About the author

Ryuho Okawa was born on July 7th, 1956 in a small town called Kawashima in Tokushima Prefecture, Shikoku Island in Japan.

From the time of his childhood, Okawa was renowned as a master of self-help. Since his elementary school days, he has never ceased to make diligent efforts for improvement in all areas of his life. According to him, he did not feel that he was an academic genius like his brother, and he instead acknowledged his ordinary nature as a starting point from which to develop. Okawa dedicated himself to making extraordinary efforts, believing that if he applied double, triple, or even ten times more effort, he may be able to catch up with so-called genius academic achievers.

As a result of his diligence, his academic scores were always at the very top of his classes in each subject. He was driven not by his ego, but by his dream of being of service to the world through a combination of academia and diplomacy.

Eventually Ryuho Okawa attended Japan’s top university, the University of Tokyo at Law. Only a handful of people from his hometown made it to this very prestigious school. It is the school which produces many of the top government officials, judges, and CEOs of private sectors throughout Japan. Okawa was no different from his peers in that everyone anticipated him to achieve great success in the world of law, academia, or diplomacy.

However, on March 23, 1981, Ryuho Okawa was contacted by an invisible being from the Heavenly World. Spiritual communications such as this became a regular phenomenon and eventually led him to attain his Great Enlightenment on March 23, 1981 while he was still at Tokyo University.

The spiritual messages Okawa received from Heaven were initially well over a dozen in number and historically acclaimed high spirits beyond specific religions and races appeared one after another before him with impassioned messages of urgency.

In June of 1981, Jesus Christ came down to him and began to deliver astounding Truths in the form of spiritual messages. In July of 1981, the treasure house of Okawa’s subconscious opened and his hidden consciousness, Gautama Siddhartha-Shakyamuni Buddha, spoke ardently of the mission of spreading Buddha’s Truth and told him that he was the spiritual being named El Cantare, the core consciousness of Buddha. Buddha likewise informed him that El Cantare’s mission is to bring salvation to all humankind through spreading Buddha’s Truth and integrating the various religions of the earth in order to create a new world religion and open the path to a new civilization.

However, Okawa did not jump to any conclusions, such as that he is the chosen one, but rather took six years to carefully authenticate the spiritual messages he was receiving in order to ascertain whether the contents of each spirit have consistency or not.

After graduating from Tokyo University, Okawa did not become a lawyer but was recruited to join one of the nation’s top international trading companies as a candidate for a future executive position. In his second year of employment he was asked to work at the International Finance Division of the company’s headquarters in New York, situated in the former World Trade Center North Tower. While he was a financial officer in the New York Office, Okawa completed the International Finance Course at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. While Okawa was working in New York, he continued to receive messages from Heaven.

Ryuho Okawa’s philosophical background and the development of his mastery of self-help efforts can be found in his book, Twiceborn (IRH Press October 2019) and some of the highlighted stories from his attainment of enlightenment and communication with high spirits amidst his engaging in a hectic business life were depicted in the award winning film Twiceborn (IRH Press October 2019).

A few years later in July of 1986, Okawa renounced a promising career as a businessman. He decided to devote his life to spreading the Truth, and established Happy Science in October, 1986, a global utopian movement intent on reforming existing religion, philosophy, academia, politics, economic, art, literature and so on, and likewise to restore all things to the original state under God’s Truth.

In 1987, the foundation of the teachings were laid out in his publications The Laws of the Sun, The Golden Laws, and The Nine Dimensions: Unveiling the Laws of Eternity.

Being inspired and moved by his passionate and powerful discourses, participants at his public lectures rapidly increased. In July of 1991, 50,000 core believers gathered at Tokyo Dome for the Celebration of the Lord’s Descent. Thus, in that very year, Happy Science became one of the largest religious organizations in Japan, manifesting as a never-before-seen miracle in the religious world.

After resurrecting from his physical death on May 14, 2004 (refer to The New Resurrection / Film Immortal Hero), Okawa’s work expanded tenfold by his laying down the foundation for ideal politics and education by establishing the Happiness Realization Party in 2009, and the Happy Science Academy - the Nasu Main Campus in 2010 and the Kansai Campus in 2013. Additionally, he is also the founder of Happy Science University (HSU), which opened as a private institution of higher education in April 2015.

Ryuho Okawa’s lectures have been published as books, and a number of them have become bestsellers. He has published more than 3,100 books (of which more than 550 are Spiritual Interview Series), including The Laws of the Sun which has sold over a million copies.

He has held numerous seminars and produced 25 films based on his teachings.Ryuho Okawa’s lectures have been published as books, and a number of them have become bestsellers. He has published more than 3,100 books (of which more than 550 are Spiritual Interview Series), including The Laws of the Sun which has sold over a million copies.

He has held numerous seminars and produced 25 films based on his teachings.Okawa’s teachings, based on universal religious Truths, expand to cover concrete proposals for resolving worldwide political and economic situations, and he has given over 3,500 lectures (of which more than 150 are in English and over 1,250 are spiritual messages and readings) in both Japanese and English.

Happy Science now has members in over 165 countries across the world, with more than 700 local branches and temples as well as 10,000 missionary houses around the world, and we are actively involved in numerous charitable works.