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Lee Salzman wrote:
I have not had the pleasure of reading HIPS, so could you elaborate on the supporting evidence for this interpretation a bit, [...]
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Well, the pleasure is easily obtainable through the link I posted.
As part of HIPS is a number of revised essays that Ellis Amdur wrote for AikidoJournal, there you go:
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It is my interpretation of Ueshiba Morihei's mission that he saw himself as a kind of avatar, instrumental in ushering in a golden age of redemption, the unification of heaven, earth and man (which, by the way, is a classic Chinese formulation, integrated into Omotokyo by Deguchi Onisaburo, and given it's own idiosyncratic spin).
Secondly, it is my belief that Ueshiba was, to a considerable degree, unconcerned about whether others became avatars like himself, regarding each aikido practitioner as a) living out his or her own fate b) doing the work of the "spiritual working class," accumulating merit and energy through aikido practice itself, just as the followers of the Byakkokai did so by prayer, while Goi, another avatar, did the hard work.
Thirdly, Ueshiba believed that others with the innate destiny/ability could themselves become such avatars. Therefore, he did not, I believe, see himself as betraying Deguchi in staking out his own path, nor was he, apparently, overly concerned with his students who went their own way. They were doing the aikido practice—their prime function—and if they had the goods, they'd look at the circle/square/triangle, and "figure it out themselves."
[source: http://www.aikidojournal.com/?id=846] |
And now onto the difficult questions, I have even less of an answer on:
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But is this a barrier Kisshomaru would have been so inadequate as to have never crossed if he could have?
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See David Orange's comment concerning the abdominal surgery. Might have been a factor.
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He clearly devoted enough time to training aikido for people to respect him as Doshu despite all the more highly skilled students of Morihei he had to wrangle,
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Perhaps he became the Doshu because he could base his authority on being the son of the founder and the head of the Tokyo dojo. Of course, he was also skilled enough, but the fact he was obviously not the highest skilled, may have prevented a lot of discussion and conflict.
Again, I don't know. I wasn't there when they decided who was to become the Doshu.
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so this doesn't seem plausible if he had a relatively clear path to it laid out by someone.
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Who says the path was relatively clear?
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Either he didn't know, did not try at all, or there was some unfathomable aikispiracy he was in on.
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My guess is that he didn't try hard enough. Perhaps because he didn't see the importance, perhaps because he didn't have the time, perhaps because some other reason.