Long-time customers of our business know that we've recently stopped offering Reiki and have instead begun offering Lightworking, and folks in Sault Ste. Marie often ask me, "So what if you call it Reiki or call it Lightworking? What's the difference?" Truth is, it's a big difference and at the same time it doesn't matter at all. To understand this difference, we need a quick history lesson.
Reiki is a Japanese word that means universal life energy, and the practice of Reiki is the way of meditation combined with the laying on of hands to detect stress in a person's body and restore balance in order to achieve personal harmony and improve health and wellness. The practice was begun by a lay Buddhist monk, Sensei Usui, who in the west is commonly called Dr. Usui. According to known histories, Dr. Usui was on a three-week retreat at Shinto shrine where, after much meditation and reflection, he discovered a new method of spiritual healing; however, unlike qi-based practices which used the practitioner's own life energy and are slow to develop but can be practiced by anybody as a natural ability, Dr. Usui's new method of channeling universal life energy could be practiced instantly...
... and only if you were properly initiated. In other words, you're spiritually unable to channel universal life energy unless "the switch" has been flipped by a teacher who already knows how to do this. In a way, this makes sense, because to Dr. Usui the concept of transmission of dharma would have been very important. But of course, this is more than acknowledgement as a teacher, but a ritual act that imbues a person with the ability to transmit healing energy.
And for a lot of people, this tradition carries a lot of power and meaning. But then, for a lot of people - like myself, for example - this raises the question, "Who initiated Dr. Usui?" The answer, of course, is nobody.
So if you accept the premise that Dr. Usui and the tens of thousands of Reiki practitioners who emerged from his lineage are legitimate and accomplished teachers, then what explains the fallacy of an instructor needing an initiation from an instructor who himself was never initiated?
After years of practice, the answer to me is that the initiation was never necessary. For a long time I felt the same way, but honest meditation and reflection on this subject has lead me to feel that universal life energy - the infinite spirit in all things - is far greater than any artificial ritual imposed on it by finite human minds.
I have tried for some time to reconcile these two things, but in the end, I could not because they are fundamentally opposite. Because I have experienced first-hand the majesty and power of universal energy, but I no longer believe artificial human rituals are necessary for accessing such energy, it is wrong for me to call my practice Reiki. Because, ultimately, it is not Reiki... it is something different.
This something different is what I and many others call "lightworking," or in other words, the meditative practice of opening the light within oneself and sharing that light with another. Reiki as is taught in the West has already been stripped of nearly all its original Japanese garments, and even the esoteric and secret symbols taught in the practice have been removed from their original context and are not correctly understood by the overwhelmingly vast majority of teachers and practitioners. To me, abandoning these final vestigial organs of western Reiki - poorly understood symbols and rituals outside of their original cultural context - is a deeply empowering step toward the recognition of the innate ability of each person to awaken and share the light inside within him or her.
So, what's the difference between Reiki and lightworking? In an historical and ritual sense, the difference is enormous, but for where it counts? For the meditative ways and the spirit of truth, beauty, and love? The difference is none.
... and only if you were properly initiated. In other words, you're spiritually unable to channel universal life energy unless "the switch" has been flipped by a teacher who already knows how to do this. In a way, this makes sense, because to Dr. Usui the concept of transmission of dharma would have been very important. But of course, this is more than acknowledgement as a teacher, but a ritual act that imbues a person with the ability to transmit healing energy.
And for a lot of people, this tradition carries a lot of power and meaning. But then, for a lot of people - like myself, for example - this raises the question, "Who initiated Dr. Usui?" The answer, of course, is nobody.
So if you accept the premise that Dr. Usui and the tens of thousands of Reiki practitioners who emerged from his lineage are legitimate and accomplished teachers, then what explains the fallacy of an instructor needing an initiation from an instructor who himself was never initiated?
After years of practice, the answer to me is that the initiation was never necessary. For a long time I felt the same way, but honest meditation and reflection on this subject has lead me to feel that universal life energy - the infinite spirit in all things - is far greater than any artificial ritual imposed on it by finite human minds.
I have tried for some time to reconcile these two things, but in the end, I could not because they are fundamentally opposite. Because I have experienced first-hand the majesty and power of universal energy, but I no longer believe artificial human rituals are necessary for accessing such energy, it is wrong for me to call my practice Reiki. Because, ultimately, it is not Reiki... it is something different.
This something different is what I and many others call "lightworking," or in other words, the meditative practice of opening the light within oneself and sharing that light with another. Reiki as is taught in the West has already been stripped of nearly all its original Japanese garments, and even the esoteric and secret symbols taught in the practice have been removed from their original context and are not correctly understood by the overwhelmingly vast majority of teachers and practitioners. To me, abandoning these final vestigial organs of western Reiki - poorly understood symbols and rituals outside of their original cultural context - is a deeply empowering step toward the recognition of the innate ability of each person to awaken and share the light inside within him or her.
So, what's the difference between Reiki and lightworking? In an historical and ritual sense, the difference is enormous, but for where it counts? For the meditative ways and the spirit of truth, beauty, and love? The difference is none.
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