If Sakaki Plants Put on the Left Side of Your Shinto Altar Withers Quickly…

If you have a household shinto altar at home, three different kinds of Shinsatsu（神札）, a kind of talisman, have to be enshrined there horizontally, which is the right and orthodox way of putting Shinsatsu in an altar, so that holy energies of three different kinds of shinsatsu mix together to become the Trinity. A bunch of Sakaki plants has to be put on each side of the altar. By putting Sakaki, holy energy can stay there temporarily.

Shinsatsu you get from your local shrine is especially important. A shrine near the house your mother lived when you were in her womb is called Ubusuna-kami（産土神）. This shrine is important in that the deity enshrined there influenced the constitution of your spiritual body, while a deity enshrined a shrine near your current house, caller Uji-kami（氏神）, is more important. This is because the local deity has more influence on you now than Ubusuna-kami. The deity near you is more important than that of far away.

Do you want to find out which shrine is a good local shrine? Any shrine is OK as long as it is near your house, clean and you feel it to be good without reason. By visiting the shrine regularly, you can be connected to it spiritually. However, when you decide, do not depend on any spiritual teacher or healer. You need to be connected to the deity one to one by paying a visit to the shrine by yourself so that you can make the shrine your own Uji-kami.

You are influenced by the spiritual magnetic field of the land where you live. It affects your health, fortune and life span. If you take for granted to live in the current place without gratitude and don’t take part in any festival held there, you can be said to be in the state of being disadvantageous.

As long as you offer your gratitude to Uji-kami, the holy energy of the deity cleans up the spiritual dirt of your house regularly. I feel that it makes a tour of your house every one and a half day. As a result, the Sakaki put on the right side of your household shinto altar dies easily, for it absorbs the spiritual dirt you bring in your house. This phenomenon is easy to see.

A bunch of sakaki plants put on the left side of my altar now is twice as tall as one put on the right side because the energy of the latter is consumed by absorbing the spiritual dirt. When a lot of guests come to my house, it withers very quickly.

Problem is, when the Sakaki put on the left side of your altar dies quickly, it means that Uji-kami may have stopped functioning. The Shinsatu enshrined in the left side of an shinto altar is from a favorite shrine far away. In this case, it is possible that the spiritual line between your house and the local shirine has been cut off.

If so, you need to start visiting the local shrine regularly again. If it doesn’t work well, you can put another shinsatsu you received from another shrine onto the old one. However, more often than not, you can make it function again by making a repeat visit to the local shrine.

If you can’t find any favorite Uji-kami shrine near your house, you can enshrine a shinsatsu you get from the most prestigious shrine in the region you live and by visiting there regularly, you can make it your Uji-kami.

[Additional Information] With terrestrial magnetism disturbances, the way sakaki plants wither is changing so fast now that you don’t need to be so worried about which of the sakaki plants wither quickly.

As a matter of course, it’s important to take care of your Inner God, but on top of that, by showing your respect to your local deity, you can live in a better living environment, where you can pursue your Inner God more easily. It’s important for you to show your gratitude to the deity and take care of the sakaki and water offered to it every day.

Elementary school children are apt to be satisfied just by buying expensive study-aid books, hoping that they can do well in school. But if they don’t study every day, the books are nothing. In the same way, without expressing your gratitude and changing the water as a daily routine, your altar is just a thing. Take care of it.

生かして頂いて　ありがとう御座位ます

I Ka Shi Te I Ta Da I Te A Ri Ga To U Go Za I Ma Su

I am grateful for being kept alive.

Shrines Need Groves

There is a phrase in Japan “The sacred grove of the village shrine,” meaning that the grove protects the shrine. In an old document of shintoism, shrines were described as groves. In ancient times, there were no artificial shrines. People visited sacred groves.

They were prohibited from entering a sacred part of a grove and offered gratitude to the sacred place. A rope was used to cordon off consecrated areas and this is an origin of Shimenawa（注連縄）. They couldn’t trespass the place over the rope. A building was built in front of the consecrated place, where a person watched out for trespassers. The person became the priest in time. That is, a priest used to be a keeper of the grove.

Groves without people are full of energy of plants, like enzyme and ozone. When a person offers the magnetism of gratitude to the space, it mixes with the magnetism of plants and begins to whirl. The energy created here cleanses the neighborhood and has influence on the minds of neighbors. In this sense, shrines without groves are not shrines because there is no holy energy there.

Trees of a shrine that receives holy energy grow well. In the country, you can see a shrine in a beautiful dense grove. Take a look at how dense a grove is, and you will see if the shrine there is a good one or not.

The reason ancient people protected groves by prohibiting people from entering them is because they wanted to keep the energy of plants growing there. Each tree in the precincts of the the modern shrines corresponds to a grove. So you had better not touch it because your touch of the tree disturbs the energy of plants and prevents the shrine from receiving the holy energy.

If you touch a tree in the precincts of a shrinet that a Kenzoku-shin（眷属神）, a spiritual being that guards a deity, protects, the Kenzoku-shin gets angry at you. Kenzoku-shins show no mercy to offenders as a wasp attacks an enemy. In Nakiku （内宮）of Ise Grand Shrine（伊勢神宮）, I often see a Kenzoku-shin like a fiend protecting the holy trees.

When you take a picture at a shrine, there is a chance to take a picture of a figure of a Kenzoku-shin. To touch a tree, or hug it, at the precincts of a shrine, a Kenzoku-shin can break your bone. If you have done that before, you had better remember what you did and make an apology at heart.

Skaki trees and water offered to your household shinto altar function like a grove. It’s important that you offer your energy of gratitude to them. Before touching the Sakaki trees, wash your hands, please.

生かして頂いて　ありがとう御座位ます

I Ka Shi Te I Ta Da I Te A Ri Ga To U Go Za I Ma Su

I am grateful for being kept alive.

Shrines Saying Good Things Happen in Exchange for Prayer are Full of Negative Thought Energy

The latest science shows that the energy of an observer affects the object in the infinitesimal world. The energy of thought can be detected in the micro world. With an increase in the spiritual vibration of the earth, it will be proved that thought energy or power of hope does influence matters from a micro one to a larger one. That is, physics formulas can be perfect only after the factor of thought energy is added to it.

Energy of human thought is accumulated in shrines and temples in the form of spiritual magnetism . The other day, I went to the Kansai region on business. During the stay, I visited a large shrine in the middle of a town with no specific aim. I found in the precinct a lot of various magnetism of human desire, such as craving for money or yearning for marriage. A lot of visitors must have made prayers there. As usual, I just offered my thanks to the deity.

Looking around, I found a woman making a pray. Then, I noticed that her body was covered with the negative energy that shrine held. She must have visited the shrine, hoping for marriage. The same kind of energy attracts each other, so her thought energy was attracting the negative energy a lot of women left in the shrine. In the same way, if you visit a shrine, hoping for money, your body is covered with the same kind of negative energy other visitors left in the shrine.

This kind of negative magnetism is a serious handicap for you. Just as you feel like killing yourself when you visit a popular suicide spot, so you’re affected by negative energy when you visit a shrine for the purpose of getting married to someone.

As long as you pay a visit to a shrine just to offer your thanks, you’re not affected by negative energy at all. Conversely, you can receive the energy of gratitude there, which will make your life better naturally. In a shrine, you don’t need to, or must not, express your desire in detail.

Ise Grand Shrine has no objects to make visitors want to make a wish for something, while other famous shrines work hard to do so, which I think is a shame. In Ise Grand Shrine, express your gratitude, and the warm energy of gratitude will return to you. On the other hand, make a wish at a shrine that encourages you to make a wish for your desire, and you will feel like you’re in a black hole.

I hope a lot of people visit shrines all over Japan just to offer their thanks to the deities so that the shrines get spiritually clean.

生かして頂いて　ありがとう御座位ます

I Ka Shi Te I Ta Da I Te A Ri Ga To U Go Za I Ma Su

I am grateful for being kept alive.

Ieyuki Watarai still Protects Geku

According to my inspiration, Geku（外宮） of Ise Grand Shrine （伊勢神宮）had been the center of indigenous faith of Ise area before Naiku（内宮） of Ise Grand Shrine was founded. The object enshrined in the main building of Geku is called Shin-no-mi-hashira（心御柱）, a pillar of Japanese cypress, and it’s a kind of replica of a holy stone pillar brought from Mt.Hakusan in ancient times.

A long time ago, priests of Ise Grand Shrine used to be from a particular family only, taking over the secret rituals in accordance with hereditary system. Among the priests, Mr. Watarai（度会） is a representative priest of Geku.

Emperor Yuryaku（雄略天皇）found the Geku officially and regarded the deity of Geku as the one serving food to the deity of Naiku, about which Watarai family was very unhappy because the Geku had long existed since ancient times before Naiku was founded.

In the latter half of Kamakura period, he began to propagate his faith that Geku was the true Koutai Jingu（皇大神宮） that had been worshipping Sun God since time immemorial. This incident is called Koujisatabumi （皇子沙汰文）matter that happened between 1296 and 1297） and there was a controversy over the use of the word “皇”.

Among priests from Watarai family, Mr. Ieyuki Watarai（度会家行）was very active in partilular, who compiled the theories of Ise Shinto（伊勢神道）. He was the leader of the Southern Dynasty（南朝）in Ise region. He sent troops to Obari region, together with Mt. Masatsura Kusunoki（楠木正行）. However, Masatsura Kusunoki died in a battle in Kansai region on the way, Ieyuki Watarai gave up the idea of the unification of Japan by the Southern Dynasty and went back to Ise.

Because he ignored the order from Kamakura shogunate ordering him not to take up arms and his action was military operations in favor of the Southern Dynasty, he was denounced by the Northern Dynasty and finally he was removed from the position of the senior priest of Geku.

However, he didn’t accept the order, arguing that the Southern Dynasty is the legitimate Imperial Household. Though he was very old at that time, he went to Kyoto by himself for the purpose of demanding the rescission of the order. What he did was abnormal in those days as an action that priests takes.

Although he militarily took part in the battle over the succession to the Imperial Throne against the order from Kamakura shogunate, he was not executed after all. I think he was able to survive thanks to the miraculous power of the deity of Geku.

This spring, by the way, a reader of my blog sent me a picture of the entrance path of Geku, where I saw a shining figure of a priest patrolling the precincts. Yes, Ieyuki Watarai has been protecting Geku even now.

生かして頂いて　ありがとう御座位ます

I Ka Shi Te I Ta Da I Te A Ri Ga To U Go Za I Ma Su

I am grateful for being kept alive.

It’s Important to Bow both to God and to Your Inner God

There is a shinto shrine at the foot of Mt.Hakusan（白山） in Gifu prefecture, called Hakusan-Chukyo shrine（白山中居神社）. The name means in Japanese “There exists in the center of Mt. Hakusan.” It is located so close to Mt. Hakusan that you cannot see the mountain from the shrine. It is said that the shrine was founded to integrate nine small shrines on a mountain trail of Mt.Hakusan. In this sense, Hakusan-Chukyo shrine rules over the nine deities.

Though there are a lot of Hakusan shrines all over Japan, the shrine is very rare in that Amaterasu-o-ho-mi-kami（天照太御神） is enshrined in it. Ise（伊勢） is in the direction of the front of the main building of the shrine. There has been a divine spiritual line since ancient times between Mt.Hakusan and Ise.

There is a vistage on top of Mt. Asama（朝熊山）in Ise where rituals for Hakusan-Kukuri-Hime（白山ククリ姫）, the deity of Hakusan shrine, used to be held.

The river flowing in the precinct of Hakusan-Chukyo shrine is a spiritual river and the headstream of Kuzu-Ryu river（九頭竜川）, meaning “nine heads of dragons.” Taicho-Daishi（泰澄大師）, founder of the sacred site of Mt. Hakusan, saw a huge dragon at Midori-ga-ike pond（翠ヶ池） on top of the Mt. Hakusan.

A legends say the true identity of the Dragon God was the Eleven-faced Kannon Bosatsu（十一面観世音菩薩）, or eleven-faced Avalokitesvara. But the truth is the huge black dragon is the form the energy of Mt. Hakusan takes. The energy body looks like a dragon if the seener is a Buddhist or a goddess if the seener is a shintoist. When I visited the shrine, I saw in my head a big black dragon, too. The same as what Taicho Daishi saw. The dragon has been protecting the shrine for centuries.

Mt. Hakusan symbolizes the Black Dragon, while Ise a bird. These bodies of energy is sure to fuse to become a phoenix（鳳凰）, whose figure is the mix of a dragon and a bird. When people living in Japan connect Ise to Mt.Hakusan by visiting both of them, the new century of Phoenix will begin and the societal structure will change.

What’s the meaning of having a shinto altar at home? Does a person, with Inner God inside, need to do so? Since human beings are lazy in nature, they can only direct their heart toward the altar by changing water of a container put before the altar and water inside the Sakaki stands. While they do so, they are facing their Inner God through Ofuda（神札）, a type of amulet, enshrined in the altar.

In this sense, to bow to a shinto altar is to bow to Inner God. The purer and cleaner your household shinto altar, the more your energy of gratitude can be reflected by it. Do not direct your energy of greedy to the altar.

You would go nowhere, having a faith in Outer God. You couldn’t grow up mentally at all.

God is one. It’s the same as Inner God you have inside your body.

生かして頂いて　ありがとう御座位ます

I Ka Shi Te I Ta Da I Te A Ri Ga To U Go Za I Ma Su

I am grateful for being kept alive.

To visit a Shrine is to Meet a Deity Face to Face

It is an act of purification for you to clean your hands and mouth with water before visiting a main building of a shinto shrine. Purification is a very important concept in Shintoism. Though it is generally said that dirty hands and mouth is impolite when meeting God, the fact is it is for visitors themselves.

When a visitor stands before the main building of a shrine with his original spiritual magnetism on his body, without unnecessary spiritual magnetism of others, the spiritual interaction between his Inner God and the Deity begins. The more often you visit a shrine, the more easily your Inner God appears on the surface and the purer your mind and body become.

In the same way, when you bow before your household shinto altar, you should clean your hands and mouth. If you’re a male, you should wash your face, too. With your original magnetism on your body, you can meet your Inner God and the magnetism of gratitude accumulates in the altar. Also, when you hold a memorial service for your ancestors, you should do the same thing to cause the interaction between you and your ancestral spirits.

If you belong to a bad religious group that charges you membership fees, you’re covered with the spiritual magnetism of the group, which is a great spiritual handicap to you. You can’t erase such a magnetism by washing your hands and mouth. When you visit a shrine, covered with such a bad spiritual magnetism, a collision occurs between your spiritual magnetism and a holy magnetism.

Cult members who visit a shrine in a group are out of the question. Their visit to a shrine in a group is meaningless because paying a visit to a shrine is a deed of a person meeting a deity face to face. The act of purification in shinto is a way of maintenance of original magnetism each person has. It’s a wrong idea that you get energy from a healer, a guru, or a power spot, and this kind of idea will bring you to a ruin.

Only those who maintain their original magnetism will survive in the future because those covered with magnetism of others will have a decrease in immune competence. It’s like blood transfusion of the wrong blood type leading to death. Conversely, even if you’re suffering from a serious illness now, as long as you maintain your original magnetism, a miracle can happen for you.

生かして頂いて　ありがとう御座位ます

I Ka Shi Te I Ta Da I Te A Ri Ga To U Go Za I Ma Su

I am grateful for being kept alive.

Good Shrines are like a Mirror

Whenever I visit a shrine connected to God, I feel my Inner God inside with my chest receiving the holy energy. The truth is not that I feel the energy of the enshrined deity but that I feel my God inside. Good shrines are like a mirror, precious and spiritual. It can be said that there are many kinds of unique mirrors.

This is why what people feel or see in visiting the same shrine differ, depending on the level of mind of each person. If persons whose spiritual level is the same visit the same shrine, they will see the same kind of vision.

The higher a deity in a shrine is in dimension, the more the deity loses its individuality and the easier it is for you to feel connection with the deity. Even if you’re not so mature in spirituality, you can feel the holiness inside yourself in visiting a good shrine because “the mirror” is of high quality there. In this sense, many of those who say they have felt God in a shrine misconceive the situation. They think they felt the deity in the shrine but the truth is they felt their own Inner God.

In spiritually low-level shrines, you feel not a deity but a bad spiritual being with individuality. You are sure to feel not your Inner God but your greed, which is easily connected to the spiritual being that looks like a snake or a fox.

To worship a deity outside of yourself is for you to be attracted to your own desire. This is a very low level of faith. Cult gurus, for example, whose object is more often than not to make money, are just miserable people bound by some bad spiritual being.

Because their conscience knows what they’re doing, that is, squeezing money out of their believers and making them unhappy, the gurus are apt to make their cults’ doctrine more dependant on a deity outside of human mind and the rituals more strict and formal. They know at heart that they themselves torment their believers. It is their fear of damnation that makes the disciplines rigorous.

True faith is like a dialogue between you and your conscience. Therefore, it naturally becomes a generous, kind and easy style with a minimum of etiquette. Nature worship in ancient times was like this.

Izawanomiya（伊雑宮）, which belongs to Ise Grand Shrine, is where the supreme spiritual mirror of Amaterasu-o-ho-mi-kami（天照太御神）exists. Anyone who visit there will remember their true kindness lying inside of their heart.

If you have a household shinto altar at home, you can turn it into a good mirror that shows what you really are by offering gratitude toward it every day.

生かして頂いて　ありがとう御座位ます

I Ka Shi Te I Ta Da I Te A Ri Ga To U Go Za I Ma Su

I am grateful for being kept alive.

God Sends Birds on an Errand

The other day, I went to a beauty salon to have my hair cut. It costs me only 1000 yen. The price is quite reasonable and a hairdresser there is skilful.

My hair is naturally wavy. As a kid, my hair was really curled. When I have my hair cut by an unskilled hairdresser, my hair style is lost in a month. Part of my hair loses its shape. The skillful hairdresser, knowing my hair’s characteristic, cuts my hair in a way that keeps my hair style for two months. He knows what my hair will be like in two months.

Everytime I have my hair cut, my ability to concentrate seems to increase. What about skinhead? No, I couldn’t get any flash of inspiration. Hair acts like a medium that receives the divine energy. Everyone has their own appropriate length of hair, depending on their state of mind.

Shinto priests wear a unique formal attire. I don’t know its origin, but when I see it with a spiritual sight I can see the attire has its spiritual meaning. The most important thing about the attire is Ei（纓）, a long headdress that hangs from the back of the headgear priests put on because it acts like a spiritual medium. While Shinto priests perform rites, Ei receives divine energy. Shrine maidens also wear a unique headdress, which has the same spiritual meaning.

Also, what is interesting as to the attire is long parts that hang from the arms. When Shinto priests spread out their arms, they will look like wings. The entire image of the attire is a rooster with a cockscomb. In Shinto, it has been said since ancient times that God and birds are related to each other because God sends birds on an errand.

Incidentally, Torii（鳥居）, a gateway at the entrance to a Shinto shrine, means “where birds are” in Japanese. In a shrine called Izawanomiya（伊雑宮）, you can see a lot of rare birds. This is an evidence that shows the holiness of the shrine. Various kinds of birds are attracted to the shrine’s holy energy.

By the way, I have asked a question of a holy spirit, “Who is the most important person in a shrine?” The answer was “the one who cleans.” In the eyes of God, hierarchical relationship in the human world has no meaning. Priests who behave like haughty bureaucrats or politicians are farthest away from God. Chief priests themselves should clean up the precinct and work for forests around the shrine and small animals living there.

生かして頂いて　ありがとう御座位ます

I Ka Shi Te I Ta Da I Te A Ri Ga To U Go Za I Ma Su

I am grateful for being kept alive.

The More You Believe in God, The More Powerful God’s Spiritual Power Becomes.

The following is a story when I was a child;

Whenever there were delicious confections at home, I, the youngest child, would often have more of it than the other big brothers. One day, half a delicious cake was shared with us children and then the rest was kept in the refrigerator by mom. The next day, she opened the refrigerator to share it with us only to find none of it. Then she turned to me and said,

“Have you had it?”

“ No, I don’t know,” I said.

“ Are you sure?”

“No, way!”

“That’s enough. I don’t like liars.”

No sooner had she said it than she ran to the refrigerator with a start and opened the freezing storage. There she found the cake. She had put it there by mistake. At the sight of it, I cried. I was so sad that she didn’t believe me. She apologized to me again and again and gave me a little more cake than the other brothers.

It’s harsh for children that their parents don’t believe them. Suppose a child committed a sin. If his/her parents take sides with the child with the hope that he/she will be rehabilitated, the child would decide to be born again and, if failed, would never forget the sense of sin and the kindness he/she received from parents until death.

Children will regret for the wrong thing much more when they’re loved by their parents than they are just scolded. They may not realize parental love then, but sooner or later, they will cry when they remember it. A telling-off without love will end up in giving the child a bad feeling and grudge.

When humans believe in God deeply, God’s power becomes stronger. If a shrine has been deserted, it is neighbors’ fault. Also, To make a wish for something toward God shows that you don’t believe in God as a matter of fact. It’s wrong that you think that your wish must be realized because you told God your name, address and what you want and contributed money to the shrine. You don’t have to say your name before Almighty God.

If you really believe in God, you are sure to be just grateful to God, which is the right attitude of faith. Making a wish for what you want doesn’t cause God to move in favor of you. You just don’t know a number of gifts presented for you by God. This is why your wishes you offered to God don’t come true. Don’t you think it a pity?

Also, if you’re afraid to hold a memorial service for your ancestors with the use of a memorial tablet and three incense sticks, it can be said that you’re still unable to believe in your own ancestral spirits. This is a pity, too. There is nothing I can do for you.

You don’t need to do it against your will. Just try to remind yourself of gratitude for your ancestors in your daily life. The magnetism of gratitude for ancestors can improve your whole life. Start with giving affection to your ancestral spirits. Good luck is caused with good reason.

生かして頂いて　ありがとう御座位ます

I Ka Shi Te I Ta Da I Te A Ri Ga To U Go Za I Ma Su

I am grateful for being kept alive.

DO NOT TRY TO USE OR DEPEND ON THE INVISIBLE WORLD

In holding a memorial service for ancestors or performing a ritual for God, it’s important that you be just grateful silently. You don’t need anything more than that and do not expect too much.

In this World of Reality full of temptations, it’s important for you to be grateful to something invisible, or ancestral spirits and gods, even for a few minutes in a day. This is the right kind of faith, through which your will is understood by God.

On the other hand, once you ask for something from the invisible world, your faith turns into a conditional faith that asks something from you in return. You may gain something due to it but you will lose something more important in exchange. With such a faith, sometimes you would dance with joy, and other times you would be discouraged over and over.You had better not have this kind of faith.

If you have a dream or goal you want to realize, you have to make efforts in this world, which is a rule or law God has established. No sooner do you try to use mysterious power to make your dreams come true than you’re connected to the world of evil, this is a system of this World of Reality.

To pray to God for something you want without making any efforts means you try to escape from this world God managed to create. Many religious “professionals” have had this catch.

Their faces have changed into the ones of snakes or foxes due to the possession of bad spirits and the number of such possessed professionals is large in this society. You have to be careful. As the spiritual light from the sun becomes more and more intense, they will begin to suffer and come to a bad end.

This world is a stage God has presented to you so that your soul can develop. Everything happening in this world, good or bad, is a gift for you.

All human beings have to die once, going to the next world. Only your heart, or soul, can move on to the next world. You have to leave behind your physical body, money or debts in this word. All you have will be gone.

Do not try to use God for this kind of material things that vanish. If you do it at all, it’s natural for you to incur divine punishment. God has managed to give you this wonderful stage where you can experience many things, good things or bad. This stage itself is inside God.

生かして頂いて　ありがとう御座位ます

I Ka Shi Te I Ta Da I Te A Ri Ga To U Go Za I Ma Su

I AM GRATEFUL FOR BEING KEPT ALIVE.