The Reiki Blog

Borne aloft. August 28, 2012

“By two wings we are lifted up from things earthly: by simplicity and purity.”

                      —Thomas a Kempis

The mediaeval monk Thomas a Kempis gives us moderns two equally heavy wings by which we can shed our earthly obsessions and fly aloft.  We need to balance simplicity and purity. But simplicity and purity seem the farthest removes from our gadget-driven, multitasking society.

Like Daedalus creating wax-and-feather wings for his son Icarus, who was determined to take to the sky, then telling his son not to fly too close to the sun without explaining that the sun’s heat would melt the wax, we send what we most love plunging to its death, because we fail to understand its true nature. (Of course Icarus, like any teen, would try to go as high as he could!)

Can we really even understand simplicity and purity, much less hope to attain them? Can we give up our advertising-based obsession with having it all, doing it all, or at least having and doing as much as we can, in favor of being at peace and actually hearing a bird’s song? Can we climb from the pit of our desires and conflicts to the peak of purity, and then look out, and feel the dual wings on our backs? 

I have no idea. But I certainly think it’s a goal we should all aim for.

Just for today, do your best to embody the Reiki Precepts/Principles/Ideals.

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