Jinja Shinto (Shrine Shinto)

 

The Authentic Shinto Faith


    Having an awe to Kami and revering it as their guardian, the majority of the Japanese has also a warm and close feeling to Kami, and they always wish Kami's protection against any disasters and its grace with divine blessings.
 

However, according to the authentic Shinto faith based on the Japanese myth, Japanese are originally given birth by the couple of deities Izanagi and Izanami, they have Kami nature in themselves. So, it is the utmost importance for every individual Japanese that one should endeavour oneself to help and assist the emperor, the ascendant of Amaterasu Ohmikami, whose mission is to make this land prosperous and stabilize and to make the land where the human life meaningful and joyful. Accordingly, to live means to work, and basically working is the source of joy. This is considered to be the base of the Japanese vocational ethics as well as their philosophy of life. This is because the individual life is, of course, given by the parents, yet, the root of the life is imbedded in Kami.
 

      Shinto has no eschatology and thus no appeal for the spiritual relief before it by God, nor belief in Mappo that tells about the arrival of the time of no hope and no relief, which is the source of human agonies. Shinto believes in that the human life will be prosperous as far as one keeps one's endeavour in this world following the divine words, even if there was a time of ups and downs in life. Yet, there is no idea of a utopia in Shinto.