REIKI
Reiki is an alternative therapy. Reiki is faith healing. Reiki is a form of spiritual healing.
In the West, Reiki is practiced very much as a form of complementary medicine, where practitioners give Reiki ‘treatments’, though with Reiki it is also possible to treat yourself, which cannot be done easily or comfortably by people who practice, for example, Indian Head Massage or Reflexology! Reiki is largely seen as an oriental version of spiritual healing, based on the laying on of hands and the channeling of a form of energy, or a “spiritual” energy, and this energy can also be used for the benefit of the practitioner.
When Reiki was taught by its founder in the 1920s in Japan, what was being taught was a spiritual path, a self-healing method, a path to enlightenment, so Reiki has certainly gone through an interesting journey during the last century, to end up now being presented to the world as a treatment technique, and we will find out how this happened later.
So most Reiki practitioners will treat other people, they will treat themselves, and they will also follow a simple set of ‘rules to live by’ that were set down by Reiki’s founder, Mikao Usui. The system was made available to people from different religious backgrounds, so you do not need to be a Buddhist, or a Christian, or follow Shinto, or have any religious beliefs, in order to benefit from the teachings and the practices. Reiki is ‘neutral’. Reiki is all about moving more into a state of balance on all levels, achieving more balance in your life. Moving into a state of balance may involve the resolution of some health problems, it may involve a change in beliefs and attitudes, it may involve making decisions that have been put off or ignored for a long time, and a realisation of one’s true values and priorities in life. Reiki is all about change: change for the better, finding out what is right for you in your life and making decisions to move you closer to what is right for you.
The successful practice of Reiki involves committing some time, regularly, to invest in yourself through working with energy to achieve more of a state of balance. The beneficial effects of working with Reiki develop over time, they build cumulatively, and the positive changes that you can experience through working with Reiki are governed by your commitment to working with the system. You invest in yourself and you reap the benefits.
Learning Reiki does not mean that you are committing yourself to becoming a Reiki practitioner, and many people who learn Reiki do so because they are looking for some benefits for themselves, and they are looking to be able to do something to help their friends and family members as alternative therapy for health. Some people take Reiki First Degree and stop there, though most people seem to go on to second Degree level. How far you progress with the system is up to you, and how much time you invest in working with Reiki is up to you.
What Energy?
The energy that Reiki practitioners work with – when they treat other people and when they treat themselves – can be referred to as ‘chi’, which you may have heard of. When you visit an acupuncturist they use needles to encourage energy to flow through a series of meridians or energy channels that run the length of your body; that energy is called ‘chi’. You may have heard of a Japanese massage technique called Shiatsu, which uses finger pressure on acupuncture points to achieve a similar effect; the Japanese adopted the Chinese view of the body’s energy system. You will probably have heard of Tai Chi (or maybe Chi Kung or QiGong), a graceful system of exercises that are designed to build up, or cultivate, your personal reserves of this energy, and the graceful movements that you make serve to circulate this energy smoothly throughout your body, breaking down any blockages and bringing things into balance on all levels. The energy is seen as animating all living things.Alternative therapy
If we move from China to India, the same energy is referred to as ‘PRANA, and breathing exercises and yoga techniques have been developed to again bring your energy system into balance. In India they do not think in terms of meridians, but of Chakras and Nadis: larger and smaller energy centers located throughout your body, the most well-known seven of these running from the crown of your head to the base of your spine. The intention with all these energy techniques is that if you can harmonize your energy system, you are putting your body in the best possible position to heal itself on all levels: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. In fact, the Chinese view is that chi not only flows through your body, but surrounds and engulfs you. For example, feng shui has been developed as a way of arranging your living environment to allow for the smooth flow of chi around you, eliminating areas where stagnant chi might accumulate.
