What is Reiki?
The Japanese word Reiki (pronounced 'Ray-kee') is often translated as "universal life-force energy", but a more accurate version is "spiritual energy". The word is divided into two parts: Rei is translated as 'sacred', 'soul or 'spirit', 'the wisdom and knowledge of all the Universe' or 'atmosphere of the Divine'.
It means, the Higher Intelligence that guides the creation and functioning of the universe; the wisdom that comes from God (or: the Source, creator, Universe, or All That Is), that is, all-knowing, and which understands the need for, and the cause of, all problems and difficulties, and how to heal them. Ki is the life-force energy, which flows through every living thing - plants, animals, and people - and which is present in some form in everything around us. In truth, it is all of these words and more... it is the untranslatable! It goes where the English language cannot...
To put it simply,
Rei = universal knowledge/subject to interpretation.
Ki = life source energy.
In Japanese it is Ki, in Chinese or Thai it’s Chi, India it’s Kundalini or Prana/pranayama (the breath of life/fire), different cultures have different interpretations/names for the same thing.
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Now we have covered the word, what is Reiki?
"Reiki is a safe, gentle, non-intrusive hands-on (or auric field) healing technique for use on yourself or others, which uses spiritual energy to treat physical ailments without using pressure, manipulation, or massage; however, it is much more than physical therapy. It is a holistic system for balancing, healing, and harmonising all aspects of the person - body, mind, emotions, and spirit - and it can also be used to encourage personal and spiritual awareness and growth" (taken from the bestselling book “Reiki for Life - Penelope Quest”).
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Where did it come from?
Its origins are traced back a few thousand years to Tibetan Buddhism (but you don’t need to be religious to practice or experience its power).
Reiki has been used and taught in the West since the late 1930s, until the 1990s the history was only passed down orally. It was lost knowledge until the late 1800s.
Enter Dr Mikao Usui…
His students asked him about “hands-on healing” but he couldn’t teach something he didn’t know. So he went travelling for 10 years looking outwards for the answer, astonishingly learning to read multiple languages including Sanskrit to find the secret. Eventually, he found he needed to look inward when at a Zen Buddhist monastery he was told to meditate and fast.
Dr. Usui rediscovered what is now known as Reiki, after dedicating his life to researching the lost art of "hands-on healing". He was willing to give his life in order to reach a state of Satori (Enlightenment).
After meditating and fasting on the holy mountain of Kurama-Yama for 21 days a practice called "shyu gyo", he received a spiritual empowerment which gave him a true understanding of all he had learned through his research & gave him the healing abilities he had been searching for.
Dr Mikao Usui Continued…
It is said, that when fasting for such a prolonged amount of time, you will either die or have a spiritual enlightenment, empowerment, or out-of-body experience of sorts. Dr Usui was willing to give his life for what he was looking for. When Dr. Usui regained consciousness, he was full of energy despite not eating for 21 days. He set off back to the monastery but as he rushed down the mountain he tripped and his toe started to bleed. Instinctively, he put his hands around it and the bleeding stopped and the pain went away. He knew then that he had acquired healing power.
He then dedicated the rest of his life to helping spread this healing tool, and his tombstone makes clear his vision: that Reiki would spread and help heal the world.
Dr Chujiro Hayashi.
Before his death (9th March 1926), Dr Usui passed on his knowledge and teachings to Dr. Chujiro Hayashi, a retired naval officer who was interested in Dr. Usui's work.
After Usui's death, Dr Hayashi opened a Reiki clinic: The Hayashi Reiki Kenkyu Kai (Hayashi Spiritual Energy Society). The clinic was in Tokyo and consisted of 16 practitioners working (2 per patient).
Dr. Hayashi is responsible for breaking Reiki into three degrees and designing the system of hand positions. Up until this time, Reiki was given in a series of attunements and could be given in a very short period of time.
Hayashi forced his own death by mentally rupturing the arteries to his heart on May 10th 1941.
Madame Takata.
One of Dr. Hayashi's students was a woman from Hawaii, called Hawayo Takata. She came to the clinic in 1935 to be healed of a serious illness. She was so impressed by the success of her treatment that she begged to be able to learn Reiki. Hayashi eventually agreed to teach her.
She lived with his family and worked without pay in his clinic in exchange for the privilege of being able to learn the first and second levels of this healing system. She returned to Hawaii in 1937 and opened the first Reiki clinic in the West, where Hayashi and his family visited her. Hayashi passed on the final level of Reiki in 1938 before he returned to Japan so that she would be able to teach others.
The story Madame Takata told was that Dr Hayashi and all of his Reiki students were killed in World War II, and she was the only teacher alive. She continued to teach Reiki and run her clinic in Hawaii, also travelling throughout US and Canada, treating people with Reiki, and training people how to heal themselves. She held classes in Levels 1 and 2, but it was the 1970s before she began to teach the master level, so that others would be able to teach after she had passed.
By the time of her death in 1980, after 42 years of teaching Reiki, she had trained 22 masters, and it is through them that Reiki has spread so widely throughout the Western world.
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