Cosmic Sage attempts to weave together Imaoka Shin’ichirō’s life story and his message. It will reveal the spiritual pilgrimage of a Bodhisattva-Kami-Christian-Unitarian-sage, the Emerson of Japan. Each chapter will provide a setting from which Imaoka’s thought and insights can be understood. However, his thought and their expressions were never put together in extended studies or systematically developed. Metaphor, paradox and wordplay merit him being compared with Emerson. This book has been written to explore his influence on liberating religious traditions of Japan, to probe the paradoxes in having multiple religious identities, to follow the faith journey of a “student of life.” Each segment of his life was “like a school, a place of learning with its time for graduation,” as Imaoka-sensei would say. Each graduation was to be valued as it had contributed to one’s life and growth.
