Underground (51 page)
Authors: Haruki Murakami
Hayashi started out as an all-right guy, but steadily his personality changed. We were at the same stage once and could have friendly talks together, but when he became a Master he started getting overbearing, arrogant. At first he was good-natured, but in the end he lashed out at people. He was the type who wouldn’t blink an eye at stepping all over his subordinates if that’s what it took. I think he just snapped.
From the beginning the Ministry of Science and Technology was given preferential treatment by Asahara. It had so much money. Even in the Ministry there was a big difference between the Brains and the Subcontractors. As someone once put it: “To be a success in the world of Aum you had to be either a graduate of Tokyo University or a beautiful woman.”
[laughs]
MURAKAMI:
You were in Aum Shinrikyo for about six years. Do you ever feel you wasted that time?
No, I don’t think it was a waste. I met a lot of people, shared some tough times. It’s a good memory for me. I was able to confront human weaknesses, and I think I matured. It might sound odd to speak of it as fulfilling, but there was a sense of adventure: we didn’t know what the next day would bring. When I was given some huge task to do, I felt uplifted because I could focus my energy on it and complete it.
I feel psychologically more at ease now. Of course I have the kinds of troubles ordinary people have, like being disappointed in love. So there are parts that aren’t so easy. But hey—that’s life. I feel I’m living like ordinary, everyday people now.
It took me a long time to reach this emotional equilibrium; about two years. After I left Aum I was completely lethargic. When I
was there I had the strength that came from knowing I was a “practitioner of the truth,” which gave me the strength to test myself to the limits. Now I have to use my own powers if I want to do anything. This hit me quite strongly after I left Aum and led to my depression. It wasn’t an easy transition.
But what’s different is that now I have confidence in myself. When I was in Aum I gained a lot of practical experience, and felt certain that even if things weren’t working out there I’d be able to make it on my own. That was a major step for me.
I live in Tokyo now. What gets me through each day are my ex-Aum friends. We think alike, and it helps me know I’m not alone in this hard world.
Harumi Iwakura
(b
. 1965)
Ms. Iwakura was born in Kanagawa Prefecture. Fair, slim, and attractive, it’s perhaps easier to picture her if I say she is one of the “Aum beauties” we hear so much about. She smiled throughout the interview, was very attentive to her guest, and though not particularly eloquent, was quick to answer all the questions I put to her. She tends to dwell on small details, and gives the impression that deep down she’s a strong person
.
After graduating from junior college she worked in an office, and spent most of her time and money having a good time. Gradually, though, she grew dissatisfied with playing around and found herself attracted to Aum Shinrikyo, which she happened to hear about. She resigned and became a renunciate
.
For a long time she was one of Shoko Asahara’s “special people,” but something happened and she was given electroshock treatment and lost her memory. For a long time afterward she wandered in a state of almost complete oblivion, regaining her senses just before the Tokyo gas attack. For this reason her memories of Aum are fragmentary. Her recollections of her pre-and post-Aum life are clear, but she finds it impossible to fully account for herself during the two years she was in Aum
.
She has no aftereffects, she tells me, but she’s determined never to have anything to do with Aum again. It’s
“over and done with.”
She doesn’t particularly want to recall this lost period, either. Originally when she read several of my interviews with other Aum followers in
Bungei Shunju
she thought
, “Count me out.”
Now she works as a beautician and hopes to get more training, put aside some money, and open her own business. She lives simply, in an apartment that costs 30,000 yen a month
. “Sweltering in the summer, freezing in the winter,”
is how she describes it
. “Thanks to Aum, though,”
she says with a smile
, “a simple life doesn’t bother me.”
I started working in 1985, when the economy Was still pretty good. You could go on company trips to hot springs and stuff like that, which I enjoyed. All I cared about was having a good time. I liked going out and though I wasn’t much of a drinker, I often went out drinking with friends. It’d get late and I’d ask my girlfriends to put me up for the night. On any given week I’d be sleeping over at someone else’s half the time.
On holidays I went looking for fun—Tokyo Disneyland, Toshi-maen Park, the usual places. Sometimes with other girls, sometimes with boyfriends. I went overseas, too, Paris and other places. I had a few boyfriends, but never once contemplated marriage. I just couldn’t handle it.
MURAKAMI:
To other people it must have looked like you were enjoying life
.
I suppose so, but I kept mulling over all kinds of things. Like, “I don’t have any special skills, nothing that makes me stand out from the crowd. I don’t even feel like I want to get married.…”
When I reached my mid-twenties, more and more of my friends started to get married, leave the company, and move away. I wasn’t as young as I had been. My lifestyle seemed increasingly pointless.
MURAKAMI:
And it was about this time that you got attracted to Aum Shinrikyo? What was it exactly that made you join?
One day I wanted to get my hair cut. Usually I’d go to a place a friend ran, but that day I didn’t have enough time so I went to a beauty shop in the neighborhood. The price for a haircut was really cheap, so I went there a few more times after this, and one day a man
who worked there happened to show me an Aum Shinrikyo pamphlet. “I’m thinking of becoming a member,” he told me, but my only thought was: “Whoa!—looks fishy to me.”
He taught me some purification techniques. Like, for instance, you drink water and then vomit, or you empty your stomach and then run a string inside your nose. I’d always been a little weak. I often get eczema. See?
(shows her arm)
I’ve got some right now. When I told him this he said, “Well, why don’t you give it a try?” So I did, and my eczema cleared up just like that. I tried it once and the next day—
poof!
—it was gone.
Also, I’d never had much of an appetite and could only manage half a child-size bowl of rice, but after trying these techniques I could down a huge bowl—which amazed my mother. My headaches disappeared, too, and my overall health improved.
“Wow—this is really something!” I thought. The man at the beauty shop said, “Why don’t you join when I do?” but I hesitated for a long time. He persisted and I started to think maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
MURAKAMI:
At that time did you know Aum Shinrikyo was a religion and not just a yoga training group?
Yes, I knew that. This was when the election took place and they were wearing those elephant hats. But I wasn’t interested in doctrine, or whatever, or Shoko Asahara. All I felt was that since my health had improved it was probably worth taking the time and effort to check it out. I’m sure curiosity played a big part in it.
At first I went to a nearby dojo and talked to the enlightened practitioners there. I don’t remember what we talked about. It didn’t leave much of an impression. I wasn’t going there with any great expectations or anything. We just talked, and I filled it in.
MURAKAMI:
And you just listened to their explanation of doctrine and things?
[Laughs]
That’s right.
MURAKAMI:
When you say you “filled it in” you mean you made an application there on the spot to be a member? So you just halfheartedly listened to what they said, and became a member without really under-standing
their doctrine? The other people I’ve interviewed up to now all became members after struggling with lots of Big Questions, but in your case it seems as though you just dived in
.
Hmm … It was pretty fast. When I joined they told me the entrance fee was 30,000 yen, with half a year’s membership fee 18,000 yen, for a total of 48,000 yen. I said, “Gosh—I don’t have that kind of money,” and the man who originally asked me to join said he’d put up half. Not like he was my boyfriend or anything. Yes, he was very kind. But I think he might have thought he’d earn merit for himself by getting me to join. I thought if I only had to pay half, then okay.
After I joined we had duties to perform: go to the dojo and complete a set list of chores. At first I didn’t feel like doing that. They’d ask you to come, but people who didn’t want to didn’t. But the man who originally invited me asked me over and over to go, and it was nearby, so I thought why not?
When I went to the dojo I saw renunciates in sweatshirts, all very calm, serene even, and I was taken with this way of spending time. It was a world light-years away from the noise and clamor of the company and commuting. I felt relaxed there. I’d sit there quietly, folding leaflets. I felt at ease doing that. It wasn’t hard at all. Everyone was kind, and the whole atmosphere was so peaceful. On my days off I’d go to the dojo, sometimes going straight from work, fold handbills, then go home. This went on for a while. Aum’s a twenty-four-hour operation, so I could go whenever I wanted.
At work a lot of people were having affairs with other people in the company. My father had had an affair and I couldn’t stand it. Going to the dojo after the office was like day after night. It was so calm there. I could be at peace, my mind a blank, and just fold handbills. I loved that feeling.
I became a renunciate after the Ishigaki Island seminar in April 1990, so it was just two months from the time I joined to the time I took vows.
At Ishigaki they talked a lot about Armageddon. This was taught to people who’d been in Aum a long time, but people like me, lay members who still lived at home, weren’t told the first
thing about it. For lay followers who lived at home, what you were taught depended on the amount of money you donated. In my case, they just asked me to attend the seminar without explaining much. It cost hundreds of thousands of yen. I withdrew my savings to pay for it. By this time I’d begun to wonder if I could go on living as I had been. To attend the seminar I had to ask for time off out of the blue. I made up some story. People were pretty annoyed.
When I got to Ishigaki at first I wondered what was going on, but after a while I thought the way they did things made life easier—they’d give the order and you just did what they said. No need to think for yourself, or worry about every little detail, just do what you’re told. We did things like group breathing exercises out on the beach.
There was a kind of unspoken understanding that everyone should become a renunciate, and most of the people who attended did just that, myself included. When you take vows you have to leave home, leave your job, and donate all your money. If I’d been 20 I don’t think I would have gone through with it, but at 25 I thought, well, enough’s enough.
MURAKAMI:
Did being in special surroundings like Ishigaki have any influence on your decision?
Hmm … That wasn’t the only reason; I think it was just a matter of time before I took vows. Even if that hadn’t happened then I was already leaning in that direction. Not having to think for myself or make any decisions was a big factor. Just leave it up to them, and since the order comes from Mr. Asahara, who’s enlightened, you know everything’s been well thought out.
I didn’t have much interest in doctrine itself, I mean I never reacted like, “Wow! This is fantastic!” or anything. I just thought it was great if all kinds of attachments could be eliminated. Do away with these and life would be easy, I thought. Attachments meaning things like your emotional attachment to your parents, a desire to be fashionable, hatred of others.
But once I entered Aum I found it was no different from ordinary society. Like someone would say, “So-and-so has a lot of hate inside him,” well—that’s no different from the backstabbing that
goes on outside, is it? Only the vocabulary has changed. “Nothing here’s any different,” I thought.
Anyway, I left my job. I forced my company to accept my resignation. I made up some excuse—I wanted to study abroad or something. They tried hard to talk me out of it, but I thought, “Please don’t stop me,” and it wasn’t easy. I couldn’t tell them the truth, but I was determined to leave.
My mother never watches TV talk shows and had no idea about Aum. When I told her that becoming a renunciate meant we couldn’t see each other again, she cried a little. She had no idea. Though she’d thought it strange how my health and appetite had improved. “I suppose it’s time for me to cut the apron strings,” she said.
