© Pamir Kiciman 2011

Awareness is a quality which utilizes more sources than the intellect or the brain’s information processing. The thinking mind cognizes and perceives but neither of these add up to awareness. Awareness includes presence; the presence of the one cognizing. It also considers experiences available from other sources. Signal processing isn’t the only experience available to the human organism.

When we look out at the world with the five senses and what the brain processes through them, the world is solid and works in specific ways. When we look out to the world with awareness, its solidity starts to break up. It also becomes apparent that there are other possibilities in the way the world works.

This is true of our inner workings as well. If we only cognize our challenges and dilemmas, many times they seem unsolvable, set, and punishing. If we bring the same into awareness, however, space opens up and new possibilities arise in that space. We also find that we’re far less identified with or even as those ‘personal problems.’

If we imagine that our mind is like the blue sky, and that across it pass thoughts as clouds, we can get a feel for that part of it which is other than our thoughts. The sky is always present; it contains the clouds and yet is not contained by them. So with our awareness. It is present and encompasses all our thoughts, feelings, and sensations; yet it is not the same as them. To recognize and acknowledge this awareness, with its spacious, peaceful quality, is to find a very useful resource within. We see that we need not identify with each thought just because it happens to occur. We can remain quiet and choose which thought we wish to attend to. And we can remain aware behind all these thoughts, in a state that offers an entirely new level of openness and insight. — Ram Dass

The Heart-Mind

The thinking process gets all the fanfare. Schooling produces thinkers. Our mental capacities are touted, researched, edified and respected. Rightly so in many ways; the human mind is a pretty amazing thing. What becomes detrimental is the focus on the mind to the exclusion of other amazing aspects of our being, the chief of which is the heart.

This isn’t the biological heart or the heart of romance. It’s not operating only at the level of emotion. It isn’t entangled in our self-identity as ego. In fact it’s free of us entirely, acting as a backdrop to daily existence, and a container for the human journey.

In Sanskrit this Heart is called hridayam, the locus of consciousness where our true Self lives.

There’s nothing bad about having an ego. Those thoughts and feelings are necessary for a healthy personality. But if you identify so strongly with the ego that you think that’s all there is, that limited view can keep you from your deeper Self. — Ram Dass

As amazing the mind can be, it’s also conditioned, fragmented, distracted, trapped and fearful. It isn’t able to extricate itself from such influences by relying only on its own brilliance. It needs the balance of the Heart, and the awareness that’s available there. It needs to become heart-mind.

… in all Asian languages — at least I’ve been told this; I don’t know all Asian languages — but in all Asian languages the word for “mind” and the word for “heart” are the same word. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

There isn’t a mind without the Heart. Thinking without awareness gets us into trouble. We become narrow and exalt temporary truths. Thought-generated awareness is limited, the input it gets comes from the material world which gives us only a partial view.

The heart-mind is awareness turned inward, awareness of the spiritual universe within, and the quality of that awareness, the feeling that accompanies it, is love. — Ram Dass

Awareness

True awareness doesn’t originate in the mind. Cognition and perception are too narrow to produce awareness. There’s a contemplative quality to awareness and routine thoughts are too fast and disparate to be contemplative. The mind needs the ballast of the Heart. The mind is linear and trapped in time. The Heart is nonlinear and timeless. With heart-mind we can be in time and deal with our daily life, and also renew and recalibrate in the timeless. With heart-mind our sojourn in time is sweetened and enhanced by our diving into a nonlinear, timeless center of wholeness.

Mind by itself also leaves us trapped in ‘local problems.’ These are the stuff of everyday living, all the usual pressures, stresses and dramas. Awareness sources in the nonlocal. It’s ever-present and impersonal. It doesn’t make judgments or evaluations. It simply and directly reveals what is. Although readily available, like the Heart, awareness needs to be cultivated, promoted and made familiar to our consciousness.

So much of what is considered “smart” is brain-based. There’s another, holistic intelligence; that of the Heart. Education, business, social and behavioral sciences all emphasize brain development. Yet we’re inhuman without the Heart. It’s not the heart of cardiology or heartache that trumps the brain, but the Heart of exquisite Being and Presence.

Awareness is available at the Being level of reality. Here there’s Presence. Mind isn’t equated with the brain in its superlative states. Mind breaks the barriers of the brain. Yet even then, if it doesn’t hold hands with the Heart, it can’t know itself, it can’t participate in Presence.

Presence is ineffable, but it can be known and felt once we make ourselves available to it.

This presence whether experienced as Allah, as Atman, as Sunyata, or as the Buddha-nature or as Bodhisattva; whether as Tao or as the One or as the Divine Feminine, is the atmosphere in which humans breathe deepest and without which they eventually suffocate. — Thomas Berry

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© Pamir Kiciman 2010 Text, Photo and Digital Art

© Pamir Kiciman 2011

Little of this has changed today. Modern medicine has emerged and marginalized the healer somewhat, not because it’s more effective but because it has huge financial backing. However, there remain isolated tribes where the tradition of the healer remains consistent with historical models. And there are healers in urban culture who follow in these same footsteps.

What has changed is that the village has become global and the tribe is now nonlocal. Issues at hand are much more complex. What the healer heals and how has shifted.

Today’s urban healer must be a global citizen. The healer’s primary sphere of influence may still be his or her ‘tribe.’ Yet, the evolutionary stage of planet Earth and humanity is demanding that the healer becomes a healing presence in the world, and not only during a healing session.

Today’s healer carries the healing presence moment-to-moment so that there’s patience and deep seeing. This prevents reactions to a headline or personal situation. In the face of personal and global events, the healer responds in the world, rather than reacting to the world.

Being able to see below the surface allows a healer to be even-minded and take the long view. The short view is full of attachment, agenda and outcome. It’s limited, reactive, nonresponsive, and reductionist. When events are considered from the reduction to a headline, a corrective and healing response is out of reach. The healer waits and sees, until all factors emerge to be considered.

The cultivated healing place inside is a compass and firm ground which lets the healer remain calm and nonreactive. The healer responds thoughtfully. Thoughtful response is a quality of the awakened Heart. The awakened Heart is primed by practice. Healers practice not to get somewhere, but because it’s the crucible of change.

Healers practice not only with others, but first with themselves.

Once the Heart awakens, it has ready access to universal wisdom and compassion. Universal wisdom and compassion further helps the healer to be responsive, enduring and consistent. The healing way is living from a healing place inside and being a holder of a healing worldview.

The Heart is a place where events can be considered with patience and nonattachment. Nonattachment is a vehicle for clarity. This Heart isn’t the organ of the heart, or the heart of human emotions. It’s not physical at all. It doesn’t really have a location. This Heart sees whole. It’s awake to the eternal. It has shed any bitterness. It’s alive in the moment and pulses in scared rhythm.

It’s the very Heart of Life and it’s available to everyone, healer and nonhealer alike. In fact, we’re in an evolutionary cycle where healing is being asked of everyone.

Please find much more about this subject here and scroll down.

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Healers have been active at least since the beginnings of recorded history. The literature of medical anthropology as well as cross-cultural studies show that virtually all non-Western societies and most of the non-Anglo communities in the United States still use some form of indigenous healing that lies outside the realm of traditional allopathic medicine. The fact that the art of healing has been in existence for so long attests to the underlying belief that healers have special abilities to use their consciousness to help others. —Frank Lawlis, Ph.D.

Fortunately many indigenous systems and others have been studied and documented, honoring and legitimizing the Healers of the world through time. The healing way is living from a healing place inside and being a holder of a healing worldview. Central to the healing way is the Healer. Today, however, the village has become global and the tribe is now nonlocal. What the Healer heals and how has shifted, together with global shifts.

Here are only some of the ways in which the Healer manifests, specifically in relation to world events, rather than personal healing:

• The Healer is calm and even-minded.
• The Healer is nonreactive and grounded.
• The Healer sees below the surface.
• The Healer takes the long view.
• The Healer works with symbols.
• The Healer is a diviner.
• The Healer knows the course of events.
• The Healer never wavers from healing.
• The Healer is constant and patient.
• The Healer is heart oriented.
• The Healer’s Heart territory is expansive.
• The Healer lets all events dissolve in the Heart.

From this dissolution the new emerges.

It can be hard for the human side of the Healer to know and feel that all the spiritual qualities s/he is radiating are making any actual difference. Discouragement and/or burnout can set in if outward evidence of healing isn’t seen. Large scale, rapid change isn’t the way of the world, although that can happen too as evidenced by world news in the last month or so. The Light Healers share definitely adds up, is stored perhaps, or shifts things imperceptibly. A lot of times, it’s not known how and where the healing “work” does good. And then it surfaces all at once, often in multiple places at once.

It has to be realized that these phenomena are happening in epic cycles that the mind can’t truly grasp. The best approach is to simply practice, for the sake of practice. Practice is for practice. It’s not for gain or world transformation. The world changes because we practice, not because we practice to change it.

The demands on the Healer in modern life are different and more strenuous. The world is now complex and intense.

Here are some ways to stave off any overwhelm:

• Treat signals you receive as information only. They are data, that’s it.
• These signals are not entering your mindbody in any way, not becoming part of your subtle body either.
• These signals are merely insights for you to understand and help in a more precise way.
• For it to be true healing, it has to be sourced in universal power and compassion.
• If it sources in your own heart, that’s limited and can be quite frail/fragile.
• Your heart is part of the equation, but not all on its own.
• It relies on what comes THROUGH you.
• If you rely only on what comes FROM you, it spells trouble.
• If you relate while healing from emotion only, transfer is inevitable.
• If you relate while healing from pure feeling, an informational matrix, then Spirit can do its work and you are free.
• The healer has to be a warrior with a strong spiritual backbone.
• The better your conduit, the better you can help.

The essential element in not yielding to overwhelm is to be in Big Heart, come from Big Heart and let Big Heart heal.

For additional thoughts on the Healer, read here and here. Please also share your own thoughts regarding this matter in the comments section.

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© Pamir Kiciman 2010

Compassion is a quality of the awakened heart. The awakened heart is one which is healed and transcendent of petty concerns. The natural human capacity to feel for and with others is where compassion begins. Compassion circumscribed by one’s immediate family and friends is an imitation of itself. It never quite peaks and can lead to narrow self-interest, and thus conflict. Compassion isn’t only love, kindness, empathy, or altruism. It’s a combination of these, making it entirely different. It must break the shores of personal concerns before it can truly become itself. Attached compassion is not really of much use to anyone.

True compassion brings with it a clear awareness. This awareness is abiding, as is compassion. Both are sourced in the same origin. Compassion and awareness engender each other. Awareness can open the heart to bigger compassion, and compassion can open the mind to greater awareness. This is the power and effectiveness of working with abiding qualities; they’re efficient and direct.

Compassion elevates both  the bearer of it and its recipient. Because it sources from an abiding place, true compassion is effective in an endless sphere. Likewise, compassion is very practical and not reserved for highlight moments. It’s an everyday companion and a peak experience all at once.

Compassion has to begin in spiritual contemplation and practice. It’s there that whatever needs to be healed in our humanity can be healed. We’re born with a good heart. Living can bake a crust on it. It’s also not necessarily an awakened heart at the start. Thus there’s inner work to be done. To awaken the heart to its true nature is extremely rewarding because it returns us home, and reveals our best in all areas.

Compassion at the human level is better than any of its opposites. Compassion that’s harvested from its universal source by personal inner practice is inestimably valuable. This is the compassion we must tap and share widely.

Compassion is the ultimate and most meaningful embodiment of emotional maturity. It is through compassion that a person achieves the highest peak and the deepest reach in his or her search for self-fulfillment.  —Arthur Jersild

What’s often missed with compassion is that it’s also a tremendous source of strength. An eternal resource such as compassion is solid and far-reaching. It brings with it other timeless qualities and informs our human experience on all levels.

Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair but manifestations of strength and resolution. —Kahlil Gibran

How have you accessed compassion, how has it instructed you and where have you applied its goodness?

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© Pamir Kiciman 2010

The paradox of human emotion is that it both enriches life by accessing a wide range of experiences, and can also be a merciless trap. We’re not robots. Our capacity for love, happiness, excitement, really anything that makes the heart swell and sparks the mind is cherished. At the same time, not all emotions are pleasant and even the ones that are can limit us. In the two previous posts regarding this (I & II) the specific distinction was made between an emotion and the human ability to feel. While these are used synonymously by everyone including many experts, the truth of the matter is that feeling is what allows us to experience an emotion which is the ‘color’ or ‘flavor’ of the feeling state. Emotion is what bubbles to the surface from an ocean of feeling.

This ocean of feeling is a truer source and we’re built to tap it. It’s a spiritual resource, not merely mental or emotional. Emotions don’t reach a state like peace, not fully. Peace is a feeling, a higher feeling if you will. Peace, balance, compassion, unity… these are ‘spiritual’ feelings or states that we can experience beyond relating to life emotionally. They are feeling states.

Unless there’s emotional healing, higher feeling states are elusive or inconsistent, or even dangerous as it may add to our imbalance. For instance, Love simply is. It existed before we did. It’s one of those feeling states that emotions can get in the way of. It’s a tragicomedy how so many cling stubbornly and painfully to emotions. Feelings are abiding, they’re built into the matrix of life. Emotions are what advertisers play with.

A feeling is fluid, it’s alive, it’s dynamic, it actually helps us when we tune into it or go deeply into it, it actually helps us connect with ourselves more deeply.

Emotion tends to be going outwards, like in seeking some sort of external expression. That’s why it’s called “e”motion, “e” here is short for Latin ex, which means out of some motion, out of, it’s motion taking us out of ourselves. — John Welwood

What is emotional healing? Primarily, it’s living without resentment and trauma tied to the past, that today triggers behavior and emotions negatively impacting you and those around you. Is it possible to be emotionally healed? Yes! The value of emotional healing is that it harmonizes your relationship with yourself and others. It gives you a sense of confidence and self-esteem so you can function well in the world, and be free of mental and emotional afflictions.

Once this is established, other levels of being open up. There’s the emotional heart and the spiritual Heart. The emotional heart has to right itself before the endless horizon of the spiritual Heart becomes available. A wounded ‘little’ heart can’t even consider the possibilities of Big Heart. Wounds obscure and keep you in the throes of unproductive patterns.

For now, this discussion comes to an end with some excellent writing on the subject by Sally Kempton:

Emotions become problematic only when you identify with them, when you get lost or stuck in them, when you privilege certain emotions and try to deny others. The Tantric attitude toward emotions—acceptance, openness to feeling, combined with the awareness of being a spectator—is really a quality of heart. It takes a certain receptivity and softness.

I’ve used a certain practice for years to cultivate that soft-hearted state of witness. It comes fom the late French spiritual teacher, Jean Klein. Instead of being simply the observer of thoughts and feelings, you consciously welcome them as guests. Anger comes up and you think, “I welcome you.” A beautiful feeling arises: “I welcome you.” […]

Surfing your emotions is possible only after you have cultivated some degree of separation from them, which requires you to have a built-in recognition that you aren’t just your emotions.

Contemporary yogic and Buddhist teachers offer a quiverful of strategies for interrupting the tendency to identify with thoughts and emotions. Basic mindfulness is one. Another is the process of recognizing and challenging the stories and beliefs that you hold about reality. Another, very powerful, practice comes from the devotional traditions and involves offering or turning your emotions to God. Instead of blocking emotion, you use your feeling states to give juice to your practice. There are examples of this in all the devotional traditions—mystical Christianity, Judaism, Sufism, and especially in the bhakti tradition of India.

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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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© 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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Heart Light
© Pamir Kiciman 2010
Click to view full-size

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…

◊ ◊ ◊

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

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To help you know him there’s one video embedded here, an excerpt from the PBS film on his life and work (email/rss readers need to click back to the original post to view video), and a link to another one of an interview with the film’s producer/director Haydn Reiss.

The essence of Rumi is pure divine love. He exemplifies poetry as spiritual vehicle and expression. Get to know his work. You’ll never be disappointed and will always leave enriched.

You are Joy!

Oh my God, our intoxicated eyes
Have blurred our vision
Our burdens have been made heavy,
Forgive us.

You are hidden and yet
From east to west you have filled the world with Your radiance
Your Light is more magnificent
Than sunrise or sunset
And you are the inmost ground of consciousness
Revealing the secrets we hold.

You are an explosive force
causing our dammed up rivers to burst forth.

You whose essence is hidden
While Your gifts are manifest
You are like water
and we are like millstones
You are like wind and we are like dust;
The wind is hidden while the dust is plainly seen.
You are the invisible spring
and we are your lush garden
You are the spirit of life,
And we are like hand and foot;
Spirit causes the hand to close and open.

You are intelligence,
And we are your voice
Your intelligence causes this tongue to speak.
You are joy and we are laughter,
For we are the result
of the blessing of Your joy
All our movement is really
A continual profession of faith
Bearing witness to Your eternal power
Just as the powerful turning of the millstone
professes faith in the rivers existence.

Dust settles upon my head and upon my metaphors
For You are beyond anything we could ever think or say
And yet this servant cannot stop trying
to express Your beauty in every moment,
let my soul be Your carpet.

Mathnawi V: 3307-3319

Translated by Kabir and Camille Helminski

Phil Cousineau speaks with filmmaker Haydn Reiss about his award-winning film “Rumi, Poet of the Heart.”

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If Reiki were a tree, its trunk would be the meditative teachings of Reiki; hands-on Reiki would be one limb; and the precepts Usui left behind would be Reiki’s living tissue. This was explained in great detail in a previous post: Modern Reiki.

Today we’ll look at Usui’s Reiki precepts again. Since they are the living tissue of the teachings, it’s important to dwell on these simple words again and again. Not only dwell but bring them into full focus in our lives. The translation used here is:

For today only: Do not anger—Do not worry

Be humble

Be honest in your work

Be compassionate to yourself and others

Let me first quote from the previous post:

Without anger, conflicts would be resolved and new ones circumvented. Without worry, fear would end and we wouldn’t exacerbate suffering. Humility is respect and the willingness to include all viewpoints. Honesty; would there be a worldwide financial crisis if there was honesty?

And compassion. Compassion is both a prerequisite and condition of enlightenment. In compassion there’s no separation, no other, no stranger. Compassion is the true democracy! Enlightenment is a state of Oneness. If there’s compassion, there’s understanding and appreciation. Compassion unifies and in that unity we find enlightenment.

Enlightenment isn’t only a spiritual pursuit. There can be enlightenment in government, technology, business, science and social systems.

In delving deeper into these simple words, we have to consider that translation from Japanese, a language based on ideograms,  leads to rich interpretations; aphorisms are pithy and packed with meaning; and such concepts are layered in meaning.

Copyright Usui-Do Eidan

For today only: We mostly understand a day to be 24 hours in the Gregorian calendar which defines our lives. This is fine for what it is.

However, here we’re considering ‘today’ as also ‘this moment,’ ‘this duration,’ ‘this task,’ ‘this activity,’ or even ‘this interaction.’

If you’re serious about your Reiki practice as a spiritual one, a path, not only a healing practice or worse a modality, then you understand that it’s lifelong.

A life and a path is made up of moments. Before you’re intimidated by what is asked of you, stop, breathe and take a moment to consider both how fleeting and how endless it is.

You don’t have to master For today only, today.

Do not anger: Anger is an afflictive emotion and we all have it. It’s hurtful to those it’s directed and to person who is angry. It creates suffering for everyone. Sometimes righteous anger is justified, but in the end anger is never skillful or successful.

Anger heats up the mind and it makes mistakes, and anger shuts tight the heart. With and overheated mind and closed heart you’re a danger to yourself and others. Anger can also escalate to rage.

Whereas if a higher feeling state like love is cultivated, when it escalates it leads to bliss!

I feel Usui isn’t only saying don’t let anger prevail, but also heal your anger. This is a major undertaking. Anger is pernicious and insidious. It hides under layers.

Start today with some smaller angers and move onto bigger ones.

Do not worry: Let’s start with the worst case scenario…when worry escalates it becomes fear and/or anxiety. Worry as it is hangs around, niggling away and ruining your outlook as well as inner environment. Worry is powerful in its constancy. It’s a mindset that traps and holds hostage.

It holds hostage your physical, mental and spiritual energy without any purpose. For instance when faced with a dangerous wild animal, fear has a purpose. Escalated fear and ordinary constant worry which are baseless cause more harm than do good.

Worry is a creation of the mind and indicates that your mind is leading you, instead of you leading your mind. The mind is powerful but worry is an unskillful use of its power.

Be humble: Often recommended, seldom understood. Every other avenue that influences daily life tells us to be loud, boastful, self-aggrandizing and to stand out. We cringe at humility. It seems weak and wimpy.

It’s actually a fearless act to be humble because all self-promotion is really a way to hold fear at bay. And it goes further to change your orientation to non-ego. In fact humility is another way to stay in the present, for today only…If you’re not ego driven then the trappings of ego aren’t there either which removes fear and limitations.

Be honest in your work: On one level this is integrity, which starts inside with yourself and extends to all your expressions in your life and the many ways you touch people.

‘Honesty’ in this sense also means consistency, commitment and sincerity, and these apply to your spiritual ‘work.’ Transformation is real. It’s available and occurs, but not without the practitioner partaking daily in the teachings and practices.

And if the ground of your being is transformed from ‘honest’ practice, then the work you have outwardly in the world will be honest as well.

Be compassionate to yourself and others: This is the big one isn’t it?! It also brings the others full circle.

Compassion is a win-win, skillful means always. It’s inherent whenever Reiki is practiced. In fact, Reiki practice teaches about compassion in a visceral way; it’s felt and its qualities are understood.

Compassion leads to understanding which leads to unity. In unity we find a greater degree of enlightenment because we feel “at one.” Feeling one with yourself, others, the environment, the cosmos and the Divine is one quality of enlightenment.

Fortunately with compassion you don’t have to be enlightened to feel and benefit from it, and help others through it.

Compassion blesses everyone equally. It can remain as such or for the dedicated practitioner, compassion can lead to unity states of consciousness, which in turn deepen compassion.

How do you contemplate, engage and learn from the Reiki precepts Usui Sensei placed at the core of his teachings?

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ATTARS

Attar is a Persian word meaning “fragrance, scent, or essence.” We use the term Attar because both the manufacture and application of oils that we supply belongs to this East Indian and Persian tradition.

Unfortunately, in the West, the word ‘perfume’ has come to mean a range of products that contain primarily alcohol, and are heavily diluted with synthetic additives. But originally, perfumes meant pure, natural extracted oils, either individual oils, or their blends.

The word perfume comes from the French par fume, meaning ‘through smoke’, as it was common to burn the oils in order to gain access to the essential etheric qualities released by burning. All plants are comprised of carbon-based matter. By igniting the extracted oils of plants, they are convened into light-based matter, which directly acts on the angelic realms, and influences the emotional and spiritual realms.

Attar perfume oils are a specific type of fragrance product derived from natural plant substances, both single ones, and those blended together carefully to produce remarkably rich scents. Although some attars are simply individual oils, which on their own are suitable for fragrance use, such as Amber, Sandalwood or Patchouli, they are usually composed of careful blends of various oils, resins and concretes—two or more—placed in a natural base or carrier oil.

The beauty of using attar oils is that by wearing them you create an aura of tranquility, confidence and mystery around yourself. Because attars contain no alcohol, the scent “clings” within one or two feet of your body, in the “zone of intimacy.”

Attar Bazaar Oils for Healing, Emotional Balance,
Mental Power and Spiritual Upliftment

The energy in question here is subtle or spiritual energy. It doesn’t exist in the electromagnetic spectrum. Yet it does exist and powers all we are. It has been given various names which all coalesce to a single meaning: Life energy. Reiki is a life energy teaching.

Integrity is used here to mean the quality of being whole or united and of being unharmed or sound. Further, integrity reaches into who we are and how we live: a consistent set of principles that determine our thoughts, words and actions.

Another premise is being employed as well: The physical body’s biochemical molecules are a form of vibrational energy. Einstein’s E=mc² and quantum physics can be looked into for a working knowledge of this, as well as various wisdom teachings including Reiki.

I teach my students that Reiki is a form of energetic integrity, that this isn’t the type of learning normally provided us in our schooling or other training, and as such Reiki Training is highly unique and beneficial. But I want to expand the scope and talk about the tremendous value of energetic integrity. Reiki directly helps to create energetic integrity because of its special access to an energetic level of reality, but any authentic wisdom teaching worth its salt can. And that is the caveat: find a true teaching and practice it sincerely to return yourself to a sound and whole state.

All manifestations in the material world, together with our own deeds and creations have an energetic blueprint that acts as both ground and springboard.  Therefore, energetic alignment is integral to bringing about the highest versions of yourself and your impact on the world. Disease has energy behind it, as does health. Giving is of a certain energy, looks and feels very different than taking. Drama comes along with certain disharmonious emotions, while detachment is much less burdened. Sincerity feels one way and insincerity always catches up with you.

Since energy is primary toning, strengthening, balancing and harmonizing yours means results are clearly noticeable in all parts of you and all areas of your life. Air is present everywhere, just like energy. Energy can be likened to air: we know it’s there when a tree sways in the wind or we feel a draft on our skin. Although energy is invisible to normal perception, it can be sensed and densifies into tangible human experiences.

It can also be likened to water which collects at the lowest point. Beware where you put your energy. Energy like water can flow through bottlenecks or around blocks, but repeated obstacles cause it to stagnate, as does repetition of unhealthy physical, mental and spiritual personal patterns.

In the vibrational model of human existence and the nature of reality there are layers of subtler gradations. For humans, we begin with the densest which is the physical body. Surrounding and interpenetrating it is a subtle field known as the etheric body, which occupies the same space as the physical but which vibrates at a higher frequency, and on which the physical is based.

Then each with progressively higher and finer vibratory rates we have the emotional, mental and spiritual bodies. Surpassing and containing all of it is Consciousness which is the subtlest, most highly vibrating, all-permeating and crucial, yet least understood component of our makeup. Consciousness is the prime Energy.

Often Consciousness is confused with the functioning of the brain. Here it doesn’t mean the chemical, and electrical signal-processing of the brain and it isn’t limited to the brain. Not only is it everywhere in the body, but it’s also part of the universe.

One of the most common analogies used to describe the Buddha-nature is space itself. This analogy has three aspects. First, just as space is omnipresent and yet is unpolluted by everything it pervades, similarly, Buddha-nature pervades every sentient being without being in any way tainted. Second, just as galaxies and universes arise and pass within space, so do the characteristics of our personalities arise and pass within Buddha-nature. Our sensations arise and pass away; Buddha-nature continues. Third, just as space is never consumed by fire, so this Buddha-nature is never consumed by the “fire” of aging, sickness, or death.

–B. Alan Wallace

Consciousness is also very much an integral part of the human heart. While the physical heart is far more intelligent and sophisticated than originally thought, it is the heart space that has a direct link to Consciousness that is referenced here.

Just as we limit Consciousness to the brain, we limit our understanding of emotions to neurochemical reactions in the limbic system or the emotional centers of the brain. Yet, there is a greater field which enables us to experience and share finer, elevated feelings. Love, kindness, compassion, empathy, or as the Dalai Lama calls it “warm-heartedness” all come from a spiritual field that encompasses and influences us. Of course to really receive this benefit, we must put in the time for sincere spiritual practice.

When the brain and a warm heart go side-by-side, then all our ability becomes constructive.

–Dalai Lama

to be continued

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!

Reiki is a way of living with wisdom and compassion. It’s a way to reclaim your authentic self. To move out of the past, return from the future and live fully awake in the present. Reiki shifts your paradigm too, revealing the many layers of reality. It helps you find energetic integrity. Reiki heals the human condition. It transforms your consciousness so you can be your true self. Your heart and mind become unified and you’re empowered to walk in peace. Reiki brings you what you need. Through the years, I’ve witnessed with inner joy and gratitude everything student practitioners share about their Reiki training experiences. These are nothing less thanpoetic and I’ll now attempt to convey some measure of what I was privileged to witness this past weekend.

An ocean, cloud and light was received. Plans changed many moons ago came to completion and an ordination was received. Tears inspired by sheer beauty flowed. Peace was tangible. Never before reached depth in meditation was commonplace. After lunch heartburn relieved completely. Back pain healed. Several first-time spiritual awakenings. The courage to face things one doesn’t want to. A young person’s talent validated. Success affirmed. Shoulders lightened. Realization of inner powers. Wonder. Recognition.

And hugs. Heart on heart hugs.

Always heart on heart hugs.

Updated July 2, 2008

An early testimonial:

“…Now that I have had a little time to reflect and absorb, I want to thank you for being YOU and what you brought to me this weekend. I can already notice changes in me, there is a deepening sense of calm within, much more energy both physically and spiritually. It has been both a fulfillment and rebirth of sorts. I am different, I am one with myself, and my surroundings. The teaching and empowerments brought through you this weekend are amazing. Thank you for thus far guiding and teaching me. The teaching and tools you brought to me will continue to aid and guide my journey…”

–J.G., West Palm Beach, Fla

In oneness, I think we can say, there are many onenesses. That is to say this oneness manifests itself, or we come across it in almost infinite number of ways. While it always remains, in a sense, the same, it is always a different oneness. Perhaps this is because God is always happening…For instance, God is so dynamic, it goes so fast that you can never see him…You can’t catch him, and yet there’s nothing to catch because he’s already here. Otherwise, it goes by so fast, that by the time you take peek, he’s already back here…So at every moment this oneness is offered to us in a different way, in a new way. A charming way, sometimes difficult way, sometimes challenging way…So human experience needs to be very diverse in order to adjust to the diversity in which God is oneness…

See video for full speech, very highly recommended. If you get the email version, click back to original post to watch the video.

Father Thomas Keating entertains and enlightens with humor and wisdom, covering such complex subjects as oneness, diversity, nonlinear time, God’s speed, the now, contemplative prayer, and faith (which he calls the 3rd eye: “Another sense that is very important is the awakening of the third eye, which is faith. Faith becoming not just an acceptance of belief systems of one kind or another, however enlightened, but rather the movement of trust in the mystery, in the ultimate reality. In the oneness, dimly perceived, and perceived not even as oneness, but nevertheless, enabling one, little by little, to be sensitive to the divine presence in all creation and in every detail.).

Don Alverto Taxo, a Quichua elder and Iachak (community leader/healer), speaks of the ancient prophecy of the eagle and the condor meeting to bring a new harmony into the world. Don Alverto invites us all to trust the universal human intuition to bring greater harmony into our lives, and to seek after life’s deeper meaning. (Video below…if you have an email subscription, click to the original post to view it.)

Molecular biologists have discovered that the heart is the body’s most important endocrine gland. In response to our experience of the world, it produces and releases a major hormone, ANF that profoundly affects every operation in the limbic structure, or what we refer to as the “emotional brain.” This includes the hippocampal area where memory and learning take place, and also the control centers for the entire hormonal system.

Neurocardiologists have found that 60 to 65% of the cells of the heart are actually neural cells, not muscle cells as was previously believed. They are identical to the neural cells in the brain, operating through the same connecting links called ganglia, with the same axonal and dendritic connections that take place in the brain, as well as through the very same kinds of neurotransmitters found in the brain.

…in other words, there is a “brain” in the heart, whose ganglia are linked to every major organ in the body, to the entire muscle spindle system that uniquely enables humans to express their emotions. About half of the heart’s neural cells are involved in translating information sent to it from all over the body so that it can keep the body working as one harmonious whole. And the other half make up a very large, unmediated neural connection with the emotional brain in our head and carry on a 24-hour-a-day dialogue…

The heart responds to messages sent to it from the emotional brain, which has been busy monitoring the interior environment of dynamic states such as the emotions and the auto-immune system, guiding behavior, and contributing to our sense of personal identity. The emotional brain makes a qualitative evaluation of our experience of this world and sends that information instant-by-instant down to the heart. In return, the heart exhorts the brain to make the appropriate response….

…Meanwhile, biophysicists have discovered that the heart is also a very powerful electromagnetic generator. It creates an electromagnetic field that encompasses the body and extends out anywhere from eight to twelve feet away from it. It is so powerful that you can take an electrocardiogram reading from as far as three feet way from the body. The field the heart produces is holographic, meaning that you can read it from any point on the body and from any point within the field. The intriguing thing is how profoundly this electromagnetic field affects the brain. All indications are that it furnishes the whole radio wave spectrum from which the brain draws its material to create our internal experience of the world.

“…we now know that the radio spectrum of the heart is profoundly affected by our emotional response to our world. Our emotional response changes the heart’s electromagnetic spectrum, which is what the brain feeds on. Ultimately, everything in our lives hinges on our emotional response to specific events.