Keys come in various forms and can unlock many things. When a key is not available to unlock a door a call is usually made to someone with a spare key, a locksmith, or auto club. But what if the lock is on something else?
What about those locks you create? Have you ever found yourself reacting in a negative way to something or someone, but not understanding why you reacted that way? Logically there is no reason for you to be upset, but nevertheless your adversity is very real. With everything in life you are given the option of believing or not believing, and when it comes to beliefs it is you that creates the lock. You might believe others are accountable for some of your reactions, but being locked into a certain belief is your own creation. A universal key to unlock all those self-created locks is a handy thing to have. The importance of universal energy providing a key was confirmed for me in a mental health institution.
I was employed in a financial office in a building that was built in 1840 as a mental health institute. As the number of patients at the asylum's peak grew to 1,800, additions were built onto the original stone structure creating a maze of halls and rooms. By the later part of the 1990s medicine and public awareness had reduced the number of patients to less then 100, leaving countless deserted rooms and hallways. A walking meditation during the workday does much more for relaxation and awareness then trekking to a vending machine. Those wide halls with Victorian style moldings added to the fascination of the claim that it was haunted by mentally disturbed patients who had died there.
Exploring the abandoned hallways or the tunnels under the building during my breaks reenergized my mind and body. The more I learned about the institution/asylum/hospital, the more I became entranced with things such as the patient's paintings and poetry on the tunnel walls. The last line in one poem read "But what good is Knowledge where others carry the keys . . ." I did not see any ghosts, but one day I found a bat locked in a long deserted physiatrist's office. I trapped the bat in a metal wash basket and then saw what I dubbed as a bat's freedom sky dance when I released him or her outside.
I had been given a key that would unlock all of the interior doors, so many a lunch hour I would spend exploring the past that was etched in the walls. I was so locked in to absorbing as much architectural beauty of the institution as possible that I was not aware when life offered me a chance to learn through the bat's situation.
One day intending to only sit in the stillness of the very wide hall with high ceiling that adjoined the hall by my office I left my key on my desk. Staring at the carved wooden door that opened to the stairs going to first floor and outside I tried to imagine the building bustling with patients and staff. I walked over to a closed door and for fun tried turning the doorknob. To my surprise the door was unlocked. I went inside, but being unsure if I should be in this room carefully closed the door behind me.
The excitement of finding this new room behind an unlocked door was short lived. The only thing beneath cobwebs and dust was an empty wooden desk and chair. However when I went to leave the room I discovered one of the building's secrets. The door I had thought to be unlocked was actually only unlocked from one side, and to leave the room I needed the key that I had left on my desk. There was another door on another wall. Walking to it I crossed my fingers that it was neither locked nor opened to a closet. It was unlocked and opened to another hall with more doors. All I had to do was find the fasted way back to my office. I had learned through Usui Reiki Ryoho to let go of worry and focus on the present moment/now. I focused and saw a door with window at the interior end of the hall.
I was smiling when I saw through that door's window the wide hall where I wanted to be. It seemed strange that anyone would put a door between two halls, but not questioning I grabbed onto the doorknob. My smiled disappeared as the doorknob refused to turn and I found myself back at square one. I closed my eyes hoping in the stillness I would find an answer. The answer came as I heard the sound of the wooden door to the stairs opening. I did not agree with my co-worker's smoking habit, but at that moment I was delighted that he always went through the wide hall to go outside for smoke breaks. The angle of the door I was standing at did not allow me to see the outside wooden door, but the sound told me someone was close enough to hear my knocking on the door. I not only knocked, but called out that I was locked in and did not have my key. I continued knocking and calling out for an unreasonably long time, but no one came to my rescue. Netha always attributed every noise in the building to ghosts, and right then I would have loved seeing a ghost with a key.
Judging myself at that point was not going to be of any help. Instead I did Usui Reiki exercises to be free of negative emotions. Emotion can block thinking, and to get out of that locked hall I needed to think clearly. Clearly the next thing to do was try another door. The next three doors opened to what looked like had been an office with only one door and one outside bared window. The good thing was that I had learned that just because a door opens it does not mean that it will not lock behind you. I left each door open wide as I scanned each room for another exit.
Reaching the exterior end of the hall I stopped by the bared window and looking out saw only the fresh snow that had fallen that morning. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and repeated the quote "a problem cannot exist unless the solution for it exists at the same time". I leaned again the side of the window to again scan the hall for a possible escape route. Then through the window in the door closest to me I saw a stairwell. I felt like someone had just handed me the winning lottery ticket when I rushed to that door. I felt the disappointment of my lottery ticket not winning when I found that door was also locked.
It was that time of the year when most people end their work day in the dark, and the light in the hall was fading. Running out of ideas I had the urge to scream, but instead did Usui Reiki exercises to center myself. I knew if my thoughts were scattered the solution to my problem might be hidden from my view. I determinedly walked back to the door at the opposite end of the hall, and again knocked on it harder then before. I intended to stay there knocking until the knocks echoing in emptiness of the wide hall were heard by one of my co-workers. I knocked and called out until my knuckled became sore and my throat dry.
Giving up was not an option if I wanted to go home that night, so I walked to the widow in each room looking for anyone or anything that could help me. Through the window at the end of the hall I saw my solution. Some men were loading tools into their truck. I was on the second floor so for them to hear me I had to open the window, but the window was locked. Unlike the doors the window key was part of the lock, but the builders of the institution had incorporated another quirk. The windows would only open about six inches. I knelt on the floor, pushed open the window and called out to the men that I was locked in and needed their help to get out.
There I was in a building still housing some people with serious mental challenges, calling out through the bottom of a window to strangers that I wanted them to help me get out. It took me a while to understand why the men just stood and looked up at me. I again relied on Usui Reiki to give me the balance I needed to calmly explain that I was employee who had left my keys on my desk. What I was doing in the unused portion of the building I did not even attempt to explain. Finally one of the men was standing on the other side of the door to the stairwell. The relief I felt at seeing another person on the other side of the door quickly faded as the man shook his head and yelled through the glass that the door was also locked from that side. At that point the only chance I could see of not spending the night in a cold dark haunted building with no food, nothing to drink and no place to sleep was the stranger on the other side of that door. In what must have sounded like a desperate voice I asked him to go to the office where I worked and ask one of my co-workers to come unlock the door. His first reply was that he did not know how to get to that office, but when I could no longer hold back tears he said he would find the office.
I stood and then sat by the door to the wide hall waiting for someone to show up with a key. I had been so focused on finding a door a way back to my office that I had not noticed the chill in that part of the building. Sitting on the floor I began shivering.
The shivering was a side effect of a locked door. The door and lock were both matter, but what about forms of energy such as thought? Though can also be a lock or a key. Have you ever had words or a talent just flow in one situation, but later that talent seemed locked out of your reach. Have you ever heard someone say how beautiful something or someone is, but beauty is not what you see when you look. Each person's reality is based on his or her personal experiences. The essence of Buddha's quote, "All that we are is the result of what we have thought" has been called by many names. Buddha like many insightful and knowable people over the centuries have said in various ways that each person creates his or her own reality and it is that reality that molds the way his or her life unfolds. My reality made me belief that when a door opens to go into a room, that same door will open to leave that room. That is one belief I will never be locked into again. Your reality can lock you in to certain beliefs.
Any lock can be a problem or an opportunity, depending upon your reality. Locks are the same as problems in that they are never manufactured or created without the key being manufactured or created at the same time. Your reality determines how you observe and react to everything. If your reality you are locked into is not the best for you at that time how do you recognize the key you created? If you have a ghost locked in your house you call "Ghost Busters" and if your keys are locked in your car you call an auto club.
To unlock your reality a qualified Usui Reiki Shihan (teacher) is a good person to call. The universal vibrations of love and harmony used in the practice of Usui Reiki balance and surround with harmony. In the Okuden (level 2), Shinpiden (level 3) and Gokuikaiden (teacher or 4th level) you learn exercises that not only balance but rewrite old tapes playing in your head, and melt negative karma.
Focus on the scientific law, "energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it only changes form" and think about that original form from which all forms of energy come. Combined universal love and harmony is the form of energy Mikao Usui used when he founded his spiritual practice that has become known around the world as different styles of Usui Reiki Ryoho. Usui-Sensei's method is one key known to unlocked health and happiness. It does not mask the symptoms of illnesses but goes to the core of those atoms/cells that are in need of balance and harmony. What is in balance and surrounded with harmony heals. One of the purposes in the hours of study is to guide you to allowing the true or universal you to emerge. Being locked in a mental institution confirmed to me that life does not always happen as we plan. In the years that followed I went on to practice and teach Gendai Reiki-ho and Komyo Reiki, Japanese styles of Usui Reiki, I found a very helpful universal key for when life happens opposite of what is planned. The universe did not manifest a material key, instead it allowed me my path in life more clearly to see.
I can still remember the joy I felt when I heard actual human footsteps outside that locked door. When my co-worker opened the door I was given the option of having that happiness taken away by judging myself or embracing that I was free. Judging others or yourself is something the ego does; the practice Mikao Usui's founded guides you in how to let go of the ego. I could have felt anger when my co-worker said with a smile that they had heard me knocking, but decided to teach me a lesson. Anger is of no use, and letting go of anger is the first line in the Usui Reiki Gokai (five principles). Having your mind in a state of tranquility, peace and joy is one key to happiness that brings health and more.
Sitting in the stillness of that hall gave me time to go within and become aware of the path I was on. I was able to see that a better paying job is not a good thing if it puts you in a toxic environment. The legends attached to the building's past I enjoyed, but when I directed my attention to the office environment I found for me it was toxic. I moved to a position with a slimmer paycheck, but I felt healthier. Happiness is something that no one can give to you, but there are paths to finding that universal key that can help you unlock happiness.
Try sitting, taking a very deep breath, and release all negative emotions as you hear your breath releasing. As the emotions float away feel your muscles becoming relaxed. Set a timer for five to fifteen minute and go into that peaceful silence between your thoughts where you can safely reorganize your thoughts. You can imagine you are locked in the stillness of an abandoned hall of mental institution, but also imagine you have a universal key in your pocket that will unlock any door.
