being into reiki, it is almost paramount that we start getting taste of spiritualism (if not before) and some would say we get to know our 'own spark of divinity' (thanks Wayne ) it has become sort of a 'gospel truth' that reiki invites spiritualism, and if we could wrap around us the complete package that includes the percepts of reiki, reiki undoubtfully leads ways to a new lifestyle--a change which religions are best known to have brought about in people !!
religions, here and there, tend to provide a complete package of how to spend life... they start by giving concepts about God, (or Gods), and step down further to enumerate general principles that can instill such a culture in the followers, that they would then find easy to adopt the detailed teachings in respect of do's and donot's, and this unfolds further into details, in a step by step fashion, untill the followers of a religion come to catch upon a complete "code"...
almost all the religions, therefore, have one basic essential element to start with... and that is : the concept about God (or Gods) which is soon translated into ancilliary concepts of spiritualism, spiritual elevation, development, recognition, light, wisdom and so on....
i might be wrong, but i have observed that practicing reiki has the potential to challange the religious attachment of people.. thats why religious lords often are seen to look down upon reiki, to lament it, to oppose it, and to say that reiki is all evil, as a matter of last recourse this raises a question, that why they feel alarmed in respect of reiki... what potentials reiki holds, that could cause a 'disturbance' in the age-old established systems of sayings-followings... do reiligious people feel reiki as a threat ? and since we clearly know various instances of such attitudes shown by religious lords, we have to answer question ourselves, or in this august forum, that does reiki hold a semblance to something that could be called a religion ??
interesting that reiki started from Usui Sensei, in a way striking similar to the way various religions are known to be 'born' a self-discipline, pious person, seeking seclusion, seeking guidance, seeking light and wisdom gets a revelation of something hitherto unknown to him and to rest of the public... he is astonished on the magical exhibition of wonders of reiki while he is way back descending from Mount Kurana... so bestownment of reiki was not ever foreseen by Usui perhaps... it was something he did not had an earlier idea...does this not hold a striking similarity to the birth of variuos religions known to us ?
by reading these lines, if respected readers jump to a conclusion that i wish or have any tendency to 'declare' or 'officialise' reiki as a religion, this might be totally against my intentions i have quite opposite in my mind owing to my lack of enough knowledge, i find it appropriate to question like a layman, or like a naive student... my intentions, and my question is, "how do we include reiki in our religious practices in a way that there is no usurpation and more specifically if we feel that practicing reiki is overlapping some religious practice or ritual, for which we have deep reverence and attachment, how do we reconcile the two, so that we dont anytime feel we are adopting one at the cost of abandoning another ??
and finally, an open question : 'Do you have ever felt that reiki is an 'unfinished or un-declared religion ??
if my words have gone far in disturbing, offending, or irritating some readers in their religious inclinations, i m more than most sorry, and apolgise from my heart..it was a discussion writing, and not an assertion believes and nor it was a preaching whatsoever... please forgive!
take care
salman