Clients and students will often share that their spiritual path involves getting clear of the chaotic energies in their lives. This is admirable and certainly very desirable. They often conclude with a statement the goes something like, “I am getting rid of everything that no longer serves me.” I am somewhat puzzled by this statement. This has led me on an inner inquiry of service within my own Reiki practice.

Whom Do You Serve?

A few years ago during a session I found myself inwardly asking, more like wondering, whether the client was receiving what they needed from the Reiki session. An unexpected response from my Angelic Guide vibrated through me, and I heard: “Whom do you serve?” It became very clear that I had been concerned about the client’s experience, as if I were “serving” their needs when, in fact, I was to remain in service to Divine Light and Love. I saw myself as a hostess, filling the guest’s cup, making sure they felt cared for, and thinking this was the “work” of Reiki. As I changed the image, to remain in the ever-flowing, ever-full “cup” of Reiki healing, I could hold an infinite supply of unlimited blessings.

This is what it means to be in service to the Light. This is what it means to get out of the way of the Infinite potential of Divine Light in action. If I were to move from client to client, student to student, filling their finite cups with Reiki, I would be limiting its potential in a physical and finite container. By shifting my inner perspective, my subtle inner awareness, to remain only in the Light, I move into a space of unlimited potential, the true flow of Reiki.

Further inquiry also gave me a deeper understanding that we often think we are in service to humanity, yet we cannot possibly know what humanity needs, nor how best to assist. There is that image of tending to someone’s cup again, and sometimes we are filling it with something that is not even nourishing for them, from our own desires or even to feel valuable and helpful.

How Can We Serve?

The answer is provided within Reiki itself. If we remain as pure channels of this Divine Light and Love, we are raised to a level of service that is unconditional and un-fettered by “cups” (or any physical container) at all. As spiritual beings we have an energetic connection beyond the physical form. Reiki lifts us up and out of the limitations of physical perception and material forms.

If self-conscious questions about the client’s, or student’s, experience fill your consciousness, the practitioner/teacher is working from a state of a lower physical (thusly limited) vibration. Then, you may be in service to the physical form, or even the self.

I have found many students who are new to Reiki surround themselves with insecure, self-deprecating, questioning about their ability to channel Reiki healing energy. Some even think that their questioning is a demonstration of humility. No matter what the reasoning, I am shown that this self-conscious vibration is really a demonstration of ego. At some point in the process, you started to believe that you were the one doing the healing, that you were the one creating Reiki. It is a subtle, yet profound, shift from being in service to Divine Light and being in service to the self.

It is also just as easily shifted back into proper alignment, by getting out of the lower mind and placing your consciousness squarely where it belongs while channeling Reiki, within Divine Light and Love. Sometimes it is helpful to drop your awareness from the mind (where intellectual thoughts reign) into the heart, where your inherent connection to Divine Love, Wisdom, and Strength reside. This allows Reiki to flow through you, instead of from you.

Being Served

In cases where the Reiki practitioner has become concerned for the recipient’s experience of the Reiki session, this may also be a demonstration of personal ego. In your quiet moments you may wish to ask yourself if you are seeking praise from the client or student. Are you seeking word-of-mouth praise? More good reviews on Yelp? Higher ratings on Google? More “followers?” If there is a need for the client’s experience to resonate outward to grow your business, then that is exactly what you are doing, growing a business. You are looking for Reiki to serve you.

Let’s take that a bit further. You may be the sort of person who is now releasing people and things that “no longer serve me.” Our sense of personal freedom has collectively travelled parallel with this path of self-service for quite some time now. And you are certainly free to continue. However, I offer this as an opportunity for self-reflection. I wonder if, perhaps, you believe you are here to be served.

I am grateful to my beautiful Angelic Guides who will whisper in my ear when I start to wonder if someone “likes” my work, “No longer seek praise nor criticism from man. Seek the Light and Blessings of God.”

Impersonal Blessings

Seeking fulfillment from other people seems to be the false nourishment we seek in the age of social media. Let us remember that how things move from person-to-person on Facebook or Instagram, is not how Spiritual blessings flow. Reiki practitioners must remain in the Light to be clear channels of Reiki, directly from Spirit, not through the media streams that flow constantly and quite loudly.

Reiki, as universal life force energy, is available to everyone, impersonal and generous. Compared to our noisy world, Reiki is seemingly quiet, gentle, and does not force its way. It does not concern itself with minuscule individual containers of limitation. It seeks integration and growth and expansion. Reiki flourishes with those who can step aside and allow it to do its work.

Holding Space With Reiki

If ever you find yourself in a Reiki session, with self-conscious (ego) thoughts about the session, it is wise to remember, “Whom do you serve?” To strengthen your own physical connection with your Light Body during Reiki, it is helpful to visualize your body between the two furthermost chakras above and below you—the Soul Star Chakra, as your northern axis above you, and the Earth Star Chakra, as your southern axis below you. With this alignment, you re-call that you are indeed a bridge for this Divine Light. The bridge must be strong and clear.

The following breathing exercise and visualization may assist you:

On your inhalation, allow your energy to rise to the Soul Star Chakra, hold for a 2-count at the top of the breath, allowing your consciousness to fill with Reiki. On the exhalation, bring high-vibrational white light spiraling downward through each of the chakras, grounding below you into the Earth Star Chakra. Hold at the bottom of the breath for a 2-count, as that Divine Light is channeled into the Earth. Repeating this breath two more times helps to clear your personal energies, thoughts, images, and feelings.

This practice of squaring the breath helps to detach your personal intentions from the session and allows you to be filled with the impersonal and highest intentions of Reiki Blessings. You may also wish to speak a prayerful intention such as, “I stand in service to God (or the Creator, or Light).”

Healing the Personal Ego with Reiki

For the practitioner who is seeking to move beyond the limitations of lower perceptions and ego mind, a regular practice of Reiki self-healing with that intention is welcomed and will bring much good to your life. Using the CKR sandwich technique with the distance/connection symbol, one can “send” healing to those area of the self which seek praise and gratification from the work.

You may find that the ego bristles against such healing, for the ego will resist the impersonal blessings of Reiki. Be encouraged and strengthened by the challenge. You will not fail. You stand in Reiki, in service to Divine Light!