How the Confluence of These Two Eastern Disciplines Holds the Key to Healing Your Inner Traumas and Living a More Balanced Life
Begin to Train Yourself to Heal, Love, Relax, and Master Your Life Energy to Experience Unbound and Abundant Happiness
Reiki (pronounced as RAY-KEY), the Japanese word is a combination of Rei and Qi. Rei means Universal and Qi is Life Force. Life Force is the key principle on which the practice of Reiki is based. Life force is a concept which is almost ubiquitously found in all eastern cultures. The Japanese call it Qi, the Chinese Chi and in the yogic practices of India, it is called Prana. This life force is an energy which is present in every living being. In essence, it is this energy which, when it enters the flesh, gives life.
Ask yourselves a question. Science states that we are alive because the heart pumps blood to the body. If it will stop, life will cease to exist and we are dead, yes? No other reason. Now have a critical look at this. If the heart is just an organ designed to pump, then what enables it to start pumping inside the womb of a mother? And if its job is to continue pumping, then why in cases of natural death, it just stops pumping? No ailment, no heart attack – it just stops pumping. Scientifically it should continue pumping, for as long as some external event causes it to stop – like a disease or a heart attack. And yet it stops.
Eastern practices define this as the release of prana or Reiki from the body.
The practice of reiki understands this Reiki energy ending enables a practitioner to channel it and transfer it from one body to another. It is not the transference of the complete life energy but part of it, usually for a purpose. Reiki practitioners, called Reiki Masters, use this transfer of energy to heal a person from physical or emotional pain.
To be able to harness the healing powers of reiki, we need to take a deeper look at Reiki.
What is Reiki?
As described, Reiki is the universal life force which flows within any living being and synchronizes itself with the energy of the universe. This energy is neither created nor destroyed. The moment of the birth of a being is the time Reiki flows into its body, and at death, the Qi leaves the body and aligns itself with the universe. Unlike the Chinese Chi, it is not negative or positive, no yin and yang. This energy is the sum of all of those and is only positive. In its most basic form, Reiki is pure, abundant, and unconditional love.
Reiki can be channeled and transferred from one body to another. To understand this better, let me explain with a story. I was 5 and was finally big enough to start playing outside. One evening, I was playing in the yard and, while running after a friend, I stumbled upon something and fell down. My knee got scratched and it hurt even more. Today I would brush it off, but as my first injury, it was major. I started crying. My mother came rushing out and held me in her arms. She checked to see if there was a major injury. Not finding any, she called it a BooBoo and put her and on my knee. She said it won’t hurt anymore. And she hugged me real tight. I stopped crying and was playing again in another 10 minutes.
You would say that perhaps the hurt wasn’t much to begin with, but that hug and that touch did something. It made me instantly feel better. On some basic level, she transferred her reiki inside me. We all have had such incidences, go back to them and think. You will realize the power of that moment.
In fact, in hugs, we occasionally transfer our positive and healing Reiki to the other person. Nobody gives a dead hug.
And the practice of Reiki enables the master to channel the reiki inside of him/her and transfer it to another person to heal someone. This energy is ideally to remain flowing inside our bodies and align with the universe at all times.
We all have this reiki to heal ourselves and others, but the lifestyles of man have become detrimental to the flow of this energy. And now, we almost all live with blocked reiki in a state of hollow existence.
The common lifestyle habits that lead to the diminishing and blockage of energy are:
Bad Diet
No exercise
Alcohol and Drugs
Bad habits
Stress
Bad sleep habits
Bad breathing habits
The concept of reiki has existed since the ancient wisdom, but the knowledge was rediscovered by Dr Mikao Usui. Reiki understands the 7 chakras, which are centers of the 7 kinds of energies. Each of these charas correspond to the different aspects of our physical and mental health. I have covered it in detail in the blogpost on chromotherapy. You can check it here.
The blockage of these Chakras automatically leads to maladies in the body. Reiki can be used to reopen the blockages at these chakras. Once the reiki energy permeates the body, and the chakras begin to become unblocked, the toxins are automatically removed from the body. This brings the body back into a holistic state by bringing the body back into a balanced state.
Though the mastery of Reiki requires discipline and practice, a beginner’s step is how the mind opens to the understanding of reiki and its universal energy.
For this, I suggest an exercise that you can practice daily or when required to superficially balance your chakras.
Simple Exercise to Unblock the Chakras Using Reiki
Sit on a mat in a quiet place with natural light. And close your eyes. Keep your palms on your knees and your spine erect.
Take a deep breath and exhale gently while curving your lips and saying Om.
You do not need to deliberately slow down your exhale. Just make it gentle and you have to prolong the O while the M will come as your exhale ends.
Repeat 5 times and with every exhale empty your mind of thoughts.
Thoughts will occur. Do not punish your mind for it. Just gently acknowledge your thought and release it out of your mind.
During these breaths, focus on the life energy inside you. The breathwork that you are doing is designed to automatically stir the prana.
As your mind stabilizes, continue to breathe with the Om chant and focus your reiki on the specific chakra which you feel is blocked.
Channel your energy onto the chakra and feel it healing. Feel the glow of the chakra in its natural color.
As you continue to focus your energy, feel the glow on the chakra increase. As it releases the toxins and unblocks.
When you feel the right moment, bring your focus back to the breaths and the Om chant.
Take 5 breaths and bring your consciousness back. You can now open your eyes
This beginner’s exercise will help you begin to understand reiki or prana and help you to channel it. As you progress further, you can channel it into other people with your hands to unblock their chakras or areas of imbalance.