Learning Reiki

In exceptional cases involving some gifted and unusual people, I have seen people access the Reiki energy by praying for it or asking their Guides or Deity to help them acquire the gift. Many people have a gift for running healing energy similar to Reiki, putting their hands on those who need healing and letting the energy flow; I embrace them as healing brethren and welcome them to read as much here as they can to increase their knowledge of hands-on healing. However, most people who want to use the Reiki for hands-on healing need to be attuned.

One of the beauties of Reiki is that you don't need to have an exceptional gift or be a saint or enlightened being to open to it and use it. You can be attuned to Reiki and use it whether or not you smoke, drink, eat red meat , swear, or enjoy a healthy sex life. Children can be attuned to Reiki. I have even attuned a seeing-eye dog to Reiki. Receiving Reiki can help anyone do the healing s/he needs to do in order to progress along his/her spiritual path. Well I know that even Reiki Masters can have a lot of growing left to do!

So after you have read what I have to say on this site, checked out some of the other Reiki sites we link to, and perhaps even read one or two of the suggested books, and have decided, "Yes, I want to do this," the next step is to find a Master to study with.

Some of the Reiki sites on the net have lists of Masters with their email addresses. You may find that a Master in your area has a site on the net. You can go to the metaphysical bookstores in your area and ask about Reiki Masters. In my city, there are two magazines that have classified ads for metaphysical services. You can write to Reiki people you meet on the net to ask about Masters in your area. If you can find two or three names, even better.

Then you interview these people. It is very important to feel comfortable with your teacher and to know that the two of you communicate well with each other; by this I mean that if you ask a question, you get an answer to that question that you understand. Some of the nicest people in the world can be on two different wavelengths, and it would be hopeless for them to try to work as student and teacher.

Some things to ask about are:

How long they have been doing Reiki and how long they have been teaching it. Longer isn't necessarily better, but it does speak of more experience.

What drew them to Reiki. You can get a feel for the level of joy, reverence , dedication, and spiritual awareness this person brings to his/her teaching with this question.

Lineage: who trained this person, and who were they trained by? If someone in the lineage has written a book, it might be worth your while trying to read this book to get an idea what has been passed to the Master you are thinking of training with. If a Master tries very hard to persuade you that theirs is the only "correct" or "pure" lineage, explore your feelings about this; maybe it gives you a sense of security, or maybe it makes you wonder about their general level of acceptance of others.

Price: You can figure out a lot about a person's motivations with this question. It is one of the bugbears of Western Reiki. Some people believe it is a departure from the Reiki teachings to charge a price lower than that charged by Mrs Takata. Some people believe it is sacrilege to charge anything at all for what is essentially Spirit. Then there are many different shades of compromise in between, where sincere and well-meaning people have come up with their own ways of dealing with the principle that energy should be exchanged. It is worth asking if the Master will allow you to pay over time, or to exchange services for all or part of the fee. Find someone whose level of flexibility and dedication to the principles of Reiki rings true to you.

Logistics: When does this person teach? Is it a time you can make available ? How long will you have to wait? How many hours of teaching do they give for the level you are interested in? How much time to they generally want you to wait to absorb one level before progressing to the next?

If you have strong feelings, positive or negative, about any particular spiritual path, it might be worth asking about the spiritual training of a Master you are thinking of studying with. Reiki is entirely cross-denominational, but if it would make you uncomfortable to study with someone of a given religion, it is reasonable to ask about this.

You can learn a lot by asking how a Master feels what they offer is different than what others offer.

It is well worth asking if Masters will let you come to meet them and/or feel their energy before you commit yourself.

Once you feel you have found someone to learn with, ask about reading you should do beforehand, and about the ways you can prepare yourself for an attunement. Everyone will answer this slightly differently. Come to a clear understanding of what is suggested and how much of this you feel capable of doing.

Go to your class and be prepared to have your life change.

In the class, you will receive the attunements (some Masters use a single attunement at Level One) and you will be taught the hand positions for a basic Reiki treatment. You may also be taught some basic techniques for looking after your own energy field, such as grounding, centering, and shielding. You will have an opportunity to give the Reiki to someone, and the teacher will help you recognise the flow of Reiki through your hands and encourage you to perceive how it effects energy flows in the body of a recipient.

Reiki can be learned in a day or a weekend because it is a way of healing that truly doesn't require a lot of thinking or adherence to rules to "get it right." Indeed, the most successful Reiki sessions are those where the healer gets his/her mind and ego out of the way and lets the energy flow where it will.

With time, you will learn to "listen to your hands," for although we teach the basic hand positions to give you confidence that you aren't "missing" anything, your hands will often be drawn to the areas that need the energy. Confidence in this process is something that will be gained with practice.

Once you have taken the class, the real learning begins as you take the Reiki home and use it to treat yourself and others.

After a Reiki attunement, there is a twenty-one day period in which your bodies, both physical and energetic, will become acclimatised to the new energy you are working with.

The physical body has spent years gradually stiffening, collecting blocks, and storing toxins that it wasn't able to eliminate right away. As Reiki runs in your body, it will start releasing some of these blocks. As body cells vibrate at a faster rate, they will expel some of the toxins they have stored. As muscle cells vibrate faster, they will loosen and allow circulation into places it has bypassed for some time. All of this puts new demands on the body's systems of balance.

The cleansing process can take the form of increased elimination: through the bowels, which may loosen, or through mucus, which may increase in the nasal passages, or through the skin, where you may sweat more or slough off more cells. You may feel ungrounded or fuzzy headed occasionally as toxins are expelled into your blood to be removed. Realise that these processes are natural and temporary and that they herald a new level of wellness.

During this time you may also experience detoxication on mental and emotional levels. You may have memories come up to be dealt with and released. You may feel hyperemotional, with mood swings and a return of emotions you thought you had dealt with years ago. Again, this is a natural part of healing. It is like your healing has gone into an accelerated mode for three weeks.

Try to meet what comes with openness and acceptance; you will be healthier in the long run. You will benefit from keeping a journal during this process. It can be very healing to open to your inner wisdom and then let your inner three year old have a tantrum on paper! Observe your emotions with detached compassion and you will learn a lot about yourself and be able to let it go.

You can do a lot of healing while you sleep; your dreams will have a lot to teach you at this time. Consider leaving a notebook by your bed each night and suggesting to yourself that you will remember your dreams. Over the three weeks, you will find your memory of your dreams will improve, and you will have a new and powerful tool on your healing journey.

Some sources suggest that during this time, adjustments cycle through the chakras three times, starting at the root and working up. So you might find that on the seventh day from the attunement, your crown is open wide and you feel a bit ungrounded. Be extra careful with your grounding at this time.

Take very good care of yourself on all levels. Try to eat a healthy diet of mostly grains, fruits and vegetables. Drink lots of water to help flush your body out. Consider filtering your water or obtaining spring water to avoid giving your body more toxins to deal with. If possible, avoid non-essential medications, drugs, and alcohol. Try to extricate yourself from contentious situations and spend some time each day in meditation or quiet, peaceful contemplation. Treat yourself to hot, good smelling baths; not only are they nurturing, but they will help you sweat out the toxins. Don't hold onto any disturbing emotions; try to deal with them and let them go. Continue and maybe turn up the volume on your usual spiritual practice. Feed your soul with beauty: listen to music, engage in any creative hobbies you enjoy, and try to spend some time each day in the healing beauty of nature.

And now you have Reiki to help you through the process. Make a point of giving yourself Reiki daily. If you can't manage a full hour-long session each day, do what you can; I suggest that you put your hands on your body as you fall asleep, asking that the energy will work with you as you sleep. Get plenty of rest.

Indulge your inner children a bit. Fun and laughter are among the best medicines!

Level One of Reiki teaches and enables you to do hands-on healing with the Reiki energy. It is intended as a level where you will do a lot of healing work for yourself and for your friends and family. It is certainly a well-accepted principle of any healing modality that one can only guide others where s/he has gone him/herself, and Mrs Takata stressed that Level One is about self-healing. The commitment here is to use the Reiki to heal into the best one can be. The class should teach you about what Reiki is, how it was discovered, and how one can use it to heal onself and others.

At this level, I also like to teach some basic techniques of personal energy management, such as grounding, centering, shielding, and clearing the aura. It is not a function of the Reiki itself that one picks up "stuff" from clients, but the empathic sort who are attracted to this work can often do so anyway, and it is worthwhile learning how to prevent it in the first place or clean up the effects if the prevention isn't successful.

Level Two gives you some very powerful tools to add to your healing work. The three symbols taught at Level Two include one that concentrates the Reiki energy, one that focuses the energy on the mental and emotional processes underlying illness, and one that allows you to send Reiki across distance and time.

The "Power Symbol" can be used in hands-on or distance healing to focus the energy. The "Mental/Emotional" symbol can be used in both distance and hands-on healing to calm the recipient and to bring emotional and mental material out of cellular memory to be dealt with consciously.

The "Distance Symbol" allows one to contact the higher self of a recipient and send Reiki energy across any distance for that individual's healing. It can also be used to send energy to a specific time and place. Hence, it can be used to send energy to yourself as a child or even in a past life. It can also send Reiki into the future, to an important meeting or event.

Level Three was traditionally the training where one learned how to teach Reiki and pass on the attunements. In recent years, many Masters have begun teaching it as two levels. In the first, which may be called "Level Three" or "Advanced Reiki Training" one is attuned to the Master Symbol and taught how to use it to further amplify the Reiki energy in one's life and in one's healing work for self and others. Later, when one is ready to commit oneself to teaching Reiki, s/he can take the "Master's Training" and learn how to teach and pass attunements.

Traditionally, most Masters would ask a student to wait for a specific period between each of the levels. In this time of accelerated world healing, many Masters are offering Levels One and Two in a single weekend. My feeling is that one gains by having some time to use the energy and feel it at work between levels; also, completing the cleansing process can help one be more open and ready for the next level. But many people are taking the first two levels together and doing very well with them. You will find the way of learning that is best for you.

Reiki is growing and changing as it becomes more widespread in our world. Many of us celebrate this, seeing it as an indication that humanity is growing and changing with it, and becoming better able to run this energy for healing our world. Some people look back to the dramatic physical healings that Usui was reported to have brought about, and are trying to move back to more traditional teachings in search of a "purity" of Reiki that they think might be stronger. This is another situation where I think both sides are sincere and well-meaning in their practice. I prefer to trust that the healing Intelligence we know as Reiki will guide its --and the Reiki community's!-- evolution for the highest good, just as it does in healing the individual. Perhaps it is trying to show us the creative potential that dances at the heart of any set of opposites.

Embracing Reiki is a commitment to your own growth, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. As you progress through the levels, you become equipped to help yourself, then others, then the world community as a whole. The potential of this energy and the work you can do with it is endless.