I want to start this episode off by reading a quote from Masahisa Goi, the founder of Byakko Shinko Kai, from his book 'The Future of Mankind,' translated by Fumi Johns, Byakko Press, 1985.
“The world is facing an age being placed at the crossroads of either manifesting destruction or heaven on earth. We must clearly recognize this fact.
A divine message is being revealed to all spiritualists—the message that Heaven will manifest on earth. However, there are quite a few who predict that the majority of mankind will be destroyed by the time heaven on earth manifests.
I also firmly believe that heaven on earth will manifest - however, I do not deny the tremendous loss which will occur beforehand.
If we, who pray for world peace, are only concerned with our personal salvation, it is certain that we will be saved, as well as those around us. This is so because we see all unhappiness and misfortunes as the fading images of the cause-and-effect from past lives.
We know the truth that when the karmic causes and effects vanish away, the true self, the inborn nature of the child of God, will manifest within ourselves. We also know that guardian divine spirits are always protecting us from a close proximity.
So no matter what will happen, we will pray for world peace, will not panic, cry, or clamor as common people may. We will only call upon our guardian divine spirits wholeheartedly and trust our destiny within the prayer for world peace.
In case we were to die with such thoughts, we know through the experience of many people that we would definitely be born in another world even better than the present. This means that whether we depart or remain in this world, it is of little significance.”
Byakko Shinko Kai is a Japanese new religion founded in 1955 by Masahisa Goi, primarily focused on achieving world peace and elevating human consciousness, encapsulated in its prayer, 'May Peace Prevail on Earth.'
May peace prevail on earth.
May peace be in our homes and countries.
May our missions be accomplished.
We thank thee, guardian deities and guardian spirits.
O Sensei is quoted as saying that Goi is the only person who ‘truly understands his heart’. He delivered a series of lectures specifically to Byakko Shinko Kai, which were published as 'Takemusu Aiki.'
This collaboration was pivotal in the internationalization of Aikido's spiritual message, as Byakko Shinko Kai's universalistic approach provided a framework for O Sensei's philosophy to be more broadly understood beyond its specific cultural origins.
I still have much to learn about O Sensei’s spiritual quest, not to mention my own. I’ve barely scratched the surface.
Tatsunori Imamura Sensei, a current member of Byakko Shinko Kai and esteemed Aikido sensei from Hokkaido, visited my dojo last fall. We recited the prayer for world peace together and also enjoyed a clean, powerful, precise practice session. I’ll put a link to the seminar just in case you possess time-traveling abilities and want to go back to attend, or if you want to read the blurb and see the cool picture: Seminar.
Now, getting back to the quote above… Personally, I've always leaned away from apocalyptic narratives, talking about 'the end of the world.' When I was 9, I asked my grandfather when the end of the world was going to be, and he told me, “When you die, that's the end of the world—for you.” It made sense at the time.
Now I have strong Platonic propensities—I hold pretty steadfastly to an Orphic understanding of the soul, meaning my soul is an immortal piece of an immortal world-soul, which is fashioned and nourished by a divine intellect which still can't explain everything…
At the end of the day, (the beginning of night?) there’s still a higher quality that holds the divine intellect together in unity. But if you try to call it 'the one,' problems arise in your discursive mind, so in Damascius’s (and my) opinion, you're better off calling it the ineffable.
Within the realms of the divine intellect and the world-soul, there are many questions to be answered. One of the questions I'm most intrigued by is the proposed existence of 'guardian divine spirits,' as Goi calls them.
There are mountains of recorded experiences—spanning generations—describing beings that humans (and probably most animals, maybe even plants, rocks, and water, who knows) have been in communication with since the early days of known history.
My own personal guardian divine spirit simply tells me to 'focus on Aikido'—'go to the dojo.' Despite facing some serious fiduciary obstacles, I’ve been listening.
I'm not usually one to speak of Armageddon because I believe the world is eternal (again, Platonist here, hi…). I believe that no matter what we do, no matter how corrupted and destructive some of us may become, we're never going to destroy the world.
We're destroying ourselves. That's evident. That's obvious to me.
In fact, the past few days, I’ve been in a deep depression, realizing that I’ve spent most of the first 49 years of my life trying to destroy myself in one way or another, partly based on the romanticized notion of aesthetic self-destruction I had foisted upon me by intelligence agencies through pop culture and decadent art.
And there's still a sliver of my soul that wants to make decadent art.
By decadent art, I mean art that tries to distill poignancy from the inevitable decay of this particular lifetime and all its emotional attachments, buttressed by a persona I constructed/conjured/tried to peddle to 'the world' in an active exploitation I hoped would be attractive enough to pull me out of poverty.
But along the way I got obsessed with Aikido, and through daily practice—now also through a diligent foray into the spiritual principles that undergird its creation and what I feel to be the actual purpose of the art—I may have just been rescued from this drive to narrate my own self-destruction.
Possible salvation aside, I still feel the need to address 'the end of the world,' at least to tie this rambling dissertation back to the opening quote, and also to show that my eyes are not closed to current geopolitical events.
Besides, even if 'the end of the world' is my own personal projection, it's coming.
I got maybe 35 years left in this body if I'm lucky.
I hope I have the nervous strength not to project my fears onto society as a whole—to not imagine 'the world' itself ending. That being said, the modern collective catastrophe is real. We got billions of us acting out our own inner eschatons, and some are in positions of power. No wonder shit is so crazy all the time.
I'm going to look more into Byakko Shinko Kai. I hope to interview Imamura Sensei soon. Maybe a simple prayer for world peace and trust in divine guardian spirits is all I could do anyway.
I could easily rail about technocracy, transhumanism, psychopathy, atomism, materialism, the void, social engineering, the psy-op of 'evil spirits,' Rockefeller medicine, how the left-right paradigm is a weaponization of the Hegelian dialectic used to foment division amongst us serfs to allow for further enforcement of cybernetic control—but it's all just a manifestation of a process, a process which there’s no escape from anyway.
I'm going to the dojo now (of course). It's Wednesday, which is the night I lead class (at my dojo we don't say 'teaching the class'; we say 'leading the class').
I shouldn’t really say 'my dojo'—it doesn’t belong to me - I belong to it. I should say 'the dojo I belong to.' It’s just the way I talk. Or maybe it’s inherent in language to always denote possession.
I'm hoping more than two people show up, but I'm not holding my breath. I'm not going to talk about the impending world war or guardian spirits… At least not until after class, maybe walking to the train station, depending on who's there.
In class, I really just want to work out—get rid of some karmic cause and effect…"
Share this post