That same year, at the age of thirty, Asahara experienced his central, self-defining vision. While he was wandering as a “homeless monk” near the ocean in northern Japan, a deity appeared before him and ordained him as Abiraketsu no Mikoto, “the god of light who leads the armies of the gods” in an ultimate war to destroy darkness and bring about the kingdom of Shambhala—in Tibetan and other Buddhist traditions, a utopian society of spiritually realized people. The vision was announced to the world in a Japanese New Age magazine in the form of an interview with Asahara.
