Reiki

Reiki Rainbow Energy

What is Reiki?

If we are all interconnected, not just with each other, but with all of life, with the earth itself, is there a way we can make ourselves healthier and happier because of it? A working knowledge of Reiki might well provide a key.

Mikao Usui was a Japanese Buddhist and a successful businessman, but in 1922, his personal and business life were both in trouble, and so he traveled to one of Japan's geographic power spots to meditate and study. There, perhaps underneath one of the waterfalls of Mount Kurama, Usui's crown chakra was activated and he came to the realisation of the principles of what is today the worldwide
practice of Reiki.

We are more than just organs, nerves, and circulatory systems. We are energy -- ki, "life force energy" -- and with proper training that energy can be passed and channeled from one person to another, as Usui discovered in himself. Through a literal hands-on application of a practioner's ki, the natural healing processes of a patient's body can be activated and so begin the restoration to balance and health.

Dr. Usui trained others in what was as much a spiritual discipline as a set of physical practices, and the original body of teachings remains inn Japan as one of the most closely held of secrets. At the same time, Dr. Usui realized the need for a more direct and practical approach if Reiki were to find acceptance in the world at large, especially in the West.

Accordingly, specific hand positions and other practices, including the application of certain symbols, have been extracted from the original body of work, and combined with Dr. Usui's Five Reiki Precepts. These precepts, derived from the late 19th-century Emperor Meiji, are a set of ethical principles that enable Reiki to function more broadly both as an alternative medicine practice and as necessary lifestyle practices -- precepts and practice working together to harmonize one's inner ki with the natural and larger energy fields of the planet.

As a technique, Reiki can be mastered by anyone, but can only properly be taught by one able to attune the student to the energy fields he or she will be the vessel and conduit for. Reiki today is seen as an essential part of holistic or alternative medicine that can be practised either by itself or in combination with more traditional therapies, and has been combined with other doctrines such as chakra energy vortices and the meridian energy lines of Chinese medicine.

Though Dr. Usui was trained in Buddhism, he also studied Christianity, and was well versed in a wide variety of disciplines. Reiki is considered by many to be religiously neutral and so can be integrated into both Eastern and Western traditions.

Reiki is more than just physical technique. It is a reconnection of body and mind, involving methods of meditation and breathing, as well as an understanding of the roles of ethical practices and choices for the harmony and balance of both the world and the living beings who are part of its total flow.

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