Compass of the Times 191

To seek for the Blueprint

Keiko Takahashi

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What is the Blueprint?

A month has passed since the beginning of the new year.

This month, I would like to think about the blueprint that we should always cherish and ponder over.

Blueprint is a word that expresses plans and designs of things and events.

Up until about 50 years ago, a method called blueprint was widely used for the reproduction of technical drawings in the field of architecture, civil engineering, and mechanical design. In those days, when there were no large copy machines or printers, it was the only method to make a copy of designs.

When a design drawn on a translucent tracing paper is placed on top of a photosensitive paper, illuminated by light, and the correct procedure followed, the drawing emerges as white lines on a blue background. (There was also a reversed type in which blue lines emerge on a white background.)

By repeating this procedure, a single design can be reproduced multiple times; thus, various people are able to share these blueprints to build and manufacture in precision what is depicted there, no matter how complicated the blueprint was.

Without this blueprint, it was impossible to actually create buildings, bridges, and the industrial products that have yet to emerge into the real world.

Reflecting back on our history, I wonder how many things such blueprints have produced that have touched people’s hearts and made them astonished.

I also believe that people have sensed that there are blueprints to everything that was born into this world.

With such a historical background, future plans and their designs became to be called blueprints.

A Blueprint for EachDay and a Blueprint for Each Chaos

In the Study of the Soul’, there is an even deeper meaning to the word blueprint. When we say blueprint of the future or blueprint of life, we give the meaning of the one and only plan or design in accordance with God’s will.

It does not mean that there are various blueprints, but rather, there is only one blueprint, like Plato’s theory of Idea We keep accessing this one and only blueprint. That is the attitude toward the blueprint in the Study of the Soul.

This blueprint, however, is not something that is in a fixed state. For example, the blueprint of life can be changed by the way we walk on our life’s journey.

Changes in our situation caused by various incidents and life’s experiences will also alter our blueprint. At that time, the best possible plan or the best possible design is what we call our blueprint.

The year 2020 also has its blueprint. What is your blueprint for this year?

And this day, today, also has its blueprint. The same goes for encounters and events that come to us.

Everything we encounter every day, including various situations that we experience, comes to us as Chaos. Chaos is a state that has neither shape nor result until we touch upon it. It contains possibilities and limitations, as well as light and darkness. Blueprints exist in each Chaos like that.

Seek for the Blueprint of Life

If I were to put this another way, it could be said that we can approach the blueprint of this year and the blueprint of life by continuing to seek for the blueprint for each Chaos each and every day.

What is important is that we do not look for the answer that may or may not exist. We search for the blueprint, the answer that surely exists, and we try to bring ourselves closer to it.

In any situation, there is a blueprint you must seek. The same can be said for the job you work on and the solution to the problems you deal with.

Wishing that you will approach that blueprint, even just one step closer, this month, I would like you to become familiar with the Prayer for Seeking a Blueprint (pages 216-218) in The Path of Prayer, Revised Edition.

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