Someone’s lineage may seem a minor point, or even irrelevant, when discussing something like Reiki and it may not be important to you at all, but it is an interesting distinction to get clear in your head, whether it bears any importance to you or not. Your lineage is your line of energy connecting you to Usui. It’s where your Reiki comes from much like your ancestral line, and it has a bearing on how you yourself will understand the teachings. If you progress to level 2 and beyond it will also have an impact on the symbols you are taught, and the type of attunements you will learn.
Some lineages remain relatively pure – by that I mean quite strictly aligned to Reiki and the original teachings of Usui, while others have blended other modalities, philosophies and techniques to become almost unrecognizable from the original system. The point to note is not all lineages are the same – there are differences, and these differences are important to some people.
I am a fan of Rupert Sheldrake’s ‘Morphic field’ concept and in this he describes the potential of a field of energy – we discuss this in Level 2 when we begin to play with the fields of symbols. Sheldrake describes energy fields, or morphic fields, as information storage systems – so much like a computer can store millions of pieces of information for retrieval anywhere on the planet with wifi, so these morphic fields can also contain huge amounts of data for access by anyone with energetic wifi (and the password).
When you first are attuned to Reiki, you are attuned into a lineage with all the information contained in it. This gives you access to a huge potential, and it’s why many Reiki practitioners seem to have access to more knowledge, more intuition, and more awareness once they have completed their Reiki workshop. We are literally stepping into a library of knowledge left for us by our forefathers and mothers. If you are attuned to the Usui lineage then obviously all lineages begin with Usui and his wisdom but each lineage has passed through many lineage holders, who have in turn added their own knowledge, energy, and wisdom. As time goes on, the lineage changes in energetic vibration guided and influenced by those who have held the lineage, and affected by all the users of the lineage and what they are adding to it. Some lineages will expand to encompass many other different aspects or will change direction completely to focus on different areas – much like our religious lineages that all stem from only a handful of people, but today even within the same religions, you can find an enormous breadth of differences in philosophy, practice, and beliefs.
For those who have trained with many different Reiki Masters, your lineages will reflect that – if you have Usui and other lineages of Reiki in your learning, you will be able to pick and choose which techniques to use – but do be warned….more information does not equate to more wisdom! Information is like reading lots of Reiki books, wisdom comes from a much deeper place – it comes from Reiki practice.
