Thanksgiving is a day to be grateful for the bounty that graces us and to honor our friends and family, our health and all of our many blessings.
The Reiki principles as set out by Mikao Usui in the early 1900’s are:
Just for today, don’t get angry.
Just for today, don’t worry.
Just for today, be grateful.
Just for today, be honest in your work.
Just for today, be kind to yourself and others.
The third principle “Just for today, be grateful” is ideally what Thanksgiving is all about!
Perhaps then Thanksgiving is two fold…giving thanks for our many blessings and a day to remind us that we are all spiritual beings capable of exercising our most innate human quality…compassion for ourselves and others. The dictionary definition for compassion in it’s purest form is a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering. Noteworthily, it is also one of the Golden Rules “Do to others what you would have them do to you.”
So as you go about your busy Turkey Day remember that what you put out into the universe on a daily basis will indeed come back to you. So no harm in letting your compassion for people and things guide you to action. As a Reiki practitioner I will often send healing light to dire circumstances in the world and on a more personal level smile and usher a sense of patience to ease my students’ discomfort and feelings of awkwardness, as they struggle to put English words together to make sentences in my ESL class.
As I let my own compassion soar it reminds me of my fortunate position in the world as a mother, educator and someone who has been blessed enough to live a life of liberty and good health amongst genuine friends and family. Any spiritual practitioner will tell you that being grateful for your present situation will lead to more things to be grateful for, but moreover, a genuine sense of compassion for people and things will lead to a pure form of action, be it a simple kind gesture or an outright heroic venture. This purest form of action is in each of us to spread throughout the world and is always reflected back on to us as well.
I hope all of you find time to set aside a few moments to be grateful for the blessings in your life and at the same time are reminded of your feelings of compassion that have led you to take involuntary and/or conscious action or incidentally are inspiring you to do so. Don’t forget…the expression of gratitude, compassion and action has tremendous karmic value; something else to be thankful for.
~ Happy Thanksgiving!!!
~ Reiki Regards,
Jenn