ALL ABOUT REIKI

What is the nature of Reiki?

Reiki is a time-honored healing technique with roots in Japan. The term “Reiki” is a fusion of two Japanese concepts –

“rei,” => Space, Universe

“ki,” => life force energy

Together, these words encapsulate the fundamental principle of this holistic healing modality, which involves the transmission and distribution of universal life force energy to foster balance, tranquility, and overall wellness.

Shortly saying: REIKI is Pure Energy, a channel of Universal Energy of the Universe, perfect, limitless, Intelligent.

In the beginning of the XX century Japanese Mikao Usui founded the system of reiki – transfer of positive energy through hands. Reiki energy is aimed at restoring the emotional and physical state of the body, it allows both to rid the body of somatic diseases and to harmonise the work of all systems, to establish a spiritual balance, without which the body cannot be considered healthy.

It is believed that when the energy inside the body and around it is subjected to any disturbance, it leads to disease. Reiki energy aims to restore the proper circulation of each individual’s energy, and as a result, this is what should ultimately lead to comprehensive healing. The reiki system works on different types of energy – physical, mental, spiritual and emotional. It is only natural that spontaneous outbreaks of ill-health are more easily affected by the power of reiki, while chronic energy imbalances take more time to rehabilitate. In general, everything always depends on the person, on his faith, desire and how his brain will perceive the information transmitted with the healing energy of reiki.

Reiki healing encompasses a broad spectrum of physical, psychological, and emotional issues. Based on the information provided, here’s a summary of conditions and states that Reiki can potentially alleviate or treat:

• Stress conditions: Reiki is known to be effective in reducing stress, anxiety and inducing deep relaxation.
• Many individuals find Reiki to be a deeply soothing and restorative experience, leaving them feeling harmonized, revitalized, and serene.
• Stomach disorders: It can help in alleviating digestive issues and restoring balance in the stomach.
• Migraines: Reiki can potentially soothe migraine headaches.
• Respiratory disorders: It may assist in easing breathing difficulties and other respiratory problems.
• Immune system disorders: Reiki can help boost the immune system.
• Weight loss: It can aid in weight management by promoting a balanced state of mind and body.
• Conditions in pregnancy: Reiki can be used to harmonize conditions in pregnant women suffering from toxicosis.
• Epileptic seizures: It may help in reducing the frequency and severity of epileptic seizures.
• Heart attacks: Reiki is believed to help in healing and recovery from heart attacks.
• Eye problems: It can potentially alleviate certain eye conditions.
• Severe headaches: Reiki can help relieve intense headache symptoms.
• Insomnia: It can help to improve sleep patterns and combat insomnia.
• Low self-esteem and mental abilities: Reiki can enhance self-confidence and mental abilities.
• Poor blood circulation: It can assist in improving blood flow throughout the body.
• Toxin removal: Reiki is believed to help in detoxifying the body.
• Wound healing: It can promote faster healing of wounds.
• Post-surgery recovery: Reiki can aid in speeding up the recovery process after surgery.

In conclusion, Reiki is a versatile healing practice that can address a wide range of health concerns, from physical ailments to emotional and mental issues.

Reiki heals by transferring life energy through the hands, physical contact is not always necessary. In both cases, positive energy is transferred from the healer to the patient – it slowly flows into the body and displaces negative energy, restoring balance and setting the body on a healthy wave that will help get rid of all illnesses.

Through Reiki, one learns the value of spiritual growth. Once a person becomes a Reiki guide, he or she passes universal life energy through his or her hands, and interestingly enough, this ability remains with him or her for life.

Reiki is perhaps the simplest form of healing and self-development system that exists!

By learning Reiki, you will be able to heal yourself and others with Reiki energy, either by contact or at a distance, using only intention. Also, you will be able to influence the events of your life, to clear karma, premises and much, much more.

Working with Reiki as much as possible activates a person’s inner life Force, creative abilities and the ability to materialise through this Force their intentions and desires in TURBO mode – that is, quickly, safely and almost effortlessly, EASILY.

Reiki is a non-intrusive modality that is accessible to anyone, irrespective of age, background, or belief system. Its safety and gentleness make it appropriate for individuals across all health statuses. 

This process is called Co-CREATIVITY with the boundless energy of the Universe. Because, in order to materialise his intentions, a person applies here not only and not so much his own power, but becomes a channel, a conductor for the creative creative Force of the Universe. The main purpose of this Force is Life, its development and benefit. Therefore, any purpose requested from this Force and created with the help of this Universal Force (Love) – will be embodied only with regard to safety for the human being, exactly as it will be for his Highest Good.

The 5 admonitions in question are: 

1. Don’t get angry today. 

2. Don’t be grievous. 

3. Express your thanks. 

4. Be diligent in your business. 

5. Be kind to others. 

These are really the important precepts for a cultivation, just the same as those by which the ancient sages admonished themselves. Usui-Sensei emphasized that ‘This is surely a secret process to bring a good fortune and also a miraculous medicine to remedy all kinds of diseases,’ by which he made his purpose of teaching clear and accurate. Furthermore, he tried to aim at making his way of guidance as easy and simple as possible, so nothing is difficult to understand therein. Every time when you sit quietly and join your hands to pray and chant morning and evening, you can develop a pure and sound mind, and there is just an essence in making the most of that for your daily life. This is the reason why the REIKI cure can very easily spread over anybody. 

The phase of life is very changeable in these days, and people’s thoughts are apt to change, too. Could we fortunately succeed in spreading the REIKI cure everywhere, we feel sure that it would have to be very helpful in order to prevent people from disordering their moral sense. It never extends people anything but the benefits of healing long term illness, chronic disease and bad habit. 

What is Attunement?

The attunement is like switching on an antenna that catches the energy of the Universe and conducts it into the intentions of a person. We all have such an inbuilt antenna from birth, but it is switched off. Psychics work with materialisation and healing of themselves and others also not at the expense of such an antenna, but at the expense of their very large innate personal power. But with active work, any reserve of personal power runs out at some point. After that problems may come.

When a person gets attunement to Reiki, i.e. his energy is restructured in such a way that in any place (in nature, in the city, in an aeroplane or underground, in a metropolis or in a cottage in the countryside), in any emotional state (in a state when everything is good and energy is balanced or in a state of fatigue, stress, aggression, anxiety and even loss of strength) he can easily switch on the Reiki channel and start feeding himself and his intentions with the boundless Energy of Love of the Universe (Reiki). That is, a person becomes a conductor of energy, not just an emitter of his life force. This is the fundamental difference between psychic and Reiki.

Reiki is available to everyone, because it is a natural ability of everyone. Psychicism is an inborn quality and not everyone has it (or it takes years to develop these abilities so that they are available at any moment equally well – both when you are tired and when you are on the rise).

The only prerequisite for switching on the Reiki “antenna” is to receive an attunement from a Master.

The attunement is paid, because to get access to the Higher Powers of the Universe, it is necessary to give some significant part of your lower energies (in this case in the form of money), so as not to be in karmic debt to the Master and so that the Universe does not take away this energy equivalent in another way.

About Mikao Usui

Mikao Usui, or Usui Sensei as he is called by Reiki students in Japan, was born August 15, 1865 in the village of Taniai in the Yamagata district of Gifu prefecture, which is located near present-day Nagoya, Japan.

He had an avid interest in learning and worked hard at his studies. As he grew older, he traveled to Europe and China to further his education. His curriculum included medicine, psychology and religion as well as the art of divination, which Asians have long considered to be a worthy skill. Usui Sensei also became a member of the Rei Jyutu Ka, a metaphysical group dedicated to developing psychic abilities. He had many jobs including civil servant, company employee and journalist, and he helped rehabilitate prisoners. Eventually he became the secretary to Shinpei Goto, head of the department of health and welfare who later became the mayor of Tokyo. The connections Usui Sensei made at this job helped him to also become a successful businessman.

The depth and breadth of his experiences inspired him to direct his attention toward discovering the purpose of life. In his search he came across the description of a special state of consciousness that once achieved would not only provide an understanding of one’s life purpose, but would also guide one to achieve it. This special state is called An-shin Ritus-mei (pronounced on sheen dit sue may). In this special state, one is always at peace regardless of what is taking place in the outer world. And it is from this place of peace that one completes one’s life purpose. One of the special features of this state is that it maintains itself without any effort on the part of the individual; the experience of peace simply wells up spontaneously from within and is a type of enlightenment.

Usui Sensei understood this concept on an intellectual level and dedicated his life to achieving it; this is considered to be an important step on Usui Sensei’s spiritual path. He discovered that one path to An-shin Ritsu-mei is through the practice of Zazen meditation. So he found a Zen teacher who accepted him as a student and began to practice Zazen. After three years practice, he had not been successful and sought further guidance. His teacher suggested a more severe practice in which the student must be willing to die in order to achieve An-shin Ritsu-mei. 

So with this in mind he prepared for death and in February, 1922, he went to Kurama yama, a sacred mountain north of Kyoto. He went to fast and meditate until he passed to the next world. It must be kept in mind that he was not looking to discover a method of healing, but was seeking to experience this special spiritual state. In addition, we know there is a small waterfall on Kurama yama where even today people go to meditate. This meditation involves standing under the waterfall and allowing the water to strike and flow over the top of the head, a practice that is said to activate the crown chakra. Japanese Reiki Masters think that Usui Sensei may have used this meditation as part of his practice. In any case, as time passed he became weaker and weaker. It was now March 1922 and at midnight of the twenty-first day, a powerful light suddenly entered his mind through the top of his head and he felt as if he had been struck by lightning; this caused him to fall unconscious.

Tenyo Shrine which is a short walk from where Usui Sensei was born in the village of Taniai. The Torii or archway is inscribed with words indicating that it was donated by Usui Mikao in 1923.

As the sun rose, he awoke and realized that whereas before he had felt very weak and near death from his fasting, he was now filled with an extremely enjoyable state of vitality that he had never experienced before; a miraculous type of high frequency spiritual energy had displaced his normal consciousness and replaced it with an amazingly new level of awareness. He experienced himself as being the energy and consciousness of the Universe and that the special state of enlightenment he had sought had been given to him as a gift. He was overjoyed by this realization.

When this happened, he was filled with excitement and went running down the mountain to tell his Zen master of his great good fortune. On his way down he stubbed his toe on a rock and fell down. And in the same way anyone would do, he placed his hands over the toe, which was in pain. As he did this, healing energy began flowing from his hands all by itself. The pain in his toe went away and the toe was healed. Usui Sensei was amazed by this. He realized that in addition to the illuminating experience he had undergone, he had also received the gift of healing. He also understood that this was his life purpose; to be a healer and to train others.

In April 1922, he moved to Tokyo and started a healing society that he named Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai (Usui Reiki Healing Method Society). He also opened a Reiki clinic in Harajuku, Aoyama, Tokyo. There he taught classes and gave treatments.

At first, all Usui Sensei had was the healing energy. Over time he developed his system of Reiki practice. Most of these developments came in 1923 after the Great Kanto earthquake and tsunami that did extensive damage in Tokyo and killed and injured many thousands of people. Because there were so many people in need of healing, Usui Sensei decided he needed to do something to speed up his ability to train teachers. 

It was at this time that he developed many of his practitioner techniques such as Gassho, Byosen scanning, Reiji-ho, Gyoshi ho, Seishin-to-itsu and so forth. He also developed a formal attunement method or Reiju kai, making it easier for others to learn Reiki and to become teachers. Prior to this, the method he used to pass on the Reiki ability was to simply hold the students hands, but this took a long time. The Reiju kai made transferring the Reiki ability much faster. Also, he had many different ways he performed the Reiju Kai, not just one. During this time he also developed the Reiki symbols of which he had only three. These are the three symbols that we currently receive in Reiki II, which he called Okuden. He did not have a Master symbol. This important point was confirmed by Hiroshi Doi Sensei, a member of the Gakkai, and in discussions he had with several of the Gakkai presidents and many of the Shinpiden members. This idea was also confirmed by Arjava Petter Sensei, who had contact with Shinpiden teachers from the Gakkai and with its president.

These same sources also indicate that Usui Sensei also gave many attunements to each student, not just one or one set. The purpose of the student receiving the attunement over and over was that this process continually acted to refine and develop one’s ability to channel Reiki energy, thus making the energy one channeled more versatile and able to heal a wider range of conditions, to heal more deeply and in a shorter time. The philosophy of Usui Sensei was that there is no limit to the quality and effectiveness of the Reiki energy available in the universe and an important purpose for all students was to continually seek to improve the quality and effectiveness of the Reiki energy one is able to channel.

He called his system of healing Shin-Shin Kai-Zen Usui Reiki Ryo-Ho (The Usui Reiki Treatment Method for Improvement of Body and Mind) or in its simplified form Usui Reiki Ryoho (Usui Reiki Healing Method). 

The first degree of his training was called Shoden (First Degree) and was divided into four levels: Loku-Tou, Go-Tou, Yon-Tou and San-Tou. (Note that when Takata Sensei taught this level, which in the West we refer to as Reiki Level I, she combined all four levels into one. This is most likely why she did four attunements for Level I.) The next degree was called Okuden (Inner Teaching) and had two levels: Okuden-Zen-ki (first part), and Okuden-Koe-ki (second part). The next degree was called Shinpiden (Mystery Teaching), which is what Western Reiki calls Master level. The Shinpiden level includes, Shihan-Kaku (assistant teacher) and Shihan (venerable teacher).

Demand for Reiki became so great that Usui Sensei outgrew his clinic, so in 1925 he built a bigger one in Nakano, Tokyo. Because of this, his reputation as a healer spread all over Japan. He began to travel so he could teach and treat more people. During his travels across Japan he directly taught more than 2,000 students and initiated twenty Shihan, each being given the same understanding of Reiki and approved to teach and give Reiju in the same way that he did.

The Japanese government issued him a Kun San To award for doing honorable work to help others. While traveling to Fukuyama to teach, he suffered a stroke and died on March 9, 1926. His grave is at Saihoji Temple, in Suginami, Tokyo, although some claim that his ashes are located elsewhere. 

After Usui Sensei died, his students erected a memorial stone next to his gravestone. Mr. J. Ushida, a Shihan trained by Usui Sensei, took over as president of the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai and was responsible for creating and erecting the Usui Memorial stone and ensuring that the gravesite would be maintained. Mr. Ushida was followed by Mr. Ilichi Taketomi, Mr. Yoshiharu Watanabe, Mr. Toyoichi Wanami and Ms. Kimiko Koyama. The current successor to Usui Sensei is Mr. Mahayoshi Kondo, who became president in 1998. 

Contrary to what we have been told in the West, there is no “lineage bearer” or “Grand Master” of the organization started by Usui Sensei—only the succession of presidents listed above. Among the twenty teachers initiated by Usui Sensei are Toshihiro Eguchi, Jusaburo Guida, Kan’ichi Taketomi, Toyoichi Wanami, Yoshiharu Watanabe, Keizo Ogawa, J. Ushida, and Chujiro Hayashi. Contrary to one version of the Reiki story, Mr. J. Ushida, not Chujiro Hayashi, was the Gakkai’s successor to Usui Sensei. It is also important to note that the first four presidents of the Gakkai who followed Usui Sensei were Shihan who had been trained directly by Usui Sensei, and the last of these was president of the Gakkai through 1975, thus assuring that the Gakkai understanding, practice and teaching methods were the same as that of Usui Sensei. 

Reiki Before Usui

Many consider that Mikao Usui or Usui Sensei as we reverently refer to him, was the creator of Reiki and that the word Reiki applies only to the healing modality he discovered and developed. Yet, when researching the facts concerning the origin of Reiki as a healing modality, we find that prior to Usui Sensei developing his style of Reiki, there were at least four other styles of Reiki healing that were being practiced in Japan. This information comes from Hiroshi Doi Sensei and from Toshitaka Mochitzuki Sensei, two Japanese Reiki researchers. A more detailed understanding of this subject is explained in the book, An Evidence Based History of Reiki.

In 1914, Matiji Kawakami, a Japanese therapist, created a healing style he called Reiki Ryoho and in 1919, he published a book titled Reiki Ryoho to Sono Koka, or Reiki Healing and Its Effects. The other Reiki healing styles in use at the time were: Reikan Tonetsu Ryoho created by Reikaku Ishinuki, Senshinryu Reiki Ryoho created by Kogetsu Matsubara and Seido Reishojutsu created by Reisen Oyama. It was during the time that these Reiki styles were already in use that in March 1922, Usui Sensei had his mystical experience on Kurama yama in which he was given the Reiki energy and from this developed his style of Reiki, which he called Usui Reiki Ryoho. It is interesting that Usui Sensei chose this name as it tends to indicate that he knew of the other styles of Reiki Ryoho in use and was indicating that this was his style of Reiki Ryoho. And because of circumstances that developed during World War II along with the work of Takata Sensei mentioned later in this section, the other forms of Reiki fell into disuse or remained relatively unknown while Usui Reiki continued to be practiced and grew in popularity

In considering what should or should not be called Reiki, we must consider that not only have there been many systems of Reiki healing that are original and do not have a lineage going back to Usui Sensei, but that the Reiki energy has been around at least for thousands of years and in fact some feel it has been around since the beginning of time. Reiki energy is something that anyone can make use of and of course many have, so with this in mind, it appears logical to assume that any system that makes use of Reiki energy can be called Reiki, not just those systems that can be traced back to Usui Sensei.

However, because of conditions in Japan after World War II and the fact that Hawaya Takata had brought Reiki to the west, Usui Reiki became the predominate form of Reiki practiced throughout the world. Because of this, a thorough understanding of Usui Reiki is important as it will give us a foundation for understanding Reiki, making it easier for us to connect with its essence.