Aikido is often perceived to be purely  a martial art and in its infancy, it wasn't much more than that.  Initially, O Sensei, the founder, did not  do too much more than develop the  techniques  that he learnt in his study of  Daito Ryu Aikijujitsu.  Even today, there are many who still train with this as their principal purpose.  However, for the founder the art became more a way of life guided by a set of meaningful principles that were hard wired into the art.  So much so, that he believed that aikido offered 'a way to reconcile the world', as fundamentally it became a practice of peace and love for him.

So this begs the question as to why he chose to practice peace and love through the...