Reiki Help Blog :: Oasis Reiki Dojo

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This summer the Reiki One-Liner passed the 250 mark. It goes out only on weekdays, so that’s 50 weeks of a unique form of discipline and practice.

Initially I started writing these to educate my social network about Reiki. Very soon it became a rich way for me to consider the depth and breadth of Reiki.

Each writing reveals a new facet, usually not thought of before. Or, as I interact with Reiki, share it and teach it, watch it working in others and receive Reiki stories, it reveals new facets. Here’s one coming to me right now:

Reiki is a shining gem with endless facets.

There are four previous posts of 50 Reiki One-Liners each. Reading these as a list can become meaningless.

A Practice:

What I suggest is to go through each post one at a time, including this one, and write down your favorite few. These may be your favorite because you feel a certain way when you read them, or it points to a truth you love, or a truth you need.

Then, select one of and take it into meditation. Post it on your mirror or computer screen. You can also journal about it, using the one-liner as your prompt.

When you’re done with your initial favorites, visit the posts again and select another handful to grow into even more facets of Reiki.

Reiki One-Liner^SM

Here, presented in alphabetical order rather than the order they went out are 50 new Reiki One-Liners:

1. A diagnosis is local. You are nonlocal. Reiki brings this home.
2. A powerful showering of Light is a major facet of Reiki.
3. All-healing Love is a primary color in Reiki.
4. Has your life gone awry? Reiki will reset it in away that serves you for years to come.
5. Healing stored negative emotions and energies is a main benefit of Reiki.
6. In face of unchanging symptoms, Reiki brings an abiding knowing.
7. It’s not only symptomatic healing Reiki provides; it can heal an entire life.
8. Reiki *hears* you without filters.
9. Reiki accelerates your evolution.
10. Reiki activates all your immune systems: physical, psychological, and spiritual.
11. Reiki allows while you grow to your next tier.
12. Reiki brings your worrying into perspective and keeps you calm.
13. Reiki develops a self-healing psychology hiding under all of your symptoms.
14. Reiki doesn’t address only the here-and-now, but the then and later, and the timeless.
15. Reiki eases the experience of being infinite in a finite world and fulfills it to the highest degree.
16. Reiki emerges who you are in the most natural, no-excuses way.
17. Reiki engenders the pure awareness that’s not based on thoughts and emotions.
18. Reiki heals the person and thus the extended life of that person.
19. Reiki helps you incarnate fully so you can really do “this” and live the sacred too.
20. Reiki helps you listen to life with your whole being, not only your head.
21. Reiki helps you see the essence of yourself and others.
22. Reiki helps you sit in your belly (hara) and handle life from there.
23. Reiki helps you suspend judgment and levels personalities.
24. Reiki increases your Light quotient.
25. Reiki is a provider, teacher and wayshower of compassion.
26. Reiki is a two-way elevator between Heaven and Earth.
27. Reiki is constant and fail-safe.
28. Reiki is integrated with life, not locked up in the intellect.
29. Reiki is the energetic equivalent of oxygen.
30. Reiki is the radical realization that your umbilical cord is intact and has only changed form and scope.
31. Reiki is the spontaneous cascade of Love.
32. Reiki lets you solidly know there’s healing available despite symptoms.
33. Reiki merges the you living in linearity with the You that envelopes time/space.
34. Reiki opens the sacred space within that can also be a liveable place without.
35. Reiki provides a lifeline in times of personal or global crisis.
36. Reiki provides a steadiness of heart and mind.
37. Reiki reminds you to settle in the belly (hara) when the mind overthinks.
38. Reiki removes the heat and burn of anger from your mindbody.
39. Reiki reveals the value of honesty in all you are and do.
40. Reiki shows you how to be humble without compromising yourself.
41. Reiki shows you the umbilical cord you have to the sun, the cherry tree and the rain.
42. Reiki soothingly buffers you when life’s upsets visit.
43. Removing excess baggage, outmoded ideas and clutter happens naturally in Reiki.
44. Strong immunity means integrity. Reiki takes you there.
45. Symptoms are information, not who you are. Reiki solidifies this knowing.
46. When life is pressuring you, Reiki acts as a relief valve.
47. When nothing works, Reiki still does.
48. When walking the path and doing the work, Reiki is an unmatched wayshower and aid.
49. With Reiki you gain access to healing a pinpoint or the whole tapestry.
50. You are the link between the healed and unhealed. Reiki gives you the courage to embrace the healing long buried.

At the end of June I had the good fortune of being the only nonmedical presenter at PDSA’s annual ITP conference. For a background on the Platelet Disorder Support Association, idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura and my participation at the conference, please read this previous post (you really want to!).

This presentation had specific challenges. First I wasn’t sure how well-known Reiki is to the ITP community, although I knew there was some Reiki awareness (the founder of PDSA is a Reiki practitioner and Reiki played a major role in her complete remission.) Secondly, ITP is of unknown origin and without any medical cure, and potentially fatal.

ITP is an autoimmune disease. I chose to address the human being living with ITP, which is exactly Reiki’s own approach; no matter the symptoms, Reiki heals the person.

The title of my presentation was “The Healing Power of Reiki.” Fairly standard, but I really wanted to expand our definition of being human, and wellness, and this venue created a great opportunity to do so. The first clip is the opening of my 45 minute talk.

The first idea we can explore is that the physical immune system is not the only immune system we humans have. The psychological and the spiritual are also components of the human immune system…And, physical immunity is greatly influenced by psychological and spiritual immunity.

(If you’re reading this as an email, you’ll probably need to click back to the original post on the blog to view video content.)

My presentation goes into quite some detail about our three basic immunities. The physical immune system is fairly well-known and understood, so I focused on psychological and spiritual immunity, and how these can actually determine our level of physical wellness, and at the very least mitigate ill health so a full life is still possible.

A basic understanding of Reiki is that it balances or rebalances a person on all levels: physically, psychologically and spiritually. In other words, Reiki finds within you, or returns you to homeostasis.

(If you’re reading this as an email, you’ll probably need to click back to the original post on the blog to view video content.)

There’s much more depth and detail to this presentation, and other portions will be rolled out here in the near future, so keep watching this space.

Most importantly, please let me know what you think by commenting here. Include what kind of information you need or are most interested in, where you need the most help and how the Reiki Help Blog can serve you better. I’d appreciate this and ultimately it will serve you by allowing me to post relevant material.

Many spiritual teachings are structured like a tree.

If Reiki were a tree, its trunk would be the meditative teachings of Reiki; hands-on Reiki would be one limb; and the precepts Usui left behind would be Reiki’s living tissue. This was explained in great detail in a previous post: Modern Reiki.

Today we’ll look at Usui’s Reiki precepts again. Since they are the living tissue of the teachings, it’s important to dwell on these simple words again and again. Not only dwell but bring them into full focus in our lives. The translation used here is:

For today only: Do not anger—Do not worry

Be humble

Be honest in your work

Be compassionate to yourself and others

Let me first quote from the previous post:

Without anger, conflicts would be resolved and new ones circumvented. Without worry, fear would end and we wouldn’t exacerbate suffering. Humility is respect and the willingness to include all viewpoints. Honesty; would there be a worldwide financial crisis if there was honesty?

And compassion. Compassion is both a prerequisite and condition of enlightenment. In compassion there’s no separation, no other, no stranger. Compassion is the true democracy! Enlightenment is a state of Oneness. If there’s compassion, there’s understanding and appreciation. Compassion unifies and in that unity we find enlightenment.

Enlightenment isn’t only a spiritual pursuit. There can be enlightenment in government, technology, business, science and social systems.

In delving deeper into these simple words, we have to consider that translation from Japanese, a language based on ideograms,  leads to rich interpretations; aphorisms are pithy and packed with meaning; and such concepts are layered in meaning.

Copyright Usui-Do Eidan

For today only: We mostly understand a day to be 24 hours in the Gregorian calendar which defines our lives. This is fine for what it is.

However, here we’re considering ‘today’ as also ‘this moment,’ ‘this duration,’ ‘this task,’ this activity,’ or even ‘this interaction.’

If you’re serious about your Reiki practice as a spiritual one, a path not only a healing practice or worse a modality, then you understand that it’s lifelong.

A life and a path is made up of moments. Before you’re intimidated by what is asked of you, stop, breathe and take a moment to consider both how fleeting and how endless it is.

You don’t have to master For today only, today.

Do not anger: Anger is an afflictive emotion and we all have it. It’s hurtful to those it’s directed and to person who is angry. It creates suffering for everyone. Sometimes righteous anger is justified, but in the end anger is never skillful or successful.

Anger heats up the mind and it makes mistakes, and anger shuts tight the heart. With and overheated mind and closed heart you’re a danger to yourself and others. Anger can also escalate to rage.

Whereas if a higher feeling state like love is cultivated, when it escalates it leads to bliss!

I feel Usui isn’t only saying don’t let anger prevail, but also heal your anger. This is a major undertaking. Anger is pernicious and insidious. It hides under layers.

Start today with some smaller angers and move onto bigger ones.

Do not worry: Let’s start with the worst case scenario…when worry escalates it becomes fear and/or anxiety. Worry as it is hangs around, niggling away and ruining your outlook as well as inner environment. Worry is powerful in its constancy. It’s a mindset that traps and holds hostage.

It holds hostage your physical, mental and spiritual energy without any purpose. For instance when faced with a dangerous wild animal, fear has a purpose. Escalated fear and ordinary constant worry which are baseless cause more harm than do good.

Worry is a creation of the mind and indicates that your mind is leading you, instead of you leading your mind. The mind is powerful but worry is an unskillful use of its power.

Be humble: Often recommended, seldom understood. Every other avenue that influences daily life tells us to be loud, boastful, self-aggrandizing and to stand out. We cringe at humility. It seems weak and wimpy.

It’s actually a fearless act to be humble because all self-promotion is really a way to hold fear at bay. And it goes further to change your orientation to non-ego. In fact humility is another way to stay in the present, for today only…If you’re not ego driven then the trappings of ego aren’t there either which removes fear and limitations.

Be honest in your work: On one level this is integrity, which starts inside with yourself and extends to all your expressions in your life and the many ways you touch people.

‘Honesty’ in this sense also means consistency, commitment and sincerity, and these apply to your spiritual ‘work.’ Transformation is real. It’s available and occurs, but not without the practitioner partaking daily in the teachings and practices.

And if the ground of your being is transformed from ‘honest’ practice, then the work you have outwardly in the world will be honest as well.

Be compassionate to yourself and others: This is the big one isn’t it?! It also brings the others full circle.

Compassion is a win-win, skillful means always. It’s inherent whenever Reiki is practiced. In fact, Reiki practice teaches about compassion in a visceral way; it’s felt and its qualities are understood.

Compassion leads to understanding which leads to unity. In unity we find a greater degree of enlightenment because we feel “at one.” Feeling one with yourself, others, the environment, the cosmos and the Divine is one quality of enlightenment.

Fortunately with compassion you don’t have to be enlightened to feel and benefit from it, and help others through it.

Compassion blesses everyone equally. It can remain as such or for the dedicated practitioner, compassion can lead to unity states of consciousness, which in turn deepen compassion.

How do you contemplate, engage and learn from the Reiki precepts Usui Sensei placed at the core of his teachings?

“The Healing Power of Reiki” – Pamir Kiciman, BA, RM, CHt

An overlooked aspect of health is a sense of wellness despite symptoms. Even with an ongoing condition, it’s possible to be functional and happy in daily living. Every person has a set of principles, a foundation to live by, which brings meaning and purpose to life. Sometimes this foundation becomes a little shaky. Reiki is a way of living that brings back a sense of peace with oneself and harmony with one’s surroundings. It provides wisdom in here-and-now difficulties and is a resource of empowerment in one’s responses to challenges. Life is full of questions and many of the answers are available without having to go outside an individual’s own scope. Reiki is a teaching that accesses innate wisdom and intelligence, as well as compassion, which propel a vision of one’s potential. We will explore how this bedrock is part of the human experience and how it’s always accessible, as well as how to keep the access open during challenging times.

The above is the synopsis of the presentation I gave at the Platelet Disorder Support Association’s (PDSA) annual conference this year.

PDSA was founded by Joan Young to tell others about ITP.

“ITP, idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, also known as immune thrombocytopenic purpura, is classified as an autoimmune disease. In an autoimmune disease the body mounts an attack toward one or more otherwise normal organ systems. In ITP, platelets are the target. They are marked as foreign by the immune system and eliminated in the spleen, or sometimes the liver. Because this process removes platelets from circulation, people with ITP have a low platelet count or thrombocytopenia.” (PDSA website.)

“Idiopathic” means having no known cause.

Joan was one of the beautiful people I met at the conference, and she is a Reiki practitioner. Reiki was one of her choices in returning to wellness literally from the brink and staying there.

A healthy platelet count ranges between 150,000–400,000. During the course of the weekend I met wonderful people who have a platelet count of 30,000–50,000.

“About 30,000 platelets per microliter of blood is considered a ‘safe count,’ one that is high enough to protect against bleeding in the brain in most cases.” (PDSA website.)

However, I also heard story after story where counts crash and people literally have to be “rescued.”

I met one lady in her sixties who, as far she knows, has been living with ITP since the age of thirteen and her count is 6000–8000 in all those years. She has refused any of the available conventional, medical treatments.

Another person who has also refused treatment and has used homeopathy in six years of living with ITP, ranges between 19,000–22,000 platelets.

Many do accept the available medical treatments and experience varying degrees of success.

One of the points I made in my presentation was to not become a diagnosis, a platelet count, so I don’t want to keep listing numbers except to illustrate that the cause of ITP is unknown, as is its cure.

This is a daily reality for a girl, age 13, who was still so very happy to have recently acquired a three-wheeled bicycle. Falling, bumping into things, or hard sports are a no-no.

“Most people with ITP experience spontaneous bruising. Some find they have petechiae (pe-TEEK-ee-ay), tiny red dots on the skin caused by broken blood vessels or leaks in a capillary wall. If your platelet count is very low you may have other bleeding symptoms including blood blisters on the inside of your cheeks or blood in your urine or stool. In general, the more bleeding symptoms you have, the lower your platelet count.” (PDSA website.)

All the visible bruising I saw was subdermal and quite large and obvious. Saturday night there was a party and a steel band. One lady I’ve known for some time told me it was about the only place she could wear a sundress and nobody would think her bruises were odd, or draw other wrong conclusions.

Despite knowing her story quite well previously, this revelation really touched me and brought home what it’s like to be living with ITP.

One person who opened up to me after my presentation, had lost a child to ITP and started another support organization that works together with PDSA.

A rare disease is considered to be one that affects fewer than 200,000 Americans.

“The incidence of ITP in children is estimated at 4.3 to 5.3 per 100,000 children per year. Since children with ITP usually recover, the prevalence of childhood ITP is about equal to the incidence. The incidence of adult ITP is from 1.6 4 to 6.6 5 per 100,000 and the prevalence is approximately 9.5 cases per 100,000.” (PDSA website.)

In May of this year, The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced a program to produce new treatments for rare and neglected diseases. This is a drug development program only, but still perhaps a step in the right direction.

More will be posted here about my participation at the conference. I’m waiting for video of my presentation. Keep watching this space…

Stories are important. Not the ones we tell ourselves to hide in, the dramas we perpetuate. Those are important too, for as Maya Angelou says:

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

In fact telling your story is the genesis of healing and growth. These personal stories collect to form a bigger landscape of the shared human experience. As C.S. Lewis has said:

Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.

We start there, unraveling the pain. This is the backstory. What’s ultimately healing and transformative is when we weave a new story, whether it’s personal or global. The transcendent story is the one that serves us best.

The transcendent story unites us and reveals the deepest mysteries of life.

It’s with this in mind that I’m starting the Reiki Stories Project^SM (RSP). In 15 years of teaching Reiki, time after time it’s practitioners and receivers of Reiki who show and tell the most illuminating aspects of Reiki. Sharing Reiki stories is an amazing learning and validating experience. It deepens this path.

The Reiki Stories Project^SM (RSP) is open to everyone. Please add your stories in comments on this post, or go to contact (top right) and email me. You can share anonymously, or with your initials and location, or full name and location. Share as many as you like over time. Stories will be curated by me and may be lightly edited.

Your Reiki story will be held in sacredness.

We begin with two stories from my own student practitioners. This first one is from someone who has been practicing Reiki for quite some time. I was recently interviewed and it prompted this sharing. Again, when we share and talk new associations are formed and we’re all elevated.

Pamir, your answers in that interview are beautiful and timeless. I even feel they are coming from your higher self. The most important part for me is that of shifts. I experienced a shift. I always loved everything around me and would even secretly talk to plants and animals. But I experienced a shift that came from great suffering to see my path more clearly (my desire to help people). So, my love and compassion was always there, but the decision to do something about it came later.

“It’s the emergence of all that you are, instead of only facets of a personality.” (From the interview.) This shift also brought an awakening to discover who I am and my ‘purpose.’ Of course, these realizations are still in progress since like you said, “I’m still awakening.”

My mom has been sick lately and I have been worried for her since she won’t go to the doctor or even admit she doesn’t feel good. Last night I took all my quartz and let myself be guided by them. I had never done anything with them but just have them in my room beside the picture of Paramahansa Yogananda.

I first filled a pot with water and put salt and Reiki’d it, then placed a quartz inside, then cleansed it with Jakikiri Joka-ho (a method for purifying inanimate objects). This I did with each of the stones. Then I placed them in a circle and put a card with my mom’s name and location and sent distant Reiki (crystals aren’t classically involved with Reiki). Finally, I placed the card under the biggest quartz which I feel was the one guiding me through it.

My mom called me this morning and said “I didn’t want to scare you but I have been very sick lately and today I simply woke up feeling healthy and strong.” All the pain she had disappeared and the vomiting stopped. Also, in a very odd way, $2,500 was sent to her today (and we really needed the money).

Like always, I want to thank you for being the tree for so many us who need you,

Namaste

This next one is a very recent excerpt from the 21-day report after Reiki Training I have in place to serve as a vehicle of accountability (both ways), and to further mentor my practitioners. What’s noteworthy about it is that even after a lifetime of habits and mental patterns, a mere 21 days of Reiki practice can have such solid benefits:

21 days looks like too little time, when you already have lived more than 16,000 previous days during your entire life. You can ask yourself how much more can 0.13 % of your existence do for you? Maybe nothing, but perhaps there was already a light switch waiting on the wall, and then the 21 days came as a space to do nothing else but turn it on.

To tell you the truth Reiki was not something that I was looking forward to practice before a couple of month ago. For the last couple of years I was too busy keeping myself entertained in a way not to see the falling bricks from the walls of my home. But finally the walls gave way to gravity, leaving me in the middle of what used to be my securities…now in ruins. That’s when I started feeling the need to clean up and rebuild and I started looking at one of the only things that was still standing there: Myself. Then, Reiki came to me.

When I first started the twenty minute meditations, my whole being jumped into it with great joy, it was something longtime missed and well needed, mostly for my never silent mind. I haven’t stop doing it, sometimes once, sometimes twice a day, and not precisely because I am doing it so well, but because of the opposite…With the hope of maybe one day being able to find the bottom that shuts down all the thoughts from my head, allowing the light to fill up the empty spaces.

I practice both Hikari no Kokyu-ho at night and Gassho Kokyu-ho in the morning (two Reiki-specific meditations taught in Level I). The first one opens me to the universe, the second one centers me into myself. In spite of the constant escape attempts from my mind, both have been slowly making things change around me. I can see the difference, I feel a lot lighter, I don’t worry that much, I don’t find myself immersed in the foggy cloud of day dreaming as much as I did before.

I started to visit some situations in my past, seeing them with other eyes and better understanding. Now I am more able to forgive myself and I am not letting others fill me up with guilt. I am finding great joy in things that I am rediscovering such as dancing.

Reiki One-Liner^SM

On July 30, 2008 I started a new service in the microblogging world by sending out this one-liner about Reiki:

Reiki is living with wisdom & compassion.

Since then Reiki One-Liner^SM has gone out to Twitter and Plurk everyday between Monday and Friday, with breaks of a few days since its inception.

Read the first 50.

Read the next 50.

Read third 50.

Here, presented in alphabetical order rather than the order they went out are 50 more Reiki One-Liners:

1. At the core of anxiety, Reiki is abiding calm.
2. At the core of fear, Reiki is solid knowing of self.
3. At the core of illness, Reiki is a bottomless resource.
4. At the core of pain, Reiki is the presence of love.
5. At the core of sadness, Reiki is unending joy and comfort.
6. Reiki activates the dormant divinity in your cells.
7. Reiki beckons the soul.
8. Reiki busts hardened habits and beliefs, opening many new possibilities.
9. Reiki declutters mind space, personal/work space and heart space.
10. Reiki deepens meaning.
11. Reiki deepens your consciousness.
12. Reiki deepens your heart.
13. Reiki deepens your humanity.
14. Reiki deepens your relationships.
15. Reiki expands the accuracy of your intuition and your trust in it.
16. Reiki expands the heart past personal dramas.
17. Reiki expands the mind to perceive more than the five senses tell it.
18. Reiki expands your horizon.
19. Reiki expands your orientation from personality to soul.
20. Reiki gives Heart when life seems heartless.
21. Reiki helps you know who you are before personality and possessions.
22. Reiki increases the soul’s magnetic power.
23. Reiki is a celestial waterfall.
24. Reiki is a cool spring in the heat of trials.
25. Reiki is a nonphysical umbilical cord between you and the great Mother universe.
26. Reiki is a series of stepping-stones across the pond of life.
27. Reiki is Heart solace.
28. Reiki is spring rain on your weary soul mind body.
29. Reiki is springtime renewal all year round.
30. Reiki is tête–à–tête with your soul.
31. Reiki is the light of the Heart on the pathway of life.
32. Reiki is the Universe saying “pssst!”
33. Reiki is the Universe’s 411.
34. Reiki is the Universe’s 911.
35. Reiki is the way of the Heart through the pathway of life.
36. Reiki opens a Heart-based relation with all.
37. Reiki opens you to your soul.
38. Reiki replaces neurosis with bliss.
39. Reiki restores your original codes.
40. Reiki restores your original power.
41. Reiki returns you to the divine self-worth of your origin.
42. Reiki reveals what your name is before you take birth.
43. Reiki takes you from particle to wave and back to particle at a different location.
44. Reiki warms the soul.
45. There’s a truth before and after your lifespan. Reiki will reveal it to you.
46. With Reiki the Earth finds succor.
47. With Reiki there are no losers.
48. With Reiki there is refuge.
49. With Reiki you can be like a multi-armed deity.
50. With Reiki you can converse with Life.

Chakras (click to see artist's site)

Energetic Wellness

In Reiki as it is much was said about the true nature of Reiki, how it is a spiritual teaching and practice first, with healing being a natural extension of its enlightening practices. Yet Usui-san was widely known as a great healer. Teate means hands-on healing in Japanese and was very popular in Usui’s time. In 1923 an earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale hit Tokyo. 100,000 deaths were reported. His Memorial stone states:

“Everywhere there were groans of pains from the wounded. Sensei feeling pity for them went out every morning to go around the town, and he cured and saved innumerable people. This is just a broad outline of his relief activities during such an emergency.”

Fast forward to the 21^st century. We have many options available to us when it comes to healthcare and wellness. Yet few of these options, including other CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) therapies, address energetic wellness. Why is energetic wellness important? Because without it we are not able to be well!

Acupuncture meridians

Most people are experientially familiar with energy as it relates to the ability of their body to function in its daily tasks. This is called “metabolic energy,” provided by the foods and supplements we ingest, sunshine and oxygen. Some of this turns into the raw building blocks of our body and some of it into chemical energy that keeps us active and productive.

Our nervous system, on the other hand communicates through electrical messages. These biochemical and neuroelectrical energy systems are well-accepted by science. There is also growing research that our cells emit weak bursts of ultraviolet light, indicating a light-based energy system. (Gerber 13-15. See below for book references.)

Then there are the contributions of thousands of years of spiritual and healing knowledge from the various cultures and civilizations of our collective history.

Two such contributions are what may be called “life-energy” (or “lifeforce”), and “spiritual energy” systems. One example of a life-energy system is acupuncture with its meridians, responsible for distributing life energy to cells, tissues and organs.

The best known example of spiritual energy distribution is the chakras, the seven major energy centers that play a critical role in our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health. (Gerber 16-17)

Nadis

The chakras are also related to a maze of channels that distribute this unique subtle energy. These are known as nadis.

The system of chakras and nadis corresponds to your experiential center, that inner core from which you feel yourself move when you are truly spontaneous. From there you move out to contact the world. The meridian system, on the other hand, reflects how that energy interfaces with the world around you. (Ballentine 408)

Ki

You can read about the system that Reiki utilizes in Reiki as it is. Ki is naturally present in the body and in a special Ki field around the body. The fundamental functions of Ki are to:

• Transform materials, such as food into fuel in the body
• Transport substances, like blood throughout the body’s vessels
• Hold substances in place, such as blood in vessels and viscera in the abdomen
• Protect against pathogens and trauma
• Warm living tissues

When there is overall harmony, Ki flows smoothly and any minor imbalances are rectified naturally. When the body becomes stressed for long periods or there is physical damage, emotional trauma (e.g. anger, worry, fear, grief), or mental inharmony the smooth flow of Ki is disrupted, creating pools of excess and deficiency.

Healthy flow of Ki is known as Genki and disrupted Ki is called Byoki (literally, sick Ki). There are four basic types of Ki disharmony:

Deficient Ki – this can lead to spontaneous sweating, fatigue, lethargy and weakness.

Sinking Ki – which is characterized by organ prolapse (e.g. sagging organs and bagginess), vertigo, weariness, and a very weak pulse.

Stagnant Ki – the flow of Ki is slow or blocked, which can produce swelling, bloating, belching, achiness all over and fidgetiness.

Rebellious Ki – the direction of normal Ki flow is reversed, leading to hiccups, vomiting, coughing, asthma, liver problems and fainting.

The human energy system (HES) continues on. Beyond the scope of this discussion, we are also surrounded and interpenetrated by a set of subtle bodies.

The first of these is the “etheric body,” an almost exact replica of the physical and its template. Another subtle body is the “astral” which relates to feelings and their expression and the influence of our emotions. Each of these spiritual bodies vibrates at a higher rate than the previous one. However they are not to be understood in linear fashion, but more in the sense of expanding and connected fields. The “mental body” of course deals with the energy of thought, creation, invention and inspiration. Lastly, there is the “causal” or “spiritual body.” This obviously relates to our soul and higher Self, and is a divine template. (Gerber 23-31)

As you can see, so much more is going on to create the physical body and enable it to function. So much more is also going on to make our mind and feelings function. Consciousness is not only a mechanical firing of electrochemical signals, but an energy of its own. And a whole lot is going on to make our soul a part of physical existence.

In light of this information, energetic wellness takes on new meaning. It becomes a priority, vital to health, prevention, wholeness and a life of fulfillment.

Reiki as a Healing Art

Reiki is organized, orderly Ki. It is intelligent, compassionate and wise. There is a harmony to it.

Reiki is not dependent on the practitioner’s ability to sense disruptions in the energy or Ki field of the recipient to diagnose their energy flow and patterns. There is no need to direct or manipulate the energy, and no need to “correct” in any way.

Reiki treatments are gently balancing and support the wellbeing of the recipient in a holistic and individualistic way. Relaxation, pain relief, physical healing, reduced emotional distress, mental acuity, and a deepened awareness of spiritual connection are commonly reported benefits.

Reiki:

• dissolves stagnant ki
• eliminates deficient ki
• balances rebellious ki
• tones sinking ki
• neutralizes incompatible energies
• re-balances the human energy system
• flows healingly through both the meridians and the nadis
• addresses the recipient at a causal level, not masking symptoms

Reiki offers a direct link to starting and growing an energetic relationship with yourself in the deepest, most meaningful sense. What is interesting about Reiki is that it runs the entire energetic spectrum, from life energy to spiritual energy. It is both the chi (ki) of the meridians, webbed out more on the surface of our body, and the prana­ of the chakras and nadis, webbed in the more nonphysical aspect of our being.

Reiki treatments are richly nutritive to body, mind and soul, and help one to make the changes needed for optimal living. With so much at stake, an experienced and sensitive practitioner is essential.

The word “practitioner” does not only mean one who practices Reiki on others, but more significantly, one who practices Reiki as part of their personal spirituality.

Find a Reiki healer who is not merely using techniques, but comes from the sincerity of inner understanding, who embodies the sacred space needed for true change and wellness to take place. The healing relationship you will have with this practitioner is based on trust and mutual resonance. There needs to be trust in the process also.

A remarkable feature of Reiki is that it creates access to your own answers, insights and revelations. It is second to none in receiving your own spiritual and healing information. Your commitment level to your own growth and healing is vitally important. Personal growth and healing occur in an environment of partnership, cooperation, discipline and real willingness on your part to better some aspect of yourself. It takes courage to embark on a journey of self-development and many twists and turns are common. Hurdles and obstacles do come up. Open communication is the best way to move your inner work ahead and succeed.

Reference books:

A Practical Guide to Vibrational Medicine: Energy Healing and Spiritual Transformation

Richard Gerber, MD

Radical Healing: Integrating the World’s Great Therapeutic Traditions to Create a New Transformative Medicine

Rudolph M. Ballentine, MD