0:00
You know titles that are transferred from culture to culture are often very problematic. And it’s the same for this from the Japanese culture into Western culture in English. They referred to me as a Grand Master, it was a term that was coined and has been used in other Japanese art forms, the Grand Master, to say the Sensei, the head Sensei, teacher of teachers so to speak. But it means more than teacher.
0:46
So a master for me has a least five different aspects. There is the initiator, the teacher, the mentor, the student and the tradition keeper. So when people say “I’m a Reiki teacher” my response in my head is to say, “Oh, I see, so you’re not claiming responsibility for being an initiator, for being a mentor, for being a student or for being a tradition keeper”. And for most of the Reiki teachers that I know that’s true actually.
1:28

1:28
So then as Grand Master I believe that there are several different aspects of Grand Master which we are starting to articulate now which is very interesting. And one of those aspects is bearing the lineage, is actually the lineage bearer. And it was a decision on my part to use both simultaneously because in 1993 Paul Mitchell and I formed the Office of the Grand Master, which meant that he also had a role that I would say is an aspect of the Grand Master called Head of Discipline.
2:11
So both of us together envisioned that this office would actually contain many people by now, but it hasn’t. We haven’t… we haven’t matured to the point of adding another person or two. But it wouldn’t surprise me, we just don’t… we just haven’t had those people emerge. And so Head of Discipline is one aspect of being Grand Master, that’s the person who holds the form and who holds the discipline of the practice, exactly what it means. And usually in the martial art they’ll have a Dojo Master and the person who is the philosophic head of the martial art and that’s who I am, I’m the lineage bearer. So I’m the energetic head of this practice and he took on the role of being responsible for a Head of Discipline.
3:16

3:16
Now, when I die it’s very possible that his role will be subsumed or assumed by a circle of people who will come in and have collective lineage bearing. So it will be like a kind of a committee or circle of lineage
0339
but what I’ve, we’ve been talking about is that every 0344 ….OK, let me see where I was … 
3:52
So when Paul and I formed the Office of the Grand Master I thought it would be clearer if I were also be referred to as a lineage bearer. So this means that I carry the essence or the energetic essence of this system. And he does not replace me, he is taking on one of the aspects of the Grand Master position that I felt I couldn’t do at the time. Now whether or not one person will be able to be the Grand Master of this practice Usui Shiki Ryoho in this lineage … I don’t know.
4:39

8:19
And in the middle of all this I asked for the Reiki Alliance to become the association of licence … of licence masters, who would out of this trademark be able to set standards that were already set anyway for membership and that they would hold the membership of all licensed masters. And they refused to do it because they didn’t feel like this was a “Reiki way” of being. So at that point I felt so unsupported and so misunderstood and so fed up with this whole thing that I just dropped it, just like that, because the last nail in this whole thing was driving down from Breitenbush one August afternoon with Paul Mitchell and we were speaking about this trademark thing and about how the Reiki Alliance could be an association of licensed masters and so on. And he said “Well, you know, I never supported this, ever… the whole trademarking thing, the licensure and any.. everything”. And I said “Well, it would have been good to know, because I wouldn’t have done this without your support”. Because at that point he and I were like partners in holding the OGM, because this was in 1996 or 7. We were partners and I said “You know, if I don’t have my partners’ support, then … We could have had this discussion and maybe something could have been gleaned and I would have been more aware of people who weren’t in agreement with me.”
10:39

11:51
But we realized that what we really needed were more people in the circle, like we were a circle of 2, so we kept going like this… and what we need to do was go like this…. So we opened up the first OGM-Retreat in August an whoever came, 1st degree, 2nd degree and master students are invited to this who practice the system, they sit in the circle and we discusse issues that are up in the community. And we get to have other voices in our circle and this is proven to be wildly successful as far as I’m concerned. It allows Paul and I to have the freedom to find our own place in that circle, to… so that we’re not.. we don’t force ourselves into a polarized conversation. But sometimes we find ourselves liter … kind of … literally sitting together and other times opposite. And it’s a great freedom for us to have .. and be able to have our own opinion and see it in the relative universe of a circle. That’s wonderful.
13:13

13:13
So we continue these OGM-reatreats and the next one will be in October of 2016 in Almaty, Kazakhstan and it’s the first time it’s in the Russian speaking eastern part of our world of Europe and I’m very excited by this, very excited. So, who is Paul: Well …. I have lots of levels of answers to that but for the most part he’s been my partner in the OGM… in the office of the OGM of… no, he’s been my partner in the Office of the Grand Master, he’s been in his.. from his own perspective supportive of everything that I’m doing and in his own way he has supported the lineage by not being the lineage bearer.
14:25