / With all my life.” This hymn describes how Meishu-sama threw away the love of this world and now only loves God. So you might think, “Ah, if Meishu-sama did that . . .,” and then say to your husband, “I’ve kissed you good-bye already.” Does it mean you can do that? No, it doesn’t. (everyone laughs) In any case, Meishu-sama is in love with God. Meishu-sama loved with worldly love too, as he said he loved someone with all his life. But through that experience, Meishu-sama came to know that there was a love that far surpassed that. And well, Meishu-sama accomplished that love, right? He accomplished his love with God, didn’t he? That is, in the last year of his life, he was born anew as the Messiah, right? Meishu-sama fell deeply in love with God, ultimately became one with Him and was born anew, wasn’t he? So Meishu-sama accomplished his love with God. Now, even though Meishu-sama was born anew, it doesn’t mean that Meishu-sama suddenly brought a baby into his arms, or he suddenly became small like a baby. This “born anew” means that it was something that happened within Meishu-sama, within him. As I said in the beginning, a child can’t be born unless a male and a female become one. If that is the case, Meishu-sama accomplished meeting the feminine soul of God within himself, became one with that soul and was born anew. On this earth, Meishu-sama was a man, so he was made to express the masculine soul. Meishu-sama used the word genkon for the soul on the earth. The genkon comes to the physical world, and the yukon waits in the spiritual world. Genkon and yukon. So each one of us carries two souls in order to be born anew. This is something that truly is the mystery of mysteries. In Meishu-sama’s hymn from a moment ago, he spoke about romantic love, so he is talking about feelings toward someone of the opposite sex, whatever form it may be. I mean, he says, “Now, I know a love that far surpasses that of before.” These are Meishu-sama’s feelings toward someone of the opposite sex, right? If that is indeed the case, there was a feminine soul within Meishu-sama, he fell in love with that being and became one with it. That’s why he was born anew. There’s no way to deny this. So us too, if you are a man on this earth, you have within you a feminine soul waiting for you; if you are a woman on this earth, you have within you a masculine soul waiting for you. I mean, here on earth, don’t we talk about being married or not? Don’t we talk about how one had a fateful encounter and got married? Now if this is a great blessing, then does that mean that unmarried people will always be missing something in their lives? Certainly not. God was the One who sent us humans down to earth, so He would not cause us to have thoughts or feelings that we are lacking something, would He? Of course, it is a good thing to get married as God wills. But even if you don’t get married, within each and every one of us, there is an existence, like a prize beyond our reach, that we adore and long for—this existence is waiting for us. I mean, the feeling of seeking someone of the opposite sex arises within us, doesn’t it? Why would God have those kinds of thoughts and feelings well up? It’s because it is inside of us, waiting for us. It is saying, “I want to be one with you.” Meishu-sama is the one who accomplished that great romantic love. That is the true romantic love. Being in love with God. In fact, we have to fall in love in that same way. And that’s because our aim is to be born anew. Of course, as I just said a moment ago, it is good to treasure your actual other half. Not “If my other half is within me, I don’t need you anymore.” (everyone laughs) So through this time’s election of the executive directors and the directors, it became men and women. The executive directors are men, and the directors are women. Although this is one symbolic form that is being expressed, how should we receive this? On this earth, if you are male, within you is a feminine soul. If you are female, within you is a masculine soul. God is urging each one of us, “Become one with the soul within you and be born anew. Accomplish that love.” I believe this is what it is. And when that happens, power emerges. I mean, we have been living at 50 percent this whole time, ending with “I am a man” or “I am a woman.” But in actuality, everything that we seek and long for is all there within us—every possible thing like joy and strength and hope is there. The power to grow younger is there too. After all, once we are born anew, it’s eternal life from then on. And well, that body is entirely different from the body that gradually wears down at 50, 60 or 70. (everyone laughs) The executive directors are male, and the directors are female—to become as such means that God is wanting each one of us to realize the things that I have been talking about to you today. So within ourselves, two souls come together, the masculine and the feminine, and they go before God. If God deems them good, then there is a child of God. In other words, it means we are born anew. The mystery of mysteries of Meishu-sama can be accomplished within all of you too—within you. You may think that, at one glance, it is not possible to reach that point. But Meishu-sama is our model, so we can. Meishu-sama showed us the model, so we, too, can reach that point. So today on this auspicious day—and the election for the executives is indeed auspicious, since it means God is saying that we can advance anew—from this auspicious day, let us all grow younger, become bolder, be brimming with more youthfulness and life, be more radiant and go forward on this path, with Kyoshu-sama at the forefront, fixing our eyes on Meishu-sama with all our hearts. Thank you very much.