Yesterday, I talked about Ima Iwai, celebrating your life at the present moment. Let me tell you how I came up with the idea of Ima Iwai today; it is to do with cherry blossom and the law of attraction.
About a few months ago, I read a book about Yoshuku which is to celebrate your success in advance in order to manifest your wishes. It is like the law of attraction introduced in The Secret, but it had been a Japanese traditional practice in the past according to the book. For example, Hanami, cherry blossom viewing parties, which take place in spring, were held to celebrate the bountiful harvest in autumn. Bon Odori, a circle dance we do during summer festivals, was also held to celebrate the autumn’s harvest in advance.
Cherry blossom viewing was a great time to do Yoshuku because you could link the image of blossoming flowers and rich harvest.
The book further talked about some Japanese entrepreneurs drawing their success by practicing Yoshuku, Masayoshi Son of SoftBank being one of them.
Before reading the book, I had known about the law of attraction and had practiced it for many years. I had my own idea of the law of attraction, and I wrote about it in my book Zen and a Way of Sustainable Prosperity. Usually, in the law of attraction, you visualize yourself achieving your goals so that you can attract them. The important thing is your feeling. If you feel that you are already successful, and having joy and satisfaction, you are more likely to manifest the outcome.
However, sometimes it is difficult to feel as if you have already achieved your goals when, in reality, you haven’t. There is part of you that doubt, saying that’s not true. It is more so if you haven’t had much success in your life. You can’t imagine what it feels like because you have never experienced it. This is precisely the reason why successful people always succeed and people with less fortune never achieve things.
So I came up with the idea that we can use our past successful experiences or present successful experiences. For example in my case, I had already published some books. So instead of visualizing success with my future books, I remembered the feeling of satisfaction when I published those books. It was easy to feel happy and satisfied because they were real; they actually happened; there was no doubt about them.
Since then, I started appreciating my past successful experiences and all the things I have now which once were my dreams. Then I began attracting a lot of great things in my life, such as a house, car, opportunities, and so on.
I wrote about it in detail in Chapter 12: The Key to Manifestation Is Successfully Dealing With Your Past Experiences in the book Zen and a Way of Sustainable Prosperity.
When I read the book about Yoshuku, I thought it was more powerful than regular visualization because by making it a celebration, you are intensifying your feeling of joy and satisfaction. So I gave it a try. It seemed to have worked. I haven’t seen the result yet, it is still too soon to tell, but as far as the feeling was concerned, I could believe my future success more easily with the help of wine. Yes, alcohol can fool you, and that could be the key.
Then I thought, what would happen if I used this method of celebration to appreciate our past successful experiences or present happiness.
That is how I came up with Ima Iwai. Cherry blossom viewing is the perfect time to do Ima Iwai because the blossoming flowers automatically make you feel happy and they become the trigger to begin appreciating other things happening in your life.
After conducting Ima Iwai several times, I feel happier. I don’t know if Ima Iwai will draw my future wishes; again it is too soon to judge, but it seems to be good for our health and happiness. If we make it a monthly ritual, I am sure it will improve the quality of our life.