Reiki Help Blog :: Oasis Reiki Dojo

I received this email question from a practitioner I’ve trained to Okuden (Level II) Reiki:

I have read about the Vilolet Flame and its power to transmute and dissolve our negative Karma. It is my belief that Reiki is capable of doing the same thing for us. Can you shed some light on this from your perspective?

It’s a great question. I’m going to leave the Violet Flame to your own research, and discernment based on that research. The subject of karma is complex and only a fraction of it can be covered here.

Karma literally means “action.” So the first step in deconstructing (understanding) your karma is to notice the ‘actions’ of your life. Those behaviors, circumstances and relationships that are the most knotty and recurring are nodal points of your karma. I’ve been asked before how we can figure out our karma. Well, based on this simple definition: Look at your current life. Just look at it.

© Pamir Kiciman 2010

When you see the dominant patterns, good and bad, you’ll have insight about your karma.

Similarly, transmuting karma is a set of ‘actions.’ There’s outward action and inward action. Outwardly there’s a whole host of ‘deeds’ that will help you. There’s charity, service and good deeds such as feeding the poor, helping strangers and the destitute, tithing a portion of your income, volunteering and other acts of giving.

There’s also more personal ‘actions.’ These include making a commitment to change certain behaviors by taking responsibility for them, improve character qualities, overcome weaknesses, forgive self and others, make compassion the foundation of all relationships human and otherwise, practice ethics, and have a conscience in all dealings.

Karma gets increasingly complex when its subtle aspects come into the picture. The truth of the matter is that karma is a set of tendencies, some of which are bound to ripen, some which we ripen and perpetuate with our choices, and some which may well never take form. I’m going to take a shortcut and skip the mechanism of how this happens, and simply state that karma is lodged in our subtle body, especially the subtle or nonphysical channel which corresponds to the spine.

Thus, the most effective method to transmute karma is to work or heal in the subtle body and especially the central channel, this vertical axis we have that is a lifeline for us between earth and “heaven.”

How do we do that? Meditation. There are many kinds of meditation and you may not be familiar with the method and benefit of meditation in this particular area. While most authentic meditations methods will help you with difficult karma, and some will translate into subtle healing without directly working in the central axis, there are also simple methods that directly unbind negative karmic knots found there.

Such methods encourage the flow of Light up and down the subtle central axis as well as throughout the entire subtle body. The subtle body is a template for the physical body and physical life of each person. If it’s being informed by the Light of its origins, it remains pure, or is cleansed when needed. There’s also a vibratory effect where the entire organism vibrates less densely and at a higher frequency where negative karma can be resolved, or simply isn’t a reality. Whatever ‘action’ is being taken in the subtle body, shows up in the physical body and physical life in kind.

Incarnation is a messy, difficult proposition! There’s no easy way out of it, nor is easy really desirable. All our experiences have a purpose and we have to accept the wisdom that’s at the heart of each one. This subject will continue in future posts. In the meantime do read this previous post from a well-known teacher who brings a different angle to the topic of karma.

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Emotions are a part of life and the human experience. Emotions accompany us through life. A new color palette is given to us by our emotional nature. As stated in the previous post on this subject, feeling capability is more significant than an emotion itself, but certainly the range of human emotion is a valuable human attribute. The question that remains is: Do you stay within the confines of an afflictive emotion, or strive for the meta state of feeling with all its possibilities? The short answer is, both.

There’s validity to work with an afflictive emotion directly. Most of us are in serious need of emotional healing. It seems emotions, though unique to humans (in the fullest sense), are difficult for us. We’re in hot water when it comes to emotions. One way to get out of hot water, or at least make it lukewarm, is to work with an afflictive emotion directly, to face it, understand it and make friends with it.

There are many methodologies for this. This discussion is about the intricacies of actually doing so, not the how. Disallowing the emotion, ignoring it, coating it with something else, or replacing it is avoidance, a form of denial. One major element of emotion is that it provides feedback. We don’t want to miss out on that! An emotion is a field of information. Negative or difficult emotions, perhaps more so. Afterall, we don’t probe happiness a whole lot. But anger or sadness holds the potential to yield layers of self-awareness.

© Pamir Kiciman 2010

“Afflictive” means that which brings harm or suffering. As long as it’s done with awareness, it can be revealing and healing to stay a while with such an emotion. Stay with it an hour or a day, knowing full well you’re allowing this to happen, that it’s a learning experience. Of course there are times when the emotion is utterly dominant, awareness is subdued, and there are behaviors and associated dynamics that keep you in the grips of an emotion. In such a situation you extract yourself as soon as possible and put the light of awareness on the experience.

Hopefully, your relationship with awareness is strong enough that the spiral down into the goo of an emotion doesn’t occur. And we’re working from a premise that you’ve healed emotionally to a considerable degree. Emotional wellness is a threshold state. It launches the next stages of personal and spiritual growth. If you’re relating to life from the ‘drama’ of emotion, then awareness hasn’t been freed up enough to give you any kind of perspective.

If, however, your emotional heart is in a more wholed state and self-awareness is a routine part of your daily consciousness, then when difficult emotions arise (they still do and will), you can go with it. This allows you to feel what you’re feeling and see what it may teach you. It’s also one way to prevent what’s called ‘spiritual bypassing’ where rather than deal with it, you go around or over it and reach some kind of ‘better’ feeling, while the original emotion festers and will surface again, sometimes in explosive ways.

Emotions add color and variance to life, but they can also land us in hot water. How long and in what manner we dwell in an emotion is a key factor. Since there’s a lot of subtlety involved, this subject will be continued in several more posts…

All emotions are pure which gather you and lift you up; that emotion is impure which seizes only one side of your being and so distorts you. — Rainer Maria Rilke

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This is being posted today so you have some time to join in observing the International Day of Peace, September 21, 2010. Established by a United Nations resolution in 1981, this annual event is devoted to commemorating and strengthening “our personal and planetary progress toward peace.” It is a reminder of what individuals, organizations, and nations alike can contribute to the creation of global world peace.

This special date has been promoted and commemorated here every year since this blog’s inception in 2007. You can avail yourself of the richest resources linked in my post for 2008. Below are some other ones.

Paramahansa Yogananda 1893 - 1952

I’d like to start with some thoughts by a world teacher who brought a spiritual perspective to global peace.

“Resolve that you will love the world as your own nation, and that you will love your nation as you love your family. Through this understanding you will help to establish a world family on the indestructible foundation of wisdom…”

“War results from selfish patriotism, which does not recognize the kinship of all humanity….It is because of man’s ignorance of his divine nature and his lack of spiritual balance that nations are using engines of war to destroy one another…”

“Our vision is obscured from our very birth by the prejudices of family, race, and nation. Prejudice is a principal cause of war between brother nations. We shall never understand ourselves or others unless we keep our understanding free from all clouds of prejudice….

“Be more proud that you are made in the image of God than that you are of a certain nationality; for “American” and “Indian” and all the other nationalities are just outer coats, which in time will be discarded. But you are a child of God throughout eternity. Isn’t it better to teach that ideal to your children? It is the only way to peace: Establish the true ideals of peace in the schools, and live peace in your own life.”

“Man’s power to make war is increasing; so must his ability to make peace.”

September 21 is also a day of Global Ceasefire. The UN’s site has this to say: “By acknowledging a unified day without violence, a Global Ceasefire can provide hope for citizens who must endure war and conflict; it proves that worldwide peace is possible. A cessation of hostilities for 24 hours can also enable relief workers to reach civilians in need with food, water, and medical supplies.”

You can send an email urging your elected officials to support the day of Global Ceasefire (US Elected Officials Only). And sample wording for your email…

The website also has this excellent section: Personal Ceasefire(s). I’m 100% behind these practices:

What is a personal ceasefire?

• It can mean re-evaluating conflicts in our personal lives. Do we have relationships where confrontation or lack of communication is dominant? What can we do to improve these relationships?
• What can we do to make sure all members of the family feel seen and heard? Why not declare a 24 hour ceasefire between siblings, where every quarrel has to be solved in a creative and peaceful way? Parents show by example!
• In school, are there people that are left out or harassed? What can we do to stop this? Declare September 21 a day of ceasefire at your school.
• At work, is conflict and competition affecting how people perform their duties and how they feel about themselves? Initiate a team-building activity focusing on communication and conflict resolution.
• In your community, are there groups of people that don’t get along? How can we as an interest group reach out to others and start a conversation?
• Imagine the impact a day of ceasefire could have in gang-related violence.

There are worldwide Peace Day events. Find one here you can participate in with family and friends.

There’s a live stream of the Annual Peace Day Global Broadcast in honor and celebration of the United Nations International Day of Peace.

Peace emanates from the soul, and is the sacred inner environment in which true happiness unfolds.
— Paramahansa Yogananda

© Pamir Kiciman 2010

This was the topic of the monthly dojo meeting I have with Reiki practitioners I’ve trained. Here are the salient points.

Humans have the unique ability to experience emotions. We think that because we have an emotional capacity, it has to be like a faucet that’s constantly on. Just because we have this ability doesn’t mean we have to be constantly emoting! The opposite also happens: emotions get shut off, like a faucet which is rusted and stuck. Emotions both delight and scare us. Some equate emotion with peak experience. Some are victim to their emotional nature. And some keep emotion firmly in lockdown.

Emotions are valuable. They are a large part of what makes us human, and they can enhance life experience, as well as provide helpful feedback. The trouble is, we indulge emotions too long too, often and turn the whole thing into a command performance for a drama award. We must learn the fundamental difference between ‘having an emotion’ and our capacity to feel.

Being able to feel is the real attribute that gives life to our emotional nature. Emotions themselves aren’t as important as our ability to feel. Sadness is an emotion we don’t necessarily want. Sadness can be turned into a happy feeling. Thus it’s our feeling capacity we must prioritize. Being able to have an emotion isn’t sourced in the emotion; it’s sourced in our ability to feel. Sadness and happiness are emotions on a continuous stream of feeling. We like happiness and don’t like sadness. It’s skillfulness in feeling which facilitates the transition from one to the other.

Our feeling nature is an intuitive faculty. It comes from a part of us that’s not limited to spacetime. What’s behind our feeling ability? Awareness. Just like feeling ability is behind emotion, awareness is behind our ability to feel. Without awareness we’d be automatons. There are degrees of awareness. To increase our degree of awareness, emotional healing is usually needed. We all have wounds that need healing. Unless this work is done, emotions continue to trap us in their ongoing cycle of charge and reactivity.

Once we make whole emotional wounds, other levels of awareness open up. The emotional heart must be made whole before the spiritual heart becomes available and real. On one end of the emotional spectrum we remain in churning waters, unable to escape. On the other end, we’re happy, even exulted. Beyond either is a whole range of uncaused feeling.

Peace is such an uncaused feeling. It’s sourceless. It certainly doesn’t come from the emotional heart, or the human mind. Peace is simply there. We can access peace, feel it and embody it. We want to be clear and available enough in our emotional heart, so as to feel the peace that’s constantly beckoning us. Peace is a feeling state. It’s a state of being. States of being don’t become part of our experience when there’s still a lot of emotional crud to disperse, or we operate only at an emotional level, without knowledge of the whole range.

‘Emotion’ and ‘feeling’ aren’t synonymous. Feeling is a spiritual faculty sourced in self-reflective awareness. Awareness and its ‘tools’ lead to healing, as well as point to uncaused states such as peace or joy which inspire and propel our personal evolution.

continued →

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Silence is a state to be revisited again and again. Regularly, not periodically, but daily and with our full presence. This holds true whether we’re entering silence for sitting meditation, or dipping into delicious pockets of it throughout the day. It’s not like we can be profoundly silent once and not dip in it ever again. It’s not like we can go to a silent retreat once, then just discard it. Silence is a way of being, an orientation, an anchor. We desperately need Silence.

We’ve been like this ourselves and know others who are: Uncomfortable in silence, having a constant need to yammer because there’s a void inside. The truth is what feels like a void can be transformed into true emptiness. Emptiness is misunderstood as being “empty” whereas in fact it is full for it is Presence. And Presence is Silent yet creates All.

After I wrote the last piece on silence, two gems came.

No writing on the solitary, meditative dimensions of life can say anything that has not already been said better by the wind in the pine trees. These pages seek nothing more than to echo the silence and peace that is “heard” when the rain wanders freely among the hills and forests. But what can the wind say when there is no hearer? There is then a deeper silence: the silence in which the Hearer is No-Hearer. That deeper silence must be heard before one can speak truly of solitude. — Thomas Merton

And:

We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us to see their own images and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even a fiercer life because of our silence. — William Butler Yeats

Last time I suggested that you simply stop. Let your body breathe for you and put your whole awareness on it. Just notice the breath moving. That’s all.

Whatever stillness and silence this very simple practice helps you enter, take the memory of it, the feel of it, the seed of it and let it be the backdrop to the next encounter you have with another person.

And go to nature, frequently. To help you, here’s a photo I took ten minutes from where I live in an urban area. Silence can always be found.

© Pamir Kiciman 2010

Each post for the Reiki Help Blog can take anywhere from 1-5 days to write/research, proofread/edit, and post with an appropriate image and formatting. If you leave this space with any value, knowledge, joy or understanding, please consider making a donation of your choice.

Donate to this blog. Thank you!