We call God the Parent, Tenri-O-no-Mikoto. God the Parent created human beings and everything else from where there was no form. God the Parent provided us with the Cosmos, the Earth, and the natural environment that makes life possible. God the Parent oversees the laws of nature and is also its source. God is also our Parent who relieves human beings of our troubles and guides us to the Joyous Life.

In order for us to better understand God the Parent’s providence, each particular working of God was assigned a sacred name and explained. This is the “ten aspects of God’s complete providence.”

We learn this exposition of the providence in order to build genuine faith to the teaching of God the Parent, appreciate the providence by chanting the sacred names, and learn the intention of God the Parent shown through illness and calamities.

Izanagi-no-Mikoto: the model of man, the seed.

This aspect of the complete providence is male and represented in the heavens as the Cow Herder Star (Altair); its direction is the center (top, facing south). At human creation, its symbolic form in the muddy ocean was a fish. (This is a fish with a face like a human, with smooth skin having no scales, and with a mind that is upright; sometimes referred to as a merman.) Its counterpart in the Shinto tradition is the Inner Shrine of Ise Jingu.

This aspect of God’s providence served as the model of man and the seed at creation. It oversees the workings of human sperm and all seeds and sperm in general.

Humans, animals, and plants are able to leave descendants because they have sperm/seeds. Growth of man and breed improvement is possible because lives are reborn, producing and reproducing seeds.

The quality of the mind that is associated with the workings of Izanagi-no-Mikoto is a single-hearted one that gives its undivided attention as it moves forward wholeheartedly. It is to be straightforward and honest as we sows seeds of virtue and singly strives for the realization of world salvation.

To conform to this aspect of God’s providence, we should recognize that hardship is the seed of delight, sow seeds of virtue with a tenacious spirit, and singly strive to perform the service.

To crush God’s path by prioritizing the path of man and becoming preoccupied with one or two extra paths in addition to God’s path, we risk afflictions such as male infertility that causes our family line to die out. It is important to entrust ourselves single-heartedly to God and sowing seeds in God’s field so we can avoid troubles that are found in the world such as business failures because of cessation of the cash flow.

*This exposition was written by Rev. Chuichi Fukaya, the second head minister of Yamatoyoki Branch Church, and translated by Roy Forbes.