A Happy New Year! This is Fuyo Haruna.

At the beginning of a new year, you may enjoy your New Year holidays with refreshed feelings. This year, once again, let’s build up a lot more energy in our hearts!

I’m truly happy that quite a few people have come to share my view, through my talks about ‘raising consciousness’ to live a good life, and through my books on the same subject: “Lullaby of the Earth”.

Before coming to me, some of you may have already learned various things, wishing to raise the level of your heart; some may have read books or attended lectures. Your heart must have trembled with joy when you came across great teaching or your soul was awakened. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that such an experience has raised your consciousness. The same thing is true for people who can see or feel through inspiration what ordinary people can’t; don’t mistake such an ability for a sign of your elevated soul.

‘Awakening’ or ‘enlightenment’, I think, is a stating point, not a destination. More important is how you live your day-to-day life from the point of your awakening; you can’t make yourself grow just by dedicating yourself to gathering knowledge.

It is your ‘everyday life’ that counts. Unless you can treat people nicely in a cheerful, pleasant, and affectionate manner in your daily life, your knowledge?however vast it is? will be meaningless. So don’t be satisfied with just acquiring knowledge. Take it as a starting point and learn through the course of your life while applying what you’ve learned.

You may understand what I’ve said intellectually. But I’m afraid you are still uncertain about what specifically to learn in your everyday life.

In my last “Fuyo’s Words” I talked about ‘staying calm’?not letting things disturb us whatever happens, and striving to keep our hearts at peace: to stay tranquil and to continue to have joy in our hearts. In other words, it is to just move on without having ups and downs in our heart. Some may ask: “is that all?” Living like that may seem easy, but it isn’t.

We all live among people and have various social roles to play; in this context, various hardships conspire against us and seem too hard to be overcome with peaceful hearts. Some are small obstacles like puddles we can easily leap over to escape. But some are dauntingly tough, like mountains standing tall in front of us and blocking the path ahead.

Whoever runs into difficulty will be frustrated, resentful, under sufferance, and self-accusing; the level of consciousness of such a person is likely to plummet. How would you struggle to seek control over your feelings to overcome the difficulty? How could you stop your consciousness from falling into the negative, but float it up to the positive, where you can make not only yourself but also people around you happy? In this very process, real learning resides.

You can’t say you’ve overcome an obstacle or a hardship in the true sense if you are disturbed by it?complaining about things and bearing grudges. Suppose you had to go through hardship for things you are not responsible for at all. Even in that situation, if you can treat the person involved with love without holding a grudge, your growth will be tremendous.

Then, some of you may ask if we are deprived of a ‘learning’ tool if we have nothing to suffer from or worry about. Not at all! A lack of hardship does provide an opportunity to increase and deepen the sense of joy and gratitude. Look back at when you found yourself in a predicament and see how you’ve been blessed now. Walk with joy. That is another learning opportunity for us all.

Looking at things in this way, you’ll see your life is packed with learning tools. You don’t have to do special things or to go through hard training like Buddhist monks typically do. Your day-to-day life is a venue for elevating your soul.

So why don’t you make this year one to cherish more dearly your everyday life?