| "With
thankfulness we receive and live according to the principles
prescribed by the Meiji emperor." Mikao Usui, as translated
in The Legacy of Dr Usui, by Frank Arjava Petter p 14.
"These
poems were composed by the Meiji emperor, who wanted to give
his people instructions for a life worthy of a human being"
Frank Arjava Petter, about Dr Usui’s handbook
Dr Usui
deeply revered the Meiji emperor. Mikao Usui adapted the emperor’s
words into the Reiki ideals and including 125 of the emperor’s
poems in his handbook.
The Meiji
emperor’s regime changed the face of Japan more than
any administration before or since. Due to the nature of Japan
at the time, and his lack of intimates, it is not possible
to separate how much was the emperor and how much was his
administration.
The emperor
started as someone who expected to live his whole life in
seclusion. Many who lived in Japan during previous emperors
were not even sure who the emperor was. Under the reign of
the shoguns, the emperor was a symbolic ruler only. His court
had no real power, the shogunate controlled the budget.
For several
hundred years, the existence of the emperor had been a legal
fiction. In an account written shortly after the emperor’s
death, his birth was described "At the time of his birth,
the emperor labored under all of the disadvantages of being
a god." Hardly anyone was allowed to see his face, he
could not go outside except in a palanquin. He had few amusements
other than composing poetry. Other than appearing in ceremonies,
he had no duties. As an adult, "He was tall and strongly
built for one of his race. He had dignity, he had courtesy,
he had intuition, and he had a rich fund of common sense which
one would have expected from a self made man, rather than
a hermit god."
"The
fifteen year old boy who succeeded to the crown had observed
that if Japan continued to bind herself with her proud traditions,
she would be at the mercy of the western powers, who had gobbled
up most of Asia between them.
The hardest
person in Japan to find out information about seems to be
Mikao Usui. The second hardest person to find out about is
The Meiji emperor.
The Meiji
emperor kept no personal diary, had no close friends who reminisced
about him. All decisions were issued in his name, yet most
historians focus exclusively on the advisors to the throne.
When he took the throne at the age of 16, undoubtedly the
advisors played a major role, but what of the next 45 years
of his reign?
Under
this emperor Japan transformed itself from a feudal society
to a major world power. This is the emperor whose governent
took over from the shoguns. This was the first emperor to
grant audiences and be seen in public. Every home had his
picture. He was revered as a god. He had concubines as had
emperors before him, but most pictures depict a nuclear family
picture with his empress and child in an effort to show the
west Japan was civilized.
His only
personal outlet seen by the public appears to have been his
poetry. Some of which Usui valued enough to make a large section
of it in his handbook.
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