by Colleen Benelli
First Published – Reiki News Magazine, Summer 2007.
Artwork by Gaia Orion.
When we take a Reiki class, receive an attunement and begin using Reiki, we also become connected to one or more Reiki guides. Our Reiki guides are spiritual beings who are specific to Reiki and only work with Reiki energies. They understand being human really well. They know our challenges and blessings, and our mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical needs. And they are open to communicating with us.
Other enlightened spirit guides and allies from a more universal healing background may also assist us with Reiki. For instance, Jesus is my main guide and works with my Reiki guides (those specific to Reiki). I work with as many as twenty spirit guides during my Reiki treatments. They are a “troop” of angels, enlightened beings, power animals, compassionate grandmothers, ascended masters, the directions etc. They are my spiritual family, friends, coworkers, teachers and guides. When I talk to them, I am not praying to them, but engaging in conversation with them.
Not all spiritual beings are enlightened.
It is always important to ask for only enlightened beings to be our guides or at least for an enlightened being to be in charge of all our guides and watch over what they do. Some guides are in training and while they haven’t yet become enlightened, they are working toward this goal. As long as they acknowledge the enlightened being we have chosen as our master guide as their teacher, we can trust their help.
Reiki guides speak the language of the heart.
We can hear our guides when we drop into our hearts and listen. They talk to us telepathically through our heightened senses. We may see them, hear them, experience sudden knowingness, or experience what feels like an intuitive impression or an inkling to do something or to go in a certain direction. They can also create physical sensations in the body. There are many other ways they communicate as well. Each person “hears” them a little differently. It is up to each of us to discover our personal ways of hearing our Reiki guides.
For those who have not had these experiences or have had them infrequently or haven’t had very strong impressions, it might be helpful to think of the mind as being much larger than we may have realized and that our guides may be communicating in a different part of the mind than that we normally “look” at. Using a classroom as an example, we may be looking on the blackboard at the front of the room for the message, but the message may be on the blackboard behind us, or we may need to look through the classroom window to find a message written on the ground or in the sky. To find these new places within our minds, we must become still and carefully move our attention around within ourselves. This is similar to being still in order to hear a faint sound.
Our Reiki guides will send messages to us based on the way that we listen. Spiritual practice teaches them our particular ways of listening. For example, I spend a lot of time outdoors doing self Reiki and meditating. I often sit under the night sky and ask my Reiki guides questions about my life or what I am teaching. My guides speak to me through the stars, the moon, or the sunrise. Through out the day they may send messages through birds, wind, clouds, people, books, movies, songs, or through inner dialogue. Sometimes a friend will say just what I needed to hear, or a song will play, or I may open a book to the exact page with the right words and know that this is coming from my guides. It is important to stay open and available to receive messages from our Reiki guides in any way they may possibly send them.
Talking to the spirit realm is a skill.
This skill can be learned by anyone. It is possible to talk to the many enlightened spiritual beings that help us heal and live better human lives. Learning the language of spirit requires the same commitment, practice and discipline as learning any other foreign language. It is a very right-brained activity so some people may have a greater aptitude for it, but everyone can learn to communicate with the spirit realms if they are interested and willing to put in the time to study and practice. It is part of our human intelligence.
Many Reiki practitioners can feel the presence of their Reiki guides, but do not understand the language of spirit well enough to communicate effectively with them. It is a language we perhaps knew as children, but then forgot. We may need to heal from life-time messages we have received requiring us to forget our ability to talk to spirit guides. As children we may have been told they were “just imaginary friends and that it is not possible to talk to them.” As adults, people who talk to spirits have been labeled as weird or crazy so we may need to heal those fears too. I also find that many of my clients who are spiritual healers have past life or genetic memories of persecution or death for being spiritual healers and are blocked because of the fear and pain these experiences created. If this is the case, use the Distant Healing symbol to travel back to any time in this and other lifetimes where you have been hurt through your ability to talk to spirit or heal others. Use the Power symbol and the Mental/Emotional symbol to clear, release and heal these old wounds and past lives.
People attuned to any level of Reiki can connect and communicate with their Reiki Guides. If you are not attuned to all of the symbols mentioned in this article, activate the Reiki you do have.
Reiki practice helps connect us with our guides.
My Reiki guides say that humanity is living in the age of communication, which includes communication with the spirit realms. They also say that the spread of Reiki in the world has exponentially increased humanity’s ability to connect and communicate with Spirit. Reiki is having very powerful and positive effects on earth and in the loving universe.
Communicating with our spirit guides is easier when we practice Reiki. My Reiki guides explained how it works. They said that Reiki is easy to use for communication because it is like a spiritual phone system, the enlightened highway, and it comes with a spiritual translator. Reiki has the phone numbers, addresses, the map, and the roads between our divine heart and the spirit realms. Reiki connects us to our divine hearts, gives us a mode of transportation, the fuel we need to get where we are going, and healing for any breakdowns we may have along the way. The Reiki roads and phone numbers always reach the enlightened realms, and the spiritual beings that we meet there are beautiful beings of light and love who are committed to us. Reiki then translates between our guides and us as we get to know each other.
All of the Reiki symbols enhance our ability to connect and communicate with our Reiki guides. However, the Usui Power, Distant Healing, and Mental/Emotional symbols are the basic ones. The Usui Power symbol calls the loving Universe to you. It is the spiritual phone system. When we invoke it, we are inviting the loving spiritual beings, our Reiki guides to us. The Distant Healing symbol is the divine consciousness, the place where we are all one. It is literally translated as, “the Buddha in me connects to the Buddha in you to promote harmony and peace.” This symbol creates a bridge of light from our divine hearts to the divine hearts in everything, and gives us a way to connect to all divine beings. It is the enlightened highway. The Usui Mental/Emotion-al Symbol specializes in mind consciousness. It can help us have a still mind and shift us into heightened perceptions. It connects us with our telepathic abilities. It is also called the talking symbol and the Reiki translator. Karuna Reiki® has the phone numbers, addresses, and the map to many enlightened beings. They heal us with their divine guidance and blessings.
Reiki practices enhance spiritual communication. The Reiki symbols create an automatic connection and assist us in traveling to the spirit realms where we can work together with our guides to create healing and wholeness within.
If you have not met your Reiki guides, I recommend an excellent guided meditation CD by William Rand called, “Meet Your Reiki Guides.” Use this CD or something similar to meet your Reiki guides. After you’ve developed a rapport with your guides, use the following technique as a guide for developing a working relationship with your guides. You may want to listen to music or a drumming CD during your journey to enhance the experience.
1.Use your imagination to create a beautiful meeting place on top of a mountain, on a beach, in a wood, or a spiritual realm. (Usually, it is a good practice to meet in the same place each time.)
2.Invoke the Usui and Tibetan Master symbols, the Power symbol and the Distant Healing symbol. Intend that your vibration be lifted above the density of the earth to a place of pure light, love, joy, truth, beauty, grace and gratitude. Invoke the Mental/Emotional symbol to increase your telepathy and to translate for you and your Reiki guide(s).
3.Say a prayer inviting and welcoming your Reiki guide(s) (even if you don’t know them by name).
4.Begin a dialogue. Talk to them and listen. Ask questions. Start with easy ones such as their names (if you don’t know them), how will they guide you, what do they want you to know today. Ask how you can help each other as healers and what they know about healing our illnesses. Tell them you will continue listening for their messages. Ask if there are any blocks in the way of your ability to communicate with them. If so, ask their help in healing them.
5.When you are complete, thank your Reiki guide(s) and ask if there is anything you can do for them. Say goodbye and return to yourself. Thank yourself for the work you do.
6.Seal the session. Listen and be available for your Reiki guide(s) to continue communicating with you in subtle ways throughout your day.
7.Practice this journey often.
Learning the language of spirit is like learning any other foreign language. Although there are no textbooks or dictionaries, there are specific skills that you will need to practice in order to communicate fluently with your Reiki guides. Ask your Reiki guides for help in developing the skills you need. Practice the following skills during Reiki treatments for yourself and others and during all of your personal spiritual practices. Use the Reiki symbols to empower and build these skills.
• Invite your Reiki guides to be in your life. Because of our free will, they will never impose themselves on us or teach us more than we are willing or ready to learn. Therefore, we must invite them to be present and ask for their assistance.
• Create an invocation. Create an invocation or prayer that invites Reiki, invokes all the symbols and the Reiki guides by name, describes your meeting place, and tells them your intention. Use this invocation every time you do a Reiki treatment, meditate, or want to talk to your Reiki guides.
• State intentions clearly. Our Reiki guides answer us in unexpected ways sometimes, so it is important to be clear and specific about your intentions. As you get more skilled in communicating with your Reiki guides, your intentions will manifest more quickly. Ask for the greatest intention you can imagine and as many as you need. Ask big! Your Reiki guides love it!
• Practice listening. Listening is perhaps the most important skill to develop in our Reiki and spiritual practices. All spiritual communication comes from listening. Listen from the heart, mind and whole body. Listen for all of the ways your Reiki guides may talk to you. Make a commitment to listening, not only to your guides, but also in all of your conversations. Empower it with Reiki regularly and practice. Listen to your own words as you speak them. Often our Reiki guides will speak to us through our own voice. Listen during your daily activities. It is important to learn to still our minds through quiet focused time each day, so that we can still our minds during our daily activities. Then we will be able to perceive and listen to our Reiki guides regardless of what we are doing.
• Develop your telepathic abilities and use your imagination. Most of the time Reiki guides will communicate telepathically. Use Reiki to open your third eye chakra and to develop your telepathic abilities. The imagination is the doorway to the sixth sense. If you are having trouble perceiving your Reiki guides, use your imagination. Imagine who they would be, what they would look like, and what they would say to you. Your imagination is a doorway.
• Believe and trust. Some things have to be believed to be seen. Believe in your interactions with your Reiki guides. Trust that you are not making it all up. Trust the messages they send and the ways they send them. Usually, if you think they are sending you a message in an odd way, they are. Trust that magnificent spiritual beings do want to have a personal relationship with you and that they talk to you, guide you and help you.
• Practice, practice, practice. Learning the language of spirit takes time and practice. Through our spiritual and Reiki practices we continually develop new skills and abilities to communicate and work with our Reiki guides. As our light vibration changes and grows our Reiki guides have more access to us. They match our vibrations and interact with us according to our abilities.
• Stay in your divine heart. Reiki guides speak the language of the heart. We hear them when we drop out of our heads and into our hearts. Practice the ability to stay in your divine heart during your daily activities.
• Thank your Reiki guides and thank yourself. Gratitude is a direct pathway to the divine heart. Remember to thank your Reiki guides and say goodbye any time you have finished a treatment. Thank them as you do your daily activities. Gratitude is the quickest way to your divine heart and to them. Remember to thank yourself as well.
Communicating with your Reiki guides is easier than you may think. It is a skill. With intention and practice it can be learned by anyone. Believe, practice and invite loving Reiki guides into your life. Many of us were born at this time in human history with a commitment to remembering our own brilliance and our relationship with enlightened spiritual guides. We incarnated this lifetime to help humanity move toward greater communication with spirit realms and to an awakening to our own spiritual brilliance. Our Reiki guides and spiritual allies are right beside us, dedicated to our cause. Reiki is a perfect means to accomplish this divine purpose. It is a spiritual practice that invites the loving universe into our daily lives individually and collectively. And the loving universe always accepts our invitation and is available to assist and guide us and help us live better human lives.
Colleen Benelli can be reached by email at colleen@reikilifestyle.com, by phone at 503.912.0664, on her website at www.reikilifestyle.wpengine.com, or on her Facebook page, Reiki Lifestyle-Colleen Benelli. Join Colleen’s monthly ReikiChat™ conversation, www.reikichat.com.