Crazy Little Thing Called Love

I have been a huge fan of American Idol since the very first year when Kelly Clarkson first appeared in the spotlight. It’s probably the inner rock star in me that draws me to this show but I am seriously addicted to it and get surprisingly attached to the highs and lows of each contestant’s journey.

A recent show featured the music of one of my favorite bands of all time – Queen – who quite likely started making music before the parents of some of these contestants were born! Watching a very talented young singer named Joshua Ledet take on the Queen classic “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” got me thinking about how powerful love really is – how it really is the answer to all problems and the pre-requisite condition for all healing.

Now I’m not talking about romantic love or the love of material possessions. I’m talking about unconditional love. Love that is pure and unencumbered. Love that is trusting and without fear.

Bonnie and I went to a beautiful wedding in Long Island recently and one of the readings during the service was the Bible passage from 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a which says:

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

That’s a pretty high bar to set, but it is one we should all work daily to achieve in our lives – not for a specific person – but for everything – for the Universe – for our very existence and the existence of every other being.

The only being I can think of readily who has probably achieved this level of enlightenment already is my dog Mickey.

I can tell in his eyes when he looks at me that his love is without condition and totally trusting. His tail wags with excitement when he sees me (and pretty much when he sees anybody!). He has no expectation other than happiness. He is just excited to be alive and to be part of this wonderful world. He will live a long, healthy and happy life in this condition. Imagine yourself feeling this type of emotion whenever you gaze in the mirror. How wonderful would that be to know yourself and your personal beauty that well?

How ironic is it that with the passing of the enormously talented and tragically troubled vocalist Whitney Houston, we are forever reminded in the echoes of her voice that "Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all".

If only Whitney had been guided to meditate on that sage advice and manifest it in her own psyche! Amazing personal healing would have been sure to follow, and after that, with the gift of her celebrity platform, the healing she could have shared with the world would have been limitless. But perhaps it is the lesson we can learn from her tragic demise which is her greatest gift to us. Maybe that was her task in this lifetime.

Part of my own ongoing pathway to enlightenment has been the crystal clear realization that negative thoughts will prevent healing. They won’t just slow it down or make the journey more difficult. They will prevent the healing from occurring. If you put negative energy into the universe in the form of your thoughts, that negativity will return to you in some form. The mission, and it is certainly far easier said than done, is to replace ALL negativity with love. I am certainly not there yet but I am honestly trying every single day.

We all need to consciously and deliberately strive to be an instrument of healing spirit. Whenever you find yourself harboring a thought containing any negativity towards anyone or anything, immediately entertain the exact opposite thought. If you find yourself feeling anger, reverse that anger to love, empathy and compassion, sending energy for complete healing to the person or situation that is the focus of your anger. Do not allow negativity to reside in your being. In the words of Mikao Usui: “Just for today, handle anger appropriately.” Healing will follow.

This will take tremendous work, but as Usui told us in the fourth Reiki precept: “Just for today, do your work honestly”. Don’t just give this lip service. Be completely honest with yourself in your efforts to release negativity. Don’t mislead yourself to rationalize that some negativity is justified. Any negativity will always come back to undermine your healing.

Early 20th century author Kahlil Gibran tells us: “Work is love made visible. And if you can't work with love, but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of the people who work with joy”.

Gibran recognized that work without love is fruitless. The synonym he uses for negativity (distaste) undermines the entire effort.

Recognize that you alone are the captain of your ship. Your healing and enlightenment depends only on yourself. If you do not start your journey with unconditional love and gratitude for yourself, your journey will be long, arduous and unsuccessful. You will be lost at sea, wandering aimlessly in unfocused directions. Remember that YOU are the boss. You are the captain. Handle this responsibility well and with unconditional love and you will reap the benefits. Take it lightly or ignore it and you will likely fail to thrive.

In his wonderful novel Captains Courageous, British author Rudyard Kipling shared with us the simple yet profound thought that "An angry skipper makes an unhappy crew". You are the skipper – your world is the crew. Consider the impact.

We have had this knowledge for a very long time but the work to implement the surprisingly simple concept is difficult so the journey is long. We will get there. Keep positive energy flowing. Follow the advice of another troubled yet amazingly talented singer and songwriter, John Lennon, who told us to simply: “Imagine all the people living life in peace”. Do this daily and be the change. Put unconditional love for everyone and everything into the universe and let it flow back to you.

I’ll close with a 2,500 year old reference to this topic from Lao Tzu, who gave us the eternal wisdom of the 81 verses of the Tao.

Tao Te Ching Verse 28

Know the masculine, but keep to the feminine: receive the world in your arms. Be a valley under heaven; if you do, the Tao will never leave you and you will become as a little child.

Know the white, yet keep to the black: be a model for the world. If you are a model for the world, the Tao within you will strengthen and you will return whole to the infinite.

Know the personal, yet keep to the impersonal: accept the world as it is. If you embrace the world with compassion, then you will live a life of abundant virtue.

The world is formed from the void, like utensils from a block of wood. The Master knows the utensils, yet keeps to the block because of its limitless possibilities. When the unformed is formed into objects, its original qualities are lost. If you preserve your original qualities, you can use all things.

There is wonderful insight and guidance to be found in every phrase of this verse, and it is a wonderful verse on which to meditate, working through it in your mind, but for the purpose of this article, I would like to extract from the first stanza the incredible advice: “Be a valley under heaven; if you do, the Tao will never leave you and you will become as a little child.”

Imagine yourself as that valley under Heaven, capturing the wonderful nourishing gifts that fall to us in the rain, and then allowing them to flow through you on their path to healing the world. It’s a powerful image and it is perfectly congruous with the Reiki mechanism of opening yourself as a channel to flow healing energy to others.

So remember…your mission, should you choose to accept it (apologies to Mission Impossible), is to consciously, honestly and diligently work to reverse every negative thought that you have, replacing those thoughts with unconditional love.

Love conquers all.

Blessings,

Bob

It's All About The Healing!

Reiki practitioners are often challenged with overcoming misinformed public opinions regarding our practice of this wonderful healing modality. And unfortunately, some Reiki practitioners actually feed into the myths that Reiki is "hocus pocus", magic, voo-doo, witchcraft, sorcery, sacrilege or whatever other misnomer one sometimes hears attached to it.

As trained and attuned healers using the Usui System of Natural Healing, we should all have the true, clinical definition of Reiki ready on the tip of our tongue when asked, as we all periodically are, what Reiki is all about. I find that the following explanation works well both in its simplicity and its factual lack of mysticism.

"Reiki is a relaxation technique documented in early twentieth century Japan which has been shown to reduce stress and promote healing by using light touch to facilitate the flow of energy through the body."

You will note that this definition lacks any reference to spiritualism, religion, or psychic experiences. That is by design. Although many Reiki practitioners tend to be intuitive and spiritually developed individuals, those traits are neither required for, nor part of, the successful practice of the healing modality of Reiki.

Practitioners who bring such facets into their sessions without carefully considering their audience are inadvertently making main stream acceptance of Reiki a more difficult challenge. I am not saying that I have not experienced strong intuitive guidance while giving sessions. On the contrary, I generally do receive such guidance. I will commonly become clairsentiently aware of areas of my client requiring attention, and I will sometimes get clairaudient messages for them during a session. However, such messages are best kept to myself unless I know that my client is of similar mind regarding spirituality. When I am doing a Reiki session, I am practicing healing not mediumship.

It is also important to consider your setting when practicing Reiki. Some techniques, especially those in Level II where we invite in the special healing energies of symbols, require discretion in certain applications. As an example, when treating a patient in a hospital setting, it is probably best to visualize the symbols in your mind as you invite them in rather than to wave your hands around drawing them in the air which would certainly raise some clinical doubts. Similarly, when preparing a room for Reiki sessions, I will use the symbols to clear and charge the room, and also to set my own light of protection and activate my palms, while the room is empty before the client arrives.

The mantras associated with the symbols are similarly verbalized only in my thoughts unless I am in the presence of only attuned Level II or higher practitioners.

All of these precautions are enacted solely to protect Reiki from undue discreditation as sorcery. Although such attacks would only be forthcoming from the uninformed, there is no need to add fuel to their fire by making the practice appear to have a magical component resembling spell casting, even though we know that is not the intent of our mantras and gestures.

I recently had the awesome opportunity to listen in on an interview with one of Hawayo Takata's twenty-two Reiki Master...Paul Mitchell. One of the most interesting things Paul related from his experience learning under Mrs. Takata was her response to a student’s post-attunement feedback of mystical visions of balls of light and other spiritual visualizations. Mrs. Takata promptly and tersely dismissed this student's experiences with the single sternly spoken word "Fantasy" and returned the class discussion immediately to the clinical practice of Reiki. Although most Reiki practitioners I know have had similar experiences with the attunement process, Mrs. Takata's refusal to discuss it pays tribute to her dedication to move Reiki into mainstream acceptance for the greatest good of all living creatures.

There are other considerations which are part of my own personal relationship with Reiki, some of which I will share here. My intent is not to imply that these considerations are right for every Reiki practitioner, but they certainly help me keep my practice grounded and I offer them in my role as a teaching Reiki Master so that my students can consider for themselves these thoughts and concepts as they move forward with their own development as healers. I do encourage my students to maintain their individuality as they develop their practices, and not to simply attempt to mirror mine or those of any other teacher. It is your individuality which will draw the right clients and students to you.

First...I believe with my whole heart and soul that my attunements to be able to channel Reiki are a gift from God and I am truly blessed to have found this path. It has been powerfully healing for me. With that belief, I hold an obligation to never abuse this gift. By that I mean that I would never invoke Reiki energy for any purpose other than pure and universal good. For example, I would never trivialize Reiki energy by asking it to impact an unimportant outcome such as a sporting event...as much as I love my Yankees, I have to realize that God needs to nurture His Red Sox fans as well! I might "Reiki" my lottery tickets, but only because I know I would be philanthropic with the money to advance the cause of Reiki healing.

Secondly, I will never send Reiki to an individual for physical healing unless I know they have asked for it. I will often send Reiki to resolve a situation for the greatest good of all concerned without asking permission, but I will never include specific healing for an individual without knowing they want it. I have many requests for Reiki in my healing grid on which I meditate twice daily, but my requests are always that the situations resolve for the greatest good. This is similar to the way I participate in a monthly global meditation for world peace without a request for victory for any specific parties among the warring factions. It is also similar to the way I pray in my Catholic faith by asking God to provide for the greatest good of His children in resolving their difficulties, but only if that is His will.

Thirdly, I will never use Reiki to attempt to control the free will of anyone. As an example, those seeking a relationship should send Reiki to themselves that they find a situation which works for their greatest good rather than for a specific person to be made to be responsive to their desires.

Fourthly, I consciously set my ego aside when asking Reiki to flow. I do not try to direct the healing, and I recognize and honor that Reiki is pure, simple and clean life force energy gifted from the Source and guided by spiritual wisdom to heal where it needs to heal. When doing a session, I constantly try to keep my mind clear and brush aside distracting thoughts. Unless I am receiving guidance, hand positions are used only to give structure to the session as prescribed by Dr. Hayashi rather than to try to direct the flow of Reiki with my own consciousness. Using the prescribed Level I hand positions can actually help me keep my mind clear and my ego silenced since I have no reason to think about how to perform the session. I have no problem with the concept of doing an entire session with just one or two positions since I know Reiki will go where it's needed, and am starting to move my sessions in that direction when so guided. I do this commonly for self-treatment, often falling asleep with one hand on my solar plexus or sacral chakra and the other hand on my heart.

Fifthly, I do not subscribe to the belief that practitioners with different Levels of attunement are more effective healers. A Level I practitioner is serving as a channel for the same energy that I am channeling as an experienced Master. My additional training and experience might provide me with knowledge of techniques that I can use to make a client more comfortable or more at ease with the process, which might make their healing seem more efficient on the surface, and my Master certification enables me to attune and train other practitioners, but the Reiki energy is the same for all of us.

Finally, I am a big believer in Karmic balance. I do not question or challenge other healing modalities or the methods of other Reiki practitioners or other schools of Reiki. I simply work with the understanding that all healing is good, and all those who dedicate their energies to healing others are good souls. I know that the students and clients who are right for me will be drawn to and find me, and that other students and clients will be drawn to other practitioners and teachers, and that is as it should be. I only know that if I do good work without reservation, anxiety, anger, worry or trepidation, I am doing what I am called to do and healing will come back to me.

I have made many wonderful friends and found many like minded people through my work with Reiki and it will be a daily part of my life forever. I hope that my musings here help others move forward on their pathways to harmony and healing, and I remind my students that I am always available to them as a resource should they have concerns or wish to discuss or review their own development, but that my feedback will serve to help them explore their own pathways and unique gifts rather than to become a clone of my beliefs and methods.

Remember to keep it all about the healing, and thank you all for being a treasured and beautiful part of my universe!

May wondrous blessings befall each and every one of you!

Bob

Kansha shite (I am grateful)

I recently had the amazing experience of being part of the training team for a class of new Hospice volunteers. Hospice volunteer training is an intense process which includes a lot of painful soul searching exercises designed to make new volunteers comfortable with their own mortality, a necessary pre-requisite to being able to help others deal with these issues.

One such exercise which we facilitated for the class dealt with visualization of the student’s own last moments, including what was important for them to say to their loved ones gathered at their bedside.

The response of one of the student volunteers struck me with such power that I continue to be amazed by the totality of life affirmation that could be expressed in such few words. This volunteer’s final words to his loved ones would simply be: “Thank you!”

With those two syllables, he effectively expressed volumes about how his life’s journey had gone. He was so purely and honestly grateful that they were part of his life and had allowed him to be part of theirs. Their presence in his life had made it whole, and their presence at his death had been powerfully healing.

While he could have said: “I love you”, or “It’s OK now…don’t worry”, or any number of other last words that come readily to mind from the infinite choices, his thoughts immediately went to gratitude for the life he had and for those who comprised it.

What stronger evidence could there be of a successful, well-lived life?

To me, having the good fortune to witness this moment gave a wonderful affirmation to why Dr. Usui included the phrase “Kansha shite”, commonly translated as “I will show gratitude” or "I am grateful", in his five Reiki precepts as guiding ideals for a healthy and balanced life.

Taking the time to notice and give presence to all of the gifts, large and small, that are part of our lives, is powerfully healing. Too often, human nature appears to push us to recognize the negative energies that impact us rather than the positive forces that are all around us. By recognizing the negative, we enable and empower it.

It shows advanced progress on the path to enlightenment to be able to find a true sense of gratitude in the face of adverse conditions such as facing death, but with some concentrated self-development work, it becomes possible. This actually ties in with another of Dr. Usui’s precepts. ”I will do my work honestly” is generally considered to be a reference to this type of work towards personal enlightenment.

Drawing on personal experiences with loss of loved ones, with reflection, even the deepest losses have elements for which we can be grateful. While I lost my wife to cancer several years ago, I was blessed with many advantages through the process…things like health insurance, life insurance, Hospice care, a very understanding employer who allowed me to remain fully present through the process, support of loving friends and family…many things which eased the process for me. In my work with Hospice, I realize that these advantages are significant and that many people facing the same situation have not had the same blessings. This realization fills me with gratitude for all of the opportunities, gifts and energies during my life which made this situation materialize as it did.

While I could be angry and filled with negativity over the loss of my loved one, I find that replacing that anger with gratitude lightens the burden and speeds the healing. There we go with another precept…”I will handle anger appropriately”.

The more life experiences I compile since Reiki has come into my world, the more I become fully aware that the Reiki Ideals form a wonderful foundation for a life well-lived. Usui Sensei referred to the precepts as: “The secret art of inviting happiness…the miraculous medicine for all diseases” and I am thoroughly convinced that he knew what he was talking about.

In closing for this month, I would just like to say “Thank You” to each one of you…the readers, students, friends, family, practitioners, counselors, volunteers, teachers, co-workers, pets and others who have chosen to be a part of my life and welcomed me as a part of yours. Your presence in my life is a joyful treasure to me.

Today I am grateful.

Bob