Reiki is the Japanese word for the universal life force, the animating element of the universe. This same energy is referred to as Chi in the Chinese, Prana in India, the closest term in English is Spirit. All life depends on this energy. Without it the universe would have no consciousness, no animating element.
In order to properly define Reiki, the character of this universal life force must be discussed. It is insufficient to define Reiki as a "healing art" or a "relaxation technique".
Imagine the Earth with no sentient life. No animals, humans, birds, fish, insects. No plants, no trees. Only rock, sand and soil, air, water, fire.
Consider why the fifth element, the life force, has been forgotten in Western culture?
Many designate a source of this life energy, call it god or goddess, and worship it. If you think about that it almost seems like idolatry, does it not? How can we perceive or imagine the form, character, or personality of that source?
In fact, why does a source need to be defined? Can it be that this life force emanates from the void of space, what the Tao Te Ching calls the Tao? Can it be that this sourceless source is actually "everywhere" as, being nothing, it has no time nor spatial referent? The void within you is the same void within everyone and everything, even the sun, the planets, the distant stars.
Awareness of and flowing with the flow of life presents the sentient being with a tremendous amount of energy. If energy is dissipated into the past in regret, remorse, indeed memory and prior experience, there is less left to apply toward the present moment. Likewise, energy projected into the future in expectations, ideals, goals, even intentions and hope, leaves less of this precious energy in the present.
The flow of life is only evident in the present moment. There is no storage facility or maintenance of a future supply. There is none left from the past. It is a free flowing, fluid, creative, intelligent force.h
We are an expression of that force of life, so we can infer its character.
Meister Eckhart:
"For whoever seeks God in some special way, will gain the way and lose
God who is hidden in the way. But whoever seeks God without any special
way, finds Him as He really is... and He is life itself."
Love is an embracing, a total acceptance. As such it is a stillness, an allowing. If love has any conditions, or any motive, it is not still as it is a movement toward something or away from something. This movement is usually toward what is considered desirable and away from what is consiered undesirable.
Conditions placed on love and affection include beauty, intelligence, worthiness, and a host of other factors that have absolutely nothing to do with love.
The ulterior motives that are behind many of our actions tend to isolate us from our loved ones, indeed from the fulfillment of life in the present moment. The conditions we place on our relationships and the subtle forms of coercion that we use in acquisitiveness create stress and strain in those relationships. The result is a lack of true intimacy and the freedom of expression toward and enjoyment of our intellectual, business, social, and sexual relationships.Not expecting return.
Not loving one and hating another.
Not conditional on behavior, appearance, philosophy
Life in the present moment presents us with a mirror that enables us to see who and what we really are. When two sentient beings interact in intimate relationship they mirror one another. As you can really only perceive yourself in relationship to other things and beings, the other sentient being mirrors your inner self to you in any intimate relationship.
Life and relationship present us with mirrors that enable us to see what we really are. When you see another sentient being you are actually viewing yourself. How can that be? You are not as separate from other beings as it appears to your perception. The "other" sentient being you perceive is an expression of the same life force that you are, you both are, in many ways, a single expression, not multiple expressions.
This can be understood through inquiry into the emotional responses that others initiate in you. When direct and intensive inquiry is applied to any situation, we find that the emotion is tied to our own internal states and connected to our own issues, not those of the other.
Byron Katie wrote, "...you see who you are by seeing who you think other people are. Eventually you come to see that everything outside you is a reflection of your own thinking."
Anthony de Mello, a Jesuit priest who worked in India for many years before his death, wrote, "If you see through yourself, you will see through everyone. Then you will love them. Otherwise you spend the whole time grappling with your wrong notions of them, with your illusions that are constantly crashing against reality."
Krishnamurti wrote, "To look at ourselves very clearly, accurately, precisely, is only possible in the mirror of relationship; that is the only mirror we have. In the mirror of relationship you see what you are, if you allow yourself to see what you are."
We are so very arrogant in our thought processes. The world scientific community has never been able to define nor describe gravity, nor electricity. However, we use both of these phenomenon to describe a host of other phenomenon that scientists also have no definition nor description of. Einstein, for example, thought that he had defined gravity in terms of his theory of relativity. He realized later that he had not, and spent the rest of his life trying to do so. He did not succeed.
Joao Magueijo writes concerning Einstein's confusion: "He thus restored nothingness to the nothing (as he dispensed with the ages old "ether" theory), voidness to the void. And then (in 1917) he was reversing himself completely, asking whether one could ascribe some sort of existence to the void after all, so that the void could produce gravity. Could nothing be something?"
The late Richard Feynman:
"The theory of gravitation... was not understandable from the laws of motion... gravitation is, so far, not understandable in terms of other phenomenon... So not only have we no experiments with which to check a quantum theory of gravitation, we also have no reasonable theory."
Love and hate, good and evil, light and dark, peace and war, are all polaric opposites. The poles are actually abstract symbols based on a conditioned linear perspective. The significance of life lies in what exists between these poles, just as the Earth teeming with life and diversity lies between the polar extremes of the Arctic and Antarctic.
The apparent opposites are extremes bounding excellent substance and basic unity. If we flow with the current of life we live in this diverse substance and marvelous unity.
Not determining experience as desirable and undesirable but embracing all of life's expressions with gratitude and contentment.
Below please find links to Seattle Reiki events, Seattle Reiki professionals, and Seattle Reiki Classes.
The study and practice of Reiki in Seattle has grown over the years as schools like the Reiki Training Program, and others have introduced Reiki throughout the city and the greater Seattle aera.