Written by Savina Shah
Often instructions can become too rigid, with too many rules laid down by the teacher. When teachings become too strict, we can’t act or move in the open expanded immense flow of universal energy. Rather, we are confined by restrictions and boxed in by ideas and beliefs.
At this level, our practice becomes tough instead of flowing. These regulations, labels and beliefs also mean that our practice cannot move into the organic way of our True Self.
If we pursue strict rules and concepts a teacher has laid down, we are following the teacher’s experiences. But the teacher’s experiences might be very different from ours. Maybe the teacher likes a particular way of positioning the hands during the hands-on healing session. Suddenly these hand positions become a must and you start to question yourself; if you do not place your hands exactly as the teacher did, will your hands-on healing sessions “not work”?
Or, if the teacher feels the heat and interprets that it means this or that, suddenly that becomes the standard interpretation. Or, the teacher might not like black and puts a rule in class that when you do hands-on healing you should wear only white or light colours. But all of these are the teacher’s experiences and not yours.
The teacher is there not to etch his experiences on you, but to help you to find your own experience.
However, if we do whatever comes to our mind, then we are just making things up. And maybe that is not useful at all for ourselves or for our client. Thus there needs to be a balance between strict and flexible, or in other words, between predictable common sense and being in the flow.
“Being in the flow” means that the flow comes from our True Self. This, in turn, means that to be in the flow requires time and practice, as it takes time and practice to really tap into our True Self.
Let me refer to it again because this is very important: the flow does not come from our bewildered mind full of worry, fear, anger and attachment. This flow is the true flow from our True Self.
Let’s look at the principles, in which we can see these teachings:
•Do not anger
•Do not worry
•Be grateful
•Be true to your way and your true self
•Show compassion to yourself and others
The precept “be true to your way and your true self” is an important reminder.
This principle in Japanese is “Gyo o hageme” which often has been translated as “work hard”, “work honestly”, or “practice diligently”. However, there is a wonderful depth to the word go.
Go can mean chore, tolerance, karma and authentic experience.
This authentic experience means knowledge stemmed from the direct experience of our True Self.
Hiroshi Doi translates this principle as: “Do what you are meant to do”.
But to do that, this “doing” needs to come from our True Self. Thus at a subtle level, go o hageme means “be true to your way and your true self”.
But if we notice the principles, we can see that to be true to our way and our being we have to let go of our worry, fear, and anger and be grateful for all that we encounter. Therefore it is not that simple to walk into the flow.
Thus the teacher is there to help you to be true to your way and your True Self, not to confine you in with her/his ways. The more we get confined with a teacher’s way, the harder it is for us to know our own way and to be true to our True Self.
A good teacher, therefore, will adjust each student’s technique/strategy according to the student’s understanding, state of mind, and physique.
For example, the practice of an amateur student with a racing, stress-filled mind and arthritic knees will be very different from an experienced student with a relaxed mind who is able to kneel or sit cross-legged for long periods of time.
In making reasonable suggestions and adjustments to your practice, your teacher slowly assists to lay bare your True Self, your Reiki. And in this way, now your practice starts to flow from your True Self.
