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When you look to the picture under the calligraphy (Aikido) you see the portrait of an old man. The man has a friendly and open face. This is the face of the founder of Aikido, this is O Sensei (grandmaster) Morihei Ueshiba.
O Sensei was born on the 14th of December 1883 (in Tanabe, Osaka).
As a child O Sensei had a bad health, he decided that he would practice the martial arts to become stronger. He studied different martial arts intensively. He was a spiritual man also, as a child he studied Zenbudhism. Later he went to the Shinto-school Omoto-kyo of Wanisaburo Deguchi. As a young man he was in the military during the Russian - Japanese war, later he became the bodyguard of Wanisaburo Deguchi during his (turbulent) period in Mongolia.
After O Sensei became a master in several different martial arts he became an instructor at the top military academies of Japan. Besides the fact that he was a great warrior, O Sensei was above all a religious and peaceloving man.
Aikido and his unique philosophy originated from three visions that O Sensei had.
The first vision occurred in 1925 when he was 42 years of age, this happened right after a fight that he had with a high ranked swordsman (O Sensei was unarmed during this fight). After the fight (that O Sensei won) O Sensei sat down in his garden. "Suddenly the earth began to shake. A gold mist came out of the ground en surrounded me. I felt like a golden statue and my body was as light as a feather. Suddenly I understood the purpose of creation. The way of the warrior is to spread divine love, to embrace and nurse everything. Tears of gratitude rolled of my face. I looked at the earth as my home and the sun, moon and stars as my good friends, all attachment to materials disappeared.
The second vision occurred in December 1940. "Around two o'clock in the morning when I was performing my ritual cleaning, I suddenly realized I had forgotten every technique I had ever learned. All techniques that my teachers had learned me felt like new ones. Now they where toys to cultivate life, knowledge, virtue and reason, not means to destroy people".
The third and last vision O Sensei had was in 1942 during the worst fights of the second world war and one of the darkest pages of history. O Sensei had a vision about the great spirit of peace, a way that could lead to elimination of all battle and peace for all of mankind. "The way of the warrior is misunderstood and used as a mean to kill and destroy people. They who seek competition are making a huge mistake. To beat, wound or destroy is the worst sin a person can commence. The real way of the warrior is to prevent bloodshed, it is the art of peace, the power of love." After this vision O Sensei devoted every minute to enhance and spread Aikido, the art of peace.
O Sensei left us on the 25th of April 1969 (Tokio).
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