The Essence of Healing with Reiki
What is Reiki? It is intangible, invisible, formless, not of the senses, a subtle field of energy, the essence of life, universal life energy.
We experience Reiki by: remaining in the moment, letting go of thoughts, connecting to our breath, acknowledging any and all feelings, allowing ourselves to just be.
Reiki manifests in us as: health, joy, spontaneity, vitality, radiance, contentment, direct action, knowing, life.
Reiki is a meditative art. The treatment pattern is simple, yet sophisticated, for it provides a framework for the practitioner to shift into an active state of being. This state might also be described as an alpha or theta level of consciousness. Anyone can do this practice. In fact, one's meditative abilities are enhanced by the natural energetic connection that occurs between two people during treatments. In Reiki healing you do nothing and achieve everything. Reiki, like many natural healing methods, is a powerful adjunct and sometimes a viable alternative to the chemical/surgical methods developed by the modern rational mind. Each way has its own right place and time.
Healing can be a mysterious process. Each person moves in his or her own rhythm. We want to take care to be open, to allow space for all of our successes and failures and also for the successes and failures of others. At times it may appear as if discomfort and pain are continuing in spite of all one's efforts. In these cases, perhaps some underlying healing process is going on or some deep learning is taking place, temporarily adding tension to the situation. Sometimes it may appear that all discomfort or pain is gone, completely dissolved. At other times it may feel as though we are moving ahead inch by inch, or in a long, slow series of plateaus.
All this, Life itself, is something we freely participate in -- the gathering, storing, amplifying, releasing, and dispersing of life force -- our very nature. Through our own great joy and awareness, effort and discipline, we open to the moment. And in that moment there is only love, power, and healing.
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Chakras:
Energy Centers of the Subtle Body
Traditional Reiki positions broadly correspond to seven major energy centers of the body called chakras, wheels of spinning energy described and mapped out thousands of years ago. There are also many other smaller centers that move and coordinate subtle energy throughout the body. The seven major chakras are often pictured like wheels or lotus flowers originating along the spine. These seven main centers start at the base of the spine with only four spokes or petals and move to the crown with a thousand petals. Each of these centers has its own color and sound, as well as powerful attributes, starting from the bottom up, of instinctual knowing, creativity and sensuality, power and action, love and forgiveness, creative self-expression, intuition, and cosmic consciousness and enlightenment. Described in recent times, the transpersonal heart (the eighth major chakra) is the center of universal love toward all mankind.
The colors of the chakras vary between systems. One chakra system might have green where another has red; this variation may describe different subtle bodies and also reflect unique emotional and mental structures found among people and cultures.
The ancients studied the invisible man in order to comprehend the visible one. The etheric double, an invisible form slightly larger than our body, is believed to rule the physical body. We experience this subtle body as our thoughts and feelings. Clairvoyants, people who can map these unseen worlds, tell us that chakras are etheric centers connecting the different bodies. Acupuncture and other healing systems balance subtle energy with needles, touch, or sound in order to integrate the different levels of our selves and harmonize and restore our nervous systems.
Reiki Training, through attunements, integrates our spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical bodies. Through regular Reiki treatments, we open and purify the chakras and thus revitalize related nerve plexi, glands, and organs. With the science and art of Reiki, we open ourselves even more to the divine flow of universal energy.
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Reflections on the Written Origins of Rei Ki
Rei ~ the first ideograph is composed of three parts. The first means rain, that which comes from heaven and gives life to our planet. The second represents mouth/breath or prayer/mantra. With our breath and mouths we give voice to our deepest desires and truths. The third signifies king, that which rules, or the ruler or master within each of us.
Ki ~ the second ideograph has two parts. In the oldest known Chinese script, carved on turtle shell and bone, Ki is represented as a monolithic square or cube composed of three horizontal lines equally supported by three vertical lines. For me, this square expresses the simple, profound balance between the energies of heaven and earth, space and time, and other basic dualities. In the seal script style the top appears like a flux of energy (wave) or the ethers, the depicted as a cross with four lines moving toward and away from it. The horizontal line of the cross represents the horizon line of the earth, symbolizing change, giving us our sense of time, and the vertical line represents the moment, in which all space, all beingness, opens up. The cross reminds me of the very heart of matter, the heart of the moment, a space of stillness where all healing takes place. The four lines signify the four directions -- north, south, east, and west -- symbolizing all of creation.
Ki represents energy on the physical plane. Even before modern physics this ideograph had accurately intuited the fundamental nature of energy, which acts both as a particle and as a wave.
The energy source of divine life resides both within and without the physical form.
