Reiki
Reiki is a gentle, yet powerful form of healing and the benefits are felt on all levels. As a natural healing system, it can benefit everyone, from young babies to adults and is a safe, non-invasive treatment. It can be used alongside other complementary therapies or conventional medicine. Reiki can be given on a treatment couch or sitting in a chair, therefore making it an easy treatment to receive.
Reiki helps the body to reach an inner state of harmony, physically, mentally and spiritually. As well as helping many physical ailments, it can also promote the changing of any negative mental habits, turning these into more positive and productive thought patterns. Once we begin to think more positively, our lives and our health become more positive too.
Treatments with Reiki energy reduce stress within the body, thereby inducing a state of relaxation. The body can then be allowed to begin the healing process. While stress is not considered an illness, most people have experienced it. When stress is being felt for a prolonged period of time, then the body can begin to be affected both physically and mentally, as it weakens the immune system. However, Reiki can and does help with stress reduction, which has the added benefit of boosting the immune system.
The Reiki Founder
Reiki is believed to have begun in Tibet several thousand years ago. Seers in the Orient studied energies and developed a system of sounds and symbols for universal healing energies. Various healing systems, which crossed many different cultures, emerged from this single root system. Unfortunately, the original source itself was forgotten.
Dr. Mikao Usui, a Japanese Christian educator in Kyoto, Japan, rediscovered the root system in the mid- to late 1800's. He began an extensive twenty-one-year study of the healing phenomena of history's greatest spiritual leaders. He also studied ancient sutras (Buddhist teachings written in Sanskrit). He discovered ancient sounds and symbols that are linked directly to the human body and nervous system which activate the universal life energy for healing.
Usui then underwent a metaphysical experience and became empowered to use these sounds and symbols to heal. He called this form of healing Reiki and taught it throughout Japan until his death around 1893.