Steve Gooch: Author, Artist, Teacher

Now is the Only Reality That Exists

2009-06-17T21:32:00.004+01:00

Written for 'The Voice of Humanity Healing' and appeared there 17th June 2009

Almost every person on this planet spends most of their life living in a fantasy land of their own making. There are very few people that have even the vaguest idea of what the true reality of their existence is really like. This has been the sad story of an unconscious humanity for the entire span of our tenure on this planet.

We engage with the world every day of course. We have conversations with others that are based in the real world of the here-and-now. We go to work each day and come home each evening and we are largely conscious of this as we do it. We are always involved in some activity in the real world, whether it is sleeping, eating, going to work, visiting friends or relatives, cooking the dinner, going shopping…all of these things are based in the real world of our senses and we are aware of them as we engage in them. So how can it be that we live in a fantasy when our memories and moment-to-moment experience of the world, gives us all the information that we need to prove unequivocally that the world we that we live in is real and solid and indubitably, not a fantasy of any kind?

The reality is that yes, we may well be physically engaging with the world and consciously aware of what we are doing, but we are mostly, not on the whole present or mindful at the moment that we are engaged with that reality. Our engagement tends to be marginal and reliant on an initial and momentary repeat mental-visit as we physically go about whatever activity we are involved in. It is a partial and perfunctory involvement with life.

Whatever we are involved in; we are mostly unconscious of it most of the time. Our minds are on the whole busy with other things and ignorant of the activity that it has propelled the physical body into motion to deal with. Think about what is going through your mind at any moment of the day, regardless of the task you are performing. Possibly you are reminiscing about the lovely romantic meal you had last night whilst you are doing the washing up, or you are thinking about what you are going to do that evening as you get ready for work. Maybe you are thinking about the shopping trip you have to do later as you rush to get the kids ready for school or you are wondering if you made the right decision over that new pair of shoes you bought yesterday as you decide what outfit to wear for the day. Perhaps you are thinking about what you would like for lunch later whilst you complete some task at work or maybe you worry about whether you will get that job you have an interview for tomorrow as you get ready to go to bed. All of these types of thoughts are familiar to all of us and we have them whilst we engage physically with the world in tasks that although they might be triggers for the thought process, are in all other ways, entirely unconnected with the thoughts themselves.

Whatever the subject matter of our thoughts, they are almost always set in the context of the past or the future. We spend most of our lives in this state – looking back to the past at things that were and now are no more, or projecting into the future and looking at things that have yet to exist or may never exist, in the way that we envisage them.

Stop yourself from time to time and watch your thought process and you will see the truth of this. We all do it. We spend our lives in an unconscious state, only peripherally aware of the reality of the world and of the nature of the existence that is going on around us at that moment in time. We are unconscious to the nature of reality for almost the whole of our lives. Only rarely do we stop and fully engage with the moment as it happens, that is, being fully present, not peripherally present. Fully present means engaging the mind and the senses totally in the moment. Being aware of everything in that moment, not partially involved in some past or future experience.

Staying totally present in the moment – being fully and utterly aware of the nature of reality at the moment that it is happening, is no easy feat. The reason for this is that the majority of the time the present reality is pretty mundane or boring. How interesting is it to chop vegetables or to vacuum the carpet? To wash your hair or to iron a shirt? Not much really. Our lives are dominated by mundane things that it is hard to stay consciously focused on at all times. Our minds get used to the mundane nature of the here-and-now and decide to have as little to do with it as possible and go off searching for more interesting things to ponder. There are plenty of other things in the past or the future that are much more worthy of note to our minds way of thinking. In allowing this, we not only abdicate responsibility for our own thought process, we create a situation where it becomes incredibly difficult to stay totally aware of reality as it happens to us. Our minds get up in the morning and do their daily thing of finding something else to think about. To stay present in reality, we need to retrain our minds and bring them back under our control.

Most of us are not taught to reign in the mind and to train it to do our bidding. So how do we start to live in the present moment as it is happening to us? It is not really that difficult; though it can be incredibly dull.

The best way to begin to take back control of your own mind and thus to encourage it to stay present in the moment – in now, is to bring it to bear on whatever activity you are engaged in at the moment. It doesn't matter what it is, simply bring your full weight of consciousness to have an awareness of the activity. If you are digging the garden, notice how the soil feels under the pressure of the spade, smell the earth as it is turned, feel the pressure that you place on the spade. The tensions in your body as you exert the effort to turn the soil. Fell the texture of the spade's handle. Notice the sound of the spade going into the earth and any other sounds that might be around you at the moment: the passing of an aircraft, birds singing, a neighbour in their garden nearby, the sounds of passing cars…try to be totally present and aware of everything that is going on at that precise moment in time. Whatever the activity, we can all make the effort to try to be totally aware of the moment as it happens in this way.

The more that we engage with this type of activity, the more we are able to take back control of our mind and live in the present moment. We can actually start to live the life that is going on around us at the time that it is happening. We start to be fully aware of our lives and can take pleasure in it in a way that we were not previously able too – it becomes richer and fuller and more meaningful and we start to develop a truer understanding of life that had previously eluded us. The advantages of living life as it happens are numerous and profound. Life takes on a quality that we did not know was possible.

If we are engaged in thoughts of the past too much, we live in a world that is not only gone and dead, but conditioned by our own particular perspective on it and so it is not real. If we spend too much time living in the future, we spend our time living in a world that has yet to come – if it comes at all, that will again, be conditioned by our own particular perspective on it and our own conditioned view of the world.

Training the mind to be conscious of the world in the moment can be a long and arduous task, but the rewards are great. But does engaging with this practice give us a true and accurate perspective of the world? Do we start to fully see the world for what it really is? In part yes, but not fully.

Living in the moment allows us to experience the world as it truly is at that precise moment in time, from the perspective of our conditioned understanding and response to the world. It is real and there is no alternative to it – but it is a reality based on our perception of it and how we relate to it and 'read it'. What we are not aware of is a reality that is devoid of conditioned understanding. So even though we may be present in the moment, what we perceive of the world is based on all that we have previously learnt about it. When we pick up a knife to chop vegetables for instance, we bring to that moment, all of our learning and experiences of other knives. We relate to the object through this lens of our own making and so we do not actually have a true experience beyond the conditioning that we gain from our own experiences and from the information given to us by others. So even when we are present in the moment, our perception of reality is distorted by the past.

How for instance, do we see a tree for the first time every time we look at one? When we look at a tree, we bring to that moment, our knowledge, understanding and experiences of all other trees we have ever come across. We believe we have an understanding of that particular tree because of what we bring to it, but in reality we have no idea about that particular tree. To begin a relationship with the world as it truly is, and to see it afresh for the first time every time – to strip away our knowledge and experiences, we need to maintain as often as possible the practice of living in the moment – of not dwelling on the past or the future. In this way, we maintain a real and living relationship with the world and not one that is part fantasy and part peripheral engagement. We can begin to develop the ability to see beyond our conditioning and to see the world as it truly is.

Of course the object of this exercise is not to delete from our minds all of our conditioned responses to the world – these serve us in a multitude of ways and are what we need to help us to function in the world effectively. We do not want to reach a point where we have no concept of what a road or a fast approaching car means as we step off the pavement because we have stripped away our memories of the past and thus the tools we need to survive. The purpose of memory is to help us to survive and live fully in the world – it is not to provide a fantasy release from the drudgery of the moment.

What we do with our mind is key to our happiness. Our minds control our reality. How we relate to every aspect of our reality creates the world around as we perceive it. If we truly want to experience reality, the first step is to begin to train the mind to live in the moment. This is after all, the only place that reality exists.

Many blessings and much metta,

Steve

The Way of the Spirit - A Definition of Spirituality

2009-05-01T10:24:00.003+01:00

The following short piece was originally written back in 2006 for the then, soon-to-be Reiki Jin Kei Do website that was being built by the lineage head; Dr Ranga Premaratna. That website never happened, so I thought it might be worthwhile to let this piece see the light of day and publish it here.

‘Spirituality’ and ‘spiritual’ are words that are bandied about a lot in the Reiki world. ‘Reiki is a spiritual system’, ‘Spirituality is at the core of the Reiki system’, ‘Reiki is spiritually guided life force energy’ etc…the word keeps coming up over and over again in the context of Reiki.

There is a sort of tacit assumption in this that when we refer to spirituality everyone knows what we are talking about but is it really that simple? Does everyone know, or does everyone just work on the same assumption that everyone knows when in fact no one is really that clear at all? If you get my drift… The problem with defining spirituality is that it is as individual as the clouds in the sky. It is also just as prone to shift and metamorphose as time goes by. It is not a fixed and immutable thing, but does have some properties that we can assume are pretty much universal from one definition to another, again in a rather cloud like way.

I found this definition of spirituality on the Internet in the free online encyclopaedia; Wikipedia:

The central defining characteristic of spirituality is a sense of connection to a much greater whole which includes an emotional experience of religious awe and reverence. Equally so, spirituality is concerned with sanity and psychological health. As with some forms of religion, the emphasis of spirituality is often on personal experience.

If we drop the unnecessary reference to religious awe and perhaps describe this as an experience of the ineffable instead, we have a definition that sounds pretty close to the experience of Reiki. Reiki is not something separate from Spirituality after all. ‘Spirituality is at the core of the Reiki experience’ really does sum up the mutually supportive relationship between the words. We find that with the essence of Reiki and the concept of spirituality; the two are embedded within each other. Reiki IS spirituality just as spirituality IS Reiki (though those outside of Reiki’s ambit may not necessarily use this terminology). If you don’t agree with this, then try this: Re-read the above quote with the word ‘Reiki’ replacing the word ‘spirituality’.

There is one other aspect of this definition that is worth emphasizing and that is the personal, private nature of the spiritual experience. It is not something that can be shared at all, though there is a commonality of understanding about the personal nature of the spiritual experience. It is an intuitive knowing that what is experienced on the personal level is also very much defined by the fact that it is common to all.

We do need to broaden the above Wikipedia definition however. What I think is important to come to understand is that spirituality is essentially about humanity’s search for the great Truth. It is about our aspiration to understand our place in the cosmic scheme of things and to get to grips with and know in a profound way that inner core experience that defines our nature as being as some have described it; ‘a spark of light within the mind of God’. It is through the practice of Reiki, particularly within this tradition of Reiki Jin Kei Do that we endeavour to come to realise this immutable Truth.

There is something else in Wikipedia that is worth bringing to your attention in regard to this aspect of the concept of Spirituality in relationship to the practice of Reiki:

One aspect of ‘being spiritual’ is goal-directed, with aims such as: simultaneously improve one’s wisdom and… achieve a closer connection to Deity/the Universe, and remove illusions of false ideas at the sensory, feeling and thinking aspects of a person.

And that spirituality is

the active and vital connection to a force, spirit, or sense of the deep self.

In exploring our spirituality we can see that one of its central attributes is a desire to improve or develop one’s wisdom. In coming to achieve a closer connection to the Universe – which surely is the consequence of the inner exploration (through Reiki) that has been described, we remove the illusions that arise due to the sensory, feeling and thinking aspects of our earthly existences and this naturally gives rise to wisdom. With the arising of wisdom there is a spontaneous desire to manifest compassion in the world and in following this inclination we are then lead to an even greater understanding of our true nature and our existence as spiritual beings and thus the realization and manifestation of greater wisdom.

Spirituality, in terms of Reiki then is the deep and sublime exploration of what it is to be human and to express the realizations of that search for Truth as wisdom and compassion in the world as an active and dynamic process (often and ultimately as an expression of healing). This then creates from the clay of the Universal Energy Field (God) an even greater understanding of the true nature of our core experience as human beings. Spirituality becomes cyclic; creating an outward flowing spiral of energy that impacts on and blesses everyone and everything within its field of influence.

Compassion

2009-02-24T05:40:00.002Z

Feeling compassion for another being, is one of the most powerful, energetically sublime and spiritually evolved emotional states that we as human beings can experience. Compassion is however greatly misunderstood and often ascribed to feelings and emotions to which it does not rightly belong. Almost every day of everyone's life, moments arise that present us with, to one degree or another, the suffering of another person. They might only be feeling a little under the weather, or they might in fact be going through some life-changing, catastrophic event or the death of a near and dear one. Whatever the scale or seriousness of the situation, all of these things illicit from us, emotional states that are triggered by the emotional state of the other. More often than not however, the feelings that we experience are not compassion at all, but sympathy. There is a very big difference between the two.

Feeling sympathetic towards someone is often the immediate gut-response to seeing someone else suffer. Sympathy however is an emotion that at its core, implies a hierarchical structure, where the sympathetic person sees themselves as somehow better or better off than the person to whom the sympathy is directed. It is entirely devoid of of any real understanding of the nature of the other person's suffering and can often leave the sympathetic onlooker perplexed and at a loss as to what they can do to help. Sympathy is bereft of action.

The trouble with sympathy is that it is entirely outward looking and not generated from a heart of true understanding that we are all equal in our sufferings - though each person's suffering may have a distinct quality all its own. Sympathy is generated from the head. It is the result of logical thinking processes, informed by the heart, but ultimately a product of the mind. It recognises pain, sees within it qualities that it has also experienced and reacts in synchronicity with its own fear or concern over the feelings that this particular suffering generates. Compassion on the other hand is the product of the minds logic working in tandem with the feelings that come from the heart. For this to arise however, sympathy must first give way to empathy.

Compassion is a dynamic, powerful and infinitely sublime motive force that by its very nature changes the perceived reality of the recipient and that of the person generating the compassion, and the two become one, even just for a moment.
(Reiki Jin Kei Do: The Way of Compassion & Wisdom, pp 103)

Like it or not, we all experience moments in our lives when we go through deep pain or trauma. Most of us know how highly charged such emotional states can be and how they can often leave us in a state of total emotional paralysis: not knowing what to do, or where to go, or how to resolve the situation or perceive the prospect of any kind of future happiness. We get locked down into our own personal abyss of moment-by-moment suffering and often the only way out, is with the helping hand of another. These sorts of experiences are the catalyst that help us to mature emotionally and enable us to recognise in others the need for assistance when life is challenging for them. We start to develop the quality of empathy.

Empathy is the ability to put ourselves in the shoes of others. To be able to step into their pain and have a true understanding of their suffering; how it feels, where it comes from, what they lack and what they need to become whole again. It is the ability to feel deep inside of their pain and have a profound understanding of it, so much so that our reflective emotional response to it is that it could easily be our own pain that we feel. Empathy much more closely unites the feelings that are derived in the heart through a personal experience of suffering, with the logical understandings of the mind. Empathy however is still of little value in aiding someone who is in need of help. There is no part of an empathetic response that involves action, or any sort of meaningful solution to the other persons problem. Empathy is however a necessary precursor to the development of compassion.

Compassion must not be misunderstood as simply a heightened state of sympathy. This is critical as generally, it does indeed seem to be defined in this way. Compassion is active, sympathy is not. Compassion does not sit there in the heart or mind and simply project feelings of goodness towards the suffering person in a limp-wristed way. At its core, compassion is active and forceful and dynamic and weds the sympathetic mind of understanding, with the empathetic heart of feeling so that right action can be taken. Real compassion involves the recognition that we are duty-bound to do something to ease the suffering of the other person if it is within our means. Compassion however, cannot rightly exist without being informed by wisdom, and wisdom is the product of the mind and the heart working in unison. Whereas compassion is the active force of the heart that draws on the logical and experiential processes of the mind, wisdom is the logic and experiences of the mind drawing on the emotional understandings of the heart. There is a yin-yang relationship at work here - each requires the other to give it meaning and purpose, and indeed existence.

Sometimes we have no choice over whether to take action or not. We may see some terrible tragedy on TV or in the newspapers and feel deep compassion for those involved, but are helpless to do anything about it, other than send our good wishes, prayers, energy etc. If this is the most that we can do, then we should be satisfied that we did this as the effort is not wasted. There are other times where we are indeed able to take specfic action but may choose not too and instead leave the person who is suffering to experience their pain. There are often good reasons for doing so.

All pain, whatever its nature, is ultimately there to teach us something - it has no other purpose. We are required by the life plan that we have chosen to take the pain that meets us on our way through life and experience it to its fullest, and hopefully learn whatever it is that we need to learn from it. Sometimes, the pain can exist simply to push us in another direction because we have got stuck in an old pattern that we have become reluctant to shift. It is at times like these, that the helping hand of another is not always a good thing. It may seem so at the time as the immediate problem is alleviated, but actually, such misplaced help can often lead to a more painful experience further down the road as the lesson has not been learnt. The recognition of whether to aid someone or not is only possible with the help of wisdom. Wisdom however is not discriminatory, and recognises pain and suffering and the need for equable poise, regardless of who the suffering person is or their particular ciricumstances.

Of course, it is quite easy to offer assistance and love to someone that we hold dear or who has perhaps in the past helped us out of a difficult period of our lives. But the true spirit of compassion requires of us that we show kindness and offer our help towards all people, even those that we are indifferent to or might in fact not like very much because of some past hurt that they have inflicted upon us. To offer an unconditional expression of compassion in this way is one of the hardest challenges to face us in life. To realize true freedom and a full expression of the heart however, it is a path that we must take. It is the path of the Bodhisattva. To take this path, firstly we need a correctly orientated view of our own state of suffering and a much more equanimous view of the world around us.

It is easy to see suffering and injustice in the world and want to do something to change this state of affairs. However, the real problem; the place where the fixing needs to happen first, is inside of ourselves. It is our perception of the world and the way that we relate to the problems of the world and the suffering of others that should be the initial focus of our compassion and our efforts to bring healing and harmony. Once we work on ourselves and realize that we too have problems and are in need of compassion, that we too are not always in the right and can make mistakes, and that we need to forgive our ourselves and see ourselves as the rightful recipients of love and understanding, then we can truly begin to empathize with the suffering of others. In this spirit of true understanding, we can then offer active compassion in a way that will not only relieve the person's suffering but also promote a sense of wellbeing and happiness. We bring the wisdom of the mind, forged in the furnace of reflective experience, to bear on the heart-felt desire to do something to ease anothers pain.

Ultimately, we simply have to let go of the emotions that we feel and just be compassion. Compassion, whilst triggered by our own emotional states, needs to take on the quality of equinimity if it is to offer real solutions to the problems that exist in the world, whether on an individual or global level. We need to be able to step back from an emotion-driven response and allow wisdom to permeate our desire to take action and express our compassion. Once we can do this, as a result of our deep engagement with a self-focus on love and understanding, then what we have to offer to others, is not hampered by or coloured by our emotional state and thus there is a greater chance that it has the quality of right action.

Compassion in its fullest sense is indeed about taking action. It is about doing something of value in the world to alleviate the suffering of other beings. But it is a doing that arises out of a correct perception of the nature of reality, our place within it and that of the recipient(s) of our compassionate action. This perception is not arrived at easily and overnight; it is a (re-) learned response to the world that has at its core a commitment and a drive to develop ourselves spiritually and emotionally.

The development of compassion is not simply a bolt-on to the process of our pyschological and emotional maturing. It is one of the fundamental reasons we incarnated here in the first place. The process of allowing the conditions for the arising of unconditional love and compassion for all beings is one that is filled ultimately, with joy. Although we may face many challenges and many dilemmas as our awareness and sense of purpose increase, ultimately compassion and the process of developing compassion, is the key that will release us from the prison of our own mental and emotional dysfunctions.

Many blessings and much metta,

Steve

Islam's Gandhi - Part Two

2009-02-15T19:04:00.002Z

During some recent research on Ustadh Mahmoud and his teachings, I came across this archive footage of the Republican Brotherhood from the 1970's and 1980's. The Republican Brotherhood is the name given to the former Republican Party in later years by Ustadh Mahmoud, to reflect its much more spiritual inclinations as opposed to its previously predominant political orientation.

I hope that these give you a better understanding and feel for the times and culture in which Ustadh Mahmoud and his followers operated.

Blessings, much metta and salam alikum,

Steve

Islam's Gandhi - Part One

2009-02-13T18:26:00.002Z

This post originally appeared on 'The Voice of Humanity Healing' for February 13th 2009.

Over the coming months, 'The Voice of Humanity Healing' will be featuring a series of short articles and pictures, put together as a part of my ongoing research for my new book 'Islam's Gandhi' about the life and teachings of the Sudanese mystic Mahmoud Mohamed Taha. Certainly most of the pictures that you will see here, will not make it into the book and so this series will be presenting you with exclusive material that I hope will enrich your enjoyment of the final text when it is finally published.

Salam alikum,

Steve

Mahmoud Mohamed Taha - His life - Part One

Executed in January 1985 for crimes against Islam, Mahmoud Mohamed Taha was without a doubt, possibly one of Islam's leading modern heroes. Like his Indian near-contemporary, Mahatma Gandhi, Taha was a key figure in the fight for the independence of his homeland from British-Egyptian rule.

Born around 1909 in the town of Rufa'h on the east bank of the Blue Nile in central Sudan, Taha or 'Ustadh' Mahmoud (Revered Teacher) as he became known, came from a simple farming background. Rufa'h was then, as much as it is today a quiet and sleepy backwater. Nothing much happens there and people live out their lives in relative contentment, secure within a supportive and unhurried community. It was within the security of this environment that Ustadh Mahmoud spent his formative years.

Briefly moving to the village of Al Higailieg with their father following the death of their mother in 1915, Ustadh Mahmoud and his three siblings returned to Rufa'h n 1920. Their father had also passed away that year and had left the care of his children to their aunt. She allowed them to continue with their formal education, but it was only Ustadh Mahmoud who was to succeed within the rigorous and highly competitive educational system of the time. He went on to attend Gordon Memorial College (now the University of Khartoum) and in 1936, graduated from the school of engineering. He quickly secured employment with Sudan Railways, but this did not last for long and in 1941, he resigned and established his own private practice as an engineer.

It was during this period, from the late 1930's onwards that Ustadh Mahmoud took an active role within the burgeoning Nationalist struggle for independence from British-Egyptian rule. Dissatisfaction with the way that the struggle was being directed quickly set in however. The political parties that were vying for control of the country were compromising their ideals on full independence and succumbing to the divisive tactics of the colonial powers in an effort to secure favour. The educated elite were offering their support to the traditional religious leaders who commanded widespread support within the country at that time. For Ustadh Mahmoud, none of the available options seemed to offer much hope for the future of his country.

Along with others who similarly felt a deep sense of betrayal by those whose motivation seemed to be based on their own vested interest, whether political or religious, Ustadh Mahmoud established the Republican Party in October of 1945. The Republican's earliest publications began to set out their agenda for the establishment of a secular State, based upon a modernist understanding and orientation to traditional Islamic teachings.

By 1946, Ustadh Mahmoud and some of his colleagues had been sentenced to prison by the colonial administration for refusing to abstain from political activity. The Party's policy of open confrontation and political agitation had begun to threaten the political stability of the British-Egyptian authorities. Ustadh received a one year sentence but due to the vociferous and mounting pressure from the Republican's and their followers, a pardon was issued by the British Governor-General and Ustadh Mahmoud was released, having served only fifty days. Later that year however, he was again arrested and sentenced to two years in prison for his role in what became known as the Rufa'h Incident.

During that year, the government had outlawed the practice of Pharoanic circumcision - a practice that involved the removal of all of the external female genital organs. Although entirely in accord with the spirit of the new law and actively promoting an end to such abhorrent practices, the Republicans argued that legal interventions of this kind were extremely counterproductive and would only serve to drive the practice underground. Instead they argued for better education and an improvement in the general health and welfare conditions for Sudanese women. The opposed positions on the issue came to a head in Rufa'h when in an effort to mobilise public opinion against the colonial powers, the Republicans took up the case of a woman under threat of prosecution for subjecting her own daughter to the prohibited practice. Although the subsequent protest, lead by Ustadh Mahmoud lead to the immediate release of the accused woman, he quickly found himself under arrest along with other leaders of the Republican Party. Several thousand men had crossed the Blue Nile after Friday prayers into Hassaheissa - the administrative centre of the district to call for the woman's immediate release. Ustadh Mahmoud's arrest and incarceration over this incident proved to be a pivotal moment, not only for him and the Republican Party, but for also for the evolution of understanding of Islam.

Ustadh Mahmoud used his time in prison to undertake an intensive programme of prayer, fasting and meditation. Upon his release he committed to a further three years of self-imposed seclusion - known as a 'Khalwah'. Sometime later, in reference to this period, he said "When I settled in prison I began to realize that I was brought there by my Lord and thence I started my Khalwah with Him". Ultimately his five year programme of focused religious practice aimed at gaining a deeper understanding of the message of God as laid out in the Qur'an, lead Ustadh Mahmoud to formulate what he called 'The Second Message of Islam'. Based on the insights that he gained into the Qur'an and the role of Islamic Law during the Khalwah, The Second Message articulated a new vision for the Islamic world. A vision in which the essential truths of the Qur'an and thus God's word, could be made not only relevant to a time and culture far removed from the one in which the Qur'an was laid down, but much more in line with the essential doctrines and expectations resulting from a true and full engagement with the word of God.

As a devout Muslim, Ustadh Mahmoud believed that all God-given revelations had ended with the Prophet Mohamed but none-the-less, he claimed that his vision and subsequent teachings on the future direction of Islam were God-given. In support of this he cited verse 282 of the second Sura of the Qur'an which states that 'God teaches the one who is pious and fearful of God'. He also cited the Sunnah (the examples of the Prophet) which states that the person who acts in accordance with what he or she knows, shall be granted by God knowledge of that which he or she does not know. It is this allusion to hidden or mystic teachings that is often used by the great Sufi masters in defence of their practices and orientations to Islam and that set them apart from the non-mystical teachings and interpretations of others. It was Ustadh's firm belief that through dedicated study and contemplative prayer and meditation, the believer can receive direct and unmediated enlightened understanding of the Word of God as revealed to the Prophet Mohamed.

In October 1951, Following Ustadh Mahmoud's period of religious seclusion and the dissemination of his new and comprehensive vision for the future of Islam, The Republican Party went through a major transformation from a political party into an organization dedicated to the propagation of Ustadh's spiritual teachings. Those members who wished to continue in a more politically active role broke away and joined other parties, whilst the Republicans, under the direct leadership of Ustadh began a campaign of spreading the The Second Message of Islam to the Sudanese public. This transformative process however did not preclude the Republicans from continuing their support for and dissemination of their deeply held convictions on a political front. The organisation simply re-orientated its principle focus, so that its view of the political landscape became inherently much more spiritual.

After a brief period working for the Water and Electricity Company in Khartoum, Ustadh resumed his private practice as an engineer. Initially continuing to spread his teachings through an ongoing programme of public lectures and newspaper articles, in 1955 he published a book entitled 'Usus Dustour As-Soudan' which set out an agenda for a new Sudanese constitution, which called for a presidential, federal, democratic and socialist Republic that contained at its heart a pacifist and inclusive agenda derived from his understandings of man's relationship to the Divine. Any attempt to impose laws derived from Islamic Sharia were anathema to him, seeing this as divisive and inviting distrust and animosity from the non-Muslim, non-Arab southern Sudanese.

In 1956, following the declaration of Independence on January 1st of that year, a committee was set up to begin the process of writing a new constitution for the country. Ustadh Mahmoud took his place on the committee as the representative for the Republican Party. After only a few months, frustrated and dissatisfied with the corrupt agendas of some of the representatives, Ustadh Mahmoud resigned his seat and cited interference from the executive authority as the reason. Ultimately the committee presented their findings and recommendations for a new constitution that were largely based on Sharia Law as demanded by the traditional sectarian religious parties.

In November of 1958 however, just prior to the adoption of the constitutional recommendations requested by the committee, a bloodless military coup seized power and all political parties, including the Republican Party were dissolved. Ustadh Mahmoud, not wishing to relinquish his vision of a new Sudan, seized the opportunity and wrote to the head of the new regime; General Abboud requesting that he implement the proposals of the Republicans for a socialist, democratic and federal government. He included with his letter, a copy of his book about the constitution. Although Ustadh Mahmoud's recommendations were dismissed out of hand, he continued to lecture publicly and spread his conception of the new Sudanese Republic and the role of Islam within society to all that would listen. His ideas however were intolerable to the closed minds of the religious traditionalists, who became more and more vociferous in their opposition to the Republican agenda.

After the dismissal of three students from the Islamic Institute of Omdurman for propagating the ideas of Ustadh Mahmoud, a ban was implemented prohibiting Ustadh and his followers from holding public lectures and denying them access to all the media. Restricted in this way the members of the movement went largely underground and confined their activities to the private homes of members and of sympathetic friends.

With the return of multi-party parliamentary government, the Republican Party was revived and once more continued with their programme of spreading the teachings of The Second Message of Islam through public lectures, newspaper articles and books. In 1966-67, Ustadh Mahmoud published three of his most important works: 'Tarieq Mohammed' ('Mohammed's Path'), 'Risalat Assalat' ('The Message of Prayer') and 'Arrisala Atthaniya min Al-Islam' ('The Second Message of Islam'). Two further books published in 1967 set out his proposal for direct talks to establish a peaceful co-existence between the Arab States and Israel. Ustadh Mahmoud was fundamentally opposed to the sort of Arab Nationalism as put forward by Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser as well as what he perceived as the primitive and anti-humanitarian applications of Islam being instituted in Saudi Arabia and promoted by the Muslim Brotherhood in other Arab states. Ustadh Mahmoud was certainly not averse to standing his ground and taking on the rest of the Muslim world in an effort to educate and enlighten others about what he perceived to be the true message of Islam.

In 1968, Ustadh Mahmoud's vocal opposition to the established Islamic order lead once more to his arrest. This time he had been accused by two Islamic University teachers of committing the crime of 'Ridda' or apostasy; a crime punishable by death. Ustadh invoked his constitutional right of freedom of thought and expression and refused to appear before the court. The accusations were investigated in his absence by the Khartoum Sharia (Islamic Rules) High Court. It is not currently clear as to the decision of the court, or whether the legal proceedings were in anyway interrupted by the military coup by the Free Officers Movement, lead by Jaafar an Nimeiri on May 25th 1969. Ustadh however lived and went on to continue his lecturing and public speaking for a little while longer. One of the first acts of the new regime however was to abolish all government institutions and to ban all political parties, including the Republican Party and so once again, the Republicans found themselves politically isolated and having to continue their activities underground.

This is the first part of the research and notes that I have prepared for 'Islam's Gandhi'. Further research notes will continue to be published here as the book takes shape. I am in discussion about this project with Ustadh Mahmoud's family and in time would hope to include here some of the interviews that I intend to undertake. A trip to Ustadh Mahmoud's home town of Rufa'h will also hopefully take place soon and I shall publish here any pictures of that visit along with new information as it is gathered. Please note however that this series of articles represents my working methods in the preparation of the manuscript for the book, and thus the series of articles may not necessarily follow a chronolgical order. I hope that you have found this initial introduction to the life of Ustadh Mahmoud Mohamed Taha - Islam's Gandhi - to be of some interest.

Many blessings and much metta,

Steve

The Supreme Ultimate

2009-01-31T17:38:00.003Z

This post originally appeared on 'The Voice of Humanity Healing' for 31st January 2009.

Emblazoned across the backs of Young Guns leather jackets, melting into the amorphous realms of the Third Eye, adorning the walls of hippie student's dormitory walls, sparkling on the end of a silver earing as the sun catches it's twirling motion. The Supreme Ultimate, the Yin Yang (as it is known in the West) has become the universal symbol of something beyond, something destabilising, a call to arms to begin the revolution of the mind and a badge of one's commitment to all and anything that is not the way it is now. It's a trinket, an adornment, a puzzle and a revelation. It is a finger up to the establishment and a gateway to the realm of the Gods. A pattern, a badge, a symbol of power...whatever you want it to be, the Supreme Ultimate is it.

Whether we are familiar with the meanings, the origins and the uses of this archetypal, universal symbolic form, we all know it. We have all seen it countless times. It seems to have seeped into the consciousness, subconsciousness and meta-consciouness of the West and thus of the world. Owned by none, claimed by many, it is, according to the ancient Chinese sages, the physical manifestation of the concept of the ethereal omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence of all that is.

The Supreme Ultimate is a deeply provocative act of revolutionising consciousness and has its physical and thus conscious origins within the realization of opposing forces. Essentially, the symbol is a representation of the interconnectedness and interdependence of all things and how one gives rise to the other. In classical Chinese thought, all natural dualities are cast in terms of yin and yang: male and female, light and dark, good and bad, full and empty....all of these things are reliant for their existence on their opposite. There cannot be light without darkness, there cannot be male without female, there cannot be good without bad..there is an intrinsic interdependence of one on the other - and each gives rise to the other. As the sun climbs in the sky, as it reaches its zenith, there is within it, the seed of the coming night and slowly but surely it gives way to darkness, which in turn carries within it the seed of the coming day. It is a continuous motion of one leading to the other. The symbol is indeed designed to give the impression of movement.

The two aspects of the Yin Yang symbol constantly interact and never exist in a state of stasis. The outer circle of the symbol represents the whole, whilst the black and white sections represent aspects of the whole, and within each we can see the seed and the coming birth of the other aspect - its opposite. The Yin apsect of the symbol is the dark area and is characterised in terms of the feminine: slow, soft, cold, wet, tranquil and pliant, whilst the Yang aspect; the white section is characterised as male: hard, fast, dry, hot, aggressive and rigid. The white aspect rises on the left, whilst the dark aspect descends on the right.

The concepts of Yin and Yang are the fundamental principles behind all of the traditional Chinese martial systems - whether they be active or passive. In each we see the principles of passivity and pliancy in a constant dance of submission and assertion with the principles of activity and resistance; and all to astonishing effect. The Chinese martial arts, whilst being some of the most complete and boundlessly destructive methods of combat known to man, have within them the submissive grace of a debutante. They are the perfect encapsulation of the principles of yin and yang and thus express and live out in microcosm, the concepts of the Supreme Ultimate. Yet the Supreme Ultimate is empty as well as full. It is devoid of anything and expresses nothing at the same time that it expresses all and is full of everything that there is in existence. It is beyond expression and definition. Full amd empty are mutually counteractive concepts - but they express the duallity of existence. This duality is contained within the emptiness of the Supreme Ultimate.

The outer circle of the symbol - the whole - is the One. It is all that is and ever was and is greater and smaller than any other concept or theoretical construct known to man. Macrocosm and microcosm. The One gives rise to the two and thus opposition as well as harmonious co-existence. In the martial arts, we see this constant interplay and arising and falling of opposing forces, each containing the acceptance and potential of the ensuing form as it progresses. But more than this, the mind, the being that gives rise to and commands the arising and diminishing of these forces for the form and the art to be successful, must strive to become the outer circle of the symbol. He or she must become empty and full at the same time: ready to be placid and pliant, ready to be aggressive and submissive, ready to concede and grasp everything - to be empty and full at the same time is to have a deep knowing of the nature of the Universe beyond this Universe. To be still and concede that the arising of one or other of the aspects known as Yin or Yang can be called upon and infuse one's being at will.If you have ever studied Tai Chi and are familiar with the practice of 'Pushing Hands' you will understand the ideas, expressed through the Supreme Ultimate of rising and falling, pushing forward and giving way in an endless series of pliant, yet strong hand and arm movements. This basic Tai Chi exercise has much in common with the passage of our lives as we go from day to day. So how does the Yin Yang symbol relate to our everyday lives and how can we use the concepts behind it to help us move through life in a more peaceful and conscious way?

Our day to day existence is full of choices and decisions. Some of these are significant, some are not - or appear not to be, but all, in their own way have profound impacts on us - for our long term health and sense of wellbeing and for our spiritual growth. Even something as seemingly insignificant as our feeling in the morning when we rise and see that it is raining outside is a decision that we make, based on the principles of Yin and Yang. Regardless of the external conditions - the rain - we have the abillity to chose how we feel about it. We can be happy because it will water our garden or because we just like walking in it, or we can be miserable, because it is yet another wet, cold and unpleasant day. The rain is just the rain and expressing it's nature, but we are entirely in control of our feelings towards it and as a consequence of that decision, our feelings and mood may be coloured for the rest of that day. In becoming the emptiness of the Supreme Ultimate - embodying and realising the Oneness within our being, it is necessary to simply let the rain be. To not allow the arising of any thoughts as to our feelings towards it - whether we would think of them as positive or negative.

We might rightly say that it is a good thing for us to feel positive about the fact that it is raining, or our boss is not going to give us the promotion that we wanted, or that our car won't start today...or any of the plethora of events that happen to us throughout our days and our lives. Of course, having a positive approach to these things is eminently more desireable than a negative view, but if we wish to really see the world as it is, it is necessary to move beyond the duality of this or that, right and wrong, positive and negative. Each time that we raise a thought of any kind, we colour the world with the imprint of our minds. The consequence of this is that we never actually get to see or experience the world as it truly is.

When we are presented with a chair and asked "What is it that you see?" We answer "A chair" - but we only know it as a chair because of all our other experiences of chairs. We know what it is for, we know if it is comfortable, we know how to use it, we know if it is aesthetically pleasing...we know much about it because we have a data bank of knowledge on the subject of chairs. What we do not see is what it actually is that we are being presented with; stripped away of the clutter of thoughts and processes that we impose upon it. Try to see anything in the world around you, devoid of your own preconditioning - it is almost impossible.

But if we want to find true peace for ourselves, if we want to find the way to a life of bliss, we really do at some point need to not only realise the emptiness of the Supreme Ultimate within ourselves as more than a theoretical and spiritual construct, we must become the Supreme Ultimate. We must empty ourselves and simply accept the world as it is - see it as it is - experience it as it is and have an understanding and control of the nature of our potential to express duality in which ever way we chose. We live in a dual world, governed by the laws of duallity, and while we exist here on this earthly plane, we have no choice but to move through it in a dualistic fashion - choosing this or that, black or white, up or down but we need to do it from the space of emptiness that is the outer circle - the Oneness of creation. And we need to do it in the full knowledge that whatever choice we make, it has within it the seed of it's opposite that will also one day come to fruition.

As we watch the pendulum of our lives, we must see that it is riven with constant swings backwards and forwards between events, circumstances, emotions that we can characterise as positive or negative. It is all very complex and there are many interwoven strands and threads that mitigate against us being able to label one aspect of our lives as totally positive or negative, but in broad terms, we are all aware of the constant movement back and forth between one extreme and another. If we want to stop this swing for good instead of resting in the illusory space of the good times that will inevitably come to an end, then we must focus on the emptiness of existence. We must try to bring to our minds the understanding and feeling and knowing of being, in fact, the Supreme Ultimate given birth within the illusory world of duality.

Metta and many blessings,

Steve

Manifesting Your Dreams

2009-01-24T22:34:00.002Z

This post originally appeared on 'The Voice of Humanity Healing' 24th January 2009.

We all have ambitions in life. We all have desires and aspirations for our futures. We all want to reach out for the stars and grasp that which we believe we are capable of. We all want something more than we have right now. It is a part of the human condition, and a wonderful part of it at that. It is actually a blessing: our desire for more than we are given when we are born. Our sense of wanting to be and to have and to feel more than we are gifted with at the moment of our birth.

Of course there are those who reading this, will say "I am happy and content with what and who I am right now", but this condition is not arrived at easily for most of us. Even those who can honestly proclaim such a beneficent state, possibly had to strive for it in some way in the past, or come to an internal and personal acceptance of this state at some stage in their lives. Very few of us are born with an innate sense of acceptance and joy at the process of our lives as it unfolds. Most of us yearn for some sort of change or improvement. This is how it should be and it is one of the reasons why we came into the world: to be and do and feel more; to strive to be all that we can be and to achieve our highest potential.

This desire springs out of a dissatisfaction with the way that things are right now. We are all prone to this, whatever the state or condition of our lives. The richest and the poorest, the ill and the healthy, the wise and the unwise, all want something that is not currently within their life experience. Ultimately, the motivating force is the perception of the lack of happiness that we have or the expectation that in gaining that which we desire, our happiness will increase or improve or indeed replace the sadness or misery that is now our lot. It is a worthy goal and one that we should n0t under any circumstances relinquish. Of course, the achieving of happiness is not ultimately predicated on the gaining of things and external conditions. The realisation of this truth however, is one that we need to discover for ourselves - it is a part of the spiritual path of increasing self-consciousness.

Regardless of this, there is nothing wrong whatsoever in aiming high and trying to gain the summit of your personal ambition. Whether it is the achieving of a desired for relationship, or the gaining of a better job, or the striving to be free of the restraints that a society, culture, family or other external force places upon us. Having an ambition, a goal is a worthy thing to have. The desire for happiness however that these things ultimately do not bring, will and must go on; propelling us to the next goal, the next achievement, the next great success.

Maintaining a sense that we can achieve our potential and gain that which we do not currently have is often not easy however. It depends in part on how far or high we are aiming and whether or not we have a strong enough internal belief system to keep us going when the going gets tough. Faith in our ability to achieve our potential or a commitment to keep going in the right direction is fundamental to success. A half hearted or limp wristed approach is destined for failure. Certainly, never allow others to steal your dreams. Whatever it is that you aspire too, however high the mountain is, whatever it is that you need to do to manifest your new reality, the very worst thing you can do is to give up because of the low expectations of others due to their commitment to a life that is less than it could be. Never let those who expect little from life, project their negativity or their lack of motivation on to you. The result will be that you will abandon all that you hold dear and accept less that you are capable of.

So what is the secret of success? How do ordinary men and women turn misfortune or poverty into great personal and professional achievements? There is one golden key and that is to have faith in yourself. To believe and know 100% that what you aspire too, is achievable - that you can do it. Being positive is not enough. Simply believing is not enough. These are great things and a part of the recipe of success, but to achieve the big goals, something more is needed. To get right to the top of your personal mountain, there is a need to know, deep inside of you, that you CAN make it. Don't believe it, KNOW it.

Those that push to the greatest successes in life - whatever they may be are the one's that absolutely refuse to contemplate failure. They are the ones that, through all of the obstacles, just keep going. Those that do not give up in the face of what appear to be insurmountable odds. When everyone else would abandon their dreams and resign themselves to the belief that they gave it a shot, but it was out of their reach, those that are relentless in their pursuit of their goal stand an excellent chance of achieving it. It doesn't matter what the goal is. Everything is possible. Everything can be achieved. Whatever it is that you want to do with your life, if you are determined enough and willing to put everything on the line to achieve it, then you most certainly can gain that which others gave up on long ago.

It is all down to your attitude. It is all down to your belief in yourself. You can do and have anything that you set your heart on. Just don't give up! Never give up! Keep going until you get what you want. But be flexible! Circumstances can change and a goal can become inappropriate. This can often happen. Allow life to take you in its current and be open to new possibilities, but keep pushing forward. Don't give up on your drive for success.

Goals can and do often change along the way. There is nothing wrong with this and shifting your focus is not a mark of failure...it is a celebration of the fact that you are not limiting yourself in anyway. It is an exultation of your ability to bend like the reed in the stream, to the possibilities and currents of life. The point is to just keep moving forward. Going in the right direction. Refocusing and reassessing and moving with life to where you want to be. We cannot always predict at the outset what the problems might be that we will encounter on our journey. The answer is simple: just stay flexible, and deal with whatever life throws up as you go.

All of this striving however, as I have said is ultimately not going to bring you lasting happiness. Let's not live under any illusion about this. Happiness is an internal state and not dictated by external forces. Happiness is a state of mind. Happiness can exist under any circumstances. Happiness is predicated on the right internal conditions, not on external ones. Happiness and not angst, or sadness or misery or emotional pain can be achieved with a simple change of mind. Just chose to be happy and you are. It would appear to be very simple, but if it were, we would not spend our lives in pursuit of external things. We would all simply chose happiness in whatever circumstances we find ourselves and give up all other external efforts, as what would be the point in striving anymore?

Striving is however a necessary part of being human. It is what brings joy to our day, gets us motivated in the morning, allows us to dream and to plan and to hope. It is what makes life rich and filled with possibilities. Aiming for our goals is just as much a part of the spiritual journey as engaging in meditation or mantra practice or chakra work or...you name it...these are all just different facets of the human condition, and every single thing that we do in life is a part of the journey to enlightenment or union with God. It is just another part of the tapestry of our lives.

Don't give up, don't fall at the first hurdle, don't let others put you off. Just keep striving, overcome everything that stands in your way and push forward in life. Eventually, you will succeed like you could never have dreamed.

Blessings and metta,

Steve

Love From Daddy

2009-01-24T05:46:00.004Z

This post is taken from my blog 'Love From Daddy', which I post on an ocassional basis for my children Marianne and Sam. I thought it about time that I started to disseminate this material a little wider.

Dear Marianne & Sam,

Yesterday I went out to visit a place called Tuti Island. It is right in the middle of the Nile River and is near where the Blue and the White Nile's meet.

These first two photos are of the two men that took me to the island in a very old boat and me on the journey. It only took a couple of minutes. It was great to be back on the Nile again. I have not been on a boat on the Nile since I lived in Cairo and was there with your mum, Sam.

Tuti Island is right in the middle of Khartoum and not that far from the President's Palace and other important government buildings. So it is very odd to be on the island, walking down a quiet country lane, with donkeys on it, or sitting on a beach and knowing that you are still in the capital city of the biggest country in Africa.

I spent about three hours on Tuti yesterday, just wandering around and taking photographs for you. Even though it is winter here, it was still quiet a hot day. After walking a long way around Tuti, through the town and some of the farmland, I got a tuk tuk back to where the boats were, to get back to the shore and go home.

This next photo shows a view of the centre of Khartoum from the shore of Tuti. The big building is a hotel that was built by Colonel Gadafi of Libya, called the Burj. I went in there later for a coffee.

On the other side of the island, which is about 20 minutes walk away, there is a beautiful sandy beach, just like at the seaside. Only here, you would not really want to go swimming in the water. The locals do, but I certainly would not want to swim in the river.

Here is a photo of a tuk tuk. This is the only taxi service on the island though there are some proper vans and small lorries here too. Tuk Tuks are not allowed in Central Khartoum apart from on this island. This tuk tuk driver stopped and wanted me to take his photo.

Here is a quiet country lane on Tuti with a donkey taking a rest and having some food. It is strange to think that this is right in the middle of the city. There are not many cities in the world where you can go to the centre and find a country lane with donkeys walking and resting.

In this last photo is the Burj. This is the only really nice hotel in Khartoum and built by Colonel Gadafi of Libya. It is beautiful inside but has hardly any visitors or guests at all. It is not that expensive really, but does not get used much. I was told that even though it dooes not make enough money to stay open, the Libyan government funds it and so it stays open. I went here for a coffee on my way home from Tuti Island. The hotel and the island are only about a half hour walk away from my school.

I hope that you two are behaving and getting on with your school work. I am glad that you are enjoying your first time at school Sam and making lots of new friends. I am so proud of you my boy. Marianne, I loved the horror story that you showed me that you did for school and I am really proud of you too. You are a natural writer and I hope that you will write a lot more.

See you soon. Take care and be good.

Lots of love,

Daddy xxxx

Bridges Can be Built - An Interview with Jo Berry

2008-10-20T16:47:00.003+01:00

The following post originally appeared on 'The Voice of Humanity Healing' on 19th October 2008.

Between 1969 and 1998, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was engaged in a bloody and futile war over the sovereignty of one of the last pieces of its disintegrating Empire - the territory of Northern Ireland. Those concerned with semantics have over the years argued over the terminology with which to describe the conflict: 'war', 'armed struggle', 'acts of terrorism'...all of these labels have been used by both the British establishment and the IRA (Irish Republican Army) in an effort to categorize and legitimize their activities. The reality is that, during this period both sides were involved in taking the lives of other people. People that, yes, may have made a commitment to violence themselves as a way to expedite their own political and social agendas, but people nonetheless. People with wives and children, mothers and fathers, hopes and aspirations, dreams and ambitions. People with a right to a better, more just and compassionate social milieu in which to live. So lets forget the semantics of the ignorant and blinkered prevaricators and call it what it was: a terrible war.

One of the worst atrocities to be committed by the IRA during this period, was the bombing of The Grand Hotel in Brighton on the southern coast of England in 1984. Brighton is very much a typical English sea-side town. Majestic Victorian facades of boarding houses and hotels dot the coastal road and overlook summer-flower scattered enclosures for people to sit in the sun and catch the sea breeze. Deck-chairs along the beach, the ever present amusement arcades that pin-ball their way along the main beach-side drag and out onto the pier. Coffee shops, tea rooms, candy-floss stalls, ambling youths with skateboards and aging towns-folk out for a stroll. Brighton is that quintessential English city-escape and coastal rest-room for weary London commuters and families in need of a sojourn away from their hum-drum lives. In 1984 however, Brighton became host to carnage and destruction.

Each autumn, all of the UK political parties hold their annual Party Conference and ruminate on the previous years successes (and failures) and plan their forward strategies for either taking or holding onto power. In 1984, the governing Conservative Party, under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher, withdrew from the halls of Westminster to The Grand Hotel at Brighton. The conference that was held there, was no ordinary party conference. The Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher at that time was one of the most powerful, ferociously committed and dynamic political machines that had ever been assembled in the UK. Thatcher was in the process of re-shaping British politics and as a consequence of Britain's position in the world, impacting dramatically on the political land-scapes of countries around the globe.

The Thatcher administration, loved by many, vilified by many more, was one of the most significant political moments in modern British history. The names of her fellow Members of Parliament, colleagues and others within her governmental entourage are deeply etched into the collective British psyche. One of those members - a key player within the Thatcher administration and a not insignificant figure in Royal circles also, was Sir Anthony Berry MP, one of the Conservative party delegates at the conference being held at The Grand in 1984.

When the IRA bomb exploded it not only brought to its knees an architectural remnant of the bygone Britannic world-order, it also smashed a hole in the walls of the then current British political fortress that Thatcher's government had done so much to rebuild and buttress. Amongst the carnage, lay four people. Four people, murdered; victims of a symbiotic conflict. People, who's lives were intertwined with other lives, and had loved and laughed and grown and shared and given in the pursuit of making the world a better place not only for themselves but also for others. For their families, their friends, their nation and the world. Each political act touches not only the immediate and local community, but like ripples in a pond, the world and all of those in it. These four people - one of them Sir Anthony Berry - had dedicated their lives to such a pursuit.

As Britain sat in shock, glued to it's TV screens in one of those moments that, like the killing of John F Kennedy or the death of Princess Diana or the destruction of the World Trade Centre, that stay etched on your memory for ever, Jo Berry, the daughter of Sir Anthony was in a state of extreme emotional turmoil and panic. Her father lay dead in the ruins of the Brighton hotel.

Whilst the political and social ramifications of this terrible event were to deeply scar the British establishment and its policies towards Northern Ireland for years to come, just as significant were the consequences of this event for Jo Berry. Jo had for some time been committed to a spiritual and peaceful way of life and like many, was active in pursuing a personal agenda of meditation, spiritual purification and the development of love and compassion for all beings - disseminated from a heart of blissful equanimity.

The Brighton bomb however, kicked Jo face down into the mud of reality. The reality of the suffering world. A world where the pain and uncertainty and precariousness of life leave almost no room for sublime outpourings. Down in this place, real people die and churn in emotional and physical agony. Pain, death and blood are the order of things here and Jo's confrontation with it brought her crashing down from the mountain top.

Jo's journey since that moment took on a new and reality-focused dynamic. Her commitment to the spiritual life did not wane, but was invigorated by the intensity of her experience in losing her father in such a tragic way. Bringing suffering to the minds of those determined to make a positive change in the world is often the catalyst that will provide the motivation to combine a real engagement with real problems to a meditational or prayer practice. It is all very well, pontificating on the need for peace in the world and spending time in prayer and mediation for the suffering of others, but this on its own is the preserve of those who's commitment and dedication to the cause is at best, limp and vacuous. Real change, real peace, real compassion needs more. It needs what Jo committed too back in 1984. It needs a positive and proactive engagement in the physical world, but born of love and understanding and forgiveness. It needs a willingness to get down on your knees in the mud of the world.

Jo's gift to the world is her compassion and understanding. It is her willingness to step into anothers shoes and to feel their needs, their cause, their pain. It is her ability to forgive that marks her out as a truly committed and spiritually mature human being. It is her dedication to not only advancing herself along the path of awareness, but to also bringing others with her on this journey; to touch them with the truth of the spiritual life, descended and manifested in the physical realm. To help them to realise that the only way forward for the human race is the one of peace and forgiveness. Forgiveness is indeed,where it needs to start.

Some time after the tragedy of the Brighton bomb, Jo made contact with Pat Magee. Pat, an Irish Republican and member of the IRA, was the man responsible for planting the bomb at The Grand Hotel and for the murder of Jo's father. Meeting someone that is directly responsible for killing one of your own parents must be, for anyone, a potentially traumatic and intensely focused experience. Although, as Jo explains in the interview for this post, it was also an intense experience for her, she undertook the meeting with a desire to find a common humanity and a common basis on which to begin a process of understanding and reconciliation. This in itself is an admirable and difficult outcome to even contemplate for most in such a situation. Jo however, approached the task with a conviction that forgiveness and reconciliation are the only ways forward. The only ways to put an end to the violence that shatters and destroys so many lives around the world on a daily basis.

The outcome of that fateful meeting was a re-orientation to life and the tragedies that envelope it for not only Jo but also for Pat Magee. As Jo has noted in relation to her continued meetings with Pat over the years:

"I'm beginning to realise that no matter which side of the conflict you're on, had we all lived each others lives, we could all have done what the other did."

Since that first meeting in 2000, Jo and Pat have formed a loose working partnership and have taken their message of peace and reconciliation around the world; visiting many previously war torn and socially traumatised communities from South Africa to the families of the victims torn apart by the destruction of the World Trade Centre in the United States. Whilst the coalition between Jo and Pat has been amicable, there have continued to be points of disagreement over Pat's weddedness to the notion that violence can sometimes be a legitimate method of conflict resolution. However, the importance of their joint efforts in helping to instigate an evolutionary process in the minds of those bitten by despair, hate and anger for what has been done to them, is profoundly important.

It's importance lies not just in the rebuilding of shattered lives after the event, but also for the message of hope that is implicit within it, that suggests that perhaps there are better ways to solve our problems. There are better ways to deal with our points of conflict and to loosen our embedded thinking from the constraints that we bind it with. Jo's and Pat's message is one that needs to be heard much more. It is a message that points to salvation for us all. It is a message that gives hope and reveals that even in the darkest of moments, within the deepest of tragedies, that there is a ferociously burning beacon of light to show us the way to a better life if we are prepared to pick it up and leave behind our despair.

Jo was strong enough in the depths of her tragedy to pick up this beacon. Her hope lead her to commit to paper a message for Pat in the form of a poem. It was one of the outcomes of the process that Jo put herself through in her desire to meet with her father's killer and to try to understand his world-view. It is a text that expresses her own inner conflicts and her commitment to the cause of peace, forgiveness and understanding. We publish the text of the poem here but you can also hear Jo read the poem by clicking on the link for the interview here.

Bridges Can Be Built

Fires rage in my heart
the heat heals the pain
bridges can be built

as a human being
I listen to your suffering
you offer me your story
the pain of the war
I learn
bridges can be built

you are my enemy I was told
be a good girl
speak only our words
and then I met you
bridges can be built

truth is more important
I will speak out for the healing of the world
take courage
take spirit
the game of the tribe is not for me
bridges can be built

the clothes of prejudice now stripped away
as I open to you
leaving my bare soul
that can love you all
bridges can be built

with the eyes of knowing
I move from us and them
our differences disappear
the unity of humanity remains
bridges can be built

your sons could be mine
and I could be your brother
planting the bomb that killed the little boy
bridges can be built

and now I stand alone with you who killed my Dad
there is a place inside me that knows you acted your truth
challenging injustice and oppression
my Dad was in the way
bridges can be built

I miss my Dad
and cry for the grandad my girls cannot know
tears of grief for all who suffer
we are one in our loss in our pain
bridges can be built

sometimes I feel that my heart heals as Ireland heals
I am sorry for the suffering imposed by my tribe
I acknowledge your struggle
bridges can be built

my heart burns for peace, justice and equality for all
the passion of knowing that
bridges can be built

It was a great pleasure to interview Jo and to listen to her insights and wisdom that have developed as a consequence of the evolving, inter-twined strands of her life. Jo continues with her work and is spreading her message of forgiveness to all that are willing to listen. There is much work to do of course. The world is still full of hate and bitterness and those that sit on their mountain-tops and spin their prayer wheels may perhaps be inspired by Jo's example to not only continue with this, but to come down from time to time and make a real difference in the real world. Changing the lives of people in a positive way, in the physical here and now by focusing their spiritual energies into a meaningful engagement with the problems that are destroying so many lives is after all, what a spiritual life is all about.

Much metta and many blessings,

Steve

In Love...Really??

2008-09-18T12:28:00.001+01:00

As the Editor and main contributor for the Humanity Healing blog 'The Voice of Humanity Healing' and also as the author of the book 'Reiki Jin Kei Do: The Way of Compassion & Wisdom', I have come into contact with many people from around the world involved in the healing/spiritual/new age arena. A considerable number of these new friends are based in the United States.

Friends surely, many of them have become whilst others I would hope to get to know better in times to come. I receive many wonderful messages and offerings of kindness and love from around the world on a regular basis - particularly from those who are affiliated to Humaniy Healing in some way.

Love seems to be being spread in abundance, but I am, from my own Euro/British perspective somewhat concerned with the free-for-all disseminating of the phrase 'I love you' and the like to all and sundry and certainly to me.

I understand that from an American perspective and perhaps from the perspective of other national cultures that the phrase 'I love you' is one that can denote warm feelings of friendship and perhaps companionship in a mutual sharing of interests and brotherly/sisterly love. However, outside of that culture - the American culture, it is not seen in this way at all.

The phrase 'I love you' is one that is not shared in the same way in Europe and certainly not in the UK. The British would not in a million years declare 'I love you' to anyone other than their life-partner, or in the case of mostly females, to a very dear and close friend of some considerable longevity. This is true to larger and lesser extents across Europe.

When Americans send this phrase out randomly (and often en mass to a number of people - for instance on MySpace or Facebook) it can and has caused problems. In my case for instance, I was asked by the woman I love for real, when one particularly good looking American woman sent me an 'I love you' message, 'Who the hell is this woman that loves you?'. The ire, jealousy, surprise and annoyance (anger?) where entirely justified. The reply that 'It is nothing - she is just an American' (meaning; she doesn't know what the phrase really means) is only now starting to work in repsonse to this pervasive Americanisation and mis-application of a phrase that should mean much more than it is being used for, with all and sundry.

So please, my American friends...note kindly that when you say 'I love you' to a European it means that you are either trying to form an intimate bond with us in a peculiarly forthright manner or that you simply do not understand that we Europeans (and especially the English who claim whole ownership of the language in the first place) maintain and will continue to maintain the purity of the phrase and not succumb to this particular cultural corruption.

Please, please, please..have more cultural sensitivity. 'I love you' is a phrase that in Europe has a lot more soul and a lot more magic and a lot more emotive, heart-felt expressiveness than the way it is being bandied about in the new age/spiritual/healing community in the States.

Apologies if this offends, but this is just the way it is. We are not Americans and we are happy with our own understanding and application of the English language and don't want it watered down and mis-applied by those who don't seem to have a true handle on this particular phrase at all.

Steve

The Heart of Love - A Dedication for Donata

2008-09-07T08:30:00.004+01:00

What is love?

Love, in the human sense, rather than the spiritual sense, is the force that drives us all. It is the fuel that feeds the flame of our desires in life. Love is seen by many as the gateway to happiness and fulfilment. The enmeshing and intertwining of two lives in the bond of love is one of the things that we all search for. It is natural that we do so. Love allows us to bring to the fore those qualities within us that enhance our every moment and bring to life the drabbest of days. Kindness, respect, gentleness, sharing and caring - these are the things that deep within us we yearn to express as an everyday outpouring of who we are. We can of course apply these qualities on a daily basis in all of our relationships, but it is that personal relationship bonded with love that allows for the full flowering of these qualities.

When we fall in love and begin a journey into the heart and mind of another person, we may find many things that attract us to that person. But we may also find things that we do not like, that upset us, or offend us or that make us step back from the feelings that we have for that person. Perhaps your lover is not as perfect as you had first imagined. Perhaps they have faults that you did not expect to find. Perhaps they are, after all, just human. It is also true that when they begin their journey into your heart and mind that they too will find many things that they love and respect and want to be close to and be a part of, but they also will find those things that can cause pain and offence. Perhaps you are also just human. We need to acknowledge this - each for the other, if love is to succeed and not simply die of exhaustion.

Discovering the human imperfections of the person that you love can often result in a loss of love. It can bring you crashing down to earth and send shockwaves through your life and your heart. But the reality is that we are imperfect beings on a journey to perfection. We are all trying our best to bring to our lives happiness and a sense of purpose. Happiness and a sense of purpose are things that reside in our own hearts...they are there already within us and do not need an outside stimulus from another person to bring them to fruition, but life is not predicated on these reasoned and philosophic arguments. It is predicated on human needs and desires. It is governed by the primitive needs deeply embedded within us from the moment of our birth. Caring for, sharing with, and expressing love to another human being is one of these primitive needs. It is not cultural, it is not social, it is primitive and desperate in its yearning for expression in our lives.

When things go wrong in a relationship, there is a need to acknowledge the imperfection of the person that you are with. Love can only succeed with this understanding and acceptance. It can only grow to maturity if their is a recipricol heart-felt agreement that life is indeed often painful and that we all make mistakes and are not perfect at all.

Acceptance and understanding, being able to go beyond our instinctive hurt at the discovery of our lovers imperfections, is something that is necessary if we are to nurture the love that we feel and the desire to see it flourish. Love can override these hurts. Love can wrap them in a balm and soothe them if we are willing to allow this process and are determined enough not to be overtaken and consumed by our feelings of pain.

Forgiveness and understanding are at the heart of love. If your lover has hurt you and done something that he or she should not have done, rejecting love and walking away does not heal the pain in your heart. Only talking, sharing and communicating from a place of love can do this. Only nurturing that person and helping them can start the process of reconciliation. Only understanding and declaring your commitment to that person can begin the process of trust and the re-invigorating of that which you both desire.

Understanding comes from a place in your heart and mind that is willing to look deeply at the motivations of your lover. Where do their actions, those that hurt you so much come from? What is driving them to do what they do? Why is this manifesting in your relationship? All of these things need careful consideration. They are important. If your lover is prone to repeating one particular thing that hurts you, then there is indeed an underlying cause. Perhaps it is something that is deep within their psyche that has roots in a past that you know little about. Perhaps they too are trying to come to terms with your imperfections and the hurt that, maybe not expressed, you are causing them. Maybe it is time to look not just at the other for the reason that pain and heart-ache are manifesting in your relationship. Maybe it is time that together you looked at the relationship as a whole and began to acknowledge the imperfections in each other. Perhaps it is time to take your lovers hand and offer the love that perhaps they feel is not their for them when they need it the most. This love needs to be expressed as a willingness to work together and resolve the conflicts and the hurts that each inflicts on the other.

Love is always salvageable if each in the relationship is willing to go beyond their initial feelings of hurt, and to delve deeply into the psyche of the person that they care about. To offer the hand of friendship and love and to walk with that person through their pain and their uncertainties and to allow them to know that, whatever happens, you are there for them and that together the problems and the pain can be resolved. Only together can this love be encouraged to reach fruition. Only together can a mature and committed relationship develop.

To begin this process there is one simple question that needs to be asked: " Does my lover truly love me?" If the answer is yes, then there is hope. There is always hope. In fact there is more than hope. There is a certainty that if neither is willing to abandon this love that you both have for each other, despite the problems, then the relationship can indeed be salvaged, made whole and given the chance to envelop you in a realisation of all of your dreams and aspirations. But the process is not easy and takes commitment from both.

When love seems like it is failing...love is the only thing that can, in the end, bring you back from the brink of seemingly endless pain - and endless it can seem at the time. Love is the only solution to the pain of broken love. Love is the ultimate bandage for this type of wound. Love is its own remedy.

In the end there is simply a need to not give up on love. Love can make the stars shine bright. Love can make the flowers glow with a radiance that is beyond reckoning. Love can wrap the world in a blanket of abundance and joy. Love simply is...

One persons pattern is predicated on the others pattern and vice versa. It is a symbiotic relationship between them.

Steve

An Interview with James Beam of KarmaCaffe

2008-06-12T22:24:00.006+01:00

You might be interested in hearing the interview that I did with James Beam and Chandi Devi of KarmaCaffe on Blogtalkradio last night. It was a great interview and apart from the interruption of Chandi's pet bird in the background (!), was a wonderful opportunity to discuss not only my path into Reiki and my authorship of the Reiki Jin Kei Do book, but also my new book project 'Islam's Gandhi' and the political, social and cultural melting pot that is Sudan: the country from which Mahmoud Mohammed Taha; (Islam's Gandhi), sprang.

The interview in fact runs for 99 minutes - well beyond the 1 hour that the show went out live for, but I was having a great time and was sort of sad when the interview came to an end...I hope that you enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed doing it. You can click on the Blogtalkradio player below or find it in the sidebar as a permanent feature.

You may also be interested in this article that I put together well over a year ago and which has finally seen the light of day in the July issue of the UK's 'Chat it's fate' women's magazine. This appears in a somewhat corrupted form as the editor insisted that their own staff writers produce the material. In essence this is the story that I put together for them however. The mistake in this that Reiki is some sort of earth energy is not mine!! Blame it on the magazines writers...It is a very personal story and one that has a deep and powerful resonance for me - as the final outcome of this little set-piece was the birth, to myself and my ex-wife Rachel of our wonderful son; Samuel.

Hope to be here again soon.

Blessings, metta and salam-alikum,

Steve

A New Beginning

2008-06-07T20:41:00.004+01:00

It's been a while since I posted on here and one of the reasons being that I have very little motivation to keep banging on about Reiki ad infinitum.....The second Reiki Jin Kei Do book WILL happen at some point and a lot of it is already planned and/or written...but my life is not predicated on the promotion of Reiki and specifically Reiki Jin Kei Do alone. There are plenty of other interesting things going on out there in the world and since the publication of my first book, I have been very much immersed in some of those things. One of them being Humanity Healing and my involvment with it as editor of 'The Voice of Humanity Healing' which is detailed elsewhere on this blog.

I am also working on a book at present called 'Islam's Gandhi' which is in its very early stages, but at present does not have a forum through which I can disseminate information about it. Interviews come and go, projects arise, art events happen, articles get published and nowhere for me to go with them on a personal level. Meanwhile this Reiki blog sits here languishing due to my lack of time and motivation in writing on the subject. Better I think to re-invent this blog and use it as a forum for ALL of the projects that I am involved in.

That is not to say that I will be posting on here every day or week, but there will be a lot more on here and the content will be considerably more diverse than it has been up until now. That is not to say that there will be no more on Reiki on here; of course there will. A lot more I hope as time goes by.

Also look out for repostings of selected material that I write for 'The Voice of Humanity Healing' - the link is in the sidebar of this blog if you want to go right to the source.

So for the present, the blog name changes and also watch the sidebar for more changes to come. For now, I wanted to let you in on another interview that I am about to conduct with KarmaCaffe. This is the promo piece that they put together for me:

Steve Gooch-artist, adventurer, author, Reiki healer

Steve Gooch is considered by many to be the foremost Reiki healer and a noted author of ‘Reiki Jin Kei Do: The Way of Compassion and Wisdom’ , a classic text on the subject and is the only book to have been written on that tradition of Reiki.

His artwork has been shown widely across the UK and is held in collections world-wide.

Steve is currently researching a new book about the life and teachings of the sufi mystic Mahmoud Mohammed Taha in Sudan where he is now based.

Other books are in the pipe-line along with a second book on the lineage of Reiki Jin Kei Do for which he is the editor, that explores in-depth the historical roots of the system, spanning some of the ancient civilizations of the world over many thousands of years.

He recently returned from Sudan where he was caught in the midst of warfare!

Call in with your questions 347-215-8666 or listen/join the chat live, at

http://www. blogtalkradio. com/karmacaffe
Wed.

June 11 at 2:00 pm PST/5:00 pm EST

Brought to you by http://karmacaffe. com

Many blessings, metta and salam-alikum

Steve

Mikao Usui - The Founder of Reiki

2007-10-13T15:40:00.001+01:00

I keep getting asked to talk about Mikao Usui and his role in the evolution of Reiki and how he fits into the lineage of Reiki Jin Kei Do. So here is a potted biography of the most important figure in the development of the Reiki system.

On the 15th August 1865 in the village of Tanai Mura in the Gifu Prefecture of the old Japanese capital of Kyoto, Mikao Usui was born. Although the son of a wealthy Tendai Buddhist family that was descended from one of the most famous Samurai clans in all of Japan; the Chiba clan, the birth of the baby Mikao was to prove to be far more auspicious and of greater significance than anyone could have at that time realised. The name of Usui was in under a century to be known and applauded around the globe. It was Mikao Usui that was to eventually develop and teach the system of spiritual development and healing that we now know as ‘Reiki’ - the world’s fastest growing therapeutic method.

In the beginning the system was known by Usui’s students as ‘Usui Do’ (the way of Usui) and it was born into the world at a time in Japanese history when major sociological changes were taking place in the country’s political and cultural life. After two centuries of self-imposed isolation, a massive programme of industrialization under the Meiji Emperor (Prince Mutsuhito) was transforming feudal Japan into a major player on the world stage. Mutsuhito was determined to give his country a modern outward-looking and dynamic new focus. This was to be a new beginning for Japan.

Mikao Usui was one of four children born to the Samurai rank of Hatamoto just three years prior to the social-quake that Mutsuhito was about to unleash. The Hatamoto Samurai had been the Shogun’s personal guard and as such the bearer of this rank was entitled to have servants, hold land and station in life and to carry two swords. This highly privileged position would not however do the young Usui much good on his journey through life. As a part of the nations modernization programme the Samurai came under attack from Mutsuhito and his Meiji government. Six years after Usui’s birth the Samurai were banned from carrying swords and then in 1877, the last Samurai uprising was quelled.

At the age of four Usui entered a Tendai Buddhist monastery near Mt Kurama (Horse Saddle Mountain) to begin a period of several years of intensive training in this school of Mikkyo Buddhism. Usui’s commitment to Tendai led him for a short time in later life to become a Tendai monk or priest and it was at this time that he took on his Buddhist name of Gyoho (or Gyohan or Gyotse).

Much of Usui’s life was characterized by a strong pull towards all things Western. Mutsuhito was encouraging his subjects to travel and learn the Western ways and Usui was only too glad to oblige. Over the span of his life Usui travelled extensively, visiting the US and Europe several times as well as China to study and learn the Western ways. He was always a hard working student and during his life he accumulated a vast knowledge of medicine, psychology, fortune telling and the theology of world religions. He also studied Chinese Traditional Medicine, numerology, astrology and psychic and clairvoyant development amongst other things.

It appears that Usui was something of an eccentric and as a young man had faced many adversities. He had no regular employment or security and frequently suffered from a lack of money. This however seems to have been a conscious decision as Usui did not place any real value on material possessions. Over the years however he followed a number of professions: industrialist, missionary, reporter, office worker, public servant and supervisor of convicts. He also at one time worked as the personal bodyguard for Goto Shimpei who was the Head of the Department for Health and Welfare.

Shortly after the turn of the 20th Century Usui got married to Sadako Suzuki and in 1908 their son Fuji was born, followed in 1913 by a daughter; Toshiko. It was around this time it is believed, that Usui began to teach his new spiritual system which he simply referred to as ‘My method’.

In developing the system that we have come to know as Reiki, Usui drew on many sources. Some of these are known and we can speculate with some degree of accuracy in regards to others. Some sources we may never know. Of course it must be that Usui’s commitment to Tendai provided a strong philosophic background to the system and this is perhaps why he developed a method to lead the practitioner to an experience of enlightenment through working with spiritually guided energy rather than simply another energy-healing therapy. It has been suggested that Usui also possibly drew on an esoteric practice called ‘Shugendo’. Shugendo is a practice that itself draws on other disciplines such as Tantric Buddhism, Chinese Yin-Yang magic, Taoism and an assortment of pre-Buddhist folk traditions and was practised by itinerant mountain priests (the ‘Yamabushi’). Shugendo incorporates meditation practices along with incantations and mudra-like techniques to bring about direct spiritual empowerment via the state of ‘kantoku’ (an illuminating mystical visionary state of mind).

It is highly likely that Usui’s commitment and practice within various martial systems also provided methods and philosophic material to draw on. At the age of 12 Usui began training in the martial art of ‘Yagyu Shinkage Ryu’, which included Samurai swordsmanship and methods of unarmed combat as well as, anomalously, a technique called ‘katsu’ that was used for infusing life energy into a person. During his 20’s Usui achieved his teacher’s licence in Yagyu Shinkage Ryu that marked his proficiency in the system at the highest level. Usui also studied at about the same another martial art called ‘Aiki Jutsu’ and was at various points in his life to achieve high levels of proficiency within a number of ancient Japanese methods that it is said included the practice of ‘Ki Ko’. Ki Ko is the Japanese equivalent of Chinese ‘Qi Gong’ (energy cultivation) and includes a method for projecting accumulated ki or chi for the purposes of healing. Usui was a contemporary and personal friend of a number of martial arts luminaries during his life. These included Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of ‘Aikido’, Jigoro Kano, the founder of ‘Judo’ and Gichin Kuakoshi, the founder of ‘Karate’.

How much any of the spiritual, martial and energetic systems that Usui worked with contributed to the development of Usui Do we shall perhaps never fully know, but Usui was certainly a man with a mission. He had a strong and overriding desire to pursue the ultimate meaning of life and so find the way to escape from suffering. Usui seemed more than willing to explore whatever method might lead him to it.

From the evidence of the teachings contained within Reiki Jin Kei Do it seems highly likely that Usui also drew on the spiritual practice that is now known as ‘Buddho-EnerSense’ because the origins and the deeper meanings of the Reiki symbols are contained within this method as is the meditation practice of the ‘Buddho’ (from which the system gets its name) which Usui undertook at a critical juncture in the evolution of his system.

It was Usui’s experience of satori or an absorptive ‘dhyanic’ state on Mt Kurama that is the most often talked about moment in the development of Usui’s system. In his search for the Truth, Usui decided to fast and meditate for 21 days. During this period on Kurama, Usui performed the first three cycles of the Buddho meditation. Buddho means ‘energy’ or ‘seed’ of enlightenment. This meditation was the spark that would later send a Zen monk by the name of Seiji Takamori in search of the roots of the Reiki system. The Buddho meditation is known to have been passed on by Usui who had received it from a monk who had advised him to practice the meditation in order to receive the energy empowerments that he sought. This cyclic meditation involved a direct connection to and visualisation of Buddhist deities and symbols that are the root of one of the widely known Reiki symbols.

Usui’s hopes of having the ultimate Truth of the way to escape from suffering revealed to him were realized on the 21st day of his retreat whilst practicing the Buddho meditation. Usui experienced a moment of satori. It was at this moment that he received his empowerment to the Universal Life Force Energy as Reiki entered through his crown chakra.

It is not entirely clear as to when Usui first started to teach his system to others, but the general consensus is that it was around 1914/15 though it could have been as early as 1912. The system that he taught metamorphosed a number of times however under the influence of various students and colleagues as the years passed. Most notable of these influential students was Chujiro Hayashi, one of the last people to study with Usui’s before he died.

It was in1925 that Usui came across a group of Imperial Officers who were to become his students. These included Rear Admirals Jusaburo Ushida, Kan’ichi Taketomi and Naval Captain Chujiro Hayashi. Usui’s system had come to the attention of the Japanese Navy who were keen to find a method that could be used as a form of emergency treatment as their ships were equipped with only limited equipment and personnel. Usui Do was what they wanted.

As a consequence of the interest of the naval officers Usui’s method started to shift from being a spiritual system of personal enquiry and liberation to a simple method of hands-on healing. The focus was now on treating others and it was this system that was the forerunner of modern day Reiki as most of the world now knows it.

‘Reiki’ as a term for Usui’s system seems to have first been used by Chujiro Hayashi. Hayashi was clearly not a run of the mill student in spite of having trained with Usui for a period of only 9 months or so. It was to Hayashi that the task of spreading Reiki beyond the shores of Japan and to the passing on of the Buddho meditation was to fall. The latter was to be a pivotal event in the emergence of Reiki Jin Kei Do as a separate and distinct style of Reiki that harks back to the philosophic aims of the system as originally developed by Usui.

Mikao Usui eventually died from a stroke – his third – whilst on a visit to Fukuyama, Hiroshima on the 9th March 1926. His impact on the world, which continues to grow, has been immense.

Many blessings,

Steve

The Path

2007-10-08T22:33:00.000+01:00

First Published on 'The Voice of the Humanity Healing Network' 7th October 2007.

When we walk the path of spirit, we learn from all the experiences that we have and the books that we read and from our fellow travellers who walk the same path that we do and all the workshops that we take, that what we are engaged in is a walk of Truth. We have found something profound and wonderful and a resonance with something deep in our heart; within our being. We have found the way to the Truth. And yet, we see so many others walking on their own path and we feel sad that they have not found the Truth. That they have chosen a path that can only lead to suffering and pain and will be littered with misguided souls, floundering because they sadly have not found our path which leads irrevocably to the only Truth and certain union with the Light and with God. How sad. Those poor souls, if only they would walk our path. See it's beauty, it's perfection. It's profound wisdom and certain liberation into the glories of the Light that Abounds in all beings.

When we walk this path we find a light within, a glow, a certainty that we have been guided to The Way and we resolutely and steadfastly put one foot in front of the other. Although we might cast a glance at those going along an altogether different path, we pay no real attention to the path itself. Instead we feel sorry or angry for their foolishness and lack of correct discernment and we hold to the task of making sure that we at least do not step badly or go astray on an entirely erroneous and different way - one that will certainly end in calamity. Eventually we forbid ourselves from even glancing over to see how others are fairing on their journeys. Temptation knows no bounds and if we even look at what they are doing or listen to what they might have to say we could be tempted to follow their way. And thus we could be held to account. We could be judged for our outrageous sins against The Truth. We must not let anything sway our resolution that only THIS way is the correct way. We could be destroyed.

So we reach into our pockets and pull out our blinkers and put them on and utter a sigh of relief that now there will be no temptation. Whatever they are doing and where ever they are going we shall not look for it is surely wrong. It is surely the route to damnation.

But when the The Buddha and The Christ and the Prophet Mohammed and the Avatars and Angels and all the Bodhisattva's of countless generations walk side by side across the boundless and limitless light-fields of eternity they simply speak of love as they tread the same path together. Each one's heart a radiating cone of love. Each certain that for the sake of suffering humanity they pointed the way to the Truth. To the only Truth. And when asked in which direction this might be, they all in unison point in the same direction - to the Godhead - to the state of union with all that is. To the place of immersion and dissolution into a perfect state of being and non-being.

And when we ask through which gate we should go to follow in their footsteps, to begin our own walk along that path, they each smile and point to a different gate and we can simply choose which is right for us. But the admonition etched into each of these gates is the same: 'Begin with Love' and so whatever else we may find along the path, Love must be our companion. We must open our hearts and find the love that was placed there before we were born so many eons ago by the Mind of God. Without love we can never attain the goal. Without Love we can never find our way back to who we really are. Without love we reach into our pockets for our blinkers and put them on and pour scorn on those fools walking a different path. The path of judgment. The path of destruction. This path is in reality only to be found in the hearts of those who don the blinkers of ignorance. For none of the Great Teachers ever conceived that their path would be seen in this way by the closed hearts and minds of those foolish enough to believe that only their Teacher held the keys to the Great Truth.

And as our friends and companions in life that walk any one of the multitudinous paths that have sprung from the minds of men, sing of their Truth for all to hear, listen and learn that all have a journey to make back to the Divine. For each and everyone of us on this journey through life is a blessed gift of Spiritual Transcendence and an expression of the most perfect state of Love which has as it's home the vessel that we call the hearts of all men and women. We are all of the One and are merely a temporary but sublime shimmer within the energy of Existence. Whatever our path, it is the right path. Whatever your friend's path it is the right path. Whatever your enemie's path it is the right path. God waits at the gates at the end of all these paths and etched on each is the admonition 'End also with Love'.

Many blessings and much metta,

Steve

Talk to Me About Reiki on Skype!

2007-09-30T14:56:00.000+01:00

Following the success of my recent online Reiki workshop and in taking on board the wishes of those who for whatever reason, could not be there, I have decided to make things much simpler for everyone! There may well be other workshops of course, but given the different time zones around the world that people are working from, I thought it would be a great idea to offer a direct one-to-one service as an adjunct to my book and workshops. So, if you missed the last workshop or can't wait for the next one, then maybe this is the solution for you!

If you have Skype (and more and more people are using this wonderful internet phone technology these days), then you can simply click the button below and this will take you straight through to me - assuming that I am online of course!

The button does appear permanently in the side-bar of this blog so you can just go there at any time you like and call me from there.

Calls on this service cost 00.30 Euros per minute (which at today's exchange rate is about 00.43 US dollars).

Reiki & Reiki Jin Kei Do

Everything you ever wanted to know about Reiki and Reiki Jin Kei Do from the author of 'Reiki Jin Kei Do: The Way of Compassion & Wisdom'.

Call now

00.30 Euros per minute

I hope to speak with some of you soon!

Many blessings and much metta,

Steve

The Way of the Spirit: A Definition of Spiritualilty

2007-09-12T00:17:00.000+01:00

‘Spirituality’ and ‘spiritual’ are words that are bandied about a lot in the Reiki world. ‘Reiki is a spiritual system’, ‘Spirituality is at the core of the Reiki system’, ‘Reiki is spiritually guided life force energy’ etc…the word keeps coming up over and over again in the context of Reiki.

There is a sort of tacit assumption in this that when we refer to spirituality everyone knows what we are talking about but is it really that simple? Does everyone know, or does everyone just work on the same assumption that everyone knows when in fact no one is really that clear at all? If you get my drift… The problem with defining spirituality is that it is as individual as the clouds in the sky. It is also just as prone to shift and metamorphose as time goes by. It is not a fixed and immutable thing, but does have some properties that we can assume are pretty much universal from one definition to another, again in a rather cloud like way.

I found this definition of spirituality on the Internet in the free online encyclopaedia; Wikipedia:

The central defining characteristic of spirituality is a sense of connection to a much greater whole which includes an emotional experience of religious awe and reverence. Equally so, spirituality is concerned with sanity and psychological health. As with some forms of religion, the emphasis of spirituality is often on personal experience.

If we drop the unnecessary reference to religious awe and perhaps describe this as an experience of the ineffable instead, we have a definition that sounds pretty close to the experience of Reiki. Reiki is not something separate from Spirituality after all. ‘Spirituality is at the core of the Reiki experience’ really does sum up the mutually supportive relationship between the words. We find that with the essence of Reiki and the concept of spirituality; the two are embedded within each other. Reiki IS spirituality just as spirituality IS Reiki (though those outside of Reiki’s ambit may not necessarily use this terminology). If you don’t agree with this, then try this: Re-read the above quote with the word ‘Reiki’ replacing the word ‘spirituality’.

There is one other aspect of this definition that is worth emphasizing and that is the personal, private nature of the spiritual experience. It is not something that can be shared at all, though there is a commonality of understanding about the personal nature of the spiritual experience. It is an intuitive knowing that what is experienced on the personal level is also very much defined by the fact that it is common to all.

We do need to broaden the above Wikipedia definition however. What I think is important to come to understand is that spirituality is essentially about humanity’s search for the great Truth. It is about our aspiration to understand our place in the cosmic scheme of things and to get to grips with and know in a profound way that inner core experience that defines our nature as being as some have described it; ‘a spark of light within the mind of God’. It is through the practice of Reiki, particularly within this tradition of Reiki Jin Kei Do that we endeavour to come to realise this immutable Truth.

There is something else in Wikipedia that is worth bringing to your attention in regard to this aspect of the concept of Spirituality in relationship to the practice of Reiki:

One aspect of ‘being spiritual’ is goal-directed, with aims such as: simultaneously improve one’s wisdom and… achieve a closer connection to Deity/the Universe, and remove illusions of false ideas at the sensory, feeling and thinking aspects of a person.

And that spirituality is

the active and vital connection to a force, spirit, or sense of the deep self.

In exploring our spirituality we can see that one of its central attributes is a desire to improve or develop one’s wisdom. In coming to achieve a closer connection to the Universe – which surely is the consequence of the inner exploration (through Reiki) that has been described, we remove the illusions that arise due to the sensory, feeling and thinking aspects of our earthly existences and this naturally gives rise to wisdom. With the arising of wisdom there is a spontaneous desire to manifest compassion in the world and in following this inclination we are then lead to an even greater understanding of our true nature and our existence as spiritual beings and thus the realization and manifestation of greater wisdom.

Spirituality, in terms of Reiki then is the deep and sublime exploration of what it is to be human and to express the realizations of that search for Truth as wisdom and compassion in the world as an active and dynamic process (often and ultimately as an expression of healing). This then creates from the clay of the Universal Energy Field (God) an even greater understanding of the true nature of our core experience as human beings. Spirituality becomes cyclic; creating an outward flowing spiral of energy that impacts on and blesses everyone and everything within its field of influence.

Many blessings and much metta,

Steve

Reiki Jin Kei Do & Buddho-EnerSense

2007-08-27T12:32:00.001+01:00

The question often arises: ‘What is the difference between Reiki Jin Kei Do and Buddho-EnerSense’? So let’s have a go at nailing it down.

I am going to assume that you are already familiar in some broad and globally accepted sense with what Reiki is. I am also going to assume that you have a pretty good notion that Buddhism has quite a strong focus on meditation of one sort or another.

The philosophy of Buddhism of course is one that the founder of Reiki – Mikao Usui – subscribed to and thus it is almost certain that his commitment to his own practice as a Tendai Buddhist influenced the development of his secular Usui Do or Reiki system. It would be rather odd if it did not, given the strong metaphysical or mystical leanings inherent within this particular (Tendai) branch of Buddhist thought.

No-one is entirely certain just how much of any particular tradition influenced Usui in his development of Reiki. What we do know is that amongst the various methods that he was familiar with he had access to a system of Buddhist practice that does have a strong philosophic resonance with what is understood to be his early presentation of the secular Reiki system. We can see, at least from what seems to be suggested from the historical evidence so far gathered that Reiki or Usui Do seems to have been developed and taught primarily as a method for the student to engage in for their own benefit. In fact the hands-on-healing aspects of the practice at that stage in its history were largely subordinated to the much more important aspects that would lead the practitioner on the road to enlightenment. This was and is the primary focus of the Buddho or Buddho-EnerSense method also.

This Buddhist system (now often known as Buddho-EnerSense) contains the Buddho meditation that Usui performed on his legendary 21 day fast on Mt Kurama and which led him to experience a moment of satori or a flash of enlightenment. The system also contains the origins of the Reiki symbols.

The Buddho-EnerSense system, contained within the Reiki Jin Kei Do lineage and passed on to us by the previous lineage head, Seiji Takamori, is fundamentally a Buddhist practice with both esoteric and exoteric elements from the Theravada and Mahayana traditions. Whilst the methods within Buddho-EnerSense do not require a commitment to or belief in any particular aspect of Buddhist philosophy, it does require an open minded desire to explore methods that are designed to facilitate the ultimate in healing; the achieving of enlightenment or reunification with source (and thus the permanent elimination of suffering). This is its primary focus. It also has in large part practices that are designed for the healing of others on all levels, but again this material is prefaced with an engagement with philosophical ideas derived from Buddhism. So Buddho-EnerSense has a definite origin within specific aspects of Buddhist thought that can be traced back to the historical Buddha. It is a method that engages the practitioner on a journey of self-exploration that leads to the alleviating of suffering on a personal level and then for all beings.

Reiki Jin Kei Do on the other hand is very much the method of hands on Reiki that was developed from Usui’s original system by his student Chujiro Hayashi. This was passed on down the lineage as a healing therapy and ultimately re-flavoured with the teachings, outlook and philosophic orientation of the Buddho-EnerSense system – from which it was in part originally derived. Reiki Jin Kei Do is however, very much more of a secular system than is Buddho-EnerSense. RJKD does not require an engagement with Buddhist thought on any level nor even an acknowledgment of its partial origins within Buddhism. Reiki Jin Kei Do is also very much more open to individual orientation towards the focus of the system. It can for instance be seen and used solely as a method for the healing on various levels of other people – as a straightforward complementary or alternative therapy. It can also be used principally however as a method for self healing. In this the focus is less on the act of applying Reiki in a therapeutic context for the benefit of others and more on the personal practice of meditation, energy cultivation and personal development. Of course with the philosophic aims of the lineage being the development of wisdom and compassion, there is at the end of this personal development journey a need to engage fully with Reiki as a therapeutic method for the benefit of all. The circle completes itself.

The twin strands of Reiki Jin Kei Do and Buddho-EnerSense held within the RJKD lineage are very much entwined and carry within their structure a similar orientation and world-view to specific elements of energy work. The one; Buddho-EnerSense has a strong Buddhist feel to it however, whilst the other; Reiki Jin Kei Do has, as Gordon Bell has noted, much more the quality of clear water that is open to be coloured by the individual practitioner. This quality is the real gift of Usui and a remarkable demonstration of his skill in developing a system that can be used by all.

Reiki Online Workshop - final details

2007-08-05T21:22:00.000+01:00

This live workshop/chat will take place in The Healing Hearts Chat Room. I will also be offering live distant healing for those in need. If you are suffering from a problem – whether it be physical or emotional – then this is your chance to feel the power of the Reiki Jin Kei Do distant method for yourself. No cures are guaranteed of course, but miracles DO happen!

The workshop will take place on Sunday 12th August at 10pm GMT. If you are not sure what this time is where you live then please visit The World Clock - Time Zone Converter by clicking HERE

This workshop will be held in our Healing Hearts Chat room. You can visit it ahead of time by clicking HERE

The Chat Rooms use Java and you will need the latest version. If you are not sure whether your computer is running the latest Java Runtime Environment, please click HERE to update your computer before trying to access any of our numerous chat rooms.

Metta,

Steve Gooch

The Voice of the Humanity Healing Network

2007-08-01T21:28:00.000+01:00

The Following post is taken from another blog that I am now working on for and on behalf of the Humanity Healing Network which is fast becoming a global phenomenon. Some of the biographical material below will not be new to some of you and I apologise for this in advance, but I wanted to simply post this up as is. If you have yet to come across the Humanity Healing Network, I would strongly advise you to check it out and perhaps support the project. You can find the website by clicking on the link below.

A Reflective Introduction from Steve Gooch

The following post is from 'The Voice of the Humanity Healing Network' which can be found at: www.humanity-healing.blogspot.com This was my first post as Official Ambassador for the Humanity Healing Network. Go and check it out! Lots more to appear on there from me and other members of the HH Network!

A couple of months back I recall Chris Buck, one of the co-founders with Liane Legey of the Humanity Healing Network enthusing about this fantastic new project that the two of them were about to embark on. Sounded like a great idea to me: A little group of like minded people coming together to support each other and offer healing in whatever way was appropriate to those in need. Well, that's Chris for you. An ardent champion of the spirit of compassion and motivated by the selfless desire to improve the lot of others.

So, HHN was born on MySpace and started to get a big following almost immediately not only by those who were similarly motivated to spread a bit more love and understanding into the world, but also by those who were in need of help. A little bit of support and prayer and the knowledge that someone out there really did care drew many into the fold. If you haven't visited Humanity Healing's MySpace page, then you can check it out by clicking here.

From the burgeoning success of the Humanity Healing concept on MySpace it wasn't long before it became apparent that there was a real need to network. No good having a whole bunch of members committed to the same ideal or in search of support if they are all effectively gagged by the inability to interact. The Humanity Healing Yahoo Group was born.

I can't say that I have been particularly active in the Yahoo Group, but I have watched it closely since it's inception and I am frankly deeply affected by the love that is being given and expressed by those involved. It may at the moment be only a drop in the ocean, but the members of Humanity Healing are now getting together, helping each other and beginning to extend the hand of love and compassion outwards to others in need. There is no nobler act than the alleviation of suffering in the world.

Humanity Healing Network is still in its gestation period. It IS making huge strides forward and is drawing attention from around the world from many quarters. There is no doubt in my mind that it is going to be a global phenomenon. A lot of work is being done to ensure that this happens in the name of helping those in need by Chris, Liane and the other Ambassadors and members of the Network.

But. And this is an important But. Real healing, healing that has a long lasting effect must always start at home. The more that you perfect and heal your own suffering state, the more that you will have to offer to others. Let's face it, we all suffer pretty much every day due to one thing or another. Sometimes these periods of suffering can extend over years and be appalling in their consequences and the best that can be hoped for is to realign our thinking so that although the body may suffer, we still can obtain peace of mind. When we have this, and this is really the most significant aspect of any form of healing, then everything else is of much less import.

So, I would urge all of you whether in the Humanity Healing Network or not, as you go about your business of helping others, always put yourself first. Heal you. If everyone does this, then there will actually be significantly less suffering in the world that requires the help of others in any case. A large goal perhaps, but only the large goals are really worth striving for in the end.

I guess that at this point I really should introduce myself. My name is Steve Gooch and you can find a lot more about me and my work via the links on the right of this post. I have been involved in spiritual practice of one kind or another for 20 years or so and became a teacher of Reiki about 10 years ago. Since then I have written a book on the subject (Reiki Jin Kei Do: The Way of Compassion & Wisdom) which has become pretty much the standard text for my lineage and tradition and I am contributing material all over the net and in a number of magazines on various aspects of Reiki and the wider pursuit of self perfection.

I am taking over the running of this blog on behalf of the wider Humanity Healing Network. I don't know how often I shall be posting here, but certainly this is not a forum for me to simply push forward my views and agenda. This space is for all in the Network. If you have something that you want to say that is relevant to the work of HHN, then pass it along. I can't of course guarantee that it will be published but it would be nice to see as many HHN members as possible contributing to what should become a huge archive of interesting material. So some basic guidelines for those interested in contributing:

Your material should be congruent with the wider aims of the Humanity Healing Network and aid in the mission of relieving suffering in the world.
Please do not send material that merely advertises yours or anyone else's services. By all means let us know if you find something that may help others ( a new, powerful holisitic therapy for instance) and let us all know how to find out more, but frame it in the context of a larger theme.
Please respect the fact that Humanity Healing is non-denominational. All religious and spiritual persuasions are welcome here and should feel free in expressing their particular spiritual and world view.
'Inspirational stories' are fine, but the hard fact is that readers DO over time become very inurred to a steady diet of these. Inspirational examples used to illustrate a wider point are much more valuable and helpful to others.
Let's also have some great quotes that we can all meditate and reflect on!
For the time being please send your contributions to me in Word format to: sgooch@omahhum.org

If you have not yet joined the Humanity Healing Network, I would suggest that your first check in point should be the Yahoo Group. You can access the site via the link on the right hand side of this page. Come join us and help in healing humanity - one soul at a time.

Blessings and metta,

Steve

Reiki Online Workshop

2007-07-27T20:21:00.000+01:00

Taking place in a chat room near you! You might be interested in this - the text that is going the rounds to invite you into a live, interactive Reiki chat and workshop!

What is REALLY at the core of the Reiki experience? Does Reiki have more to offer than its potential as a hands-on healing therapy? In the tradition of Reiki Jin Kei Do this powerful healing method is principally expressed as a dynamic practice of personal liberation with the potential to lead the practitioner to the experience of enlightenment. Reiki Jin Kei Do contains some of the core methods of Mikao Usui's original system including the immensely powerful Buddho meditation. The Buddho meditation was practiced by the founder of this method on Mt Kurama in Japan during a retreat and which lead him to a moment of 'satori' – a glimpse of enlightenment; that perfect state of oneness.

Reiki Master and the author of the book 'Reiki Jin Kei Do: The Way of Compassion & Wisdom' Steve Gooch will be giving a workshop/live chat on the tradition of Reiki Jin Kei Do. If you are interested in or involved in any form of Reiki, then this is an opportunity to deepen your connection to your practice and perhaps discover another way of expressing it in the world. Find out what the Jin Kei Do method has to offer to the larger Reiki canon and more importantly how it can fundamentally reshape the way that we view the practice of healing as an expression of compassion.

This live workshop/chat will take place in The Healing Hearts Chat Room. Steve will also be offering live distant healing for those in need. If you are suffering from a problem – whether it be physical or emotional – then this is your chance to feel the power of the Reiki Jin Kei Do distant method for yourself. No cures are guaranteed of course, but miracles DO happen!

If you would be interested in joining us in any of these subjects (times yet to be arranged). Please respond to this message by posting a comment or with your MySpace address or email address and 'Reiki Workshop' in the Subject line so we can notify you of times and dates etc..

This workshop will be held in our Healing Hearts Chat room. You can visit it ahead of time by clicking HERE

The Chat Rooms use Java and you will need the latest version. If you are not sure whether your computer is running the latest Java Runtime Environment, please click HERE to update your computer before trying to access any of our numerous chat rooms.

Metta and many blessings,

Steve

Reiki Jin Kei Do Videos

2007-07-13T09:32:00.000+01:00

For those who have not seen these yet: Two wonderful Reiki Jin Kei Do videos. The first is an interview with the lineage head, Dr Ranga Premaratna, conducted by Reiki Master Tony Birdfield in 2003 and the second is an informative and inspirational video put together by Senior practitioner in Reiki Jin Kei Do, Chris Buck. Hope you enjoy them!

Reiki Jin Kei Do

Add to My Profile | More Videos

You can find out more about Chris and his work with the Humanity Healing project at his MySpace site by clicking on the link.

Blessings,

Steve

Interview with Kriss Van Hook on Achieve Radio

2007-06-27T11:54:00.001+01:00

Even though I have a great passion for the subject of Reiki, I have to admit it was pretty difficult getting up at 3am this morning to talk on the subject! It was however a real pleasure to have the opportunity to spend an hour chatting to Kriss Van Hook on her weekly radio show My Spiritual Healer, broadcast on Achieve Radio. If you missed the show and want to get an insight into the teachings of Reiki Jin Kei Do and my perspective on them then simply click on the link to listen. Both this show and the previous interview with Sherry Anshara are available to download.
Many blessings,
Steve

Interview with Sherry Anshara on Achieve Radio

2007-05-25T20:19:00.000+01:00

A couple of days ago I had the real pleasure of being interviewed by Sherry Anshara on her wonderful radio show 'Conscious Healing' broadcast from Achieve Radio. The interview was a great success and it was lovely to spend some time chatting with Sherry about Reiki and about Reiki Jin Kei Do in particular. If you missed the show, or simply didn't know about it you can check out the downloadable file or listen online at Achieve Radio. Just click on the link and it will take you straight there. Then click on the 'Click to Listen' button for May 23rd 2007.

Sherry has had some wonderful guests in the past and it would be worthwhile spending a few minutes just browsing through the archive for the show. You can find the archive for the show by clicking here.

Another interview coming up in a few weeks time - I'll keep you posted.

Many blessings,

Steve

Reiki - May the Force Be with You

2007-05-12T14:57:00.000+01:00

This article was published in issue 19 (May 2007) of the UK's 'Paranormal' magazine.

One of the fundamental principles underlying many alternative therapies is the idea of a biological life force energy. In traditional Chinese medicine it is called 'chi', in Ayurvedic medicine it is known as 'prana', and Russian researchers gave it the rather grandiose title 'bio-plasmic energy'. Others simply refer to it as Light or Love. This life force energy which is said to animate all living things, flows around our bodies through meridians (or pathways) and the chakras (energy centres). When this energy becomes blocked, illness follows. Reiki - which is a Japanese word meaning 'universal life force energy' - is a system of channelling this energy through the hands to the patient; accelerating the body's ability to heal physical and emotional disorders.

Since Reiki's spread to the West in the 1970's, it has become one of the most widely acclaimed therapeutic systems available. It can be used for chronic ailments, pain, stress, anxiety, combating addictions, improving the quality of life for the terminally ill and simply for an increased sense of wellbeing. In some areas of the country through Social Services funding it is being used very successfully as a part of drug rehabilitation programmes and for curing people of alcohol addiction. In others it is being used with remarkable results for the alleviating and curing of symptoms associated with M.E. and Irritable Bowel Syndrome. It's most immediate and powerful results however seem to be in the area of relief from stress related problems. In fact there are no problems that cannot benefit from Reiki and it can be used in tandem with and to enhance any other treatment whether they be conventional or complementary medicines or therapies.

In the USA and Canada, where Reiki first took root in the West it is being used extensively in some hospital and hospice environments by trained medical staff as well as by alternative practitioners. Reiki is being used in a variety of situations such as that of the lady who was recuperating from a hysterectomy. After being discharged from the hospital she developed a bladder infection which lead her to suffer intense pain. The debilitating effects of the pain prevented her from urinating and she had to use a catheter. Her sister suggested Reiki. After a few minutes of Reiki from her sister the lady began to breath deeply and drifted off to sleep. The Reiki treatment continued for another forty minutes. The next day the lady's husband phoned his sister-in-law in disbelief. Not only was his wife comfortable when she woke up but she was able to urinate properly for the first time in two weeks. She remained pain free and the hospital confirmed that the bladder infection was gone. She healed quickly from that point on.

Pregnant women also find that Reiki helps them to cope with their pregnancy better and often reduces the feelings of discomfort, leading to a much greater chance of a successful and pain free birth. This is on top of the benefits received by the unborn child through the input of universal life force energy.

Whatever the reasons for having a treatment the recipients of Reiki treatments almost invariably report an increased sense of wellbeing, a feeling of being enclosed in a fine sheathe of energy, or the sense that they are being surrounded by unconditional love. Often Reiki will send the recipient into a meditative state where strong emotions can be released. This will only happen if the problem being treated has an emotional basis and it is necessary for those emotions to surface and be dealt with as part of the healing process.

The unique thing about a Reiki treatment is that the energy has an intelligence of its own and will always go to wherever it is needed the most. This means that whatever the problem, be it a migraine or the after effects of chemotherapy, the Reiki energy knows what the precise healing needs of the individual are.

This of course means that Reiki will not always bring about the expected or the desired result straight away. Often underlying causes have to be dealt with before the symptom disappears. So if you develop a stress related illness as a result of your boss giving you a hard time at work, Reiki isn't going to simply get rid of the physical problem. What needs to happen in this case is that you need to develop a better way of either relating to your boss or a way of removing yourself from that stressful situation - either physically or emotionally. This is where Reiki will help. By working on your mental state and the way you are effected by other people, the energy will restore in you a state of balance that would enable you to have a peaceful coexistence with your boss. The stress therefore disappears and Reiki can then work on removing - for good - the illness that you manifested.

The practicalities of receiving a treatment are simple. The Reiki recipient lies fully clothed on a treatment table and simply relaxes whilst the practitioner places his or her hands in a series of defined positions on various parts of the body that correspond to the major organs, endocrine glands and the seven major chakras stretching from the Crown at the top of the head to the Root at the lower abdomen. Each position will be held for about five minutes whilst Reiki energy is channelled directly into the body.

So how does the practitioner know how much energy is needed in any particular place, and what if too much is given? The answer is that the practitioner doesn't know how much energy is needed, nor is there a need to know. The subconscious mind/higher self of the recipient draws the energy in just the quantities that are required. The practitioner actually does nothing other than make his/her hands available through which the energy can be drawn. For this reason it is never possible to have too much Reiki.

At the end of this series of hand positions the practitioner may feel that it is necessary to work on other parts of the body, depending on where an illness or problem seems to have its source or they may wish to return to one of the previously worked on points.

At each hand position the recipient can feel a number of physical sensations. Most commonly heat of varying intensities is felt or in some cases it can be coldness. It is not uncommon for people to feel energy waves rushing through their body or a 'tingling' feeling or see in their minds eye brilliant colours or find themselves on exotic journeys or in beautiful landscapes of a visionary nature. Each person's treatment is unique as are the experiences of that treatment. One thing is certain however; Reiki does bring a deep sense of peace and wellbeing to whoever comes into contact with it. Many people find that Reiki transforms their lives and go on to learn it for themselves so that they can continue with self treatments. You don't need to have anything particularly wrong with you to benefit from Reiki. All you need is a commitment to bringing peace and harmony into your life and Reiki can be there to make it happen.

Some people question whether it is necessary to believe in Reiki before anything will happen. Though Reiki is a form of spiritual healing it is not faith healing and it is entirely non-denominational. Anyone, regardless of race, creed or religious beliefs can experience the effects of Reiki. Although it is better to have a positive mental attitude towards the treatment Reiki will work if you are simply prepared to give it a go and find out for yourself. I have known many instances where Reiki has also had a powerful effect on those who are quite adamant that Reiki is no more than superstitious nonsense. Belief is simply not a factor in Reiki.

A full Reiki treatment can last up to an hour and a half and will cost you anything between £10 and £40. Depending on the problem to be treated a full course of treatments might mean several visits. For more serious problems expect to need ongoing and extensive treatment. Price is not an indication of quality in Reiki. Because Reiki training is so accessible, and there being very little in the way of professional guidelines for Reiki practitioners, there are a number of unscrupulous people charging high prices for less than satisfactory treatments. Always look for someone who's level of integrity and truth you are personally satisfied with. Find out how long the practitioner trained for - there are some Reiki Masters currently practicing and teaching Reiki who took less than two weeks to do all of their training! Some claim to have learnt the whole system in a day. Ask whether the practitioner can give you their training lineage back to Mikao Usui. Anyone involved with Reiki should be able to do this, as it is a point of honour embedded within the system.