by Colleen Benelli
First Published – Reiki News Magazine, Summer 2012.
Artwork by Gaia Orion.
The imagination is much more than “what we use to make things up with.” It is our creative power that we can awaken in both the conscious and unconscious mind. Many people seem unaware of the important role imagination plays in creating our dreams, and by extension, our reality, since it is imagination that begins the process of manifestation. What we create in our lives begins in our mind. Reiki tells me that we need to heal our collective beliefs about our imagination and learn to use it as the sense that it is.
In my experience, the Reiki symbols naturally heal and empower our imagination. It is part of their intention. In my Reiki work, my imagination is another sense. It opens the doorway between me and my client, and the enlightened spiritual realms where Reiki resides. My imagination is a major part of my brain that is activated when I am giving or receiving Reiki. It is what I use to connect with Reiki, my spirit guides, my spirit, and the higher self of my client. My imagination activates my intuition, telepathy and inner guidance, and it heightens my ability to listen. I use it in my meditations and in self-Reiki.
“A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.” ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Our imagination strengthens our senses and increases our perceptions. As Remez Sasson, author of Visualize and Achieve says, “Imagination is not limited only to seeing pictures in the mind. It includes all the five senses and the feelings. One can imagine a sound, taste, smell, a physical sensation or a feeling or emotion. For some people it is easier to see mental pictures, others find it easier to imagine a feeling, and some are more comfortable imagining the sensation of one of the five senses. Training of the imagination gives the ability to combine all the senses.”
In Reiki work, training of the imagination includes healing the limitations of our imagination that have been imposed on us through our culture, childhood background and life experiences. Many people believe they have no imagination and never use it. As Reiki heals the injured or misunderstood imagination, it also empowers it and returns it to its authentic expression. Training of the imagination can be consciously practiced in self-Reiki and in Reiki sessions. The Reiki symbols increase the power of the imagination and activate it intentionally. Through the practice of Reiki, our imagination can become a powerful sense.
My Reiki guides have been working with the imagination in my healing work in a powerful and persistent way. Because so many of my clients were receiving healing for their imagination, I began to question my accuracy. However, I stayed out of the way and allowed Reiki to do the healing work as it wanted, and finally I understood that Reiki wanted me to include healing the imagination as an possibilty for every Reiki session. The same way I always include the possible use of color and chakra balancing in every session. My guides showed me that humanity has seriously weakened our imagination and that we need to consciously revitalize this important sense.
When I first started working with my imagination in my Reiki work, I started hearing and seeing things in my sessions, and I was concerned that I was making it all up. Information and spiritual guidance came in that I didn’t understand or have a belief system for. Sometimes it all seemed so fantastical. Eventually, the evidence and results created new beliefs within me and I opened to new ideas. People validated the information that came through—even when they didn’t understand it themselves, it would make sense to them. I started to gain confidence in my accuracy. My belief systems expanded to accommodate my work so I felt more comfortable in receiving information during Reiki sessions (and in my daily life). This allowed more information and connection, which resulted in more validation and expansion of my beliefs, and greater results in my Reiki work. And this cycle continues in my work today. It is like a circle. The more I believe, the more I see, the more I believe. Like the saying, “Some things have to be believed to be seen.”
There are many ways Reiki works with the imagination. It is determined by the person using it. In the examples in this article, I have focused on a spiritual aspect of the Reiki and the imagination, but Reiki can also work with the imagination in other belief systems too. A person can use Reiki to access the field of all possibilities for inventions, medical breakthroughs, science, and anything else a person has an interest in. The direction you go in is set by your intention.
Reiki activates our right brain, which is the location of our imagination, intuition, inner guidance, spiritual connection, and spiritual communication. Our imagination opens the doorway between our physical reality and the spiritual realms, and the extraordinary realities of this world. By accessing our imagination during a Reiki session, we can activate our telepathy and clairvoyance, and experience spiritual worlds and beings, enlightened realms, past lives, the future, and the lives between the lives. We often gain beneficial knowledge about the healing taking place during the Reiki session. Our imagination gives us the ability to travel and makes it possible to experience whole worlds in our mind that are outside of our normal physical reality. In our imagination, we can remember more than our minds know.
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” ~ Albert Einstein
The imagination resides in our whole body as well as our whole brain. The part that is activated can be determined and guided by the intention we are working with. I find much of my imagination is in my heart chakra when I am giving Reiki. What I find is translated by my mind (third eye) and given expression through my voice (throat chakra). I often “hear” behind me the information from my Reiki guides thatnthey want me to share with my client or the questions they want to ask. (This is sometimes referred to as the “mouth of God chakra.”) It sounds like it is coming in words through my ears, but there is no sound.
My imagination has also been activated in my daily life. I listen with my whole body. I activate my imagination behind me, my “eyes in the back of my head.” I am very aware and awake to my surroundings. This comes through in many ways. Serendipity happens a lot because I am able to recognize the signals. My imagination is open to them. My intuition is active. I can hear Reiki and my guides during my daily activities and busy-ness. I am currently using it to plan my mother’s 80th birthday. I use my imagination when I am finding my way somewhere, I use it in my Reiki classes when describing how Reiki works, and I am using it to write this article. In addition, I consciously use Reiki to activate my imagination each day. I use the Distant symbol to set the intention for the day when I call in the Reiki symbols so that it stays active when I am too busy to pay attention to it. Reiki is now aware that this is a goal of mine and does this automatically.
“Imagination is a creative power that is necessary for inventing an instrument, designing a dress or a building, painting a picture or writing a book. The creative power of imagination has an important role in the achievement of success in any field.” ~ Remez Sasson.
What we create in our lives is first dreamed in our mind. When we are actively engaged with our imagination, the field of all possibilities is open. We can tap into this field to imagine what we want to manifest. When the dream is identified then action can be taken to achieve the results we desire. Reiki can heal the limitations that prevent us from believing in our dreams and their possibilities. CKR lifts the blocks from us, SHK can give us clarity about our dreams and CKR can empower our life force so that we know what actions we need to take and what our priorities are. Our imagination can shape our beliefs and Reiki can align our beliefs with our truth, so that we are manifesting what we really want in life. The fire serpent master symbol grounds us with the earth and the practicalities of living here in this moment in time. Reiki can also help us stay focused when we encounter obstacles, detours and challenges in trying to manifest our dreams. And of course it is also there to help when the thought of “Thank God for unanswered prayers” is our outcome and what we imagined we wanted is not how it turned out!
I like having my imagination awake in my daily life. My world is rich with color and wonder. I am in relationship with the extraordinary world around me, and I feel that I can interact with life in a very expansive way. Even when life is hard it is beautiful. I can still talk with the animals and trees. The world has tremendous diversity when we open ourselves to look. “Some may say that I am a dreamer, but I am not the only one.” John Lennon.
I am also grateful that I have a community of like-minded people to whom I can speak about my imaginary world, who also understand it as reality. My Reiki and shamanic communities are very inclined to be interested in the subjects of the imagination. If I talk about what a fairy told me, I find that they want to know what it said and how they can talk to fairies! Dr. Usui was trained in the Art of Fairy, so I imagine that he must have talked with them, too.
Our imagination can also run away with us, be out of balance and out of control. We can start with one thought and make up entire stories in our mind about a situation. When an imagination is out of control, it can cause circling thoughts, fear, imbalance, distractions, destructive impulses, mental health issues, etc., as in the example below.
I had a 12 year old client several years ago who came in because she had night terrors and couldn’t sleep alone. She saw terrible visions in the dark. During her session, Reiki worked with her imagination. I knew that her family had emigrated here from Persia. During her session, my Reiki guides told me that she came from a long line of spiritual healers and midwives (which her mother later validated) and that her imagination was very strong because she was one of them. A generation ago, she would have been identified as a future healer, and her grandmothers would have taught her how to use her imagination to assist in her healing abilities as she grew older. In her life here, there was no outlet or training for her powerful imagination, and so left alone, she had no idea what to do with her mind since there are very few belief systems for this for children in today’s world. My spirit guides advised her to begin training her imagination and to give her tools such as Reiki to help her redirect her imagination from being a burden to the positive gift it was.
I used the Distance symbol to connect her to her authentic imagination today, and SHK to help shift her perceptions and memories and some of the Karuna Reiki® symbols as well. Zonar and Halu, to return to the cellular memories and Harth to place a field of universal love all around her and give her a feeling of protection. I used the symbol Rama to return her authentic imagination to her, Gnosa to connect her to her intellect, Shanti to give her peace and Kriya for balanced perceptions. I finished the session with the Usui and Tibetan Master symbols to align her heart and mind with her original imagination.
“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery
“You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” ~ Mark Twain
When our imagination is stunted, out of focus or injured, our perceptions can be very out of whack. I finally heard my Reiki guides when they told me that there is a great misunderstanding about the power of our imaginations. We mostly believe that our imagination is what we use to make things up with and if we’re not the type to make things up then we have no imagination. Fear of exposure, judgment, persecution, being labeled as weird, etc. can cause tremendous limitations in empowering our imaginations. Admitting the things we see and know with Reiki and our imagination can be pretty uncomfortable. “I listen to the voices in my head” is not exactly what the mainstream agrees with!
Many of my clients believe they don’t have much of an imagination if they are not very artistically creative. So they don’t use it or consciously access it. In fact, many people will deny their imaginations, saying they don’t have one. Reiki will take them back through their ages to heal their beliefs about their imaginations and to return their authentic imaginations to them. I observe that Reiki travels back with the Distant symbol to the original cause to begin its healing work. This is usually around the age of three or four. This seems to be the age where outside influences begin to mold a child’s imagination. Before then, they are still in the age of wonder, where non-ordinary reality is still real. By five, peer pressure can cause children to question their imaginations and what they believe. The kids question each other about their beliefs to determine what is real. By 10, children often believe they have a “good imagination or not” based on their ability to do creative projects and make things up. By 15, they determine their identity and whether it includes an imagination, and by adulthood, many have forgotten their true imagination entirely.
Reiki will return the person to what it calls “The age of wonder.” This is the time in life when children still knows their imaginary friends, and the world around them is full of wonderful things. Their mind is active and awake to truths we as adults have often forgotten. Reiki sends the age of wonder through all of the ages where the person lost his imagination and then merges the information together with the person today.
My Reiki guides call this The Great Forgetting. Because when we lose our imagination, we forget our spirit and our connection to the spirit realms. I find that people often feel this as homesickness. They are lonely when they don’t know why. They miss their inner self and the spiritual beings they have known in their souls. When their imagination is returned, they can remember their own spirit and brilliance, as if a veil has been removed that was hiding their own light from their very own view. Once they see their own light, then they can see it in everything around them. The world becomes alive again, and they are not alone.
The most important part of healing the imagination with Reiki is setting the intention. Although I am going to give an example of how to heal with Reiki, Reiki will work with the imagination because it is aware of the need and this kind of healing is in alignment with Reiki energy. I feel that Reiki itself has trained me to heal the imagination beginning with my Reiki I attunements. I don’t think my imagination would have come up with it on my own. I believe Reiki began teaching me about the imagination along with how Reiki heals with color. They go together. See my article, “The Color of Reiki” Reiki News Magazine, Summer 2011.
I have also seen that Reiki begins this healing with Reiki attunements. The imagination is almost always activated through attunements. Insights, unusual focus and the ability to “feel” Reiki often accompany Reiki attunements.
The Distant Symbol gives the imagination access to all time and space. SHK expands the mind’s capabilities by increasing our higher mind and consciousness. It opens the imagination to the field of all possibilities and it increases innovation, inventiveness, creativity, inner guidance, and inspiration. CKR brings the loving universe and bypasses our limiting beliefs, getting us out of the way so the other symbols can do their work. Then because I am attuned to other symbols, including the Karuna Reiki® symbols, I add these as well and then allow Reiki to heal and empower the imagination.
As you begin your Reiki session, use Reiji Ho to activate your imagination so that it can be directed by spirit. Place your hands in Gassho, by your heart, feel them connect to your heart, then lift your thumbs to your third eye, and feel Reiki flow through your hands and heart to awaken your imagination and intuition. Reiji Ho indicates the presence of spirit—it can connect spirit to your heart to activate your imagination. It will help you drop out of your busy mind. The imagination is also directed by Reiki when using Byosen, helping you to “intuit the sick line.”
Reiki can heal old beliefs and limitations around our imagination. When our imagination is activated in a positive way, we are creative and innovative. Consciously awaken to your imagination to create your life. Reiki will guide you and help you.
1. Remez Sasson, “The Power of the Imagination,” http://www.successconsciousness.com, (accessed March 2012).
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.
Colleen offers Reiki training and Reiki sessions. She is a compassionate, conscious healer who has clients around the world. Her healing methods include decades of discovery into the world of Reiki, including the new and powerful Holy Fire III Reiki. Learn more >
