A Heartfelt Thought ... 2

The reason why my father said that he didn’t want to go to Kasuga-Taisha is because he wanted to respect his own ancestors. Kasuga-Taisha worships a personal god of Fujiwara family.

For generations, as a Shintoist, my father’s family has been worshipping God Susanoo. Our family has been the keeper of Susanoo’s onizuka mound. We have been told that our family’s root comes from Tachibana (橘氏) Family. And that the Tachibana Family’s root god is Susanoo. (The famous Kamibito and psychic of Showa, Matsuzo Matsushita told my father that the Tachibana Family is the ancestor of Masashige Kusunoki,a notorious samurai general of Kamakura period, and my father’s family.)

The big four noble family in Japanese history are Genji, Heishi, Fujiwara-shi and Tachibana-shi. Out of the four, Tachibana Family has taken over the karma of God Susanoo. This family had experienced the same calamity as in the mythology of Susanoo.

According to the Mythology of Japan, Susanoo had committed numerous sins at Takamagahara (heaven)
and was expelled from the World of the Gods. He was sent to Ne-no-kuni (Hell).

The truth behind this incident was that Susanoo took the blame of other gods. These gods were the bureaucratic members who were positioned under Amaterasu. Why did these gods commit such crime? The whole system of the World of the Gods was running in a pyramid like operation. Goddess Amaterasu was at the top of the pyramid and other gods lined up under her. Then God Susanoo suddenly appeared out of the blue with the same level of power as Amaterasu. The other gods were afraid of him and thought he might take over the whole system. So they laid a snare. The gods destroyed Amaterasu’s precious farm and blamed it on Susanoo. For some reason, Susanoo never said anything against the blame and silently went to Hell.

The same thing happened with the Fujiwara Family and Tachibana Family during the early Heian Period (794~). The Fujiwara Family succeeded in curry favor with the Imperial Family and became very powerful. The incident called “Jouwa no Hen (承和の変)” is one famous affair where Tachibana Family was trapped just like Susanoo in the mythology. The family that carried the karma of Susanoo has repeatedly experienced exile in history.

Even in the modern day Japan, the blaming on one person is still happening. This election of The House of Representatives was to blame former Prime Minister Aso. Our society has a habit to make one person take blame and be expelled. Is it really just that person’s fault? We have to think about that.

Going back to Kasuga-Taisha, the actual origin of this shrine is way older than 1300 years ago when the Fujiwara Family became the Uji-gami of this shrine.

Way back in the ancient days, Kasuga-Taisha was a shrine to worship Mt.Mikasa (御蓋山) as a god. Therefore, this shrine takes a very unusual style of merging the ancestral spirits and a god spirit.

The Fujiwara Family worked on foreign affairs and had a chance to learn a Tao spell from China. They learned the secret technique to worship their ancestral spirits together with a god spirit of the mountain in order to sublimate their spiritual level. This is how they succeeded in this World of Reality.

To be continued…


Ikashite-itadaite Arigato-gozaimasu

Thank you for letting us live

A Heartfelt Thought brings your Soul to Light

The election of the members of the House of Representatives was held on August 30th. As I was watching the news of the election, something completely different came into my mind.

It was the story my mother spoke to me during our last trip. The story was about Yoriaki Hamuro, the former head priest of Kasuga-Taisha who passed away early this year. For some reason, this story came into my mind during the election news.

I have never read Mr. Hamuro’s books nor had a chance to meet him. But I knew he was an old friend of my father. During a long drive with my mother, we had a lot of time. So I tired to get as much information as possible about this man because her stories were all very interesting to me.

My father and Mr.Hamuro met each other at a large hospital in south of Osaka city. My father was working for a medical supply company and he often visited this hospital. My father became friends with Mr. Hamuro at this hospital and they used to go out for a drink after work. Even after Mr.Hamuro had become the head priest of Hiraoka Shrine (枚岡神社) and Kasuga-Taisha (春日大社), he used to write to my father asking if he would come and visit him to the shrine. My mother said that he did go to visit Hiraoka Shrine but not to Kasuga-Taisha. I remember asking my father why he didn’t want to go to this shrine. He said, “I don’t want to go to a shrine that worships the Royal Fujiwara Family.” My father never told Mr.Hamuro that he was the descendent of a shrine that worships God Susanoo. My father simply kept their friendship as work partners and nothing more. On the other hand, Mr. Hamuro seemed to be more curious about my father.

During the 60’s, my mother said she had a chance to talk to Mr.Hamuro directly at the hospital. At this time, Mr.Hamuro was a well known doctor who succeeded in developing an operation on babies who were born with cleft lip. Many doctors came to this hospital in south Osaka to learn from him.

Mr.Hamuro told my mother that he devoted his work on curing the clept lip because he just couldn’t see a bright future on these babies. He said he couldn’t stop thinking about finding a way to change their lives. This was his vocation.

Through my mother’s story, my understanding was as follows; “The god who created humans must be able to cure an uncompleted lip. There is always a way to solve. Gods are waiting for us humans to find the solutions.” I believe that Mr.Hamuro was determined with this thought.

Such determination and devotion brings great inspiration. He found a method that completely cured cleft lips without using any machines or cellular transplantation. He succeeded by simply using the baby’s own facial skin.

A strong heartfelt caring thought brings great inspiration. To be continued…

Ikashite-itadaite Arigato-gozaimasu

Thank you for letting us live