Ryuho Okawa (大川 隆法; Ōkawa Ryūhō; born Takashi Nakagawa (中川 隆; Nakagawa Takashi), 7 July 1956 – 2 March 2023) was a Japanese religious and political leader who was the CEO and founder of the Happy Science and the Happiness Realization Party. He was also an author and chairman of two companies affiliated with the organization, and .
His organization has been widely criticised as a cult. Adherents of the religion worship Okawa, who claimed to be the current incarnation of a god called "" and a number of other beings, including Hermes and Gautama Buddha.
Early life Ryuho Okawa was born Takashi Nakagawa on 7 July 1956 in Kawashima (now Yoshinogawa), Tokushima Prefecture as the second son of (1921–2003) (later known by his pen name ) and . His older brother is named (born 1952) (later known as ).
Okawa said his family was religious; both of his parents believed in God and the Buddha, and Okawa believed in the existence of spirits and souls, and a world after death in childhood. Despite his beliefs, Okawa was not active in religious practice. Okawa and Tomiyama were raised in a strict home environment that was ordinary and not particularly rich nor poor.
Yoshikawa is said to be one of the most important influences on Okawa's life. Okawa said, despite not having a spiritual or religious master, Yoshikawa had an important influence. Yoshikawa edited journals for the Japanese Communist Party and later worked as an agricultural advisor in local government. He was deeply interested in spirituality and religion. He studied in the Christian Church as a teenager, as well as in a new religion called Seicho-no-Ie after World War II. He later became a follower of Shinji Takahashi, leader of the religious organization (GLA). He would also later serve as Happy Science's official adviser in its first few years. Yoshikawa was demanding on Okawa's success. Yoshikawa gave him and Tomiyama hour-long lectures after dinner at home. The lectures included religious topics like the Bible and The Gateless Barrier, as well as secular topics like Kantian philosophy and Marxism during elementary school, although Okawa was not successful in school.
Okawa wanted to be a scholar or a diplomat. He wanted to spread his ideas in academia, or broaden his view on life by experiencing different cultures as a diplomat. Because of this prospect, he started studying until late at night and became amongst the top of his class. He became particularly good at English. He was obese, weighing 60 kg when he was 143 cm tall.
During secondary school, Okawa was an active student. He fished, played tennis, and practiced kendo. He was involved in school activities; he was president of the student union and editor of the school newspaper.
Career Education In 1975, Okawa failed the entrance exam for Tokyo University. After studying for a year, he was accepted into the university's Liberal Arts Division. During his first year, he was not socially adjusted. He said he once wrote love letters to a girl, but was rejected. He felt uncomfortable amongst the students who were uninterested in spirituality. During his second year, a time he calls "the first stage in the 'awakening of wisdom, he modeled his daily schedule after that of Immanuel Kant, whom he respected deeply. At 3 pm, he would take a walk while writing poetry. At 5 pm, he would go to the local bathhouse and stay there for an hour thinking about his day. Going home, he would have a cheap meal, and buy two books at a local bookstore. From 8:30 to 9 pm, he would read, then drink tea, and then read philosophy. The philosophy he read included those of Plato and Kitaro Nishida.
In April 1978, after his second year at university, he majored in politics and studied at the Faculty of Law. After his third year, he paused his studies for a year. At the end of the break, he failed a judicial exam and the exam for higher-level civil servants. In his fourth and last year, his interests started to change from philosophy to metaphysics. He read the works of Shinji Takahashi of GLA and Masaharu Taniguchi of Seicho-no-Ie. He accepted a job offer from (now Toyota Tsusho), a major Japanese trading company, because his grades were not sufficient for graduate school. After graduating in spring 1981, he took up his job. He was assigned to the foreign exchange department at the headquarters in Tokyo.
Spiritual contacts Okawa claims to have been contacted with a divine spirit. His official story as described in later books is as follows. On 23 March 1981, before graduating from university and working at TOMEN Corporation, Okawa experienced a "Buddha Enlightenment", a contact with a divine spirit. He claims this spirit was that of Nikkō Shōnin, who was one of Nichiren's disciples. On that day, he had a sudden feeling that a person was trying to communicate with him. He grabbed a pencil and a card. His hand started to move on its own, and wrote "良い知らせ、良い知らせ" (good news, good news). Asking who the person is, his hand signed "日興", the name of Nikkō. A week later, the spirit of Nichiren himself started contacting Okawa. They then communicated every day from March to July 1981, when he was still working at TOMEN. Okawa asked the spirit what mission he should pursue in life. The spirit replied "Love others, nurture others, and forgive others". This message later became the basis of Okawa's teachings about love.
In June 1981, the religious leader Shinji Takahashi's spirit told Okawa his destiny to found a new religion. His father Yoshikawa, upon hearing of this, went to Tokyo, later becoming one of his followers. The next month, the spirits spoke through Okawa, including those of Kūkai, Shinran, Confucius, Jesus Christ, Moses, and Nostradamus. Yoshikawa and Tomiyama taped the communications. The tapes were interviews between the interviewing Yoshikawa and the spirits. Okawa acted as a spiritual medium and answered Yoshikawa's questions. The tapes were transcribed and adapted into publishable formats by Yoshikawa. Yoshikawa's help allowed Okawa to continue working as a businessman at TOMEN Corporation. Without his help, Happy Science could possibly have started differently and at a later date, or even not have been founded at all. The spiritual messages were given to the publisher because they specialized in spiritual works.
Okawa published a vast number of spiritual messages from various spirits in order to prove the existence of the Spirit World to the public. His first thirteen books, published from 1985 to 1987, consisted of these spiritual messages; the first eight were published from 1985 to 1986 under Yoshikawa's pen name to avoid Okawa's authorship being found out by his employers. The first book, , was published on 15 August 1985. The last two spiritual messages were published in early 1991: (January 1991) and (February 1991). Both became best-sellers in Japan in 1991. After 1991, almost all spiritual message books were discontinued aside from the messages of Buddha.
The books of spiritual messages were replaced with newer versions when Okawa started publishing under his own name after the foundation of Happy Science. The new books were akin to collected and revised versions of the originals. They are presented as religious tractates which are divided into chapters, rather than interviews between Yoshikawa and the spirits.
Okawa told his readers to not let foreigners read the spiritual messages and not translate the messages into English, Chinese, or Korean. He says that foreigners should not know about the messages "until the time is ripe" and that propagating them overseas would "only heighten the fear." Astley (1995) says the real reason Okawa discouraged readers from spreading the messages abroad may be because the messages seem to contain a large amount of plagiarism.
Okawa not only claimed to be a reincarnation of Gautama Buddha but also the incarnation of a "Highest Spiritual Being" named “El Cantare”. Okawa claimed El Cantare was one of ten Highest Spiritual Beings. According to Okawa, this was revealed to him by the consciousness of Gautama Buddha himself. This revelation convinced him that his mission was to spread truth on earth.
Business career Okawa's life as a businessman went normally despite his alleged communication with the spirits, which he later claimed continued throughout his business career. In August 1982, Okawa was sent to the company's US headquarters at the World Trade Center in New York City for training. He took an English course at Berlitz Language School, and studied international finance at the City University of New York. He dropped out of university after experiencing an intensified inferiority complex from seeing a Taiwanese classmate speaking fluent English. Around this time, he said he experienced the "second stage in the 'awakening of wisdom. In 1983, he returned to Tokyo, and was assigned to work on negotiations with banks. In March 1984, he was sent to Nagoya. He claimed that by the summer of 1985, he had read over four thousand books, which he claimed made him superior to everyone else.
Okawa claimed he got a reputation in his company for talking about spirits and calling people possessed. In June 1986, he left his business career. He attributed this to be on the advice of high spirits telling him to start a his own religion. On 15 July, he resigned from TOMEN Corporation and on October 6, founded Happy Science and adopted the name "Ryuho Okawa".
Happy Science
Study group On 6 October 1986, Okawa opened the first office for Happy Science in Suginami, Tokyo, with four staff members. Happy Science's initial name was ("Happy Science, The Postgraduate School of Human Life"). The name "幸福の科学" originates from inspiration that Okawa said he received from Nichiren's spirit; the details were published in Okawa's first book Nichiren no reigen in 1985. At first, the organization disguised itself as a "study group on human happiness" and consisted of readers and sympathizers of Okawa's spiritual works, who were friends and acquaintances of Okawa. However, the organization may have intended to be known as a religious body later.
On 23 November 1986, Okawa gave his first sermon to about 80 followers in Tokyo. This date is now known as one of the most important dates in Happy Science's history. It is known as the day of ("The First Turn of the Wheel of the Dharma").
In March 1987, Okawa gave what is known as his first official large public lecture, entitled "The Principles of Happiness", to an audience of about 400 people. In the lecture, he implied that he was a prophet, saying that while spiritual mediums and psychics cannot hear the voice of God, prophets can. He said that a prophet's task is to listen to the voice and spread the word of God. He stated that the early years of Happy Science would consist of study.
In June 1987, a new series of books, called the series, launched. The first three books, , , and , published from June to October, may be seen as the fundamental doctrinal text of Happy Science. The three books are collectively called . They were originally presented as the final revelations of the Buddha. The Laws of the Sun is the first book in which Okawa explained his own point of view and his teachings. While Okawa had published books before, they were all spiritual messages that came from spirits, not Okawa. The book contains "the core of [Happy Science]'s doctrine" and is "the starting point of its salvation movement". The book also contains an account of Okawa's early life. The Golden Laws is dedicated to "time and history in relation to the Truth". The Laws of Eternity focuses on the structure of the spirit world, which The Laws of Sun also covers, but the book explains it in greater detail. Each book in the trilogy has a subtitle which mentions the shaka. The subtitles would be changed in future editions following changes in Happy Science's doctrine.