Milarepa wrote:
they're the same, . not different, or seperate. bit of a coincidence that 'DKM' hit Usui sensei in the forehead, and we are empowered to use DKM. And we also have the forehead as prominence in initiations. We emulate in ways what happened with Usui sensei.

Milarepa wrote:

We experience it because we have been empowered by another.

Milarepa wrote:

JohnC wrote:
So, if we stop using symbols, is it possible that we have stopped using Reiki, and fallen back on something else?

A person may claim to not need or use the symbols. With respect to everyone, from what i can see, the folks whom are claiming that are the same folks whom don't care to study the core concepts of Reiki. That's their choice, it hardly makes the opinion qualified though. I'm not trying to be patronising to anyone, but it's silly to dismiss something when the folks dismissing it simply don't know the existience of what is being dismissed. It's the earth is flat scenario, .

Milarepa wrote:The symbols never leave us. Why would they? It's the symbols, and the teachers empowerment that starts this. We then empower a student from level 1, with the symbols. The symbols become activated once we decide to experience Reiki. If they work sub-consciously post level 1 initiation, of course they can continue to work sub-consciously.

Milarepa wrote:

JohnC wrote:
Does anyone claim to practice Reiki without symbols and also refuse to acknowledge the importance of the symbols in their journey - even if the symbols are merely signposts, rather than avatars.

I'd like to chat with someone whom did claim it, just to have a proper debate with someone who's claiming to be actually qualified to debate the opposing claim.

folks claim they no longer need symbols, in their Reiki 'progression'. It's just that they assume they're no longer needed, and feel comfortable going with the current accepted norm, of our Reiki peers. Neither of those instances show what's may actually be happening. And, neither does what i say...

that leaves it up to the individual to go find out for themselves, only then, once a person studies the sysmbols, are they qualified to say what they may or may not be. How can one know otherwise? .

Take care
Wayne

Milarepa wrote:How come, in level 1 in Usui Shiki Ryoho, folks are initiated with symbols, if, as some claim, the symbols are merely tools. like 'training wheels'?

Following this line of thought, symbols are no use in level 1, so what's the point in initiating me with them!

Unless....

Thaak wrote:

There are some schools of thought that say the symbols were not created until he created a system for the military to supplement their first aid.

Thaak wrote:
And why the forehead (where the pineal and/or pituitary gland is--and oddly enough the Third-Eye Chakra) rather than the Seiki Tanden?

Thaak wrote:

Milarepa wrote:

We experience it because we have been empowered by another.

We are not empowered by another. We are initiated by another. The other helps to plant the seed of empowerment. We empower ourselves.

Thaak wrote:
Yes it is, but not like you think. The earth is flat scenario applies to one who isn't willing to explore something from a different perspective.

Milarepa wrote:

JohnC wrote:
Does anyone claim to practice Reiki without symbols and also refuse to acknowledge the importance of the symbols in their journey - even if the symbols are merely signposts, rather than avatars.

I'd like to chat with someone whom did claim it, just to have a proper debate with someone who's claiming to be actually qualified to debate the opposing claim.

Thaak wrote:
By the time I was apprenticing as an RMT, I was experimenting with calling forward the energies of the symbols without actually scribing or visualizing them. I would try, and then I'd scribe the symbol to see if there was a difference. Eventually there was not.

Eventually, I felt called to stop my invocation at the start of a session, to not call all my helpers, and to not scribe or visualize any symbols. I had doubt in my mind. But as I started doing this, I started feeling the energies of the symbols just appear. I'd know it was the energy associated with said symbol, but I didn't need to acknowledge it. I just accepted it was there.

Thaak wrote:
Does this experience make me qualified? I don't know Wayne. But you apparently don't feel so.

Thaak wrote:
I personally don't feel the need to spend hours upon hours and days upon days meditating on a particular symbol, trying to find an answer to my question, when I already got the answer. That's like the guy on the roof of his house waiting for God to save him from the flood while ignoring a boat, a log and a helicopter.

SHIRUSHI:
Superficial 'Training Wheels' or Essential, Deeper 'Spiritual Tools'?
Copyright © 2003/5 James Deacon


As mentioned, one theory is that the symbols were not originally a part of Reiki; but that they were introduced to Reiki by Usui-sensei at some relatively early stage in the system's development in order to help students feel and differentiate between certain aspects of the 'energy'. i.e: the phenomenon that is Reiki itself.

Perhaps mistakenly, this has led some people to conclude that the symbols therefore were not really all that important to the Reiki system; and as a result some practitioners have been taught to view the symbols in a very superficial light - considering them to be little more than 'training wheels' - something to be worked with initially, then to be discarded once the student has progressed a little way along the path that is their 'journey with Reiki'.

Yet others would say that taking this attitude is to have completely missed the inner significance of the essential and empowering role of symbols in relation to Japanese spiritual-transmission traditions (of which, in its deepest sense, Reiki is a prime example), and that in fact it is only when we have begun to feel and differentiate between certain aspects of the 'energy', when we have progressed a little way along the path that is our 'journey with Reiki' - that the symbols truly come into their own.


Perhaps it is that we should keep using the symbols until we no longer need them - until we truly no longer need them: until we have reached beyond attachment to them [i.e. achieved the ego-less state of 'non-attachment' to them].

Perhaps it is indeed then that, if we are wise enough to still continue using the symbols, their true worth will be revealed to us.

Thaak wrote:
But to say that because I haven't done "due diligence" that I'm not qualified to speak on this matter. Well that kinda stings. After all, who defines "due diligence?"

Thaak wrote:
And why can't my abbreviated contemplation and study be enough for me, while for someone else it may take years?

Colin wrote:

Just thought I'd like to point out that not all styles of Reiki do use all the Reiki symbols as part of the initiation to Reiki level 1 (e.g. Komyo, Gendai and some forms of Usui Reiki Ryoho - don't know details about Jikiden Reiki initiation yet though!)

Level 1 Reiki practitioners in these styles seem to do just as well as Usui Shiki Ryoho Level 1 practitioners, as far as I know.



Ai to Hikari
Colin

SOME THOUGHTS ON INITIATION...
Copyright © 2006 James Deacon
[Modified: Dec. 14. 2006]




'Reiki' is an initiatorially-received (initiatorially-awakened?) ability to interact with a very specific set of therapeutic qualities - or, as some would phrase it: a very specific set of 'therapeutic energy-frequencies' *, which are not normally consciously accessible to us.

On one level, the purpose of the Reiki initiations is to calibrate or fine-tune the student's awareness/sensitivity/interactivity to that particular set of therapeutic energy-frequencies.

In order to pass the specific initiation to another - in order to fine-tune (rather than attune) them to the set of frequencies that constitutes the therapeutic qualities of (pure) Reiki, we ourselves must first have received that specific initiation - we must have ourselves been fine-tuned to these specific frequencies.

If we have not - if we do not, as it is phrased "hold the energy": this specific set of frequencies - then we cannot pass this particular 'fine-tunement' on to another:

"You cannot give what you do not have".



Modified forms of the Initiation process

The Reiki Initiations as used and taught by Takata together comprise a very precise process - just like a mathemathical or chemical formula (or a food recipe for that matter)

You follow the process/formula and you get what you are supposed to get.

But if you start messing about with the process - alter the process - change the number or nature of one or more of the 'ingredients', change the point in the process where certain proceedures are carried out or the order in which the 'ingredients' are added to the mix, you are likely to end up with something other than what you were supposed to get.

"Modify the formula, and you get a different result."



IMO, modifying the initiations results in the student being 'fine-tuned' to a slightly different set of frequencies (some might say, a less 'pure' or less 'effective', perhaps even less-than-therapeutic, set of frequencies).

We can only pass on what we have; and if what we have is fine-tunement to a slightly different set of frequencies, then (in using the same modified version of initiation process that was used to initiate us) this is what we will pass to others.


Even if we revert to using the actual initiation process as taught by Takata-sensei, unless we have first received this form of the initiation ourselves, then what we pass will still be a slightly different set of frequencies.


In an attempt to clarify this point [though by the time you've read the following, it may well be even less clear !]:

If we are 'fine-tuned' to a particular set of energy-frequencies, then by using the identical process by which we became 'fine-tuned' to this specific set of frequencies, then this is what we will pass on to others - 'fine-tunement' to the identical, specific set of frequencies we ourselves hold

If, however, we modify the process, then we pass on a modified version of what we ourselves hold.

For example:
If I have received, say, Tera Mai Reiki - then in using the Tera Mai initiation, I will pass this set of 'frequencies' on to the other person.

However if (sticking with the same example), having been attuned to Tera Mai, instead of the Tera Mai initiation, I use, for example, the Jikiden initiation process, (without having myself received the Jikiden 'frequencies'), then what I am passing is actually the Tera Mai frequencies, modified by the Jikiden process, rather than the 'pure' Jikiden frequencies themselves.

The person receiving this 'impure' Jikiden, even in passing on initiation via the Jikiden process, will still not be passing 'pure' Jikiden frequencies (as they never had them in the first place).

Alternatively, lets say (having been attuned to Tera Mai), I decide to create a new 'style' of Reiki (and lets be egotistical and call it James Deacon Reiki). Instead of using the Tera Mai initiation, I create a new initiation process (perhaps using new symbols, or initiation points or whatever). In using this new process, what I am passing is actually the Tera Mai frequencies, modified by the new process.

This particular 'impure' or modified version of the Tera Mai frequencies now becomes known as 'James Deacon Reiki'.

I pass the James Deacon Reiki initiation to someone.

Having received the James Deacon Reiki frequencies (i.e the Tera Mai frequencies, modified by the new initiation process), that person, by themselves using the James Deacon Reiki initiation process, will pass this same set of 'frequencies' on to the next person. While this set of frequencies may technically be considered to be an impure version of Tera Mai, it is at the same, the 'pure' set of James Deacon Reiki frequencies; and this is what the next person receives: pure James Deacon Reiki.

Everyone who receives this James Deacon Reiki frequency-set can, by using the specific James Deacon Reiki initiation process, pass the pure James Deacon Reiki (aka impure Tera Mai) on to the next person.

However, someone who has, say, 'Usui Shiki' Reiki frequencies, (but who has not received the James Deacon Reiki frequencies) even if they use the James Deacon Reiki initiation process, will not be passing 'pure' James Deacon Reiki - but rather 'Usui Shiki' modified by the James Deacon Reiki process.

and so the 'frequency-set' has changed once again...

In turn, the person receiving this 'impure' James Deacon Reiki, even in passing on initiation via the James Deacon Reiki process, will still not be passing 'pure' James Deacon Reiki frequencies (as they never had them in the first place)...

Now, if that person, holding the 'impure' version of the James Deacon Reiki frequencies, should choose to use, let us say, the Komyo initiation processs....


This, I believe, can go some way to explaining why there is a different 'feel' (in some cases, subtle, in others not so subtle) to the Reiki channeled by practitioners in certain lineages.

The greater the changes to the initiation process, the greater the energetic difference, to the point where the frequencies to which the student becomes attuned cease to be recognised as 'Reiki' at all - a prime example being the modified versions of the Reiki initiations as used in Tera Mai.


Modifications to the initiation process could also account for instances where the 'fine-tuning' simply just doesn't 'take' at all: the student complains of feeling tired or drained after giving Reiki treatments - a sign that, uneable to channel Reiki, they are in fact using personal ki to bring about healing - and in doing so, are depleting their own vital life force.

_______
*existing within / as part of, the omnipresent Universal Life-force Energy

Milarepa wrote:Andy, really not sounding patronising here Bro, i wanna progress in Reiki, no go back. I was experiencing this after 6 months in Reiki, Smile. It's the first step in the symbols. It's not the only step. there's much more after that. I've moved on somewhat from those days. Is it really thought i've stayed focussed on studying the symbols for 2 years, for no reason, hehe.

Milarepa wrote:I know full well the common accepted views on what's deemed by our peers to be progress in Reiki. Those expereince are 3 1/2 years old now withme now. I've expereinced both sides of the spectrum, and have stuck with this way for two years now. Must surely be a reason, hehe.

Milarepa wrote:I don't mind being very honest in forums, and think it's right to make available info that may be of use to others. It's an ego trip though, for Reiki practitioners to think they have 'progressed' enough spiritually, to not need the symbols. Right here & now, folks reading this are automatically dismissing what i say, they're actually getting irritated, hehe. How come one can justifiably dismiss something out of that, that they've never researched, or attempted to seek? that's the ego working.

Milarepa wrote:

Thaak wrote:
And why can't my abbreviated contemplation and study be enough for me, while for someone else it may take years?

It may be enough for you. That's cool if you're satisfied with it. All i';m saying is, there's much more beyond that experience you speak of. As i already said, as is said in that quote i've included. Our ego likes us to believe we have reached the goal, the pinnacle kinda. It takes our eye of the ball. Hey, we all got the ego, we're all on the same level, .

Take care
Wayne

Edited to fix bb quote code.

Thaak wrote:

Milarepa wrote:Andy, really not sounding patronising here Bro, i wanna progress in Reiki, no go back. I was experiencing this after 6 months in Reiki, Smile. It's the first step in the symbols. It's not the only step. there's much more after that. I've moved on somewhat from those days. Is it really thought i've stayed focussed on studying the symbols for 2 years, for no reason, hehe.

I would very much like to hear anything you would be willing to share about your additional revelations.

Thaak wrote:

Milarepa wrote:]I know full well the common accepted views on what's deemed by our peers to be progress in Reiki. Those expereince are 3 1/2 years old now withme now. I've expereinced both sides of the spectrum, and have stuck with this way for two years now. Must surely be a reason, hehe.

You are making a big assumption here. That I came by this viewpoint by reading from someone else, hearing someone else, or being taught by someone else rather than through self-discovery.

Thaak wrote:

Milarepa wrote:]I don't mind being very honest in forums, and think it's right to make available info that may be of use to others. It's an ego trip though, for Reiki practitioners to think they have 'progressed' enough spiritually, to not need the symbols. Right here & now, folks reading this are automatically dismissing what i say, they're actually getting irritated, hehe. How come one can justifiably dismiss something out of that, that they've never researched, or attempted to seek? that's the ego working.

No offense Wayne, but you are coming across as very egoic right now. You have questioned my credibility in a couple of different ways. I understand that some of what I've written may have seemed inciting to you, and for that I apologize, as we both know, it isn't either of our intent to incite the other.

Thaak wrote:[
However, questioning our outright dismissing the other person's credibility isn't the way to go about it. So I'm gonna call you out on that one.

Thaak wrote:
But to be fair, most of my "progression past Reiki" has been more to do with my Shamanic training. That is largely what I'm focusing on right now (especially when I'm trying to right something profound and my cat keeps jumping up on my computer desk and annoying me by playing with the blinds...chuckle...) So have I taken the same kind of time out of my life to strictly study the symbols and spend much focus on a better spiritual understanding on what exactly Reiki is as its own entity?

No. I haven't. But much of my understanding on how the "unseen world" works has taken a different turn, that doesn't follow the forms taught in Reiki. So my thought processes and my understanding of things are not what I would necessarily teach in a Reiki class. I would do my best to stick to the structure of a traditional (as I understand it--I will use William Rand's guide book) Reiki class.

But in my own understanding of the way energy works, and how Reiki fits into that, my entire paradigm has shifted.

Does that mean that yours is wrong and mine is right? No. I believe that both beliefs can co-exist.

Thaak wrote:
On another note... I am SO glad that I just got back from my shamanic monthly class and replied after it, rather than before it. Would have been a much different tone.

Thaak wrote:

But in the path of shamanism (a life path) that I am following, we are learning to do away with thought and do away with belief systems. I'm not there yet. Every day I wake up, I still have to remind myself of things and be aware of when I am judgmental or attached or whatever.

So lately, I've just been taking it a moment at a time. If I feel called to read some information, or share some information. I do it. But every time I actively try to seek new information by actively contemplating that idea, symbol, thought process, etc., I am not following the life path through shamanism.

Thaak wrote:

I would argue that the symbols are not actually placed in someone. The initiation process includes symbols, but the person is not initiated with symbols so to speak.

Thaak wrote:

This is confusing though, because as the level of the practitioner increases, higher level symbols are typically initiated differently than they were for lower levels. However, I don't believe this confusion proves the opposite of my argument.

Thaak wrote:

You obviously have meditated on the symbols quite a lot, as you discuss this quite a bit. Rather than trying to meditate on the symbols as though they are some separate entity placed within you from without, try training your focus more on the vibrational frequency of the symbol gives when the focus is made. Then focus on that frequency. Once you taste the frequency, and you can call it to you without visualizing the symbol. The symbol becomes unnecessary.

Thaak wrote:

It is separation consciousness, duality (and don't throw that, "stick my hand in a fire...freezer" analogy that doesn't work again at me please) mindedness when considering the symbols, a separate entity, that is giving you the power to do what you can do. If you look at the symbols, indeed the entire system of Reiki, as a tool for energetic manipulation, then things really start to get interesting.

Reikijim wrote:

Would you be so kind as to start another thread and school me in the disadvantages of separation consciousness?

RJ

Milarepa wrote:

Thaak wrote:

But in the path of shamanism (a life path) that I am following, we are learning to do away with thought and do away with belief systems. I'm not there yet. Every day I wake up, I still have to remind myself of things and be aware of when I am judgmental or attached or whatever.

So lately, I've just been taking it a moment at a time. If I feel called to read some information, or share some information. I do it. But every time I actively try to seek new information by actively contemplating that idea, symbol, thought process, etc., I am not following the life path through shamanism.

I'm so glad you said this. We might need to moderate this topic after this. You know, i understand what you're saying here. It's a major reason why i've cooled of with shamanism. It was challenging to somehow integrate both paths in some ways. I choose Reiki. I guess it's cause of the want to know as much as possible about Reiki. I'm the kinda person who feels if i'm meant to teach something, i have a responsibility to know all about it. Then, it developed into an honour thing for me.

Shamanism kinda was almost a whole different ball game for me. ANd i felt if i was to stay true to that, then how could i fully commit to Reiki? I mean, how many paths can one really stay fully focussed on? Moreoever how many paths should one even attempt to fully walk at once?

Not talking about integrating various paths ot some degree into others. But fully abiding by any single path.

I do Yoga asatill of course. Vippasana meditation. Mndfullnes. Sometimes Qigong. Kuji-in. These are no way to the same focus as Reiki though. I guess just concentrating on one thing mostly, works for me.

Take care
Wayne

Colin wrote:
Just thought I'd like to point out that not all styles of Reiki do use all the Reiki symbols as part of the initiation to Reiki level 1 (e.g. Komyo, Gendai and some forms of Usui Reiki Ryoho - don't know details about Jikiden Reiki initiation yet though!)