A Reiki Story

In the mid nineteenth century, legend has it, Dr. Mikao Usui was the principal of a Christian seminary in Kyoto, Japan. Students continually asked him questions about Christ's healing miracles. How did Christ do it? How were so many people consistently cured by his touch? Dr. Usui became convinced that there had to be a method to Christ's healing.

He left the seminary and went to the United States, where he attended the University of Chicago and became a doctor of theology. His quest then took him to Northern India. In a monastery there, he ran across a set of Sanskrit symbols and formulas in some of Buddha's teachings. After returning to Kyoto, he retreated to the holy mountain of Kuriyama to fast and meditate upon the symbols. On the twenty-first day, Usui had a vision: A great light moved toward him, increasing speed and force until it struck him smack in the forehead. He was knocked into a higher state of consciousness and the symbols appeared to him glowing in gold. His quest was answered. He suddenly knew the root of Christ's healing powers.

Usui ran down the mountain and badly gashed his toe. When he laid his hand upon it, he not only stopped the bleeding, but the wound completely healed. When he reached the bottom, he went into a restaurant and ordered a huge breakfast. After 21 days of fasting, he digested the meal without a problem. At a nearby inn, the innkeeper told Usui his daughter had been suffering a terrible toothache for some time. Usui laid his hands on her head, and she was healed.

The rest of Usui's life was devoted to the practice and teaching of the healing method he called Reiki, a Japanese term applied to many spiritual healing techniques. But what ancient knowledge had his fact-finding mission, fasting and meditation uncovered? Was Reiki the key to Christ's miraculous healing?

What is Reiki?
The word Reiki (pronounced "ray-key") is made up of two parts. Rei signifies the limitless aspect of the energy used, as infinite time or space. Ki is energy itself, the universal force that powers all life. Ki is known in other cultures by different names: the Chinese Chi, Hindu Prana, Kahunan Mana, Egyptian Ka, Pali Eckankar, Huri Pygmy Mgebe, Sioux Wakan, Sufi Baraka, Christian Holy Spirit, and the Russian research term Bioplasmic Energy. Ki is all of these.

Reiki can be used to treat any number of ailments, to revitalize the body, spirit, and soul, to balance one's spiritual heights or to ground oneself, to free energy blocks, to enhance creativity, to boost vitality, and simply to relax the patient and to promote a sense of well-being.

Practitioners say it's holistic, organic, and completely harmless. A Reiki practitioner simply uses his or her hands to transfer the light and the energy that flows through all of the universe. The practitioners are merely channels.

It is used not only on people but on animals and plants as well. The only time practitioners do not recommend using Reiki is during an operation; it may affect anesthesia in unpredictable ways. Reiki reportedly will speed the healing of a broken bone, for example, but a practitioner should treat the bone before and after it has been set. Reiki is recommended as a complement to medical treatment, not a substitute.

Reiki is part of a trend, one of many eastern medical practices gaining popularity in the west. Like the ripples in a pond, Reiki spread out from one man's search for mystical healing knowledge to a worldwide phenomenon.

Many Reiki practitioners believe that after treating beggars in the slums of Kyoto for seven years, Dr. Usui left to gather disciples and teach what he had learned.

Some researchers, however, say that accounts of Reiki's early history may have been fictionalized to make it more palatable to Americans.

Dr. Usui died around 1930 and was buried in Kyoto. His successor was Dr. Chijiro Hayashi, who operated a Reiki clinic in Tokyo until 1940. Hayashi died in 1941, leaving it to the care of Hawaya Takata, a Japanese woman born in Hawaii in 1900. She began training people when she was in her 70's, and by the time of her death in 1980 she had initiated 22 Reiki masters in the U.S. and Canada.

In the 16 years since Takata's death, many factions have emerged. There is an estimated 2,000 Reiki Masters and more than 200,000 Reiki practitioners worldwide. Reiki certification is available through these organizations or through a private teacher.

Reiki is an ancient nonintrusive way of bodywork that involves hands-on healing. Reiki is a technique used for both acute and chronic energy dysfunction and works to restore the delicate balance of the body and spirit. When the body's energy patterns have been restored, it(the body) is then better able to work the normal body systems and regenerative processes necessary to fix abnormalities within itself.

A Reiki session lasts from 10 to 20 minutes for infants and small children, and no more than 20 to 30 minutes for the old or infirm. Patients lie on a massage table with their hands at their sides. The Reiki practitioner lays hands on the head, chest stomach, knees, and feet, each for 3 to 5 minutes. Then the patient turns over and the practitioner works from the head to the feet again. There is no manipulation; practitioners simply lay their hands, fingers closed, gently on each area for a few moments and then move on when the energy shifts. Conversation is allowed and sometimes prayers are offered, but they are not necessary.

The practitioner may also be able to specifically treat any area you are having problems with. You will most likely feel an extreme amount of heat coming through the practitioner's hands as the energy patterns in your body are reset and God's energy flows into your body. You will achieve a great calming of your mind and may even fall asleep due to the relaxing effects on you during your treatment. This is normal and will help your body allow the energy to pass through it.

Other normal sensations are a tingling, pulsing or pressure. Most studies have found reiki to be incredibly good for pain reduction and improvements in nervous and immune function in conditions such as: multiple sclerosis, lupus and fibromyalgia along with pre and post operative positive results. This simple, yet powerful bodywork will astound you as will God's effect on your life if you embrace the healing He will send you. The most positive effects are found in those individuals whom are prepared to receive.

There are three degrees of Reiki training. With the first degree, one may practice Reiki on oneself or others through the hands-on technique. Students are taught 10 to 20 basic hand positions and undergo an initiation and attunement ceremony. It's recommended that students start with a 22 day Reiki self-treatment, which will clear them as a channel and rid their bodies of toxins. Then they are free to treat whomever they wish. They are then ready to go onto the next level.

The second degree intensifies the effects of the Reiki and trains the student in absentee healing, which is telepathic in nature and does not require the practitioner to touch patients, or even be in their physical presence. It is at this level the student is taught the three ancient Sanskrit symbols as well as some specialized hand positions.

The third or master degree certifies practitioners to teach Reiki. Two more symbols are given to the student as well as teaching the process of initiating a student to the Reiki practice.

It should be noted that the symbols should be viewed as channeling tools. They focus power. The first symbol signifies the essence of Reiki; it is the concept of oneness with the universal energy, God, light, whatever your terminology, and it puts that power here. The second symbol goes beyond the illusion of this world to stimulate mental and emotional healing. The third dissolves time and space, allowing energy to go over these borders. Someone can send Reiki a million miles away. Time and space mean nothing.

Reiki is a remembrance that we are all light, we are connected to the divine. Once that connection is remembered, these energies just flow.

Does Reiki work? Yes, it does. Even if it doesn't look like it works on the physical level, it does work on the spiritual level and will reach the patient when the time is right.
Namaste.

How Reiki Works

Illness is a doorway

If you jog every morning, eat nothing but health food, avoid sugar, haven't smoked in years, make sure you get enough sleep, and drink only bottled water, yet you do that from a place of anxiety, you are not in any way maintaining your health. You are merely not heeding what it is that will, at some time, make you ill - which is fear.

Fear is a great motivator. It is never a solution. It is always the cause of any discomfort, of any pain, of any illness.

Pain reminds you that pain is not your truth. Suffering reminds you that suffering is not your reality. The moment you know that, you begin to transform the illusions of pain and suffering into the remembering of love and joy.

Pain is given form and shape. Yet it is not a thing. It is an experience. As with all experiences, it can be held or it can be released. But it must not be given space and it must not be given time.

Rather than let it become a bulky, solidified block of consciousness labeled "pain," perceive it as a message running along the nervous system. Let it continue its movement, its flow. When pain is perceived as solid, it becomes agony. When pain is perceived as movement, it lessens.

You may start to deal with pain by picturing it as a solid piece of ice. Next envision bubbles of warmth being addressed to that block of ice until it begins to melt and the bubbles are allowed to go through it. Release all concept of what will result. Focus on the process taking place.

Pain does not exist except in history and anticipation. If you can remain in the moment of the Now, there would be sensation - without pain.

How to work with someone who is dying

See them in the light of what you know they are and why they have come, and you will ask the appropriate questions to open the door to their memory. But be very aware; when you are in fear, you are no longer in truth. And when you are no longer in truth, you have no business being with somebody who is dying, because they are expanding into truth, and they need to move into joy.

Death is not a failure.

Remember, life is fatal. Everything you do, is fatal. Being born is the most fatal thing you can do.

You are taught you must not dance with death, poverty, illness, or pain. But you rarely dance with joy. All these labels keep you locked into the illusion that some things will die and some will not. When you allow yourself to trust joy and embrace it, you will find you dance with everything because everything is the same.

Do you know how many times you have died?
Not only emotional deaths of this lifetime,
which are countless, but the physical dyings of past lives.
You may have experienced death a thousand times,
yet you have never died.

The language surrounding dying makes the process difficult. If you stay in the moment, you will not even know you have died. You are eternal. You will move from this life to the next in a breath. You will probably have to be reminded, by the spirits, who are there to greet you, that you have left your physical body. All the fear and all the pain does not exist beyond the doorway of death.

Each of you is born uniquely, you live uniquely and you will die uniquely. The process of dying is this: a soul's intent in a human lifetime has been fulfilled and the soul considers whether it wants to remain and begin something else or not. Age does not matter. This is the process.

The soul ultimately decides to come Home, whether by terminal illness, accidental death, or even murder. Though the mind may find it a terrifying moment, the heart is overjoyed. At that moment, Grace enters, Peace descends. When you become adjusted to the greater vision, there they are - those Companions of Light you love so deeply. They walked you to the doorway of birth and promised you then that they would be there waiting at the doorway of death. And they are. You are Home.

You hold the memory of the many deaths you have had. If you find it frightening as you walk through the doorway to death, it is because you have been taught so. Within you is a cellular memory of being beyond physical manifestation. Each cell of your body is more physical than you are. It is Oneness moving into physicality and the illusion of separation.

When you finally decide that it is time to leave, that everything you held dear in this dimension is uninteresting, then you move into stillness that is filled with color. Color has sound when you are not physical. You move into color, sound, and beingness that is all sweet and soft and vibrant.

Your memory holds to where love has been. Beyond your human illusion nothing else exists but love.

About Suicide

Those who commit suicide recognize immediately the futility of what they believed was the final act of self-destruction and escape. They gather quickly all the details of what happened. Then the wisdom and love that is there instructs, directs, and sends them back to the planet.
The longing for death can, when it comes from remembering, be a voice from Home. When it comes from a desire to escape, then it is only that.

A Story About Dying

You live a lifetime and then you die. You wake up and ask, "How long was I gone?" The Being of Light who is with you answers, "We hardly noticed you were gone at all. You just sat down and dozed off for a second and here you are again. What kind of dream did you have this time?"

Here's a web site that explains what Reiki can do for you. It's a great healing tool to be used with conventional medicine. It not only heals physical pain but mental pain as well. The Reiki Page

This web page explains a little how Absentee Reiki works Distance Healing

Crystal Energy Resource Crystal Energy

For those who have not heard of Chakras

Another healing tool is meditation and healing sounds. The best healing sound has been used by monks for ages. While they meditate they hum the word OM. It is the sound of the Earth's energy vibration and helps them become in tune with the Earth. There is a CD called The Eternal Om which I recommend using with your daily meditation practice.

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