After some pming with Colin with whom I did my Jikiden shoden/okuden training last year in Kyoto with(sorry, but can't really go into details about the workshop as you have to sign a form about that-which is why I was chatting with Colin in the first place about it..)about symbols and techniques and theories in Jikiden. I began to think about how we teach..Recently there have been a couple of discussions on the forum about "purity of teachings and the fusing or combining of styles."
While I have been happy with my various training in reiki(bar the first level I did with someone- so I later re-did it)through my reading, discussing and most importantly practicing and experimentation found some things that I was taught no longer either believable or just plain extraneous..and so have dropped them..
So this raises the question.. Is it more important to be true to your teacher and through extension of this your lineage by keeping it as close as possible to what you were taught? Or is that being too dogmatic, realising that along the way others have changed things anyway and you see yourself attempting to return to the basics and the most "original" style that you possibly can?
I know I chose the latter, without making a big deal about it and is it inevitable anyhow that because of who they are, what they believe,other training and studies, religious and/or spiritual backgrounds and inclinations, their values and preferences that teachers will modify things regardless?(whether conciously or unconciously)..
Which makes one realise that this is obviously why Jikiden is so strict about how things are done, their versions of history, techniques and symbols and about not mixing it with other forms of reiki lest the cat could get out of the bag Takata style.(by this I mean how some of the masters taught by her, and then students of those masters went on to fundamentally alter things and in cases create whole new systems)..
What are people's thoughts on this?..Kevin