Until now, you have seen nothing I have told you.
Now at last, the time has come.

From now on, I shall resume My hastening for the
Joyous Service. This might not be easy to understand.

The hastening is for the purification of the mind, for it is only through the mind like clear water that God's teachings are known and understood. This was and is not easy to understand as our human bias is toward the accumulation of ideas that will add up to a truth that we can understand in relation to our ordinary worldly common ideas and beliefs. The purpose of the Joyous Service is to sweep the mind clean of all thoughts, returning it to its original condition before it accumulated any worldly common truths. This incidentally is not a judgement against worldly common truths. God accepts the truth of our mind, whatever it may be, and reflects that back to us without error as the truth of our world. The quieting, settling, sweeping away or replacing of our self-centered thoughts is merely a requirement for exposing the origin that is ever present beneath them.

I have already told you and told you what is known to Me.
The teachings have been told, but you know not what they mean.

Recall that the Ofudesaki was written with the intention of removing the misunderstanding from the worldly common self-centered human mind. For each of us then the truth has been already been told. The truth of origin is known through the purification of the mind. Remove the self-centered imagination and we can see for ourselves. Why then doesn't the Ofudesaki just say that? Well it does. However it is also necessary to help sincere people who would like to understand but whose self-centered imaginations refuse to give way so that the origin can be revealed. Thus God addresses their issues in the Ofudesaki and shows the way by making a distinction between worldly common self-centered thought and the mind like clear water. Asking that the distinction be pondered deeply and understood. If however we fail to return the mind to its original condition, the mind like clear water, but instead continue to hold on to any of the truths on the worldly common side of the distinction then we cannot see or understand the truth of origin, God's true heart.

Until now, you have not seen whatever I told you,
because the day had not arrived.

The day spoken of is the day when the distinction is clearly made and the mind is perfectly swept and returned to its origin.

From now on, as the time has come,
you will see it just as I tell you.

The time has come for all of us it only a matter of sincerity at this point. There are no ideas that need to be known. Look now and see the truth of origin. Keep your eyes open and watch the self-centered imagination dissolve into the free and unlimited workings of single-heartedness with God.

Listen! In the evening of the twenty-fifth day
in the thirty-sixth year, God will cleanse your heart.

How long does it take to become single-hearted with God? God says it can be done in an evening or even now. The self-centered imagination has all sorts of ideas pertaining to this. They all lead to misunderstanding Gods hastening and intention.

Ponder this: no matter how clear the water may be,
if you put mud into it, it will become turbid.

This is my theme song. My conditioning runs like the hands of a clock. I see the same stuff around the same time. However, there is a bright side, the mind like clear water is now a part of the cycle and conditioning that once would have led to action can often now be seen for what it is and passes by without effect.

This muddying of the water is tricky because I can easily fool myself into believing that self-centered thinking is in fact other centered. For example: Suppose I pray for the salvation of other people before and after I sweep my mind. My self-centered imagination might think of that prayer as being single-hearted with God. If in fact my prayer has as an understood fundamental idea (the pillar of Kara), "please save other people so that my mission will become successful or so that I can be seen to be an effective instrument of God", then God will, without error, reflect the truth of that underlying fundamental idea as being a self-centered worldly common truth (mud in the water) and not the truth of origin that is known through the mind like clear water. It is probably safest just to return to and stay on the path of sweeping.

Unless the muddy water is purified quickly,
there is no way to put in the central pillar.

If only the central pillar is quickly put in,
everything will be settled firmly forever.

These two verses perfectly express the reason heaven as it relates to single-hearted salvation. Unless the mind is made to be like clear water it isn't going to happen. This marvelous single-hearted salvation is meant to happen quickly. If the mind like clear water evades me, I have to ask myself, am I doing this correctly or am I doing something else? Is the putting in of the central pillar my first priority or am I doing something else? Am I keenly aware of God's hastening or have I worked out a time frame that in effect keeps me as I am? Am I helping myself and other people to quickly make the mind like clear water or am I wasting time trying to put my own worldly common ideas and traditions into their minds? Are people put off by my joyous performance of the service or by my prayers and other appearances that give my self-centered imagination comfort? Do I imagine that my own self-centered thoughts are single-hearted with God while imagining that similar worldly common thinking is not? Ultimately, I am not going to be hard on myself but in light of these two verses an honest appraisal seemed appropriate.