The Five Principles of Reiki

These are the five principles that Dr. Usui created.

These principles are daily guidelines to a happy life. I would highly recommend everyone make an effort to follow them.
Reiki practitioners strive to live by these principles.

These are not commandments, these are guidelines.
Reiki students are told to meditate on each meaning. I will share a little of my meditations on the meaning of each principle here.

Just for today:

I will let go of anger

I will count my many blessings

I will do my work honestly

I will be kind to every living creature

I will let go of worry

Anger and worry are negative vibrations. These two emotions will attract more negativity to us. Very few want negativity to surround us. Letting go of worry will give us room to create the good we want. Anger is a poison we give ourselves. Actually, worry is a poison too. Both anger and worry, will only bring more issues which will make us angrier or more worrisome.

I will count my many blessings. So many of us more often than not focus on the bad things that happen to us. We concentrate on worry or anger and not our blessings. We really need to change this. We are so blessed, we are alive, we have amazing technology that will allow us to connect instantly with family far away, we have more knowledge available to us than ever before. Also, this is rarely mentioned, but when we have a bad moment or stressful situation…. these are truly blessings, they teach us how strong we are. It may also be a way to get us to do what we are meant to do, but don’t want to.

Being kind to every living creature. Why are we not doing this anyways?! Why must this be a principle? Is humanity so full of itself that we don’t see the value in the other lifeforms we share this planet with.

I will do my work honestly. This is one of the harder principles. Each practitioner needs to decide what this means to them. To me, in my practice it means I won’t over charge my clients. I will not half-ass, any job that I have been hired to do.

What do you think of these principles?
Will you strive to follow them?

 

What is Reiki?

Reiki is Universal Energy, or Universal Life Force. Simply stated, Reiki is energy.

Rei means Universal, Omnipresent, and has been said to mean the Wisdom of God.

Ki means Energy, Life Force, and has been said to mean the non-physical vitality that gives life.

Rei Ki in Japanese

Depending on the practitioner this energy comes from the Universe, the Creator -or Creative Source, God, or whoever the practitioner believes in.

What does Reiki do?

As I’ve stated various times, we are energy. When our energy is low or unbalanced, because of stress, depression, or just tired you will be open to illness and disease. You also become negative -it’s hard for you to see the good in anything, anger, complaints and general negative outlook- will be all you speak of. A Reiki session will give us not only the energy we need to be whole again, but will also give us a positive outlook again.

 

Where did Reiki come from?

Reiki has always been around. Its energy has been used to heal and assists thousands of years before Buddha or Christ. It’s known by many names like Chi in China, Prana in Asian cultures, even within the Christian community energy is known as the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost.

The name Reiki was fashioned by Dr. Mikao Usui, a Japanese scholar in the end of the nineteenth century. Dr. Usui was born into a family of Zen Buddhist practitioners (11 generations), as a young man he contracted an illness and was close to death. During his hospitalization he decided to follow in his family’s footsteps and joined a Zen monastery.

He studied the ancient Sanskrit and Sutras. After many years of study, he found ancient references of a form of healing the symbols, formulas and methods. He had the book knowledge, but not the wisdom or experience of this ancient form of healing. He decided to take some time away from the monastery and meditate alone. He gathered 21 pebbles and went up the mountain side to meditate, read the Sanskrit, fast, and pray. Each day he tossed on of the pebbles he’d gathered.

On the last day, he asked God to show him the light. A bright light came towards him rapidly and hit him in the center of the forehead. He was knocked unconscious; it’s said that while he was knocked out he saw the symbols he’d read of. When he regained consciousness, he ran down the mountain. He stumbled and cut his toe. As he tried to hold the sore toe, he noticed that the pain disappeared instantly.

Before returning to the monastery, he stopped to eat. After fasting for 21 days, a full meal would cause stomach pains but he was able to eat without any pains. The girl who served him was suffering from a toothache, he asked permission to place his hands on her, and was able to remove the pain. This was just the first of Dr. Usui’s healings.

Dr. Usui began healing beggars and helping them find work. When he found the same people begging again, he realized that healing the physical was not enough, and the spirit and mind also needed healing. He also created the The Five Principles of Reiki after this.

The rest of Dr. Usui’s life was spent healing, teaching, and developing Usui Shiki Rhoyo, a method that has no religious dogma or religious beliefs. This allowed Reiki to be a universal form of healing.

*This post has become long enough, I’ll give more info another day about how Dr. Usui’s teaching were taught, and lineages.

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