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While O'Sensei Morihei Ueshiba humbly and politely took care of his teacher, he separated from Sokaku Takeda and Daito-ryu and began to call his art aiki-budo.

SPIRITUAL ROOTS: OMOTO RELIGION

O'Sensei Morihei Ueshiba met and became a lifelong follower of Master Onisaburo, of the Omoto religion, in 1920. The Omoto movement with a strong spiritual philosophy on harmony influenced the higher principles of aikido. Some believe that O'Sensei Morihei Ueshiba's spiritual beliefs, influenced by the Omoto religion, caused him to create a softer style of martial art. He wanted an art that would be defensively effective and efficient but that would also protect rather than harm one's training partner, as well as any real-life opponent or enemy. (The philosophies of the Omoto religion are discussed in more detail in Chapter 1.)

TEACHING AIKIDO

There are many stories of O'Sensei Morihei Ueshiba teaching classes to advanced students that represented his lecturing on spiritual and metaphysical aspects of the universe. O'Sensei Morihei Ueshiba saw the universal principles in everything. He would switch from one content area to another in an effort to illustrate the underlying principle. Many students had great difficulty translating these disconnected lectures into direct application to their own personal aikido training and technique. O'Sensei Morihei Ueshiba attempted to bridge the gap but understood that no one can express or explain spiritual truth in words. O'Sensei Morihei Ueshiba relied most heavily on teaching through experience or direct training and practice of the techniques. The techniques would illustrate and demonstrate the principles and concepts that were so difficult to explain or describe. The techniques were concrete examples of concepts that could best be discussed and described through vague metaphors and contradictions. The profound principles of spiritual, theological, and universal truths involved difficult-to-comprehend explanations that were based on O'Sensei Morihei Ueshiba's own long history of austere mental and physical training and discipline. Without a similar historical experience as a frame of reference, few were able to understand O'Sensei Morihei Ueshiba. Throughout history, those who saw beyond what was socially accepted as "normal" received scrutiny and suspicion. Many ideas of yesterday, which were incomprehensible due to their advanced foresight and insight, have become our goals and accepted interpretations or perceptions.