Around Tokyo
Spirits Requested to Ascend to Higher Levels
In Japan, there is one story, named Kozakura-hime Monogatari (The Princess Kozakura Story) well known to people interested in spiritualism, about a woman who had been the wife of a samurai 400 years earlier and appeared to a certain woman in the 20th century through spiritual communications.
The spiritual communications between the spirit and the certain woman who was wife of Wasaburo Asano, a notable researcher of spiritualism in Japan before WWII, continued for about 7 years since 1929 when the wife got spiritual ability at death of her boy. The spirit called itself Kozakura-hime (Princess Kozakura) and talked about its life while living in this world as well as various states in the afterworld. After fully talking experiences in the spirit world, the spirit declared that it would stop the communications. Asano wrote the book about these spiritual communications between his wife and the spirit, which became a best seller at the time. Subsequently, Asano died in 1937.
And 40 years later, around 1969, the spirit of Princess Kozakura appeared to a local historian who lived around the place where Princess Kozakura once lived as the wife of a samurai local lord. The historian studied about Princess Kozakura to find that she had died without giving birth to children, so that her name was not recorded in the family history of the clan of her husband. So, the historian visited the Asano's wife to inform her of the spiritual appearance of the spirit of Princess Kozakura and get some information about her. The historian gave the spirit a religious name of shintoism to appease her and officially admit her existence in history. Then, the spirit of Princess Kozakura stopped appearing to the historian. And, soon after it, Asano's wife died in 1969.
The spirit or Princess Kozakura came to know Asano's wife when her boy died and entered into the afterlife. Then, Princess Kozakura became the guardian spirit of Asano's wife. From communications between Princess Kozakura and Asano's wife, some interesting status and circumstances in the spirit world were revealed.
Spirits in the afterlife or the spirit world are requested to spiritually study and train themselves so that they will ascend to higher levels in the spirit world. And, as shintoism was popular in the samurai class at the time of her life, Princess Kozakura said that gods of shintoism presided over some parts of the spirit world. However, there are upper levels where other gods preside.
There are also spirits of animals and plants in the spirit world who behave and talk like human spirits, according to Princess Kozakura. And, there are also spirits of some mystical creatures known in the Japanese society several hundreds years ago.
Except parts in her explanations about the spirit world, which are unique to the era in Japan when Princess Kozakura lived probably in the 15th century, the status and circumstances of spirits in the spirit world match those in the spirit world and near-death experiences reported by modern Europeans and Americans.
In this context, it seems to be true that souls of dead men continue to live in the afterworld as spirits with the same minds as those they had while living in this world but with different spiritual bodies. Nonetheless, spirits in the spirit world are requested to educate and enhance themselves and ascend to higher levels closer to the supreme God, although they do not have to worry about clothes, foods, and residence.
Today, a shintoism shrine enshrining Princess Kozakura stands in a costal area near Tokyo where she lived as the wife of a samurai local lord about 500 years ago. And nowadays, the spirit of Princess Kozakura seems to live or rest peacefully in the afterworld.
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John 10, King James Version
11 I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.
12 But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep.
13 The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep.
14 I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.
15 As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep.
16 And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.
17 Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.