A Soka-style happy marriage is determined by the 'amount of good fortune'!
If you have good fortune, you can be happy, so if you want a happy marriage, you must accumulate good fortune.
This is common sense in the Soka Gakkai.
Well, every religion aims for 'happiness,' and that's usually why people practice them, I suppose.
Conversely, back then, it was as if I were being told, 'You can't have the marriage you want because you lack good fortune.'
No, I was actually told that, especially by my mother.
If that's the case! I thought, so I worked hard at the activities promoted by Soka to accumulate good fortune, and I prayed every morning and every night without fail.
And then, I met someone. But if that person wasn't my ideal, then that was my level of good fortune at the time.
It's incredibly rude to say, but I was judging the other person on my own terms.
I never actually thought, 'I'm quitting,' but the people in front of us are mirrors of ourselves.
This kind of talk is common in self-help and spiritual circles, but in the context of Soka, that philosophy is strong, and that's exactly why accumulating my own good fortune was my number one motivation.
If meeting a truly wonderful man depends on the amount of good fortune I've accumulated, and if I can happily marry the ideal partner I desire, then the thought process becomes that I have no choice but to work hard at activities, and it would be strange not to pray every morning and night.
With that flow, here is my story.
My love life had been a total failure, so while I thought it was because I lacked good fortune, I also had a part of me that thought my standards were mysteriously high and that it would be impossible unless I accumulated a great deal of good fortune.
(*By the way, 'a successful romance' here means meeting a Soka member and getting married, or if not, having them join Soka.)
My mother also kept nagging me, saying, 'Just pray! The best person for you will definitely appear!' so I didn't exactly doubt it, but I didn't work super hard at activities either; I was doing it in a very half-hearted way.
Why was I half-hearted even though I wanted an ideal marriage? Because Soka Gakkai activities are a huge hassle. Honestly, I thought, 'I'm not doing this because I like it!'
From my mother's perspective, I think she disliked that half-hearted attitude. She probably wanted me to be more enthusiastic about the activities.
But I was like, 'I don't care about that.' (I'm a third-generation member, after all.)
In truth, I was plotting that if I married into wealth, the Soka Gakkai folks and my parents wouldn't have anything to complain about.
This part is my own personality, unrelated to the Soka Gakkai.
In that case, I would have to accumulate an incredible amount of good fortune, so I think one reason my love life was going nowhere was that I was raising the bar myself.
'Good fortune' generally means
Lucky events
Gaining luck or happiness
Benefiting
A windfall
A gift from God
So, regardless of religion, everyone wants it, and basically, everyone likes it, right?
If I can accumulate 'good fortune' and have an ideal Soka-style marriage, my parents will be happy, and if it happens to be a marriage into wealth, there's nothing luckier than that for me, right?
Combined with my greedy personality, you could say my marriage hunting was a continuous struggle.
If I'm going to accumulate something, I could just 'accumulate virtue,' and if I want both good fortune and luck, I don't necessarily have to work hard only at religious activities. There are countless ways to do it.
However, having been born and raised in a Soka Gakkai family, I couldn't do that, and I was obsessed with accumulating good fortune solely by doing Soka activities.
Looking back now, I wonder if I couldn't have just fallen in love with someone more purely.
It feels like all this talk about good fortune, parents, and religion is just so noisy.