REIKI (continued)
IT WORKS BY relaxing and balancing us, which allows us to reconnect with our true self and the greater universe. Any discomfort or illness (dis-ease) we experience in life can be seen as a lack of balance or a blockage in our energy. The deep relaxation of Reiki allows the blocked energy to flow normally again, restoring our natural health.
Almost anyone can be easily empowered to give Reiki and learn how to use it. Reiki is transmitted mainly through the hands, either by lightly touching the physical body (clothed) or just the aura. It can be given with the recipient in any position, but lying down is most usual and most conducive to deep relaxation. Normally Reiki is given first on the head and front of the body, then on the back (the same with Johrei, though the recipient there is typically seated and the energy is "beamed" from a greater distance, using only one hand). A full-body Reiki treatment usually lasts at least an hour (mine, at least an hour and a half). As with Johrei, Reiki can also be sent through time and space.
The Usui Reiki method involves 3 individual aspects -- identified as Focus, Harmony, Connection -- and a 4th, Empowerment, which incorporates the other 3 as well. I believe these 4 aspects are what allow Reiki to be directed deliberately to each aspect of our being: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.
Historically the Reiki system arose first, with the birth of Johrei about a decade later. It seems to me, the sequencing of these 2 energies may well be applied not only historically, but also at any given time, in treating an individual. I believe the Reiki relaxes and opens us, releasing the toxins, which are then more easily and more thoroughly consumed by the fire of Johrei.
OUTSIDE JAPAN, there has been precious little information about the life of Mikao Usui and his creation and practice of the Reiki healing system, until the very turn of the 21st Century. Now, as we emerge from the Age of Darkness into the Age of Light, a more accurate picture of this history is surfacing, bit by bit. And, as the Piscean Age turns to the Aquarian, hierarchies and authoritarian structures of all kinds are being leveled: the revelation of long-hidden truths is now empowering more and more of us.
Even within Japan, Usui-sensei* and his Reiki healing method have been generally unknown for decades. In recent years, the Reiki being practiced there has been overwhelmingly Westernized Reiki, imported from Germany or America or elsewhere. The one organization with knowledge of historical Japanese Reiki has been the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai ("Usui Reiki Healing Method Society"), whose members have been very secretive. For decades, in fact, the very existence of the Gakkai went undiscovered by the outside world.
In the 1990s, thanks to Reiki Masters Arjava Petter and Chetna Kobayashi in Japan, and Rick Rivard in Canada, many of us learned the location (in Tokyo) of Mikao Usui's grave. We learned of the large memorial stone at the gravesite, inscribed with a history of Usui's life and his Reiki healing method. We believed this stone, which was erected within a year of Usui's death in 1926, to contain the undisputed truth about his life. We also believed that the Usui Gakkai held the deeper secrets of original Usui Reiki. At this writing (January 2003), however, it seems that both beliefs were mistaken.
Through the person of an English Reiki Master, Chris Marsh, we now have access to information directly from a dozen of Usui-sensei's living students (ages 97 to 112 years as of July 2002). Mr. Marsh, in addition to practicing Reiki, is a martial arts expert who has spent a great amount of time in Japan, over a period of many years. Because of this, and because of his facility with the Japanese language, he has achieved access to people not available to other foreigners -- including these Reiki students, who are not associated with the Usui Gakkai.
These students have revealed things about the way Usui practiced and taught Reiki, which are different than current practices in the Gakkai, and seem to be different even than what is known in the Gakkai of the original system. In fact, these independent students have told Mr. Marsh that the Usui Gakkai was not started by Usui himself, as it says on the stone at his graveside; rather, that it was started after his death, by a group of students who were Naval Officers, as a memorial society to honor him (They apparently felt that the honor would be greater if it was believed that the Gakkai was Usui's own creation!)
* Sensei is what Japanese students call their teacher. It means literally, "one who goes before."
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Reiki is very simple to learn, either in person or by distance; |
I'VE BEEN GREATLY blessed to receive information from 2 associates of Chris, 2 other English Reiki Masters: Andrew Bowling* and, most of all, Taggart King. I'm also grateful to a Canadian Reiki Master named Dave King (no relation to Taggart), for sharing some of what he has learned firsthand from other Japanese students of Mikao Usui. First of all, the Usui students who have taught both Chris Marsh and Dave King agree that Usui did not call his method Reiki. He called it simply "my method" or a "method to achieve personal perfection." His students began calling it Usui-Do (a Do is a "Way" of life) or Usui Teate (Teate is "Hand-application"). There is also agreement that it was not primarily a method for healing others; it was about self-healing and spiritual awakening. After that, there is considerable divergence in what was learned by different students. As taught to Chris Marsh, Usui-Do involved some use of the method for healing others; and possibly its most crucial feature was the giving of periodic "empowerments" by Usui, through a procedure called Reiju (which he borrowed from Tendai Buddhism). But, in the form of Usui-Do learned by Dave King, there is no use of the method as a healing treatment, nor was Reiju given. It becomes apparent that, by the time of Usui's death in 1926, there were several (at least) versions of Usui-Do being taught in Japan. It seems that Usui developed great renown as a healer (probably most of all due to his service in the aftermath of the Kanto earthquake of 1923). People would come to him for healing; he would treat them and also give them Reiju empowerment, so they could begin treating themselves. Then, if they became truly interested in learning his method, he would accept them as students (often sharing his own home, according to some sources). His teachings were tailored precisely to each individual, depending on the person's interests and abilities and background. And, naturally, Usui's own understanding evolved over time. So it's no surprise that, when his students began teaching, numerous versions of the method arose. The name Reiki was most likely given by one of Usui's final students, one of the Navy men: Chujiro Hayashi, a medical doctor. He was certainly the one who shifted the focus to the healing of others. He developed Reiki as something akin to a medical treatment. He did exhaustive research and published a manual describing precise hand positions to be used in treating every imaginable condition. * Here's an article written by Andy, about his experiences with Chris and the Japanese students. |
THOUGH HAYASHI WAS almost surely one of the founders of the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai, he was not happy for long as a member. One of Hayashi's students later described the Gakkai as an "Officers' Club" -- and apparently it was a little too military for Hayashi as well. It's also believed that he was unhappy with changes that were already being made to Usui's method. After Usui's death in March 1926, Hayashi and 2 of his fellow Naval officers, Jusaburo Ushida (a.k.a. Gyuda) and Kan'ichi Taketomi, took charge of Usui's dojo and moved it to a different section of Tokyo.
There they supposedly continued teaching exactly what they had learned from Usui, until 1931. Then Hayashi took over, made his own changes, and called it Hayashi Reiki Kenkyu-kai ("Hayashi Reiki Research Center").
Four years later a patient would arrive there who would eventually become the single greatest influence on the way Mikao Usui's "method to achieve personal perfection" would be perceived and used all around the world, at least until the 21st Century.
Hawayo Takata, born in Hawaii (and named for it) in 1900, went to Tokyo in 1935, seriously ill, to have surgery. The story is that she was actually on the operating table when she received an intuition that the surgery was not necessary. In any case, she called a halt to it and was later directed to Hayashi's Research Center. There, she was immediately mystified and fascinated by the sensation of Reiki treatment. In several months she was completely healed. She became a student and later returned to Hawaii.
By 1938, Dr. Hayashi was hearing the drum-beat of the impending War. He was prescient enough to know that Japan would suffer great damage, and was concerned about the survival of the Reiki method. With this in mind, he spent some time with Ms. Takata in Hawaii. He certified her there as a "Master of Dr. Usui's system of Reiki healing." (A copy of the certificate is published in The Spirit of Reiki [Lubeck, Petter and Rand; Lotus Press, 2001].
As with so many other points of Reiki history, there is disagreement over how Mikao Usui came to be called "Doctor." Some say he had received a Doctorate in Literature; others claim that he was given an honorary Doctorate for his work helping victims of the Kanto earthquake.
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