Friday, December 18, 2009

Journey : Ise ~ Kumano to Tenkawa 7





I visited Nachi-no-Ohtaki (The Great Waterfall of Nachi) after a long interval. My last visit here was when I was 20. I thought the place may have become very touristy by now and I wasn’t expecting too much. On the contrary, the closer I got to the place, the more I began to feel the pure energy of the God.

The so-called Kumano-San-Zan (熊野三山- the three mountains of Kumano) consists of three shrines which are Kumano-Nachi-Jinjya, Kumano-Hongu-Taisha and Kumano-Hayatama-Jinjya. Energetically, Kumano-Nachi-Taisha shrine was better than the other two. Hiroh-Jinjya located in front of The Great Waterfall of Nachi was very impressive.

When I got to the first big torii (the vermilion archway) of The Great Waterfall of Nachi, I felt the divine energy and the ozone waves coming from the waterfall.

After I paid the entrance fee of 300 yen and stood in front of the great waterfall right by Hiroh-Jinjya, I felt as if I was receiving the purification. When I prayed before the great waterfall, my psychic sense revealed me the spiritual existence. The spirit was unexpectedly related to Buddhism.

That spirit form was Amida-Nyorai (阿弥陀如来,Amitabha = Mahaavairocana= Avalokitesvara=Kuan Yin) with a shining golden halo around his back. A yellow frame was detected on the picture taken in front of the great waterfall. The frame was exactly at the same place where the sacred halo was seen. When I looked at the actual scenery, I found the grasses on the rocks also turning yellow from autumnal foliage at the same location. The mystery of the nature deeply impressed me.

I didn’t expect the appearance of a divine spirit related to Buddhism at this waterfall. Around this area, for many years, a lot of Buddhist monks lead an ascetic life in the mountains (Shugen-dō monks). And probably, the accumulation of the Buddhist Shugen-dō monks’ worships has led the energy appear in this form.

If people had seriously worshipped the Dorae-mon (a famous character in one of the Japanese animated cartoons) for thousands of years, the spiritual form resembling the Dorae-mon may have appeared. The transcription of the form may take place in the nature as well. This is one example of the Law of Magnetism in this World of Reality.

I believe worshipping man-made idols is not right, and like Shinto, simply worshipping the great nature as it is, is the right way.

On the left of the main shrine of Kumano-Nachi-Taisha is a small shrine where a three-legged crow is worshipped. I actually sensed a big crow spirit enshrined. I felt that the spirit kept his wings spread widely and was as large as the black roof of the shrine. This crow had a same kind of energy I feel from the big fat crow that sometimes comes to my home yard.

After our visit to the shrine, we wanted to stay at a hot-spring inn near Mt.Tamaki and so I set the car navigation system. The navigation system indicated the course by returning to the seaside and then going to the destination. However, the map showed us that there is a very narrow state road going from the deep mountains to Tamaki district. Because I wanted to see the deep mountains of Kumano, I overwhelmed my family’s opposition and took the narrow state road instead of taking the course suggested by the navigator.

The state road was once again terrible. The rough road was at the brink of a precipice and no larger than the width of one car. I greatly regretted having risked the Innate God of my family and myself. I promised myself never to take this kind of road in the deep forest again. On the other hand, I was so moved by the harsh life in the deep mountains and at the same time felt grateful to our life in the urban area.

We visited a famous old shrine near the hot-spring inn, but found the place very disappointing. So many signboards stood everywhere in the territory of God (神域) announcing the forbidden activities . The place was filled with signs telling us things that are not permitted at this sacred ground. It shows the level of spirituality of the administrators of this shrine. The disgraceful and ignoble superintendent seems to disregard the shrine’s duties to the public. They do not trust in the visitors.
This impression and the sense I got stayed the same when I stood in front of the main shrine.

I sensed that receiving a large donation from a new religious organization caused the disappointing atmosphere of this old shrine. This organization has been collecting a lot of money from innocent people. Their energy is evil. Unfortunately a righteous god does not descend to such shrine.

That night, we were resting at the hot-spring inn to prepare for the visit to Mt.Tamaki the following day. We were watching the local TV news and a warning was announced that an earthquake swarm was taking place directly under this small hot-spring town. The ground dragon (地龍) of the area always welcomes me in such manner before my important visit to the specified place. To be continued…

Ikashite-itadaite arigato-gozaimasu

Thank you for letting us live

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Journey : Ise ~ Kumano to Tenkawa 6





After leaving Takahara-no-miya shrine, I drove on Route 42 for quite a while. There were no traffic lights and the road was on a high hill looking down towards the Pacific Ocean. It was a pleasant drive. As we got close to Kumano City, the road becomes closer to the seashore. A huge ferry had a falling-load accident and was stranded off the coast of Kumano. The towing ships looks so small, and the ferry doesn’t seem like it was going to move at all. It looked like a lying whale. The accident happened before my visit to Kumano. Kuma(熊), bears, meant God as an archaic word. And the accident happened here at the offshore of Kumano. However, fortunately, no one was hurt from this accident and to me this whole incident was felt as a message.

After leaving the scene, we arrived to Kumano Hayatama Taishya. The whole surrounding area had become very commercial. When I read the history and origin of this shrine, it said that the god worshipped at this shrine, his body resides at Kamikura Jinjya as a Iwakura (a divine energy descending giant rock) named “Gotobiki-iwa”. I sent my gratitude in front of the vermilion main shrine of Hayatama Taishya and moved on to visit the rock.

Gotobiki-iwa resided at the top of a hill after climbing over five hundred old wobbly stone steps. This place appears in the Kojiki, Records of Ancient Matters, as Emperor Jimmu visited this Iwakura rock and overlooked the city of Shingu. Naturally I sensed a very ancient energy at this place. It was much older than the time of Jimmu (around 660 BC). I saw a vision of Jōmon people (14,000~400 BCE ) holding a ritual at this place.

The ritual looked like they were worshiping the two giant rocks as a couple of giant toads’ copulation. In spite of my family’s worry, I had to climb up to the top of the rocks to see what was in between. As I expected, a bunch of small round stones laid there. It was done in an artificial manner. In the ancient times, people did not live long and the idea of procreation was an important factor to receive blessing from the gods.

Going down these steep steps were even harder. It felt like the sharpest steps were as steep as 70 degrees. There are no handrails of any sort. If you have a bad back or weak legs, I don’t recommend you to go there.                              
It came to a big surprise to see young teenage students running up and down these steps for their training.

They looked like a Ko-tengu (small mountain long-nosed goblins). Next visit will be to The Great Water Fall of Nachi.

Ikashite-itadaite arigato-gozaimasu

Thank you for letting us live