Everything Reiki
Everything Reiki
What is Reiki?
The way that it is presented in the West, Reiki is a version of spiritual healing. A monk named Mikao Usui was responsible for discovering it, he was born in 1865 and died in 1926. Reiki is based on Channeling energy. The energy is also called chi, life force energy or prana. The Eastern point of view, chi doesn’t just flow through us, but it surrounds us too. So when you practice Reiki you are connecting to and channeling an external source of life force energy that flows through you into the person you are treating. And when you are doing self treatments you are also connecting to it and use the energy for your own personal benefit.
It is the same energy that is used when you practice acupuncture and you use needles to encourage energy to flow through a person’s meridians. With Tai Chi, its the same energy gathered up through movements that build up your body’s personal reserves. As well as the energy called prana, that you work with when you practice yoga, but it’s the same stuff, its all life force energy.
This isn’t the only way that the energy is viewed. Its been advertised as people prefer to see the energy as having divine origins, and they see the channeling of Reiki as drawing down divine light or divine love. This ties in more of conventional spiritual healers, who draw down divine light. Since Reiki is not attached to any particular religious belief, it should be acceptable to all people no matter the religion or strength of their beliefs.
So which is it? It seems to be a bit of both, Reiki is spiritual chi.
Where does Reiki come from?
Hawayo Takata, a Japanese women came to the West in the 1930s. It was probably the worst time in history for her to come and try to teach Reiki, since Pearl Harbour attack happens 11 years later and most of the population generally hating and despising anything to do with Japan. Mrs Takata felt prompted to put together a story about the history of Reiki to make it acceptable to a potentially hostile American public thick in religious beliefs at the time. So out goes Mikao Usui the Tendai Buddhist, and in comes Dr. Mikao Usui, Christian theologian. We were told a story about him travelling the world, studying theology at various universities, to try and find out about the healing powers that Jesus displayed. Then culminating with a 21-day period of fasting and meditating on the top of Mount Kurama. Unfortunately most of this story is complete fiction, fabricated for good reasons and good intention no doubt. The real history of Reiki makes a lot more sense.
Usui’s Reiki is rooted in lots of existing Oriental traditions that were carrying on in Japan in his time. Usui Sensei was well versed in energy cultivation and martial arts, Reiki draws on both these disciplines. Reiki draws on an ancient tradition of Japanese Palm Healing, called teate, which uses connection rituals coming from Tendai Buddhism – a mystical form of Buddhism that’s practiced in Japan – and involves ways of controlling the energy that come from Shintoism, the indigenous religion of Japan. Although Reiki isn’t new, Usui Sensei does seem to have put together different existing traditions in a new way. He does seem to have had some ‘moment of enlightenment’ after a long period of fasting and meditating on Mount Kurama. This enlightenment does seem to have contributed in some way to the development of Reiki. But he didn’t go up a mountain and come down with Reiki. His various studies and experiences culminated in the development of Reiki, but it was rooted in existing tradition.
Usui was a member of a group of spiritually advanced people, all of whom were going in different directions but were keeping in contact with each other, swapping ideas, sharing experiences. He was good friends with Ueshiba, a man who developed Aikido. He also knew Deguchi, a man who was responsible for developing a religion called Omoto kyo. Usui was also connected with the people who developed the spiritual system called Johrei. Usui was one of a group of people who were all developing energetic and spiritual methods responsible for creating Reiki, a spiritual path / healing technique, Aikido a very spiritual and compassionate martial art, and in a new religion based on the use of ancient Shinto mantras.
Original Usui’s Reiki was a path to enlightenment, with healing others as a part of what you did along that path. Since being brought to the West we have been presented with Reiki basically as a treatment technique. This is because of a historical quirk. One of Mikao Usui’s students was a Christian man named Dr. Hayashi, a retired surgeon commander from the Imperial navy. Dr. Hayashi wasn’t interested in the ‘spiritual path’ side of Reiki, and he concentrated on Reiki as a treatment technique. Dr. Hayashi taught Mrs. Takata, and Mrs. Takata brought Reiki to the West.
It is only recently that people that practice Western Reiki have had a chance to find out about Usui’s original system. For the first time we now have a chance to follow more the system that Usui set down, the more traditional way of practicing Reiki.
What is it like to give and receive Reiki?
When receiving a Reiki treatment first, while it can vary a great deal from one person to another in terms of what they feel when they’re having a treatment, you can generalize about the sort of things that most people will notice. The ‘big three’ sensations when receiving Reiki are (1) deep relaxation, (2) heat from the practitioner’s hands, and (3) tingling sensations.
Reiki treatments make you deeply, deeply relaxed. Most people who receive Reiki end up drifting in and out of consciousness, they lose track of time and sometimes an hour on the treatment table can feel like only 15 minutes. Some people (particularly men) seem to fall asleep completely. It’s very common for people to feel a lot of heat from the practitioner’s hands. It seems that the body can’t feel the energy in a distinctive way, and the best approximation it can come up with is to feel the energy as heat. Another common experience is to feel tingling sensations in various parts of the body.
What’s it like to give a Reiki treatment? Most Reiki practitioners will feel either heat or tingling in their hands as the energy flows; some people feel a bit of both. Some people have heat as their main sensation, and if a lot of energy comes through then they start to feel tingles; some people have tingles as their main sensation and if a lot of energy comes through then they start to feel heat. Tingling isn’t so much like pins & needles, but more of a fine ‘fizzing’ in your hands. There is a whole range of different feelings you can have though: throbbing, pulsing, heaviness, magnetic feelings, coolness, or even a breeze blowing under your hand.
Giving a Reiki treatment is a lovely experience. Particularly if there’s a lot of energy coming through, you can really ‘merge’ with the energy. Your mind empties of its own accord and it turns into a beautiful meditation. And because you’re not giving out your own energy, you aren’t depleted or drained at all at the end of the session. In fact you get some benefit from the Reiki that has come through you, so you’ll feel so calm and content. It’s a lovely experience.
What Can Reiki Do for You?
One thing that Reiki seems to do for most people, whether they’ve come for a course of treatments, or just their first one, is to produce a ‘the Reiki effect’: Reiki helps you to feel more calm, content, serene, it helps you to feel more positive, better able to cope, and you’re not so affected by stressful people and stressful situations. People might come for a treatment with everything from anxiety and depression to a pain in their back, and they all go away feeling more relaxed, content, more positive, better able to cope, less stressed. This is also something that you should start to notice once you’ve been attuned to the energy. Not necessarily a great big overnight change, but something that builds up in gradually, or maybe you will notice it in hindsight.
If you look up Reiki on the Internet or read books about it, you’ll keep on reading stories about how ‘Reiki changed my life’, ‘Reiki changed my life’. And if you ask most people that practice reiki they will tell you the same thing. Reiki seems to do this by giving you a sense of calm, peace and clarity. It helps you to cut through all the rubbish that surrounds people’s lives nowadays and focus on the things that are really important to you and your real priorities. For some people the first stage of that can be to work out what your real priorities actually are. The energy seems to give you a push and helps you to make some changes if you need to, to get your life more in line with what’s really important to you. You’ll notice things that were a big deal before just don’t seem to matter as much as they once did, and when problems arise your able to handle them better as they do not feel like a weight on your chest anymore.
Sometimes the energy can make you dissatisfied for a while. You doubt your job, you doubt your relationships, you look carefully at different areas of your life. and sometimes you may decide that yes, you are happy with that, yes, you are going in a direction that feels right for you, but sometimes you may make some changes, and Reiki seems to give you the strength to do that too.
For a few weeks after being attuned you may have a bit of a rough go. You may have some emotional ups and downs. You may feel unsatisfied with different aspects of your life, you may have some physical symptoms coming to the surface like a cold or some headaches. The energy can get to you starting to bring things into balance, and part of the process of bringing things into balance involves releasing things: thoughts, emotions, physical things.
Health benefits can come from simply being attuned to the energy, without having had any treatments. Some people I’ve attuned have found that long-term painful conditions have partially or completely resolved: the pain of scoliosis, plantar fasciitis, long-term shoulder pain. Once you’ve been attuned reiki will work in the background, and you can increase the beneficial effects with self treatments.
In terms of treatments, there’s no scientific evidence to back up claims about the effectiveness of Reiki. They have only in recent years started doing small scientific studies on the effect of reiki on water, with amazing results. They haven’t taken a big group of people with carpal tunnel, split them into two groups, with half of them being treated by Reiki people, and half of them being treated by ‘placebo’ Reiki people, and comparing the results. There’s nothing like that as far as I am aware, and as far as Western science is concerned, that isn’t enough. So although Reiki has done some amazing and incredible things, even in very serious and life-threatening conditions, there’s very little ‘proper’ scientific evidence to back up such claims.
So when I talk to people about the effects of Reiki, I talk about my personal experience of treating people. I have found that Reiki has produced some amazing results. I’ve seen reiki work on with long-term pain, stress, low energy levels, sleeplessness, fertility, grief and long-term emotional issues. All those unresolved things that we all keep so well hidden, all that stuff that is grinding away at us under the surface that we don’t want to deal with. Reiki shines a light on these things which allows us to release them, and that allows us to move forward. Reiki works on all levels. It deals with physical problems; mental issues and emotional levels too. It takes the person as a whole and helps to bring them into balance.
How Do You Learn Reiki?
You can read all about Reiki and learn all there is to about it but, you can’t actually ‘do’ Reiki until you’ve been ‘attuned’ by a Reiki Master. The Reiki ‘attunement’ connects you permanently to the source of energy, and once you’re attuned then the ability will never leave you. You don’t have to be a very spiritual person or have special skills or psychic abilities to learn Reiki, you don’t even have to believe in it. You simply need to go on a course and it will work for you.
There are wild stories about attunement experiences. Some people feel very little; others have profound experiences. But what you notice when being attuned isn’t a guide to how well the attunement has ‘taken’: Reiki works for everyone.
Reiki is taught at three different levels: you start with first Degree and then after a while you move on to Second Degree. The first degree is all about acclimating to the feeling of Reiki while practicing on yourself, friends and family members. The second degree is the mass of the reiki knowledge. You will learn three reiki symbols, distance sessions and chakra balancing techniques. This can be seen as ‘practitioner’ level because you can now practice on paying clients. After a attunement you need a 21 day acclimation period. Its recommended for you to do daily self-treatments, and you need to get your hands on some real people so that you feel comfortable with treating before you move on to the next levels. You also need to give yourself a chance to get to grips with the new energy that you are connected to, and let everything settle down a bit before moving on. Most people nowadays go on to take Second Degree level, and then a few might decide to move on to Master/Teacher.
When you become a Reiki Master, one of the things you learn is how to connect others to Reiki. To be able to pass on Reiki to others is a wonderful gift. You can’t become a Master of anything by going on a two-day course, so real Mastery comes through dedication and practice.
Making Reiki Part of Your Life
Once you’ve been attuned to Reiki the ability never leaves you, but how clear a channel you are for the energy depends on how regularly you use it. Reiki isn’t something that you just learn about: Reiki is something that you practice. The more you use it, the more clear channel you become. Now the best way to make sure that you’re going to be a strong channel for Reiki is to carry out energy exercises every day for 10-15 minutes. You learn energy exercises called Hatsu Rei Ho, which come from Japanese Reiki. As well as doing your daily energy exercises, it is a good idea to treat yourself regularly. This will again clear your energy channels, and it will increase the beneficial effects that Reiki has on you. Though Reiki works on you slowly and gently in the background all the time, the more you work with it, the more it will work on you.
Reiki was a path to enlightenment, and this spiritual aspect has never really left, though usually presented as a treatment technique. For many people, Reiki helps to fill that ‘spiritual void’, they have. It can help you to feel more connected spiritually no matter what your religious beliefs. Because Reiki is not attached to any religion or belief system, then it should not conflict with anyone’s beliefs.
Lastly I want to share a few simple ‘life principles’ that Mikao Usui recommended his students follow, which are also the beneficial changes that Reiki can bring to you.
Reiki Precepts
- Just for today do not anger
- Just for today do not worry
- Be humble
- Be honest in your work and with people
- Be compassionate towards yourself and every living thing
Reiki has the potential to make a wonderful difference for you and the people you care about, it can fill the spiritual void that so many people feel nowadays. It helps to change your life in a positive way whether on bringing a sense of peace to your life or changing the whole trajectory your on it helps to bring things into balance on all levels.
