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The Spiritual Warrior's Guide to Reiki Science, Part 1 By Niamo N. MuidDavis On March 02, 2009
We begin all things in the name of the most ancient entity many know as God and others call other names. As spiritual warriors our purpose is to seek and spear (get) the truth of our lives, spearityouall, rescuing from the castledom of fear, doubt and anger the featherlight yet protectively pure love of which we are made. This guide will briefly focus headlights on the science and art of the healing method known as reiki. We will look at verified, replicable proof that reiki works and is a critical form of selfcare and personalized therapy for human beings. We will also share a sense of the creativity expressed in the actual practice of reiki, as well as highlights from “deep science”—that is, the esoteric and ancient realms of knowledge—that support our understanding of reiki and other energy medicine techniques. This will help the reader to gain a higher appreciation of reiki and other energy medicine techniques such as therapeutic touch, Johrei, Rolfing, and the biblical layingonofhands. As a spiritual warrior I assert that humanity must learn why these forms of healing are now proliferating in the estuaries we call our lives. I hold that if we innerstand (rather than understand) why this shift is occurring, we will more easily flow into fulfilling our most cherished goals and dreams. Along the way, SPEARIT TOOLS will be provided to arm the reader with the essentials of reiki to use for personal growth and innerstanding. History and Usage Rei means healing, spiritual or universal in Japanese, while ki means energy or life force in Japanese. Mikao Usui discovered his ability to help people with healing energy in the late 19th century. After Japan’s horrendous earthquake of 1923, which killed over 100,000 people, Usui helped many people who were physically and mentally traumatized by the event. Awareness of his ability spread throughout the country, and he vowed to share knowledge of his technique to everyone regardless of background. Japan was an extremely stratified society at the time. Yet Reiki has indeed spread like the proverbial wildfire. Reiki appeared in the U.S.A thanks to Mrs.
Hawayo Takata, who was taught the healing art by one of Usui’s longtime practitioners, Dr. Chujiro Hayashi. Takata opened her first “center for healing” in Hawaii in the 1950s. Her students then took reiki to California in the 1960s, where its reputation mushroomed in terms of numbers of persons treated, and trained or “initiated” into the healing art form. Reiki practitioners today are estimated at over one million in number.2 As it grew in popularity, reiki as a healing therapy underwent subtle variations in how it was taught and delivered. Today, each variation carries a different name based on its “lineage” or line of teachers, much like the martial arts. These are listed in the last section. This writer, for instance, was initiated into Seichem and Usui Reiki Ryoho. Seichem or SKHM is a form established by Patrick Zeigler, while Usui Reiki Ryoho means Dr. Usui’s Healing Art and is based on the original form taught by Dr. Usui. Its distinguishing feature is the use of the hands to send energy from practitioner to a client to improve health and wellbeing. Reiki is practiced primarily to reduce pain and stress, and some practitioners use reiki to improve the nutritive value of food and drink, cleanse the environment, and resolve conflict. There is unlimited application for reiki healing—from pets to world peace. As a spiritual warrior this writer maintains that the personal and family use of reiki is infinitely more important than its application for global use; this is how Usui began as well. The holism of reiki as a healing therapy is strengthened when practitioners use it to heal themselves first, before taking it to the wider realms of community and global healing. Reiki Elements The Japanese ki of reiki is a word related to the Chinese chi that also appears as qi and is spoken of in martial arts and feng shui, In the U.S., reiki is not quite a household word as feng shui is fast becoming. However, awareness of the “flow of chi” is rising throughout the West. Chi must have free rein in and around one’s physical space if there is to be prosperity and happiness. Chi flows through the body to promote health as in qi gun, the powerful breathfocused exercise system from China (called kiko in Japan). The postures of these arts and symbols representing their essence are visible on the temple walls of Kmet (ancient Africa), and still practiced among many people in Africa. Indeed, there are counterparts to reiki among almost all of the world’s cultures. Physical and fitness healing arts are therefore much older than the handhealing movement started by Usui. His first students actually called his method reiki teate or handhealing, and reiki or spiritual healing energy was a generic concept in Japan before this time. The thought pattern that motivates reiki practitioners is important to appreciate before getting into the mechanics of what it is and how it is done. Dr. Usui identified five principles that healers should live by, and advised his students to repeat them daily. Daily Reiki Prayer Five Principles Just for today, I will not anger. Just for today, I will not worry.
Just for today, I will do my best. Just for today, I will appreciate all my blessings. Just for today, I will be kind to everyone I meet. Scholars believed he adapted this creed from Health Principles, written by Dr. Bizan (or Miyama) Suzuki (1915). His advice in that book is: "Just for today, do not anger (others), do not fear, work hard, be honest, and be kind to others.” There are many variations of the five principles because the training of reiki workers was oral; the techniques used were not written down. Dr. Usui wanted people to focus on and develop their ability to heal by applying their skills and practice their learning while they worked on people. The principles kept the focus on having the right state of mind and compassion for one’s reiki gift and ability to help people. Japan was primarily Shinto and Buddhist when Dr. Usui received his calling, and a society infused with these belief systems may well have influenced the choosing of these principles to guide practitioners. Christianity was banned but missionaries were present, and during Usui’s lifetime the ban was lifted. There is a “history” readers may come across that says Usui was a Christian who sought to heal like Jesus Christ, and searched the world for techniques to learn how to do so. Because Usui’s own writings have finally been translated into English in recent years, this story has been declared untrue. What is corroborated as true is that he always displayed a seeking spirit, for a time was a Buddhist monk, and researched and studied several Asian healing systems over many years. It was after this that he developed his center for healing to train anyone wishing to learn. The details are provided in the appendix, as part of the excerpt from one of Usui’s main teaching handbooks, Usui Reiki Ryoho (Dr. Usui’s Spiritual Healing Method). In the book Reiki Hawayo Takata's Story (Haberly), we are given insight into the historical underpinnings of the commercial versus socioeconomic aspects of providing reiki medicine as a practice. "Before she left Tokyo [Mrs. Takata] asked Dr. Hayashi one question which had been bothering her. In all those months at the clinic she had never encountered one poor person no shabby patients, no laborers so she asked if he refused to treat such people. He laughed replying, that since this was a very good question, he would answer it. He told her that all those who entered his door were upper class, even titled, people of wealth, education, and intelligence. When they were ill, they could afford the best doctors and the best hospitals, but they sought more than surgery and drugs. They had Reiki consciousness, so they came to him. The others did not have this understanding, and when illness occurred, they thought the need was for hospitals and doctors and nurses. If called, he would go, no matter how poor they were, but their beliefs were different, so they did not accept him and this drugless treatment. Here we are presented an essential point—that the practitioner must ask a person if he or she wants to be treated. This is important because new enthusiasts want to provide reiki unbidden to people they think are in need. For the spiritual warrior, therefore, the practitioner’s reciting the principles, “do not worry” especially, is a
reminder to make a considered assessment of a person’s hurt, injury or need before determining whether reiki can help. Even after the person has sat down or got on a table to lay down for a treatment, reiki practitioners invariably ask once more, “May I touch you?” or something similar, unless it is predetermined that reiki will be provided without touching at all (which is still effective). SPEARIT TOOLS • Reiki medicine is excellent for traumatized individuals • Some practitioners venerate Usui and Takata as the icons of reiki • Usui advised his students to recite and live the Five Principles for success • Reiki is for anyone who thinks it may help It must be said here that no one with a therapeutic reiki practice believes he or she is a “healer” per se. Yet we who wish the best for our fellow human beings are healing entities by virtue of our thoughts and intentions, despite what society has taught us. This is incorrectly construed to mean someone must be perfect if he or she claims to be a healer. As in every other area of life, however, growth and development continue no matter what pinnacles are reached. Practitioners take “heal thyself” to heart. They realize that as a universal, spiritual force of life, reiki is from the Creator, God, or whatever that thing is that reflects a person’s understanding of the most minute or greatest entity that makes life possible. Reiki issues from that, and each practitioner is a conduit or channel for the flow of it. The fulltime practice of reiki must be viewed then, not through the practitioner’s eyes, but through the eyes of the person seeking help. As such, it is a choice when that person is at a crossroads and one sign says, “Here, take this pathway to an alternative approach to improving your health and wellbeing.” Meanwhile, the more familiar routes to combating illness and disease, the signs pointing toward the hospital or personal doctor or clinic, are not abandoned. Many practitioners work with physicians as part of integrated medicine, a contemporary approach to maintaining wellness that incorporates holistic health modalities and allopathic medicine. Reiki practitioners or healers earn degrees of designation by affiliating with reiki teachers or schools. All use some form of attunement, alignment or initiation process to open the initiate’s own energy centers and channel the teacher’s reiki into him or her. Most schools recognize at least three levels of reiki practice, with the third level, the advanced, teaching or reiki master level that allows one to teach others. Mrs. Hawayo Takata created the “master” designation as a way to imprint her role in transmission of the healing art to future generations. In doing so she not only secured her role as a woman in what is normally a male province, that is, U.S. healthcare, she also established a system that is selfgenerating, respectful and purposeful. A reiki master becomes such by taking and passing the thirddegree course as developed by Takata. In other words, the designation “master” means the person has attained mastery of the “final” reiki form and may or may not be indicative of his or her healing. A reiki master designation says a person is striving to master life, not that he or she has.
The master’s level course was very expensive in the beginning, since Takata wanted reiki to be respected just as Western medical techniques were. She therefore charged dearly to train others, $10,000. Whether or not this gave reiki a higher status among people is open to speculation. There are no reiki masters as such in Japan among the lineage of Usui’s students; the usual term is simply “teacher.” Contemporary reiki teachers or masters from North America, Europe, and Australia are evidence of the evolution of reiki from traditional alternative health modality to an important public health movement, and this is Takata’s legacy that cannot be denied. As it happened, owing to the widening net of reiki pracititioners during the 1960s and ‘70s, the balance between the method being exclusive or accessible was met. In the past three decades, training for the master’s level conducted by Takata’s students or her lineage has become much more affordable. Author's Bio: Niamo Nancy MuidDavis has been a powerful, energetic force all her life. She saw healing colors and beings and influenced situations before she could articulate them. She translated her visionary experiences into a BA in both art and communications (Chapman University) and a master’s in city planning (Pratt Institute). While a high school senior she held the first Essence magazine depicting beautiful black women in her hands, bedazzled. She imagined herself working for them and forgot about it. Four years later she got her dream job as the youngest Essence editor, fresh out of college. Niamo traveled the world, augmenting her biblical, yoga, meditation and Sufi studies. Fast forward to Submission (Islam) in 1977. She felt only a creator of the universes could have sent the Quran. Later, she wrote columns and books advocating Islamic spirituality. Visit spiritualwarriorsguide.com for more. The HealMobile came to Niamo during one Ramadaan, as a way to purify herself while heightening her service. The HealMobile thus expresses holistic healing and spiritual culture simultaneously. Niamo gives Friday sermons now (only a handful of women do globally) and is a leadership facilitator, nonprofit board member, AllLove (reiki SKHM) enthusiast and African Medicine Woman. Source URL: http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/The_Spiritual_Warrior_s_Guide_to_Reiki_Science_Part_1.html