Reiki Help Blog :: Oasis Reiki Dojo

Heart Light
© Pamir Kiciman 2010
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We are a community of men, women and children.
We live, breathe and exist together in our community.
Our community is our home, even though we also have a roof over our own family.
Gathered under such roofs, we form neighborhoods.
We leave our neighborhood in the morning and return to it in the evening.
What is good for us is good for the community.
To protect our own is to protect the community.
What is best for the family is equally good for the community.

We are fond of boundaries.
Me, myself, my family, home, country.
My goods and future.
My health. My food. My money.
My beliefs and views.
Me. Mine. My own.

It’s natural to love one’s own.
It’s natural to shelter one’s own.
It’s natural to care more about your own.

Then again, we fight with our families and ourselves more often than with others.

Community is inside as well as outside.
Community is a state of mind.

Our state of mind is our first community.
It’s from our mind and heart that we decide how much to blame others.
Blame others for our own troubles.
If in our heart and mind we would find peace, we would find peace in our relationship with all people.

Relationship is a fact of life.
There are those we want to be with and those we have to be with.
We are in relation with others in many ways.
Our thoughts, feelings, needs, money, beliefs, views put us in touch with others.
These others are individuals, and groups of individuals that function as companies, institutions and governments.
There is a web of life. The stranger we see at the bank has similar relations.

We also share the web of life with Nature and its lifeforms.

The tree’s shade and a pet’s warmth are cherished. Wheat and oranges nourish us.
We relax and play at the beach. The web exists so that life works.

Are you ever angry at an apple you enjoy?

What makes us angry with people whether they are those we want to be with or those we have to be with?

Anger disappears when we share instead of hoard.
Anger disappears when we see that our family is similar to another’s family.
Anger disappears when we notice that the fruit tree that feeds us, feeds a child whose name we may not even know.
The same cotton that we wear is on someone else’s back, the same material on our feet protects another’s feet,
and the same steel that makes our car makes the neighbor’s car.

The sun shines on us all equally.

Peace appears when we emphasize similarities.
Peace appears when we honor natural variety.
Peace appears when we realize that everyone seeks the love we seek.
Peace appears when we accept that health; happiness and financial security are available to us as a human right and not at the expense of another.
Peace is seen in the web of life when we tell our fear to grow up!

There’s not a single person who doesn’t want the basics of life that we want.
These basics include tangible things as well as success, happiness, health, acknowledgment and fulfillment.
Since we have to participate in life in similar ways to attain similar results, is it not more productive to join efforts?
Is it not more powerful to manifest dreams with collaboration rather than competition?
Who wins when one person or group wins? Only that person or group and everyone else are losers.

Who’s the loser when everyone wins? The obstacles!

Obstacles are created by us and can be uncreated by changing our heart and mind.
For that we simply need willingness and reason.
Reason shows us that cooperation brings results.
Willingness takes us into our heart and mind where we develop flexibility and compassion.
When reason is coupled with forgiveness, we have a winning formula for social and personal success.

Let us remember that the formula of reason plus forgiveness has to be applied by citizen and leader alike.
Afterall, a leader is a citizen and a citizen is a leader.
Those who are elected or rise to prominence in some way are sanctioned as leaders, yet their power is in the hands of the people.

Forgiving leaders paves the path to start afresh.
Leaders returning that trust with sincerity and unwavering commitment, solidify the path.
People taking a real interest and becoming active with the power they have completes the shared responsibility of community.
Then everyone is on the same path, heading to unity and a better life for all.

Pain, grudges, disappointment, injustice, prejudice, lack of opportunity, education or housing, poverty, ill-health as well as all the other challenges of life, and the real solutions for these are the responsibility of every single member of society.

We are the only ones who can bring order to chaos.

We are the only ones who can bring peace to conflict.

We are the only ones who can bring sanity to anger and hatred.

We are the only ones who can correct errors.

We are the only ones who can heal wounds.

We are the only ones who can monitor each other for the good of all.

We are the only ones who can use reason to see that the web of life is inclusive and not exclusive.

We are the only ones who can forgive and move on.

The past keeps us in the past. The future is ours to live. The present is where we act, assert and voice our common vision.

Mother, father, child, business owner, politician, teacher, student, professional and unemployed, WE populate our communities.

We are the only ones who can make it a place worth living.

We are the only ones who can create a new history.

We are the only ones who can…

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To see more of Pamir’s meaning-making photography, visit his photoblog.

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Having provided free content for over two years, the Reiki Help Blog is now asking for your support. Actually, the content remains free, but your support is needed. The button or link below will take you to a secure PayPal page where you can give any amount of your choosing.

“Pamir, I really enjoy reading your blog. I would like to make a wee contribution to support your work. Thanks for doing what you do! Many, many Reiki blessings!” — J.A.P

Please donate what feels right. Each post is a considerable investment of thought, heart, energy and time.

Donate to this blog. Thank you!

After posting The wisdom of “receiving” a little while ago, I came across this. It really brings home the point.

Being Held

A hardness we can’t see, cold and rigid, begins to form between us and the world, the longer we stay silent about what we need. It is not even about getting what we need but about admitting, mostly to ourselves, that we do have needs.

Asking for help, whether we get it or not, breaks the hardness that builds in the world. Paradoxically, asking even for the things that no one can give, we are relieved and blessed for the asking. For admitting our humanness lets the soul break surface, the way a dolphin leaps for the sun.

One of the most painful barriers we can experience is the sense of isolation the modern world fosters, which can only be broken by our willingness to be held, by the quiet courage to allow our vulnerabilities to be seen.  For as water fills a hole and light fills the dark, kindness wraps around what is soft, if what is soft can be seen.

So admitting what we need, asking for help, letting our softness show — these are prayers without words that friends, strangers, wind, and time all wrap themselves around.  Allowing ourselves to be held is like returning to the womb.

— Mark Nepo

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Having provided free content for over two years, the Reiki Help Blog is now asking for your support. Actually, the content remains free, but your support is needed. The button or link below will take you to a secure PayPal page where you can give any amount of your choosing.

“Pamir, I really enjoy reading your blog. I would like to make a wee contribution to support your work. Thanks for doing what you do! Many, many Reiki blessings!” — J.A.P

Please donate what feels right. Each post is a considerable investment of thought, heart, energy and time.

Donate to this blog. Thank you!

Reiki is most popularly known as hands-on energy healing. It is in fact a spiritual teaching which can also be used to self-heal and help others heal. The essence of Reiki is about the development of the person in both character and spirit. As a person grows and evolves, healing comes along too. The focus in Reiki is the emergence of one’s natural spirituality. From this foundation, all other applications of Reiki become available.

The spirit

This only makes sense, as the spiritual is at the root of being human and life itself.  Acknowledging the spiritual is the ultimate healing. While Reiki can heal what ails humans on all levels, accessing and prioritizing one’s spirituality is where Reiki excels. Once the spirit is acknowledged and centralized, a major core shift occurs and sets the tone for the rest of a life.

Consciousness and energy

Another common misconception is that Reiki is a form of ‘energy.’ While life energy accompanies the Reiki experience, it’s more a vibration or pulsation, and what’s vibrating or pulsating is consciousness. Consciousness here means the substratum of reality. Transformation takes place in consciousness. Any healing or change that doesn’t take place in consciousness usually doesn’t last.

The flow model of Reiki is simply this: 1) Consciousness, 2) Energy, 3) Physical manifestation. Energy plays a role, but it can’t really exist without its source: Consciousness.

Reiki is a transformative and enduring practice. ‘Transformative’ means that it radically and permanently shifts body, mind and being. ‘Enduring’ means this shift doesn’t stall after one time, it continues to expand one’s paradigm. The practices don’t get stale, bringing new insight and wisdom, staying fresh, creative and inspiring. Healing that’s accompanied by this kind of true transformation is lasting.

Wisdom and compassion

A core change in one’s orientation and relationship to life, such as the one Reiki facilitates releases the truth within each person. Reiki isn’t about temporary pain relief or a momentary understanding. It’s about freeing wisdom and compassion from inside. All divinity is already within. Reiki is a spiritual teaching sourced in this divine database and gives the practitioner complete access to it.

Liberation of the truth within frees the outer life of all its suffering, pain, disease, fear, turmoil, anguish and misery.

Reiki facilitates this in a very practical and user-friendly way. The founder of these teachings, Usui Sensei, prefaced Reiki’s five precepts with:

Happiness is secreted inside, that’s its only secret. Truest healing is spiritual. Spiritual healing addresses the whole person instead of helping only with the body or mind, which can leave an opening for imbalance to return.

The ‘many blessings’ Usui talks about could be interpreted as that multifaceted divinity  activating and bearing fruit (blessings) in a person’s life again and again. It’s also the consistent and frequent (many) practice of the various methods given in the teachings.

In conclusion, Reiki is a contemplative path which leads to the emergence of the true self in meaningful unity with all life.

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Train in Reiki with Pamir.

Photo: © Pamir Kiciman 2010

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Having provided free content for over two years, the Reiki Help Blog is now asking for your support. Actually, the content remains free, but your support is needed. The button or link below will take you to a secure PayPal page where you can give any amount of your choosing.

“Pamir, I really enjoy reading your blog. I would like to make a wee contribution to support your work. Thanks for doing what you do! Many, many Reiki blessings!” — J.A.P

Please donate what feels right. Each post is a considerable investment of thought, heart, energy and time.

Donate to this blog. Thank you!

Included are a couple of quotes from the presentation. This is the longest video posted so far, so make sure you get all the details by watching it.

Here is why having a spiritual ground is an important aspect of wellness:

• Spirituality unifies all the dimensions of health and wellness, these being physical, psychological, social, and of course the spiritual itself.
• It provides a continuum and empowers all aspects of health.
• Because spirituality transcends the individual, it fosters such essential qualities as love, compassion, care and altruism.
• Spirituality brings vital meaning to life.

In its most general sense, spirituality is a way of contemplating and understanding the invisible aspects of life and to transcend the personal, tangible and finite details of this world. This transcendental spirituality is needed because it provides vision, inspiration and profound meaning. And spirituality may include faith, although it doesn’t have to, to be valid and helpful.

(If you’re reading this as an email, you’ll need to click back to the original post on the blog to view video content, or you can go here to view it.)

Cross-culturally and from all time periods, every authentic spiritual teaching that’s part of humanity’s heritage has always included a set of methodologies. Reiki is one such teaching. These teachings are commonly known as wisdom traditions, or teachings of perennial wisdom.

A teaching of perennial wisdom includes ethical and moral dos and don’ts; a central cosmology explaining creation, the universe, life and humanity’s place in it; other subtle truths; and practices to give the practitioner access to this knowledge and wisdom.

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Having provided free content for over two years, the Reiki Help Blog is now asking for your support. Actually, the content remains free, but your support is needed. The button or link below will take you to a secure PayPal page where you can give any amount of your choosing.

Please donate what feels right. Each post is a considerable investment of thought, heart, energy and time.

Donate to this blog. Thank you!

Often there’s a tendency to know a particular practice one way. A habit is formed, albeit a good one, you get comfortable, it works for you and you stick to that routine, to the idea of what the practice is and can bring.

Authentic practices are limitless, however. For instance, since Reiki is of life, it can illuminate any area of life. Here’s one perspective on Reiki, mainly from a ‘relationship’ point of view, both with oneself and others.

1) Reiki helps you see the essence of yourself and others: On an everyday, surface level when we interact with another person, we see a limited picture of that person and often miss the real person who’s under the surface.

In such a narrow view we can easily judge and evaluate a person unfairly. It’s easier to be irritated or annoyed by an interaction and let that irritation escalate. This doesn’t mean that there was absolutely no cause for the annoyance. It simply means that we can look deeper.

We’re all imperfect. As a dedicated Reiki practitioner, we begin to know and feel that beneath imperfection is a lovable, bright being. In the self-practice of Reiki this knowing is what leads to radical healings for all parts of us. This then leads to personal growth, which then leads to spiritual evolution.

And it changes the way we view others. We stop relating to others at the level of their mask and drama, and start appreciating their essential being.

2) Reiki is integrated with life, not locked up in the intellect: As spiritual practitioners we get into mind games sometimes that revolve around hierarchy and what’s worthy of our attention and time.

This leads to a disconnect from life, whereas spiritual practices are meant to make life richer, more vibrant and available.

When our practice is relegated to an intellectual exercise, its gift is almost entirely missed. And when we approach people only from a cold, intellectual place, their gifts are also missed.

Reiki is life. Reiki isn’t relegated only to the sublime. All the messiness of life and our psyche are valid subjects for Reiki to address. In fact we need this so much.

3) Reiki hears you without filters: In Reiki we listen to others and ourselves, truly listen and hear. Reiki properly assimilated removes our filters of impatience, elitism, I’m-better-than; or self-deprecation and denial.

And this listening again reveals essence. The only filter that may be present is compassion in its universal form, so we listen past the soap opera and feel who is in there in that body and mind.

This depth of hearing someone else or ourselves is healing in an abiding way.

4) Reiki allows while you grow to your next tier: Everyone grows at their own pace. In this growth a certain amount of allowing is necessary. This isn’t the excusing, procrastinating or enabling kind of allowing, but one that derives from wisdom.

Wisdom says that two people are unlike in their trajectory, but the same in essence. We have to have the wisdom to let others grow in their own unique timing.

This doesn’t mean we have to tolerate their every behavior or not nudge at times. It simply means we don’t get carried away by the thought that we’ve already crossed this bridge, so hurry up.

5) Reiki helps you suspend judgment and levels personalities: The playing field of life is even. We all have our comeuppance. Not having judgment comes from the recognition that life honors all.

Suspension of judgment is a form of wise and compassionate allowing. It allows the other person their timing and dignity.

We’re all on equal footing. Our task is to enlighten the darkness, personally and collectively.

Personality conflicts come from using the other person as a yardstick of how much you’ve grown, instead of resting in the security of knowing yourself.

All this and more is available with the sincere practice of Reiki with an open heart.

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Having provided free content for over two years, the Reiki Help Blog is now asking for your support. The button or link below will take you to a secure PayPal page where you can give any amount of your choosing.

Please donate what feels right. Each post is a considerable investment of thought, heart, energy and time.

Donate to this blog. Thank you!