Aikido Philosophy and Christianity.

[Sojourner]

I wanted to share this with you, it is taken from a book I am reading on the martial art of Aikido which I train in.

What is Aikido?

What is Aikido? Ultimately Aikido is love. This is the founders teaching and must not be changed. Aikido training is a method that allows us to reach a state of love.

I want to have a living heart, I want to live in harmony with everyone. I believe we all do. Despite that intention, we think "I don't like this person or that person." "That's no good that's wrong." We get into conflict with other people. We want to be in harmony with everyone, but we are not. We need to keep training in order to purify the heart.

Its interesting to contrast this statement with Paul in Romans 7:15-25 - "15 I don’t understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I can’t. I do what I don’t want to—what I hate. 16 I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong, and my bad conscience proves that I agree with these laws I am breaking. 17 But I can’t help myself because I’m no longer doing it. It is sin inside me that is stronger than I am that makes me do these evil things. I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn I can’t make myself do right. I want to but I can’t. When I want to do good, I don’t; and when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway. Now if I am doing what I don’t want to, it is plain where the trouble is: sin still has me in its evil grasp. It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love to do God’s will so far as my new nature is concerned; but there is something else deep within me, in my lower nature, that is at war with my mind and wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. In my mind I want to be God’s willing servant, but instead I find myself still enslaved to sin. So you see how it is: my new life tells me to do right, but the old nature that is still inside me loves to sin. Oh, what a terrible predicament I’m in! Who will free me from my slavery to this deadly lower nature? Thank God! It has been done by Jesus Christ our Lord. He has set me free."

It seems that Paul as a Christian still struggles with the same things that my Aikido philosopher also struggles with. Yet its my observation that both people have something to point out, First off as Christians, Jesus paid the price, we will not die sinless, but Jesus blood will cover over those sins. Yet at the same time we must strive to live in victory and my thoughts are that just like how one practices Aikido forms, we should practice our Christianity in devoting time to prayer, Bible reading and relationship with God in order that we might train our own hearts to be the men and women that God wants us to be.

It was said to me the other day, "imagine how we might be if we used the Bible like we do our iPhones" - we carry it with us every where we go, check on it several times per hour, spend time meditating on what it has to tell us and so forth. - I put it to you that if we did begin to take that approach, then things really might begin to change in terms of wanting to sin and sin nature in general!