The Healing Power of REIKI

Reiki Table of Contents

GENERAL INFORMATION HISTORICAL INFORMATION BENEFITS OF REIKI FIRST TIME REIKI HEALING EXPERIENCE CHAKRAS HOW REIKI WORKS FEE STRUCTURE REIKI DEGREE SYSTEM

GENERAL INFORMATION:

Strictly speaking, Reiki is not a martial art, as the word martial refers to "war."  Reiki is a healing art.  Reiki, pronounced (ray-key) is an ancient "laying on of hands" healing art that utilizes universal energy  for healing and transformation purposes.  It is a subtle, yet effective, way to integrate emotional, physical, and mental balance.  Its energy is not limited to time and space and, therefore, can be used on past, present and future issues.

Reiki uses spiritually guided life force energy that promotes healing and health.  Reiki energy may be experienced by one as warmth, tingling sensations, images or colors that gently stimulate the body's own innate wisdom to heal at the source of the problem.  It promotes a holistic balancing of the mind, body and spirit. 

Reiki means universal life force energy.  The word is derived from KI, the Japanese word for this energy.  Words to name this form of healing life force are known worldwide.  They are ch'i or qi in China, prana in India, mana in Hawaii, and orenda in Native America.  Every culture has its name for this vitality or life force energy.  Another way of naming it is aura, the electrical force field that surrounds the body.

Laying on of hands is a simple way of applying life force aura energy to relieve pain and speed the healing process, to vitalize, regenerate and calm.  It is a skill that anyone can learn given the right opportunity.  Reiki differs from other laying on of hands/touch healing in its use of formal positions for applying the energy over the chakras, for more information on chakras click here.  The more significant way it differs is in the opening/attunement and degree process.

HISTORICAL INFORMATION: 

The origins of Reiki are traced to Tibet.  Some form of this energy  has been known in cultures worldwide, mostly spread by oral tradition, with long-standing historical beginnings.  Tibet was the original source of much of today's healing knowledge, both of touch healing and the chakras.  The Tibetan system of understanding the aura and energy bodies, and using them for healing, has become universal and is a source of modern knowledge.

There are many different theories as to how this information, known also in Native American, eastern Indian, African, Egyptian, and Chinese culture, was discovered and taught in its beginning.  As mentioned above, generally speaking, Reiki can be traced from Tibet.  It then traveled in two migrations, one to India and one to China.  From China it reached Japan, and from there it was brought to the United States in 1938 by Hawayo Takata, a Japanese healer.

Touch healing is described in the New Testament, but the process became lost; the knowledge, submerged.  In the late 1800's in Tokyo, a bible student of Dr. Mikao Usui questioned the doctrine of "faith healing," asking to see it before he could believe it.  The student's challenge intrigued the teacher, and he quit the ministry and his university teaching post to begin a seven-year search for the healing described in the Bible.

Dr. Usui's quest took him through the ancient texts of several cultures.  He obtained a Ph.D. in Chicago, then went to Japan, where he studied Buddhism and Zen.  He learned  Sanskrit to read the Buddhist texts in the original form.  He then went to India.  He found the information he'd long sought in Sanskrit, a formula in symbols of how Buddha did healing.

He then returned to Japan.  However, he was still not able to apply the formula and symbols that he had learned.  He then went on a twenty-one day vision quest to meditate on the information.  The symbols appeared to him on the last day, enveloped in light, and he left the mountain knowing how to heal.  During the next seven years, he devoted himself to healing, and began to teach Reiki to others.

Dr. Usui left his work to a student, Chujiro Hayashi.  Hayashi was given the information, reserved only to those initiates known as "Reiki Masters," to open others to the healing symbols and the transmission of Reiki healing energy.  Hayashi opened a healing clinic in Tokyo after Dr. Usui's death.  

Reiki returned to the west with the work of Hawayo Takata.  Takata, a Japanese-American woman from Hawaii, came to Chujiro Hayashi's Reiki Clinic in 1935 with cancer.  Her illness being cured by a series of Reiki treatments, she asked to be taught the methods.  To support her quest, she sold all she owned to go to Japan with her two daughters.  Takata learned healing at the Tokyo Reiki Center.  A year later, she returned to Hawaii to practice it.  In 1938, realizing that World War II was coming, Hayashi initiated Takata as a Reiki Master.  Prior to his death, he recognized her as his successor.  

After forty years of practicing  Reiki healing, in 1979 Hawayo Takata passed the Master's knowledge onto her granddaughter Phyllis Furumoto.  Hawayo Takata died in 1980.  

 BENEFITS OF REIKI:

• Reiki heals the causes and eliminates the effects of imbalances.

• Reiki in no way conflicts with medical procedures; it enhances medical treatments; and lowers health care expenses.

• Reiki does not conflict with religious beliefs.

• Reiki energy never turns off.

• Reiki is a viable, alternative, natural healing, helping and wholing method which can easily be combined with other techniques.

• Reiki energizes your whole system safely and quickly.

• Reiki helps to minimize one's sense of helplessness and powerlessness in the face of disease and crisis situations.

• Reiki helps to eliminate daily stress created by the rigors of modern life.

• Reiki is not a belief system; hence, once activated, it will always begin,  and continue to operate, when used as instructed.

• Reiki is a self-help technique which includes a simple, safe way to effectively help oneself and others.

• You do not utilize your own energy when you use Reiki.  Reiki taps Universal Energy.  As a result, there is no depletion of one's personal energy when using Reiki.