Underground (40 page)

MURAKAMI:
When you say
“from above”
you mean Asahara?

Yes. Murai was trying to suppress his own ego as much as possible. The last thing he cared about was someone below him coming up with an idea. But he didn’t mind it if we had something we wanted to investigate on our own.

My position was “assistant master,” the highest rank you could attain below the Aum leadership itself, something like the head of a section in a company. Not all that impressive, really. I had nobody directly below me. It was like I was working on my own, with no restrictions. I knew a lot of people like that. If you believe the media reports, everyone was under strict control like they were living in North Korea, but actually many people were free to do what they wanted. And of course we were free to come and go. We didn’t have our own cars, but we could borrow one whenever we wanted.

MURAKAMI:
But later on there was systematic violence—the murder of the lawyer, Mr. Sakamoto, and his family, fatal beatings, the Matsumoto incident. Didn’t you have any inkling that these things were taking place?

There seemed to be more activity than usual, secretive, suspicious goings-on. But no matter what I might have seen, I’m sure I would have stubbornly insisted first and foremost that the personal benefits of what we were doing outweighed anything bad. I couldn’t believe all the reports in the media. However, since about two years ago [1996], I’ve started to think that maybe those kinds of things really did take place.

I was sure that there was no way our group could hide something like the Sakamoto affair for so many years. Because the whole organization was so haphazard. It was like communism: if you made a mistake, you wouldn’t get fired, and though we say we had “jobs” in Aum, it’s not like we were drawing a salary or anything. I wouldn’t call it irresponsible, exactly, there was just no sense of
individual
responsibility. Everything was sort of unclear and random. There was a sense that as long as your spiritual level was advancing, nothing else mattered. Most people in the secular world have a wife or family, so they have a certain sense of responsibility and work as hard as they can, but in Aum this was completely missing.

Say, for example, you’re at a construction site and a steel frame has to arrive by tomorrow for work to continue. If it doesn’t get there the person in charge just says, “Oh, that’s right, I forgot about it.” And that’s the end of that. He might be scolded a little, but he doesn’t care. Everyone has reached a stage where the harsh realities of everyday life don’t affect them. Even if something bad happens,
they just say it’s bad karma dropping away, and everybody’s happy. Making mistakes, getting yelled at—they just view these as so many personal impurities falling away
[laughs]
. They’re pretty tough people when you think about it. No matter what happens, it doesn’t bother them. Aum members looked down on ordinary people in the secular world. Like: “Look how they’re all suffering, but we’re not bothered.”

MURAKAMI:
You were involved with Aum for six years, from 1989 to 1995. Did you have any problems or doubts during that time?

I felt gratitude, fulfillment. Because even if something painful happened, they would explain the meaning of it to me in great detail. As you advanced to a higher stage, everyone was amazing. Fumihiro Joyu is a good example, but there were many people like him who were just as eloquent. Something in Aum definitely operated on a different level from the secular world. The higher up you advanced, the less sleep you needed; lots of people only slept three hours a day. Hideo Murai was like this. Spiritual power, discernment—these higher-ups were pretty astounding in everything.

MURAKAMI:
Did you have times when you could meet Shoko Asahara and talk to him directly?

Yes, I did. In the past, when there were fewer followers, people often went to him with silly problems—like the fact that they were always feeling sleepy, etc., but as the organization grew we didn’t have as many opportunities. We couldn’t approach him on a one-to-one basis anymore.

I went through many kinds of initiations. Some of them were pretty hard. The one they called “Heat” was really bad. They involved drugs, too. I didn’t know it at the time but it was LSD. You take that and it’s like only your mind is left. You have no sense of your body, you’re face-to-face with your deepest subconscious. Not an easy thing to confront, believe me. You feel completely listless, like this is what it must be like after you die. I didn’t know I was doing drugs—I just thought it was a medicine that made me more inward to help me in my ascetic training.

MURAKAMI:
But it appears some people experienced some pretty bad trips and ended up with deep emotional scars
.

That’s when the dose is too strong, and when other methods didn’t work. There was a division in Aum called the Medical Ministry,
run by Ikuo Hayashi, but it was a pretty random affair. I think that if they’d done it more scientifically, there wouldn’t have been any problems. You have to remember that in Aum there was the idea that you should be given all types of tough challenges and overcome them. With the drugs, though, a bit more consideration would have helped.

MURAKAMI:
In March 1995, when the gas attack occurred, where were you and what were you doing?

I was in my room at Kamikuishiki alone, using my computer. I had Internet access and I often read the news that way. We weren’t supposed to, but I just went ahead anyway. Occasionally I went out, bought a newspaper, and passed it around to others. If you were found out they’d warn you, but it was no big deal.

So I was on the Internet reading the news flashes when I learned about the incident in the Tokyo subway. But I didn’t think Aum was involved. I didn’t know who did it, but I was certain it wasn’t Aum.

After the attack Kamikuishiki was raided. We thought that members of the Science and Technology Ministry would all be arrested on trumped-up charges and it looked like it was best to get out, so I took a car and drove around while the police searched the place. I was certain it wasn’t Aum.

Even after he
[Asahara]
was arrested, I didn’t feel any anger. It seemed unavoidable. Aum followers believe that anger is a sign you are still spiritually immature. Instead of getting angry, we thought it was more virtuous to see deeper into the reality of a situation, then consider what actions to take.

We talked about what we should do, and we all agreed that as much as possible we should continue our training. We certainly didn’t have any tragic sense of being driven into a corner or anything. Inside Aum it was like the eye of a hurricane, very calm.

I began to suspect Aum was the real culprit only after people were arrested and confessed. They were almost all friends of mine from long ago. Still, for the average Aum follower, whether they did it or not is beside the point; what was important was whether you would continue your ascetic training. How you developed your inner Self was more important than whether or not Aum was guilty.

MURAKAMI:
But the teachings of Aum Shinrikyo went in a certain
direction, resulting in these crimes where many people were killed or injured. How do you feel about this?

You have to understand that that part—Vajrayana Tantra—is clearly differentiated from the rest.
^*

Only those people who have reached an extremely high stage practise Vajrayana. We were told over and over that only those who have completed the Mahayana stage can carry that out. We were many levels below that. So even after the gas attack we didn’t question the training or activities we were involved in.

MURAKAMI:
Setting aside the question of high or low stages, Vajrayana is an important part of Aum doctrine, so it has great significance
.

I can understand your saying that, but from our standpoint it was pie in the sky—completely unconnected with what we normally did or thought. It was just too far away. There were tens of thousands of years’ worth of things you had to accomplish before you reached that level.

MURAKAMI:
So you felt it had nothing to do with you? For the sake of argument, though, let’s say that your level shot way up to the level of Vajrayana, and you were ordered to kill someone as part of your path to reach Nirvana. Would you do it?

Logically, it’s a simple question. If by killing another person you raised him up, that person would be happier than he would have been living his life. So I do understand that path. But that should only be done by someone who has the ability to discern the process of transmigration and rebirth. Otherwise, you’d better leave it alone. If I’d been able to perceive what happens to a person after their death, and help them rise to a higher level—then maybe even I would have been involved. But there was no one in Aum who had risen that high.

MURAKAMI:
Yet those five people did it
.

But I wouldn’t have. That’s the difference. I couldn’t take responsibility for that kind of action. It scares me, and there’s no way
I could do it. Let’s make one thing very clear. A person who cannot discern the transmigration of another does not have the right to take their life.

MURAKAMI:
Was Shoko Asahara qualified to do that?

At the time I think he was.

MURAKAMI:
But can you measure that? Do you have any objective proof?

No, at the moment I don’t.

MURAKAMI:
So having him judged by our society’s laws, no matter what judgment is handed down, is unavoidable?

Right. I’m not saying that everything about Aum is correct. I just feel there’s a lot of value in it, and I want to use it somehow to benefit ordinary people.

MURAKAMI:
On a very commonsense level, though, ordinary people were murdered. If you aren’t able to work that into the equation who will listen to you?

That’s why I don’t think we can talk about it in the framework of Aum anymore. I’m still in Aum, because the benefits I’ve received are so great. I’m trying to sort all this out, on an individual level. I still believe there are a lot of possibilities there. It requires a kind of logical reversal. There are hopeful elements, and I’m trying to clearly distinguish what I understand from what I don’t.

I’m going to wait about two years, and if Aum is still in the same shape it is now, I plan to drop out. Until then I’ve got a lot to think over. But one thing is certainly true—Aum Shinrikyo doesn’t learn from experience. It turns a deaf ear—no matter what other people say. It doesn’t affect it a bit. No sense of regret. It’s like what Aum members say about the gas attack: “That was a mission for other people. Not me.”

I’m not like that, since I think the attack was a terrible event. It should never have been carried out. So inside me this dreadful event is at war with all the good things I’ve experienced. People who have a stronger sense of the awful things that happened left Aum, those for whom the “good things” are stronger remain. I’m stuck somewhere in the middle. I’m going to wait and see.

When I graduated from high school I felt like I would either renounce the world, or die—one of the two. The idea of getting a job made me
sick. If I could, I wanted to live a religious life. Since living meant accumulating sin, I thought dying would be much better for the world.

These ideas went through my head as I worked selling tires for an auto-parts company. At first I was a useless salesman. I’d walk into a gas station or repair shop, say “Hello,” then freeze up, unable to say another word. It was hard on me, and for my potential customers, too. In the beginning my sales record was zero.