Rinjiro Shirata, Kisshomaru Ueshiba, and Hajime Iwata at the 60th anniversary of the founding of Hombu Dojo, 1991.

Hajime Iwata began training under Morihei Ueshiba in 1930. He also trained under Sokaku Takeda, during his frequent visits to Morihei Ueshiba’s Kobukan dojo.

In 1931 he became the administrator for the Seinen Kodokai (青年皇道会 / Imperial Youth Association), an ultra-nationalist right wing youth group headed by Morihei Ueshiba, headquartered in the Ueshiba home, and associated with Omoto-kyo and the Black Dragon Society that counted some 800 members.

Please see the video “Morihei Ueshiba, the Black Dragon Society & Pre-War Japan – What Aikido’s History Doesn’t Tell You”, linked in the comments, for a discussion of this history.

Here are some of the stated principles and platform of Morihei Ueshiba’s Imperial Youth Association:

“To take the lofty and magnificent Imperial Way as Heaven’s righteous mandate, to revere the gods, serve the Emperor with sincerity, and strive to be men who repay the nation. To devote ourselves to spiritual cultivation and physical training, and to dedicate ourselves in service to the nation, even unto death.

To uphold the sacred teachings of the unbroken Imperial line throughout history, and to clarify the principles of repairing and strengthening the realm.

Under our eternal, peerless national polity (note: “kokutai no hongi”, the principle underlying the divine authority and sovereignty of the Japanese Emperor), to shine standard-bearer light upon all nations and realize the grand ideal of “the whole world under one roof” (“Hakko Ichiu”), fulfilling our sacred mission given by Heaven.

We, the Japanese people, must awaken to our mission as the chosen people of the divine Imperial Way, constantly grasp the world situation, discern international conditions, construct a culture that fuses East and West, establish world peace, and fulfill the eternal mission of our nation.”

Some notes here – in the 1960’s Morihei Ueshiba used identical language concerning the “unbroken Imperial line” when defining Aikido.

In particular, the phrase he used was the pre-war language that promoted the idea of the Emperor as God that was renounced by the Showa Emperor during the surrender of Japan and was then deliberately removed from post-war textbooks:

合気道は宇宙万世一系の大いなる道なり。

“Aikido is the Great Way of the Universal Bansei Ikkei.”

– Morihei Ueshiba in the “Takemusu Aiki” lectures, 1958~1961

“Bansei Ikkei”, the “unbroken Japanese Imperial line” – as in “Aikido is the Great Way of the unbroken Japanese Imperial Line”.

Next, note that Morihei Ueshiba uses the specific phrase “Hakko Ichiu”, “the whole world under one roof”, a Japanese political slogan meaning that it was the divine right of the Empire of Japan to “unify the eight corners of the world.”.

This slogan was popularized by Morihei Ueshiba’s student and patron, Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro, who was also on the board of directors of Morihei Ueshiba’s Kobukai Foundation.

Morihei Ueshiba himself would restate Konoe’s idea of Hakko Ichiu after the war – in “Takemusu Aiki”, in 1960:

“The world is one. Nations large and small must gather together under Japan. The organization for this must be firmly arranged. Human beings have forgotten the number one nation at the center of the Earth, the primary central nation of Japan. Since this appears in the teachings of our Imperial Ancestors it is something that you all know well.”

Morihei Ueshiba often referred to this idea, which was central his beliefs, both before and after the war.

Here is an example, a Doka (“poem/song of the way”) that provides an example of Morihei Ueshiba’s multi-layered technical and ideological language:

”惟神光と熱の合気道, 世をば清めん八紘の玉”

“Aikido, The Light and Heat of Kannagara, Jewel of the Eight Directions, Purifies the World.”

Briefly, “Kannagara” refers to the “Way of the Gods”, a metaphorical reference Morihei Ueshiba often used to refer to the interaction of Yin and Yang.

The interaction of Yin and Yang creates heat and light – a reference to the creation of internal power – martial power.

The “jewel” is a term that Morihei Ueshiba often used to refer to the Dantian – so, the interaction of Yin and Yang here creates internal power, martial, physical power through the Dantian.

What about the last section about the eight directions? Well, here we see, once again, Morihei Ueshiba’s fondness for multiple layers of meaning.

In one layer we see that he is saying that the interaction of Yin and Yang creates internal power, martial power, physical power, through the Dantian, expressed in all directions through the body.

But that’s not all!

Yin/Yang and Heaven-Earth-Man cosmologies in China and Japan were commonly seen as kind of “universal field theories” that explained physical theories of martial body usage, mental theories of psychological balance, health oriented theories, and socio-politically oriented theories.

In this Doka Morihei Ueshiba rather deliberately uses the Kanji for “Eight Cords” when referring to the “Eight Directions”, a reference to the aforementioned “Hakko Ichiu”, the slogan that formed the basis of the empire’s ideology.

In other words, there was another layer of meaning, in which Aikido was meant to be a process through which one worked to purify the world in order to unite it in a ultra-nationalist right wing Empire under the aegis of Japan and the Japanese imperial family.

A process that Morihei Ueshiba advocated both before and after the war.

This was Morihei Ueshiba’s vision of “world peace”, the one stated as a goal by the Imperial Youth Association, and repeated by Morihei Ueshiba himself in the 1960’s, a kind of peace – but not, one would expect, one that most of us would be comfortable with today.