FIVE PRINCIPLES OF REIKI

Just for today, do not worry.
Just for today, do not anger.
Honour your parents, teachers, and elders.
Earn your living honestly.
Show gratitude to everything.

Dr. Mikao Usui

Reiki is a Japanese word that means "Universal Life-Force-Energy". The "Ki" part is the same word as Chi or Qi, the Chinese word for the energy which underlies everything. Reiki is a system for channeling that energy to someone for the purpose of healing. Dr. Usui, a teacher or perhaps dean of a Christian school in Japan, discovered it in the late 1800's.

Reiki, an ancient healing and harmonizing therapy is rapidly becoming recognized among health practitioners as a safe and highly effective complementary therapy to all other forms of health care.

Reiki treatment usually lasts for about thirty to ninety minutes. The Reiki practitioner places his or her hands gently and passively on pre-decided locations in a proper sequence on the body, usually beginning at the head. Each position is held for at least three minutes.

Reiki flow could be experienced by anybody and everybody in the form of a tingling, warmth. Sometimes, the Reiki practitioner's hands get so hot that one would feel that he is suffering from fever. Those familiar with meditation say that they enter a deep meditative state. The thoughts in the mind are reduced and the mind calms down, breathing becomes slower and deeper and a feeling of well-being and a better sense of awareness is attained.

Reiki leads to reduction in the stress levels by inducing a deep relaxed feeling. One and a half hour of a Reiki session would be equivalent to three to five hours of sleep. Reiki leads to an increase in general vitality and a sense of inner peace and harmony. It greatly accelerates the healing process, and reverses the organic damage and is capable of improving the quality of one's life to a considerable level. Reiki cannot be learnt from a book or by instruction. Just like yoga, it has to be learnt from a properly initiated Guru or Reiki Master. Reiki is a spiritual discipline and has to be taken seriously by whoever who wants to learn and practice it. Once you are initiated, you become a Reiki healer for yourself and for others. That is the best advantage of Reiki.

In some of the healing by hands techniques, like pranic healing and spiritual healing the practitioner is limited by his own psycho- spiritual development and is often in danger of depleting his own energy in the process of treating others. This does not happen in the case of Reiki. An ancient Chinese saying notes, "You can feed a man for a day by giving him a fish, or you can feed him for life by teaching him how to fish." Initiation to Reiki puts a "spiritual fishing rod" in your hands. You use it by treating yourself and others on a regular basis.

Since the 1970s, when Reiki first began to spread significantly in the Western World, clinical observation has enabled the establishment of a more scientific understanding of Reiki. Although many Masters still prefer to teach Reiki in the traditional manner, others are now adding to the traditional teachings the added insight provided by modern science.