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Old 04-21-2008, 10:46 AM   #12
George S. Ledyard
 
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Dojo: Aikido Eastside
Location: Bellevue, WA
Join Date: Jun 2000
Posts: 2,670
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Re: Can a dualist find success in Aikido?

Quote:
Tony Sova wrote: View Post

Yes, I was deliberately trying to express my beliefs in generalizations without revealing their religious origins. I am a Gnostic, specifically a Nazorean of the Magussaean Gnosis originating within the ancient Aramaean-Chaldean mileau of the pre-Assyrian Empire. Spirit then is the immaterial aspect of humanity that is trapped in this material world and manifests itself as Consciousness. Light is but a symbol of this meta-physical concept.
Damn, I thought you guys disappeared after the Cathars and the Albigensian Crusade...

Anyway, obviously you can practice Aikido but I don't see any possibility that you could understand the Founder's Aikido from your spiritual perspective. For the Founder, conflict is an illusion caused by a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the Universe. The source of all creation was a single unified source. Manifest creation comes from the interaction of fire and water (yin / yang or in / yo). Opposites always exist as movement, part of the kokyu of the universe but they are not at war with each other and there is no opposition.

So, the conflict of which you speak, the fundamental opposition of light and dark doesn't exist in Aikido and, in fact, the art is based on reconciling these opposites. The Kannagara no Michi or Way of the Kami is about purifying ones own spirit to the point at which ones will is brought into accord with the Kami. In this state there is no conflict.

Frankly, I think your way of thinking is opposed to the spirit of Aikido as I currently understand what the Founder had in mind. I don't think it would make any difference in your practice initially but I think that in thirty or forty years of training your Aikido would necessarily become something different from what someone's practice might be who was more in line with the Founder's viewpoint (and the vast majority of Asian spiritual tradition).

George S. Ledyard
Aikido Eastside
Bellevue, WA
Aikido Eastside
AikidoDvds.Com
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