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Old 03-28-2014, 02:22 AM   #11
Peter Goldsbury
 
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Re: Aikido Shihan Kyoichi Inoue - Learning from the Kojiki

Hello Jonathan,

Here is the Japanese text of the quotation attributed to Shioda Gozo.

「あんたはもう充分、体術ができておる。これからは神になる修行をしなければんならん。そのためには、道端のミミズでもなんでもいいから、その霊を取ることじや。そうすれ ば、あなたは神になれる。と、こう植芝先生は言うんだ。俺はまだ、神様にはなりたくねえな」。

There are two ways of writing mimizu in Chinese characters: 蚯, 蚓, or more generally together, as in 蚯蚓, but Inoue, or Jiromaru, or the book's editor, uses katakana. The Japanese is quite straightforward and it is not clear from the text that Morihei Ueshiba considered that anything important hangs on the choice of the object. It might be a favourite phrase of Deguchi and there are a number of Japanese proverbs using the word.

Whatever it is, one has to take (取る) the soul (霊).

P A Goldsbury
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