Chakras and the Third Eye myth

I'm afraid that much of the system used in the west has no valid basis at all, and the connections to the endocrine system are spurious. Remember that we are talking about two different things here - the authentic eastern teachings on the subject, and the western occult system invented by Theosophy, the latter is an invention, not based in any way on the former.
 
I have researched, written and practised meditation for over thirty years, including the chakra systems used by both Buddhists (I'm one) and Hindus.
 
MelT

 

 TBH, it isn't an argument, just simple fact, the two are completely different. Theosophy as a whole is an invention, and not based on authentic eastern teachings.
 
 Does marijuana slow spiritual progress? It depend how it's used. As I've said elsewhere, used properly, it opens more doors than it closes.
 
 
MelT.

 

 
My stance on chakras is 'always changng' in what way?
 
your view is that chakras were broken down from four segments, ie feet to knees, knees to abdomen, etc. What then is the correlation from the largely accepted 7 point chakra view (plus hands and feet) to this four level thing
 
 The earliest system was made up of four zones, not chakras. The emergence of other systems took place over the following two thousand years, with other variations having up to 13 chakras.
 
 Reiki is a con, a kind of spiritual pyramid selling scheme. It claims to be based on Buddhism, but isn't. It claims to have an ancient provenance, when it doesn't. It claims to heal a wealth of illnesses, including cancer, but has never been proven to cure any of them. It tells you that it takes years of attunement to become a master Reiki healer, and yet anyone can pay (handsomely) to side-step the process and become one in a few weekends.
 
 As with all fake therapies it comes with a clever get-out clause: if it doesn't work for you then you are not trying. Reiki is an abomination, and one not even supported by other alternative medicines, see below.
 
"...The two largest scientific reviews of reiki, published last year in International Journal of Clinical Practice and in November 2009 in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, reveal that reiki is not an effective treatment for any condition..."
 
"...Sandra Nevins claim in The Reiki Handbook (1992) that reiki is useful for treating brain damage, cancer, diabetes, and venereal diseases. I was once treated by a reiki practitioner for a wrist injury. The treatment didn't work because I was a non-believer, or so I was told. If the healing fails-and it will inevitably fail for such things as cancer-it is because the patient is resisting the healing energy. Non-belief is one of the great blocks to healing energy..."
 
Course it is....
 
MelT

 

 
Regarding the pineal, certainly false. Although Descartes associated it with sprituality, he was basing this purely on the fact that he thought it did not have two-hemispheres (and was wrong) he had no idea of its function, but had simply seen it. Other people have added to the myths surrounding it, particularly Theosophy/Blavatsky who created most of the fiction around it. In the last few years the book 'the spirit molecule' tried to link it to DMT, etc., but the author has since retracted some claims, and even at the time was heavily criticised for saying misleading things about the beliefs of Tibetan Buddhists to help bolster his case.
 
BTW DMT is a drug that gives the user the experience he expects. Famously elves and aliens are often seen in a trip, but only when the user is expecting them.
 
 Can meditation open unused areas of the brain? Yes and no, but it depends what you mean by that. Mindfulness and metta work is incredily good at changing people's character for the better. Mindfulness alone increases the depth of all experiences once you get used to using it properly. Etc. Nothing opens unused areas, we use all of our brains. The idea that we only use a small proportion is sadly another myth.
 
MelT

 

 
Seen it unfortunately. It's talking about physical effects, that doesn't mean that it is the 'gateway to sprituality' or experiences of realisation. Meditation affects the hippocampus, the heart, and many other organs, there's no reason to separate the Pineal out as something special. There is no link between it and spirituality, otherwise we'd have to say that the liver is involved  and 'spiritual' too, and the heart, etc. etc.
 
MelT

 

 
Lots of things can. Better diet for one.
 
MelT

 

 My apologies for the length of this. I've followed reiki and its growth closely for a number of years, as I have a particular interest in alternative therapies and how cults and beliefs grow.

Interesting take on Reiki however. From my recollection Mikao Usui was taught/given/realized Reiki and was a Buddhist, he attained it after becoming enlightened. So... I suppose it has Buddhist origins, theres no claims of ancient provenance as it was only recently (1920s) discovered.

 In fact the story about how he 'discovered' reiki has changed a number of times since it occurred. Please see below at the end of this post.  Remembering that there are two schools of reiki, at least four Japanese sub-schools, and a number of sub-schools in the west - and that different teachers and schools do not agree on effective methods or what reiki actually is or its origins:

The original 'sell' was that it was based on ancient Buddhist medicine/Tendai because of the symbols Usui saw, but it has since been proven that it has no links to it at all. As the back story began to fall apart some 12 years ago and people began to question its basis, heads of reiki in Japan began to look for more real connections to a form of reiki healing that was older than the 20's. Eventually they came up with an alleged precursor, being used privately which somehow proved it was older than it was, but this also fell apart under criticism, and we are now back to it being a 20's invention for some. Other schools still claim that it was ancient and that it was 'rediscovered' by Usui, all to try to give it validation.  The international centre for reiki training is still engaged in a serious search for early reiki forms to help push the date of origination back. As you know, there is a great deal of in-fighting as regards to who and what the original form of reiki was.
 
From what I have been taught, I'm a level 2, you cannot claim to heal people for various diseases or even give them a sense that they will be healed because of the practice. This is completely contrary to what it is, you perform Reiki, and the energy goes to where it is needed most. Yes you can ask for certain things however it is not up to you to make it happen, it may or may not happen.

What you say above is in contradiction with claims on official reiki sites, and the quote I used above was taken from the site of an official practitioner.  Please see below for another claim from an official site: In 2009, the Web site of the International Centre for Reiki Training (Kent, England) stated:

    Reiki is both powerful and gentle. In its long history of use it has aided in healing virtually every known illness and injury including serious problems like: multiple sclerosis, heart disease, and cancer as well as skin problems, cuts, bruises, broken bones, headache, colds, flu, sore throat, sunburn, fatigue, insomnia, impotence, poor memory, lack of confidence, etc. It is always beneficial and works to improve the effectiveness of all other types of therapy....Reiki will improve the results of all medical treatment, acting to reduce negative side effects, shorten healing time, reduce or eliminate pain, reduce stress, and help create optimism [3].

You also do not have to believe in Reiki for it to work. I have no idea where you got your information from but that would be completely flipping the script on the whole theory. That is that energy is flowing all around us, we have open chakras and closed/blocked ones whether you like it or not. So the mental belief is null if the energy is still present.

 I'm afraid 'whether I like it or not' isn't an argument, and does nothing to prove reiki is real or even that chakras can be closed or blocked. There is no proof either of a universal healing energy.

 I didn't say that you had to believe in reiki for it to work, but that when a patient feels no change or is not healed, the onus for its failure is always put on the patient -with the inference that they are not tuning into the healing energy.. This is the crux of the basic complaint about reiki. On one hand it circulates stories that it will heal a wealth of illnesses, but in the same breath says that if it doesn't work then the patient is not attuned or the time is no right, which is a simple and very transparent cop-out.

 Was Usui enlightened? No. His first enlightenment was anything but: He found that ' the ultimate life purpose was ‘Anshin Rytsu Mei' - the state of your mind being totally in peace, knowing what to do with your life, being bothered by nothing. With this revelation, Usui researched harder, for 3 years, trying to achieve this goal.' He had an experience where he saw the goal of enlightenment, he didn't reach it. Did he reach enlightenment on the mountain? No, nothing he said about his experience even related to enlightenment.

This is one version of his experience, the origination of Reiki as it was told years ago before it was sanitised: http://hallsofreiki.com/reikihistory.html. Enlightenment it is not.

"...The light became very bright and streamed across the heavens and hit him directly in his third eye! For a moment he thought he had died and ascended into heaven, because he had never before been in such a euphoric state. He saw many, many bubbles in all the colors of the rainbow. Then came the powerful bright white light, followed by golden Sanskrit letters, the secret formula of the Universal Life Force and how to contact it! They came to him one by one, commanding him to memorize and preserve them. Finally the bubbles, the light and the Sanskrit letters had come and gone. Dr. Usui felt rested, and full of life and energy.

Dr. Usui jumped to his feet. He wanted to hurry back and tell the monk of his exciting news! In his rush he stubbed his toe on a rock. He reached down to comfort the pain and to stop the bleeding. He found that the pain and the bleeding quit very rapidly! He realized that something was different about the energy in his hands, they had become very hot! After healing his toe, Dr. Usui continued his pilgrimage down the mountain.

Soon he began to feel hungry, so he stopped at a home that served travelers and ordered cold rice and cold tea. In a few moments a Japanese girl with a bandage wrapped around her jaw brought Dr. Usui his meal. She told Dr. Usui that her tooth had been aching for days. Encouraged by his own phenomenal pain relief Dr. Usui asked, "May I give you a healing?" She accepted his offer gladly. He put his hands around her jaw and within a short period of time the pain and swelling started going down...."

That's it. I hope you'll forgive me if I am less than impressed. As research has continually proven that reiki does not work, even this discussion is somewhat pointless. This is just one study into it which found it had no effects at all: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18410352
 
MelT

 

 
Not what I said, please read the full post. I was comparing the western occult system invented by Theosophy, with authetic teachings. The WO system claims it is based on authentic eastern texts, but isn't, and everything it says about chakras and spirituality is it own invention.
 
So, the bottom line is this. You can follow the WO system, knowing that it has lied about its sources, and that it was invented by someone (Blavatsky) around 1905, who was not only a known fraud, but one who was caught in the act of conning people a number of times. Or, you can go directly to the real teachings that were developed over thousands of years. No contest.
 
MelT