The Secret of the Torii Archway

When you visit the Ise Jingu, there is a giant Torii archway at the entrance of the Sando path. There is another Torii archway in the middle of the Sando path and another right before the Honden main shrine.

You might wonder whether you should bow or not before entering the archway. And if you are bowing, where is the right position? In my understanding, one should bow before and after every archway. You might feel embarrassed to bow when other tourists are just passing through, but there is an important spiritual meaning to the act.

The explanation I am presenting here is entirely my personal opinion through my psychic reading. Please keep in mind that it has nothing to do with the commonly told tradition.

I have explained in the past that the concept of Torii archway derives from the idea seen in Judaism symbolically using the three pillars. However, the Japanese Torii only has two pillars. The secret key would be the third pillar which would be YOU, who is standing in front of the Torii.

Now I think you have the answer, whether to bow in front of the Torii or not. If you stand in middle of the Torii to make a perfect triangle, that would be the appropriate position to bow. After passing through, bow again at the third point of the triangle. So you would be bowing twice on each of the Torii. To be precise, at Gegū, stand slightly on the left side of the third point. And at Naigū, stand slightly on the right side as you bow. From there, you should be walking on the left side of the Sando path at Gegū and on the right side at Naigū.

The reason for this positioning is because the center of the Sando must be open for the Kami to pass through. When you walk consciously as you are walking on the Sando and in your daily life, it will help to bring good fortune accordingly to the Universal Law.  In front of the Honden main shrine, you will be bowing again in the same manner, not at the center but on the side. As you are walking back, bow again facing the Honden at each of the Torii (again twice each in front and back of the Torii).

One of our readers has made a visual graphics on the positioning. ( http://maruzo3.blog45.fc2.com/blog-entry-224.html) . This chain of movement can be seen in the Sephirot, one of the Jewish Kabbalah esoteric teachings. The functional structure is the same as I have explained in the way passing through the Torii archways.

The ten circles represent the ten levels (ranks) of the Divine World of the Sun. Each Torii you pass through, you get closer to Amaterasu-ohomikami.

According to my psychic reading, Moses and many other rabbis has visited Ise in the ancient times. They have much to do with the Emperor who had founded Ise Jingu. I am confident to say that when many rabbis of today from Israel come to visit Ise Jingu, world peace would come to realization.  

The entire world started from the three stone pillars at Haku-san.

Ikashite-itadaite arigato-gozaimasu

Thank you for letting us live

Journey : Ise ~ Kumano to Tenkawa 5

Takahara-no-miya(瀧原宮) is located a little far out from Ise Jingu towards Kumano. This shrine is located close to the source of Miya River, a spiritually important river that runs through Ise City. Deep in the forest, at the source of Miya River, a highland spreads out, one of the highest amount rainfall in the world.

Naigū has the Isuzu River and Gegū has the Miya River as an important spiritual stream. At the top of Miya River is the Takahara-no-miya shrine. Goddess Seoritsu-hime(瀬織津姫) who is the derivative of Susanoo decends only to a clean river and take away the spiritual filth from the area.

Takahara-no-miya shrine is protecting the source of the stream that purifies Gegū. In my youth, I used to visit this shrine many times. It is a spiritually beautiful place surrounded by chains of mountains. I can see several small rainbow color light pillars coming out from the earth. It is a true sacred ground. And with my psychic eyes, I can also see the maidens of the Imperial Court with many guards walking along this forest from Nara to Ise. Every time I come here, I see the same vision. This tells me that this shrine is not so old. I knew that there must be another location around the Miya River that has an ancient trace. So I did some research and found out about Takihara-jinjya(多岐原神社). The shrine is located few kilometers away from Takahara-no-miya. It is a small shrine near Miya River. When you walk down from this small shrine to the river, you will find a riverbed with big stones spreading out. You can also see a pretty waterfall on the other side. When I looked back to the narrow path, my psychic vision showed me a giant pregnant amphibian walking up this path and gave birth in the forest. This was a sando(産道), a transbirth canal in the ancient times. I had seen this vision somewhere else before. It was at Izawa-jinjya(射波神社). The two shrines’ sando has a same smell. Now I reaffirm that a genuine ancient trace of a shrine would always have a passage from the ocean to a river, the sando. My adventurous spirit about the process of human evolution occupied my mind as I make my way to Kumano. To be continued…




Photo: View of the ocean and sunset in front of the sando of Izawa-jinjya.


Ikashite-itadaite arigato-gozaimasu

Thank you for letting us live

Hidden Shrines of Ise - 3

After visiting the Izawa Jinjya, we sent to Izawa-no-miya (伊雑宮). On the road towards Izawa-no-miya. I was experiencing a very heavy weight on my back. I understood it was Kunitsu-kami (国津神) and other gods who ended their lives. As I started to walk the sando path, one step at a time the heaviness seem to go away. When you come to the middle of the path, you will see a well in the forest. When I thought that Princess Yamato-hime-no-mikoto had also come here to purify herself before making a vow, I became emotional.

From Heian Period (794~), the local people had repeatedly claimed that Izawa-no-miya is in fact the main shrine to worship Amaterasu-Ohomikami. During the Edo Period (1603~), they claimed that the Naiku is a lower rank shrine and they were punished. Fifty village people were exiled and died leaving their sorrow behind.

The sai-jin (祭神), official god of Geku is Toyouke-Ookami (豊受大神). Toyouke-Ookami, Amaterasu-Ohomikami and Kunitoko-tachi-kami is actually one and the same. And the local Shintoist called Watarai Family claimed that these gods are the supreme gods. This family is local to the area where Izawa-no-miya reside. It shows that the local people were very passionate about the gods. 

Why were they so devoted to worship the gods? The answer comes from rice making culture. The area where Izawa-no-miya resides has always been a rice-making district from the ancient times. Therefore the local people were financially wealthy as well. When you are well off, you have more peace of mind and able to have the sense of gratitude towards the gods. Mysteriously, as long as they held the rituals and worshipped the gods, they never had problems in the rice production. Even when the other areas were not doing so good, they never had any kind of damage. This is because the goddess Amaterasu-Ohomikami who brought rice (kome) into this world reside at Izawa-no-miya. This shrine existed way before Naiku was establised over two thousand years. If the scientists could dig the area and research the remains, I am sure they will find that the shrine already existed around the Jōmon Period (12000~ 3000 years ago).

Izawa-no-miya’s official god crescent is a kagome (篭目紋). Its design is identical to the Star of David, the Jewish symbol, but the history of the usage is much older in Izawa-no-miya.

There are common factors in the Hebrew and Japanese culture. In the Jewish tradition, “mana” is a food that grows inside a pot, a soul food that was given by World of God. “Kome (rice)” also increases its amount when it is bowled in a pot. I sense that “mana” and “kome” has a similar sound vibration. The word “money” originally comes from the word “mana” of the Jewish tradition. In the West Japan, they believe that the financial market is based on the price of rice. I think that god's idea of “money” is “food.” If you try to save too much food, it will eventually rot. Before it rots, it should be shared with others.

The word “mana” also exists in Hawai'i. Its meaning is “the divinity from the highest source.” I sense that in the ancient times, the continent that existed on the Pacific Ocean of today use to be the place of origin for rice farming. When that continent sank, people escaped to places like Hawai’i and Ise. Carrying the common ancient knowledge they had no choice but to travel to find a new home around the Pacific Rim.


Ikashite-itadaite Arigato-gozaimasu

Thank you for letting us live

Hidden Shrines of Ise - 2

“Alright, where shall we go next?” Mr.H is thinking… “There is a very old shrine by the beach in Toba. The road is very narrow and hard to get there. Do you want to try?” Something told me that I should go there. So we went. We went into the very narrow trail in the middle of the town. There was no sign about a shrine. Not only was it extremely narrow but very bumpy, up hills and down hills. I was so glad that no car came from the other side. Finally we were able to pass through the foresty trail and came to a small beach. We parked the car and walked towards the torii gate.

The shrine was called Izawa-jinjya (伊射波神社). The sando path towards the shrine was very long steep and old. The stairs were worn away. When I had climbed up about a hundred meters, I turned around. The blue ocean was there with the torii in front. Suddenly, a vision came to me. The scene was in the super ancient time. A creature was climbing up the path that I am walking right now. The creature’s top half is a man and bottom half is a crocodile. Her stomach is big. I can tell she is pregnant. The path, sando (参道), can also be read as “the birth path” (産道). The creature gave birth at the top of the hill where the shrine was standing. My retainer told me that this is “Toyotama-hime.”

Turtles and other creatures come to the sand to lay their eggs. This custom has been the same since the ancient times. I think the orginal meaning of Ubusuna (産土) is “the soil of a mountain.” The direct translation of Ubusuna is “the sand of birth.” Maybe because the soil in the mountain could better preserve the eggs than the sand near the ocean, the creature went all the up to the top of the mountain.

Ubusuna means "the sand for the birth.” From the vision, this idea became clear in my head.

Once before, when I had visted Kinpirak-gu (金比羅宮) in Shikoku, I also envisioned half man half crocodile creature going up the path towards a shrine.

In the super ancient times, I believe that in a short period of time, there were creatures like half man half crocodile around the Pacific Rim. Around this time, the world wasn’t still completely materialistic. The earth was still experiencing a dimension where creatures were half spirit half material.

In the Japanese mythology, we see half man half animal type of creatures. It looks like a cartoon and unreal, but it is simply showing the truth of the old days. The modern science is totally ignoring this fact. They will never come to understand the truth about the beginning of human race if they cannot accept that we used to be half spirit or ghost at one point.


This shrine, Izawa-jinjya (伊射波神社) has the same name as Izawa-no-miya in The Grand Shrine of Ise. These two shrines are not so far apart. Izawa means to “bring things in peace to make oneness.” It also hides a deeper metaphor about the goddess Kukuri-hime who brought Izanagi and Izanami together. The hidden key goddess in the Japanese history.

Toba is a wonderful place, full of shrines with living gods in existence. To be continued…

Ikashite-itadaite Arigato-gozaimasu

Thank you for letting us live

Twenty years of visiting Ise - Part 4

After visiting the Gegū, looking at Asama-yama (Mt.Asama) on the right, which is one of the passing points of the sun, we drove the winding highway towards Izawa-no-miya. As we come close to the town, Isobe-cho, we started to see some stores lining on the right side of the road. As we drove down the hill, we saw two police cars stopping a car for speeding on the opposite side of the road. I felt sorry for the policemen to be working even on the Obon holidays. I told my family to remind me on the way back for not speeding.

Izawa-no-miya had expanded their parking lot since last year. The shin-den (rice field at a shrine), where the Otaue-shiki* is held, now had a roof in the area for the visitors to watch the ceremony. When I first visited the Izawa-no-miya twenty years ago on my bike lead by my god spirit guides, they didn’t even have a parking lot. I am happy to see the development happening every year and at the same time, reminisce about the modest looking old days. Even the eel restaurant, just before the main gate to the shrine, looks like they have renewed their signboard. Back then, it looked so shabby, it was hard to tell whether they were open or not.

We went through the Torri archway, cleansed our mouth and hands with the provided water and slowly walked toward the shrine. To me, the approach (san-do・参道) toward Izawa-no-miya always feels like a transbirth canal (san-do・産道). It feels like returning back to a mother’s stomach from the lower world. The main shrine would be the womb. When I send my blessing at the shrine, the nichirin (the circle of light) of Amaterasu-Ohomikami appeared in my mind as always. The calm and gently vibrational energy signified that nothing critical is going on.

For the God Spirit who resides at this shrine, this major turning point of time is just another phase, and it seems like serenely observing the eternal flow of time. Mother of earth is for sure a Big Mama with a steady nerve.

After visiting the Izawa-no-miya, we went to a French restaurant outside the main entrance of Gegū. Because it has been one and a half year since our last visit to Ise Shrine and spending time with my family, so I decided to give them a treat. We had a lunch menu that was 3500 yen each. Too bad I (the driver) couldn’t have a drink. [laugh] As we were leaving the restaurant, when I was at the cashier, I found a photograph on the wall. It was a photo of the Dai-Torii grand archway. The lower part of the photo showed a clear rainbow color orb. I thought it was very unusual to see a shot so clearly close to the ground.

Leaving our car at the parking lot of Gegū, we took the bus to go to Naigū (the inner shrine). On the way from Izawa-ni-miya to Gegū, we had seen how crowded Naigū is and we knew we didn't want to drive in there. (continue)



Ikashite-itadaite Arigato-gozaimasu

Thank you for letting us live



[Otaue-shiki - 御田植式 : Rice planting ceremony held at rice-planting time in May or June in all parts of Japan to pray for a good rice crop and successful harvest.]