reiki

 My personal experience of Reiki (pronounced Ray-Key) is that Reiki is expression of unconditional, Universal Love and Light. What I feel as I am giving Reiki to another is an overwhelming sense of joy, bliss, and love, and recognition of the sacredness of all life. 

I feel a deep, loving heart connection whenever I give Reiki to someone. Most of my students share this realization. Reiki has helped me to step outside myself. This allows me to be in touch with the unconditional, Universal Love and connection I have with my clients, loved ones, and all of creation.

When my heart opens to this truth, I become a clear channel for the healing energies of Love or Reiki. This is something that each one of us is capable of doing. To open our hearts to another is to become powerful channels for healing. We are all healers and Love or Reiki can be our teacher.

A practitioner of Reiki can use a laying-on-hands method to channel the Reiki energy to a recipient or send the Reiki energy long distance to a recipient because, like prayer, Reiki transcends time, space, and matter. This method of healing was developed and named Reiki by Dr. Mikao Usui of Japan. In Japanese “Rei” means spirit or holy, and “Ki” is translated to mean energy. One literally interpretation of the word Reiki is Spiritual Energy. Dr. Usui referred to it as Universal Life Energy.

From a practical standpoint, Reiki is a form of energy or vibrational healing. Reiki differs from many other energy healing systems because it is non-directional. Reiki goes where it is needed without any direction from the one who is giving Reiki. 

The practitioner is a channel for the healing energy, but the healing is directed by this universal life energy or any other name of your choosing, and the recipient’s body and Higher Self. Reiki connects with the ultimate source of healing at all levels. This means healing occurs at the mind, body, Soul levels. 

The healing that each of us receives is especially for our needs. For some a complete physical healing can occur. (It is always wise to continue with your conventional medical treatments and use Reiki as a way to support your mind, body, and Soul through your healing process). 

Healing occurs on many levels, in many ways, and never more clearly was that demonstrated to me, when a nurse came to me for Reiki. She was in the most advanced stages of cancer, and what she was seeking not a physical cure. 

She was seeking peace, loving support, and a resolution to a family secret that had fractured her family and separated her from her daughter for years. Following her Reiki session that night she and her daughter were fully reconciled. She made her transition peacefully with her daughter by her side three days later.

Dr. Usui did not really discover this Universal Life Energy. He rediscovered it in the early 1900s, and developed a very simple method of teaching others to channel this energy which he named the Usui Shiki Ryoho method. 

This Universal Life Force Energy has been called by many other names in many different parts of the world. Some of the names for this energy are Holy Spirit, Prana, Ki, Chi, Elan Vital, Orgone, Bioplasmic Energy, Mana, and Magnetic Energy. Reiki is both a healing system and an enlightenment system. Reiki compliments and supports all spiritual practices, but it is not a religion.

Anyone can learn to give or receive Reiki regardless of their beliefs. Dr. Usui taught many students Reiki throughout Japan including Chujiro Hayashi who eventually taught Reiki to a Japanese-American woman named Mrs. Takata in that late 1930s.

Mrs. Takata went on to teach many students Reiki in the United States including her granddaughter, Phyllis Furumoto. Phyllis Furumoto later formed the Reiki Alliance and claimed that unless a student of Reiki was taught by her or her graduates, they were not legitimate Reiki practitioners or teachers. 

Thankfully, over time this assertion has proven to be incorrect because everyone can become a channel unconditional love and universal life energy. Today Reiki is practiced and widely taught in the USA and throughout the world.

The applications for Reiki are unlimited. Reiki compliments and supports allopathic medicine in all forms, and traditional counseling. It goes with other forms of alternative, holistic therapies such hypnotherapy, yoga, meditation, chiropractics, acupuncture, massage (Reiki is not massage), crystal therapy, chakra balancing – just about anything you can think of. 

Once you have been initiated into Reiki, you can Reiki yourself, loved ones, children, friends, pets, plants, and all other living things. You can Reiki your food, your home, workplace, car, the earth, and anything you can think. You can even Reiki your checkbook. 

If you are sending something important by mail, you can Reiki that as well. If you have a job interview, a dentist or a doctor appointment, or any other meeting or appointment, you can send Reiki to that place or bring it with you. After all, what you transmitting is the energy of unconditional love and light. I truly believe that Reiki is both transpersonal and transformational.