The Reiki Precepts and the Law of Attraction: more comments

Last month, Reiki Master Scott K. asked a question that has sparked weeks of discussion:

The other week I watched the secret and learned about the law of attraction for the first time. I was wondering what the opinion of the Reiki community is on the law of attraction. My understanding from the movie is that as long as you focus your attention on something, and it does not matter if it is in a positive way or negative way, that something will come your way. If this is true then focusing on the precepts will bring one more anger and worry.

This week, Scott shares his conclusions from the discussion:

Thanks to all those that have contributed to the question I posed regarding the law of attraction (LOA) and the Reiki precepts. All of them have been both interesting and instructive and clearly there is more for me to learn. Let me pose the question again because I do not think it was clear in the first post of the question.

… thinking “do not anger” and “be angry” are the same thing according to The Secret and will lead to more anger by merely thinking about anger in a positive or negative way. And according to The Secret the proper form would be “Be (antonym of anger)” and with the help of the MS Word dictionary it would be “Be Calm” for the Reiki precept. This was my understanding of the LOA from The Secret, not that I necessarily agree with it.

Well before I posed the question I found that reciting, contemplating and meditating on the Reiki precepts have been very beneficial to me. With out them I would probably be in a very different state (mental state that is) at this time. After reading the response and thinking about it I have realized, among other things, that the movie The Secret presents only a very superficial view of the LOA. Actually, sometime ago, I started to read a popular book about the LOA and found that a large component of it was focused on materialistic ideals and put it down after a few chapters and never finished it. But after seeing The Secret I saw some connection between the use of the precepts and what was presented in the movie, both are used to bring something to one’s life whether it be spiritual or otherwise. Besides this connection The Secret seems to say that the Reiki precepts are worded in the wrong way as mentioned above. So, I was wondering what the view(s) of the Reiki community was on this connection and how the precepts are worded. Frans rightly points out the difference between precepts and affirmations, though they are both composed of “thoughts” and according to The Secret it is the “thought that counts”. He also points out that follow through or action is key. This applies to both the precepts and affirmations.

In addition it may not be the exact wording or “thought” of the precept or affirmation that matters since different people may have different nuanced understanding of words or phrases. So what may really matter is the non ego emotion, feeling, Reiki moment or “vibration” as Katherine mentioned that is evoked by the affirmation or precept. For example to be joyful is not a word, or thought, it is being joyful, something that comes from deep within oneself and can be independent of what is going on externally around to you. Though that last bit is difficult to fully achieve. Perhaps one can think about as becoming one with joyfulness to really be joyful?

Thanks again to everyone, I think I just learned what it means to be joyful!

Scott

Thanks, Scott, and thanks to all who have contributed to our discussion. Comments are still welcome on this topic: just click on the word "comments" at the bottom of this post on our web site, email your comments to editor@thereikidigest.com, or click here to leave your spoken comments on our 24/7 GrandCentral voicemail.