Category Archives: reiki symbol

How Can Reiki Symbols Unlock Such Power?

 

The other day a Reiki person mentioned to me that when people use symbols in Reiki, it just seems ridiculous that they can unlock all this power, and she was a bit embarrassed by it all. It seemed to her to be a bit like “Open Sesame!” or “abracadabra”: just foolish and ridiculous that flailing your fingers in the air could create all this cosmic power.

And it does seem strange, doesn’t it? A bit like wizards and incantations and ancient, mysterious, closely-guarded, power-imbued sigils that initiates can use to control and direct natural forces, in our case for good.

So, how can symbols unlock such power?

They can’t.

Attunements don’t attune

The word “attunement” is a very unfortunate one to use to describe the initiations that Reiki people go through in order to practise Reiki. The word “attune” suggests that you are being attuned to something and, since symbols are involved in most attunement rituals, it is also natural to assume that you are attuned to those symbols and that it is the process of being attuned to a symbol that allows you to do the Reiki thing.

And for a long time in the world of Reiki, where the only way that you could be initiated was by going through an attunement, and basically all attunement rituals involved the use of symbols, it made perfect sense to believe these things.

But here’s the thing: Mikao Usui didn’t attune anyone to anything. No rituals, no putting a symbol in your aura or your head or your palms, or any of that paraphernalia, and most of his students never even got to see a symbol. And while he would have his students practise initiating others using a ritual, no symbols entered into that process either.

[Go here for more Reiki symbol heresies]

 

Now, you could take the view of one of the UK’s Reiki associations, where their view of Reiki is so narrow that they believe, in effect, that none of Mikao Usui’s students were properly initiated by him and so wouldn’t qualify for membership of their organisation. I don’t think we need to entertain such silliness.

So, where did ‘attunements’ and the use of symbols within them come from?

Enter the Imperial Officers

By the time that Usui Sensei died, the Imperial Officers – Dr Hayashi and his associates – hadn’t trained with him for long enough to have achieved the sort of level of development where they could have initiated people using intent only.

They had already been taught a variant of Usui’s system that used symbols (because they had approached Usui wanting to be taught a hands-on healing system to use in the Japanese military, whereas Usui was teaching a spiritual/self-development system to the other students) and after Usui’s death they created an initiation ritual that gave them the same sort of energetic experience that they noticed when they were ’empowered’ by Usui.

That constructed ritual used the symbols that they had been taught by Usui, symbols that represented earth ki, heavenly ki and a state of oneness. So Reiki attunements started with, and were invented by, the Imperial Officers.

That ritual passed via Dr Hayashi (who may have altered it) to Mrs Takata, she passed it on to her students, and then the ritual has mutated and altered endlessly as it has been passed from one teacher to another in different lineages, with bits added, bits taken away and parts embellished or simplified. I have seen no mention of Mrs Takata talking about a person having to be ‘attuned’ to a symbol as part of the initiation, nor that one needed to have been attuned to a symbol for it to work for you.

But in any case, from Japan about 20 years ago came details of a ritual that Usui had his trainee Masters use to initiate people into the system. It’s called Reiju, it doesn’t use any symbols, and when that ritual has been used then the recipient can use the Reiki symbols – or any other symbol – to direct and focus the energy.

“Attuning” someone to a symbol is not a necessary step in initiating them into Reiki and does not have to be done to enable a Reiki person to use the Reiki symbols.

So, where does the power of the symbols come from?

It’s all about focus

I don’t know whether you have ever tried this exercise, but if you were to sit at the head of a treatment table and rest your hands on either side of a client’s head, obviously they would most likely feel something happening: usually a sense of heat from your hands, passing into their cheeks or temple. But if you imagine that you have additional pairs of hands cupping behind the person’s head and hovering over the front of their face/forehead, the recipient will usually experience a very different sensation, where the heat increases and envelops their whole head.

If instead you had imagined the extra hands holding onto that person’s ankle, say, then they are likely to experience heat or pressure or some sort of sensation in their foot or lower leg.

What’s going on here?

Well, you are focusing your attention in a particular way and the energy is following your focus and focusing itself where your attention is directed. Where thought goes, energy flows. A gentle but definite, undistracted and mindful focus = increased energy flow.

What’s that got to do with symbols? Well…

Symbols frame your focus

The Reiki symbols are a graphical representation of one aspect of the energy. They provide a visual stimulus that you focus on and which allow you to rest your attention on that aspect of the energy, for example earth ki or heavenly ki.

And just like when you rest your attention on someone’s ankle, and the energy flowed there strongly, when you focus on a symbol you are narrowing the focus of the energy, a bit like focusing a magnifying glass, and things get intense.

If you visit my resources page about Reiki symbols – Focus on the Reiki symbols – you can read more blogs about these issues and discover how any symbol can focus the energy strongly; you can even find out how to create your own, bespoke symbols, to use on yourself and your clients

And if you visit my “Energopsychograms” pages, you can practise experiencing energies derived from abstract drawings too.

You can focus in different ways

Once you are connected to the energy, and now we know how to do that without you having to be “attuned” to a symbol (whatever that means!), there are a whole range of different methods you can use to focus on various aspects of the energy.

Above we spoke about using symbols, bespoke/intuited symbols and other visual images. You can experience the energies of other Reiki systems that use different symbols, without you having to be ‘attuned’ to those symbols. So, for example, my Five Element Reiki system uses five symbols to represent the energies of earth, metal, water, wood and fire.

No-one needs to be attuned to these symbols to use them: you just need to be ‘connected’ to Reiki, and away you go.

In the original system that Usui Sensei taught, most of his students did not see or use symbols. Many were given kotodama – Shinto mantras – to experience different aspects of the energy. They were not “attuned” to these sounds: they just used them as an aid to focus.

The sounds represent different aspects of the energy, you use them, and you elicit a particular energy.

It’s the same with symbols. They represent an aspect of the energy. You focus your attention on them. You elicit that energy.

It’s that simple.

So I agree with the lady who thought it seemed quite nonsensical to imagine that waving your hands about in the air gave you a key to unleash powerful energetic forces. That is ridiculous. When we practise Reiki it’s not about “Open Sesame!” or “acracadabra”. It’s not about learning special, sacred, secret symbols that turn you into some New Age version of Dr Strange from Marvel Comics. We are initiated into a simple and powerful energy healing system that anyone can do, which is based on carrying out meditations and simple energy exercises, it has a long history in Japanese esoteric practices and the symbols are just a useful tool that we can use to aid focus.

Symbols do not bestow mighty cosmic power on us; to think otherwise is fantasy.

 

Did you like this blog?

If so, you are going to love this book…

 

Liberate Your Reiki!

“Whether you are at Level 1, 2 or Reiki Master Teacher Level (regardless of the Reiki flavour you are trained in), this book is very much for you! Within hours of starting to read this book, it has rejuvenated and enriched my own practices with a wealth of information and useful examples too.

The more you read the more you’ll have those wonderful ‘aha’ moments. I know I am already benefiting personally from the knowledge I’ve gained, but so will all my family, friends and clients too. Thank you Taggart for creating this incredible, uniting, enlightening book.”

Heidi Gaffney-Evans

Liberate Your Reiki!

86 Articles About Reiki: One Inspiring Vision

In this Reiki book you will find 80+ articles about Reiki, written by Reiki Master Teacher Taggart King. You will discover how to set your Reiki free, free from the constraints, dogma, rules and regulations of Western-style Reiki courses. Get back to Reiki’s original Japanese method and embrace simplicity, flexibility, creativity and intuition.

This book is suitable for people at all Reiki levels: beginners, those who are developing their Reiki, and Reiki Masters/Master Teachers. You will find advice about self-treatment meditations, energy exercises to build your ability as a channel, you will discover how to work with your intuition and embrace the power of intent.

Explore different distant healing methods and discover the beauty of Reiki’s original Japanese form. Learn how to use creativity and visualisation to enhance your self-treatments and treatment of others, and ditch all the silly rules and regulations that stifle the practice of Western Reiki in many lineages.

Finally, read Taggart King’s “10 Rules of Reiki”, the essential principles for a powerful and fulfilling Reiki practice.

This professionally-printed Reiki manual has 370 A5 pages, a glossy soft cover and we will send it to anywhere in the world!

Read the contents list before you order, if you like, by clicking on this link: Table of contents

Book: 370 pages.

Price: £15.99 + p&p


Or Download a PDF version now for only £12.49

 

 

 

Picture credit: Miriam Espacio

 

 

How to Use Symbols if you can’t Visualise Well

problems visualising reiki symbols

In my blog post A Simple Way with Reiki Symbols I describe a simple meditation method for experiencing the energy that a Reiki symbol (or any other symbol, for that matter) creates. I suggest that you take a quick look at that post before reading on.
 
Using visual images works quite well for probably the majority of people (so it’s a useful first port of call, and all Reiki courses, of course, include symbols at Second Degree and beyond), but there are a fair number of people where it’s not such a good fit.
 
Mikao Usui got round this by using various approaches with his students. One method he used was to teach Shinto mantras called ‘kotodama’, where students used sounds, chanting, to become the energies of earth ki and heavenly ki, and to experience a state of oneness. He taught the kotodama to far more of his students than received the Reiki symbols that are taught routinely in the West. Dr Hayashi was taught the symbols, though, and they were passed on to the West via Mrs Takata.
 
So graphical images are not the only way of experiencing the energies.
 
But let’s see what we can do with the graphics, just for a little while longer…

Many people can’t visualise so brilliantly, anyway!

Many people who aren’t very good at visualising things imagine that people who can visualise can see things in Ultra HD, Technicolor, Panavision, with perfect, infinite detail and fantastic colour resolution. Sadly, that’s not the case! Visual memory is a bit rubbish, really, like the digital images you used to get on the very first mobile ‘phones that came with cameras: grainy and indistinct.
 
So most people who use visual images of the symbols won’t be able to see the images clearly for more than a few moments, and won’t keep the symbols clearly in mind as they experience the energy; rather the image is flagged up there to set an intent about the nature of the energy that you want to channel.
 
Sometimes people will re-draw the symbol if they feel they need to, but most of the time they are just drifting in a meditative state, channelling the energy that they intended to.
 
But it is possible to experience the symbols in more of a ‘physical’ sense. Let me explain…

Feeling a symbol instead of seeing it

Say that you had your eyes shut and you imagined that you were hovering in the air above some railway lines.
 
Even though you couldn’t see them, you could become aware of the physicality of those lines, couldnt you?: their solidness, their density. And if those lines took a sharp turn right below you, or a squiggle, you could become aware of the physical nature of their contours and direction, without having an image come to mind.
 
Try that. Notice what you can feel or sense in a physical way. 

Experiencing a symbol through muscle movements

Also, if you practise drawing out a symbol, quite flamboyantly, using your hand/arm, with a bit of repetition you could remember those movements (your muscle memory) in the same way that you can probably now remember and duplicate the finger-movements that you use when entering your PIN into a card machine at the supermarket or cash machine.
 
There is a physical memory of the movements that you can trigger in your mind. You can almost feel the necessary muscles firing off as you imagine making those familiar movements.
 
Try that now: type your PIN into a cash dispenser in your mind; do that repeatedly. Don’t actually move your real fingers, but experience those movements in a physical way.
 
Notice the messages firing off to your muscles, feel the shape and the movement, the pattern.

Feel that symbol through muscles and density

So if you did those two things: making imaginary hand movements and becoming physically aware of the solidity and contours of a symbol… there you have a way of experiencing a symbol in a non-visual manner.
 
Try that. Put that symbol up there above you, use those muscle movements in your mind, experience the physical density and contours of the symbol, and once the solid, dense contours of the symbol are there before you, have in mind that the energy is flooding down to you from that 3D shape… and let the energy flow.

Over to you

If you have had problems with visualising symbols, why not try this different approach and ‘see’ how you get on. Does this make working with symbols easier for you?

Did you like this blog?

If so, you are going to love this book…

 

Liberate Your Reiki!

“Whether you are at Level 1, 2 or Reiki Master Teacher Level (regardless of the Reiki flavour you are trained in), this book is very much for you! Within hours of starting to read this book, it has rejuvenated and enriched my own practices with a wealth of information and useful examples too.

The more you read the more you’ll have those wonderful ‘aha’ moments. I know I am already benefiting personally from the knowledge I’ve gained, but so will all my family, friends and clients too. Thank you Taggart for creating this incredible, uniting, enlightening book.”

Heidi Gaffney-Evans

Liberate Your Reiki!

86 Articles About Reiki: One Inspiring Vision

In this Reiki book you will find 80+ articles about Reiki, written by Reiki Master Teacher Taggart King. You will discover how to set your Reiki free, free from the constraints, dogma, rules and regulations of Western-style Reiki courses. Get back to Reiki’s original Japanese method and embrace simplicity, flexibility, creativity and intuition.

This book is suitable for people at all Reiki levels: beginners, those who are developing their Reiki, and Reiki Masters/Master Teachers. You will find advice about self-treatment meditations, energy exercises to build your ability as a channel, you will discover how to work with your intuition and embrace the power of intent.

Explore different distant healing methods and discover the beauty of Reiki’s original Japanese form. Learn how to use creativity and visualisation to enhance your self-treatments and treatment of others, and ditch all the silly rules and regulations that stifle the practice of Western Reiki in many lineages.

Finally, read Taggart King’s “10 Rules of Reiki”, the essential principles for a powerful and fulfilling Reiki practice.

This professionally-printed Reiki manual has 370 A5 pages, a glossy soft cover and we will send it to anywhere in the world!

Read the contents list before you order, if you like, by clicking on this link: Table of contents

Book: 370 pages.

Price: £15.99 + p&p


Or Download a PDF version now for only £12.49

 
 
Picture credit: youflavio
 

Energopsychogram for HSZSN (Distant healing)

energopsychogram hszsn hon sha ze sho nen honshazeshonen

So this is my third post in a series, which started with What are energopsychograms?

I have talked about these special images and how they can be meditated upon to elicit a particular energy, just like meditating on a symbol or a sound can frame the energy in a particular way, or produce a particular Reiki frequency that you can experience in a distinctive way.

Energopsychogram meditations

To meditate on an energopsychogram, just sit calmly with the image in front of you. Stare at the image. let it wash over you, defocus your eyes.

Notice the quality of the energy that is being elicited within you. What is the nature of the energy? Where do you feel it? How does it feel. Bathe in the energy fo the image.

HSZSN energopsychogram

The image that you can find at the head of this page represents that which is elicited by HSZSN, often referred to as the distant healing symbol. The symbol does not so much produce a particular energy (like the earth ki and heavenly ki that are elicited by CKR or SHK) but introduces a state of oneness, a merging or disappearing that helps us to focus and send distant Reiki.

Why not carry out a distant healing session by starting with a meditation on the image above. Bathe in its essence for a while and then send Reiki to your intended recipient(s).

Over to you

What do you notice when you use the HSZSN energopsychogram?

How does it differ from distant healing mediated via the corresponding symbol, or the connection kotodama, if at all?

Post your experiences below so we can all see how things went..

 

 

Author:

Energopsychogram for Heavenly ki

energopsychogram shk seiheki sei he ki

In my earlier post, What are energopsychograms, I talked about these special images and how they can be meditated upon to elicit a particular energy, just like meditating on a symbol or a sound can frame the energy in a particular way, or produce a particular Reiki frequency that you can experience in a distinctive way.

Energopsychogram meditations

To meditate on an energopsychogram, just sit calmly with the image in front of you. Stare at the image. let it wash over you, defocus your eyes.

Notice the quality of the energy that is being elicited within you. What is the nature of the energy? Where do you feel it? How does it feel. Bathe in the energy fo the image.

SHK energopsychogram

The image that you can find at the head of this page represents the energy of SHK, which is the energy of heavenly ki.

Why not compare its energy to that of SHK, the symbol. Click to find out how to : Meditate on the energy of a Reiki symbol.

Over to you

What do you notice when you meditate on the energy of the SHK energopsychogram?

How does it differ from the energy of he corresponding symbol, or of the harmony kotodama, if at all?

Post your experiences below so we can all see how the energy manifested itself.

 

 

Author:

What are Energopsychograms?

energopsychogram ckr cho ku rei chokurei

About 13 years ago I was working with a lovely man in Moldova, Benedict Caraush. I was teaching him the Original Japanese Reiki methods and taking him through a distance Reiki Master Teacher course, and he was practising Reiju empowerments on his group of Reiki Master Teacher students.

One of his students had a special ability, a way of representing in graphic form the essence of an energy or an initiation.

This is what Benedict said at that time:

One of this people have the ability to channeling the information on the paper like a drawing – energopsychograma. Some time ago she made for me the energopsychograms for how works Reiki on 1st, 2nd and 3rd degrees when people are attuned Western style (Takata). Next week I hope that she will be able to do the same work for the Reiju for 1st, 2nd and 3rd degrees in order to compare. If you are interested to see it, just let me know and I can scan it when will have it ready and send to you.

Benedict kindly shared with me a whole series of images detailing different energies and in series of blogs I am going to share them with you.

What to do with energopsychograms

You will know by now that I believe that once you are ‘connected’ to Reiki then you can focus the energy in a whole number of different ways. You can use the Reiki symbols, like CKR and SHK, you can use channelled symbols or symbols from other traditions or sources (whether or not you have been ‘attuned’ to them) and you can use sounds, chanted either out loud or in your head.

All these things will frame the energy in a particular way, producing a particular ‘frequency’.

Energopsychograms will do this too, if you meditate on them.

Like carrying out a symbol meditation, meditating on an energopsychogram will elicit a particular energy within you, and doing so is a form of self-healing.

On our Second Degree courses we teach students to meditate, separately, on the energies of CKR and SHK because these symbols represent the energies of earth ki and heavenly ki in Usui’s original system, two fundamental energies, and in doing so you carry out a powerful self-treatment.

Energopsychogram meditations

To meditate on an energopsychogram, just sit calmly with the image in front of you. Stare at the image. let it wash over you, defocus your eyes.

Notice the quality of the energy that is being elicited within you. What is the nature of the energy? Where do you feel it? How does it feel. Bathe in the energy fo the image.

CKR energopsychogram

The image that you can find at the head of this page represents the energy of CKR, which is the energy of earth ki.

Why not compare its energy to that of CKR, the symbol. Click to find out how to : Meditate on the energy of a Reiki symbol.

Over to you

What do you notice when you meditate on the energy of the CKR energopsychogram?

How does it differ from the energy of he corresponding symbol, or of the focus kotodama, if at all?

Post your experiences below so we can all see how the energy manifested itself.

 

 

Author:

Create a bespoke Reiki symbol for your client

bespoke reiki symbol treating clients

Create symbols tailor made for your clients

In my last Reiki article, Create your own bespoke Reiki symbols, I described a simple system that you can follow in order to create a Reiki symbol that provides you with an energy perfectly suited to just what you need in this moment.

And we know that using a symbol has the effect of focusing the Reiki energy like a laser beam, narrowing its focus and boosting its power.

So this would be a useful thing to be able to do for clients too, wouldn’t it, to give them a treatment that uses an energy ideally suited to just what they need in this moment?

Here is how to do that.

Asking some questions of your unconscious mind

Settle yourself at the head of the treatment table, say, and rest your hands on your client’s shoulders. I think it’s nice to start a treatment like this, getting the energy flowing, helping them to bliss out.

Imagine that you are merging with the energy and the recipient. Start to bliss out yourself!

With your attention focused on the recipient, say to yourself ask yourself:

  1. If the energy that this person needs in this moment had a shape, what shape would it be?
  2. If it had a colour, what colour would it be?
  3. If that energy was to be held in a particular part of their body, where would it be held?

Allow the answers to come to you; go with the first thing that comes into your mind.

So now you have, say, an attractive blue 3D spiral that needs to reside in their solar plexus (I have chosen this at random).

Flood your client with this energy

So now you know that the energy your client needs in this moment is best represented for you as a 3D blue spiral that wants to focus itself in their solar plexus.

Now you can start to use this energy and you can do that in two ways (or both).

With your hands still resting on their shoulders…

Imagine that shape in that colour, up in the air above you, representing the source of the energy. Imagine energy of that colour flooding down to you from the symbol above you, flowing through your shoulders, arms and hands, flowing into the client.

Have in mind that the energy is flowing into their solar plexus. Focus your attention there and imagine that the energy is dwelling there.

You could, of you like, imagine that the coloured symbol is actually passing into that location in their body, as that coloured energy continues to flow down to you from that symbol above you.

Or later on during the treatment…

When you get to the torso, rest your hands on or near their solar plexus, or hover your hands over that area, and follow the instructions above: draw down that colour energy from that symbol above you, which flows through your arms and hands, while focusing your attention on and treating the solar plexus.

No good at visualising? No problem

If you’re not so good at visualizing at the moment, focus not so much on the shape of the symbol, but the feel of it, the texture or density: feel the shape rather than seeing it; if you can’t see the colour very well, simply intend or ‘know’ that the shape and the energy has that particular hue.

In doing so, you and embodying the essence of that energy.

As a variation, you might draw the energy to your Tanden as you inhale, breathing the energy out of your hands into its chosen location on the out-breath; experiment and find out what works best for you.

Over to you

What I would like you to do is to go through those three questions when you work on a client or friend or family member, and when you have the answer, channel the energy that comes from that symbol/shape for about 10 minutes into the area of the body where the energy wants to go.

Post a message below to let me know what symbol/colour/location you came up with and how the energy felt, or what your client commented on afterwards. How did it affect them?

Did you like this blog?

If so, you are going to love this book…

 

Your Reiki Workout

“In this comprehensive, informative and fun book, Taggart provides a multitude of detailed, practical exercises and guidance on strengthening sensitivity and intuition. Additionally, and seldom found in other publications, Taggart explores more advanced techniques on how to work with Reiki, and intent, on a deeper level for the benefit of both you and clients. I highly recommend this book to those who have undergone Reiki training and wish to obtain practical answers to deeper questions that may not have been covered in their tuition courses, and to explore their experiences of Reiki at a higher level.”

A Gordon

Your Reiki Workout

Exercises and Meditations to Explore the Wonder of Reiki

This book started its life as a collection of ‘self-help guides’ that focused on: getting started with Reiki, becoming more sensitive to the energy, developing your intuitive side and exploring the use of intent.

What I have done is to take these guides and re-write and expand upon them, so that you have here a practical workbook that you can use over time to explore the potentials that Reiki has to offer.

I have also included all the work that I have done in developing “Reiki synthesis”: a way of using questions, language forms and a breathing technique to create bespoke symbols for yourself and others, and to deal with unhelpful emotions or beliefs. Reiki synthesis focuses specific energies on freeing you from what is holding you back in your life, releases negative emotions and beliefs and creates specific energies to move you forward in the most powerful and positive way.

This book will be of interest to anyone who is interested in exploring and experimenting with the energy and who wants to learn a unique and powerful system for self-transformation.

This professionally-printed Reiki book has 210 A5 pages, a glossy soft cover and we will send it to anywhere in the world!

Read the contents list before you order, if you like, by clicking on this link: Table of contents

Book: 210 pages.

Price: £15.99 + p&p




Or Download a PDF version now for only £12.49

 

 

Author:
Picture Credit: Jacob White

Create your own bespoke Reiki symbols

create tailor made reiki symbols

Create symbols tailor made for you

I have written several articles dealing with Reiki symbols and how you don’t need to be attuned to a symbol for it to ‘work’ for you , and that *any* symbol will frame the energy when you focus your attention on it or meditate on it.

It might be useful if you quickly re-visit these posts because they will help with this article:

So wouldn’t it be great if it was possible for you to create a symbol that framed the energy in just the ‘perfect’ way for you, now, this day?

Wouldn’t it be something if you could use a symbol that gives you just what you need in this moment, in a powerful and profound way, framing the energy in *just* the way that you need, focused like a laser-beam?

Well this is possible and in this article I am going to explain how to do this.

Using the “if” question to create a bespoke Reiki symbol

To create a symbol that will frame the energy in a way that perfectly matches your needs, you can use these three questions, which you ask yourself:

  1. If the energy that I need in this moment had a shape, what shape would it be?
  2. If it had a colour, what colour would it be?
  3. If that energy was to be held in a particular part of my body, where would it be held?

Allow the answers to come to you; go with the first thing that comes into your mind.

So now you have, say, a green star that needs to reside in your abdomen (I have chosen this at random).

Now use the symbol that you have been given

Rest your hands in your lap, palms up, close your eyes and take a couple of long, deep breaths to release any stress and tension.

Imagine that shape in that colour, up in the air above you, representing the source of the energy (this is just like the symbol meditations that we teach on the Reiki Evolution Second Degree course). Imagine energy of that colour flooding down to you from the symbol above you, focusing/drawing the energy into that part of your body (in this example, the abdomen).

Feel the energy in that location and allow that colour to flood through your whole body.

Experience that energy for a few minutes.

You could, of you like, imagine that the coloured symbol is actually passing into that location in your body, as that coloured energy continues to flow down to you from that symbol above you.

No good at visualising? No problem

If you’re not so good at visualizing at the moment, focus not so much on the shape of the symbol, but the feel of it, the texture or density: feel the shape rather than seeing it; if you can’t see the colour very well, simply intend or ‘know’ that the shape and the energy has that particular hue.

In doing so, you and embodying the essence of that energy.

As a variation, you might draw the energy to your Tanden as you inhale, breathing the energy to its chosen location on the out-breath; experiment and find out what works best for you.

Why do I ask “If…”?

You are asking your subconscious mind a question about the best way to represent the energy that you need and this works best if you don’t put too much ‘pressure’ on your mind to come up with the goods.

If you said “what shape is the energy I need” your unconscious might have some performance anxiety and start fretting about things, essentially saying “what do you mean what ‘shape’… I don’t know, that’s difficult, how am I supposed to know that, what do you mean “shape”?… don’t hassle me”.

By framing the question in terms of “if…” you are taking the pressure off.

It’s as if you’re saying to yourself “I’m not saying that this energy does have a shape… but if it did, what would that shape be? No pressure.”

Over to you

What I would like you to do is to go through those three questions and when you have the answer, meditate on the energy that comes from that symbol/shape for about 10 minutes.

Post a message below to let me know what symbol/colour/location you came up with and how the energy felt, or what it did for you.

Did you like this blog?

If so, you are going to love this book…

 

Your Reiki Workout

“In this comprehensive, informative and fun book, Taggart provides a multitude of detailed, practical exercises and guidance on strengthening sensitivity and intuition. Additionally, and seldom found in other publications, Taggart explores more advanced techniques on how to work with Reiki, and intent, on a deeper level for the benefit of both you and clients. I highly recommend this book to those who have undergone Reiki training and wish to obtain practical answers to deeper questions that may not have been covered in their tuition courses, and to explore their experiences of Reiki at a higher level.”

A Gordon

Your Reiki Workout

Exercises and Meditations to Explore the Wonder of Reiki

This book started its life as a collection of ‘self-help guides’ that focused on: getting started with Reiki, becoming more sensitive to the energy, developing your intuitive side and exploring the use of intent.

What I have done is to take these guides and re-write and expand upon them, so that you have here a practical workbook that you can use over time to explore the potentials that Reiki has to offer.

I have also included all the work that I have done in developing “Reiki synthesis”: a way of using questions, language forms and a breathing technique to create bespoke symbols for yourself and others, and to deal with unhelpful emotions or beliefs. Reiki synthesis focuses specific energies on freeing you from what is holding you back in your life, releases negative emotions and beliefs and creates specific energies to move you forward in the most powerful and positive way.

This book will be of interest to anyone who is interested in exploring and experimenting with the energy and who wants to learn a unique and powerful system for self-transformation.

This professionally-printed Reiki book has 210 A5 pages, a glossy soft cover and we will send it to anywhere in the world!

Read the contents list before you order, if you like, by clicking on this link: Table of contents

Book: 210 pages.

Price: £15.99 + p&p




Or Download a PDF version now for only £12.49

 

Author:
Picture Credit: Marcia

Let’s Explore some non Reiki symbols

reiki symbol meditation experiment

Where we are now

In my article Some heresy about Reiki symbols I explained that you do not need to be ‘attuned’ to a symbol for that symbol to work for you when you’re channelling the energy, and that any symbol – wherever it came from – will frame and focus the Reiki energy in a distinctive way.

I set you the exercise of meditating on a simple circle, putting the symbol up in the air above you and drawing Reiki down from that symbol, to flood over you and through you.

You were meditating on and experiencing “O” flavour Reiki, or circle-flavour Reiki.

Let’s explore some more simple symbols

This week I would like you to experiment with two more symbols, a triangle and a square. Meditate on each one for 5 minutes or so.

This is what to do: rest your hands in your lap with palms up, close your eyes and take a couple of deep breaths to release any tension. Then imagine a perfect triangle – an equilateral – black & white, up in the air above you. Imagine that energy or light is flooding to you from the symbol above you, cascading over you, flowing through you, and bathe in that energy; feel yourself merging with it.

Alternatively, meditate in time with your breath so that on the inbreath you draw energy down from that circle into your tanden, allow the energy to flow and spread through your body, and on the outbreath just flood that energy out of you.

And notice how that energy feels:

  • Where do you feel it most?
  • What quality does it have?
  • What impression do you have of its nature?
  • What does it do to/for you?
  • What is its essence?

Now repeat the exercise using the square.

Go back to the “O” and remind yourself how that felt.

Over to you

Carry out the meditation a few times and post a message below to let me know what the energy of the triangle and square felt like.

What did they do for you?

How did the energy of the triangle and the square differ from the energies of “O” and how were they different from CKR and SHK when you meditate on them?

You’re quite sensitive to the energy, aren’t you?

Did you like this blog?

If so, you are going to love this book…

 

Your Reiki Workout

“In this comprehensive, informative and fun book, Taggart provides a multitude of detailed, practical exercises and guidance on strengthening sensitivity and intuition. Additionally, and seldom found in other publications, Taggart explores more advanced techniques on how to work with Reiki, and intent, on a deeper level for the benefit of both you and clients. I highly recommend this book to those who have undergone Reiki training and wish to obtain practical answers to deeper questions that may not have been covered in their tuition courses, and to explore their experiences of Reiki at a higher level.”

A Gordon

Your Reiki Workout

Exercises and Meditations to Explore the Wonder of Reiki

This book started its life as a collection of ‘self-help guides’ that focused on: getting started with Reiki, becoming more sensitive to the energy, developing your intuitive side and exploring the use of intent.

What I have done is to take these guides and re-write and expand upon them, so that you have here a practical workbook that you can use over time to explore the potentials that Reiki has to offer.

I have also included all the work that I have done in developing “Reiki synthesis”: a way of using questions, language forms and a breathing technique to create bespoke symbols for yourself and others, and to deal with unhelpful emotions or beliefs. Reiki synthesis focuses specific energies on freeing you from what is holding you back in your life, releases negative emotions and beliefs and creates specific energies to move you forward in the most powerful and positive way.

This book will be of interest to anyone who is interested in exploring and experimenting with the energy and who wants to learn a unique and powerful system for self-transformation.

This professionally-printed Reiki book has 210 A5 pages, a glossy soft cover and we will send it to anywhere in the world!

Read the contents list before you order, if you like, by clicking on this link: Table of contents

Book: 210 pages.

Price: £15.99 + p&p




Or Download a PDF version now for only £12.49

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Author:
Picture Credit: Institute for the study of the ancient world

Some heresy about Reiki symbols

using reiki symbols heresy

You don’t need to be attuned to a symbol

In my article, Reiki Symbols, Attunements & Beyond, I explain that although it has been a belief of traditional Western Reiki that the Reiki symbols will not work for you until you have been specifically ‘attuned’ to them, this belief is not correct.

I suggest that you zip across and read that article now because if you do then this article here will make more sense to you!

I’ll wait…

.

.

.

Done?

OK, so we have a situation in the modern Reiki world where people can now be initiated into Reiki without any symbols entering into the process and, when that happens, the Reiki symbols – CKR, SHK – still work fine, eliciting the energies of earth ki and heavenly ki, as they are supposed to.

The ‘attunement’ thing isn’t a necessary step.

The energy can be focused and modified in many different ways: you can use chants, you can use intent and you can use *any* symbol that you like, whether that’s a symbol from one of the many Reiki variations, or an entirely new, channelled, or random symbol. They will all focus or frame the energy in a particular way.

Let’s experiment with some symbols

So if you feel drawn to, say, Karuna Reiki, which is heavily symbol-based, and you have access to the symbols used in that system, then explore its symbols. Meditate on them, draw their energies into your body, flood yourself with their quality or essence, and come to your own conclusion about what they are all about.

Here’s a simple experiment that you an carry out to prove to yourself that a symbol that you haven’t been attuned to will frame the energy in a distinctive way.

Meditation on “O”

I would like you to meditate on a simple circle. Rest your hands in your lap, palms up, close your eyes and take a couple of long, deep breaths to release any stress and tension. Then imagine a perfect circle, black & white, up in the air above you. Imagine that energy or light is cascading down to you from that symbol above you, flooding over you, flowing through you, and just bathe in that energy, merging with it.

Alternatively, meditate in time with your breath so that on the inbreath you draw energy down from that circle into your tanden, allow the energy to flow and spread through your body, and on the outbreath just flood that energy out of you.

And notice how that energy feels:

  • Where do you feel it most?
  • What quality does it have?
  • What impression do you have of its nature?
  • What does it do to/for you?
  • What is its essence?

Over to you

Carry out the meditation a few times and post a message below to let me know what the energy of the circle felt like.

What did it do for you?

How did the energy of the circle differ from the energies of CKR and SHK when you meditate on them?

Did you like this blog?

If so, you are going to love this book…

 

Your Reiki Workout

“In this comprehensive, informative and fun book, Taggart provides a multitude of detailed, practical exercises and guidance on strengthening sensitivity and intuition. Additionally, and seldom found in other publications, Taggart explores more advanced techniques on how to work with Reiki, and intent, on a deeper level for the benefit of both you and clients. I highly recommend this book to those who have undergone Reiki training and wish to obtain practical answers to deeper questions that may not have been covered in their tuition courses, and to explore their experiences of Reiki at a higher level.”

A Gordon

Your Reiki Workout

Exercises and Meditations to Explore the Wonder of Reiki

This book started its life as a collection of ‘self-help guides’ that focused on: getting started with Reiki, becoming more sensitive to the energy, developing your intuitive side and exploring the use of intent.

What I have done is to take these guides and re-write and expand upon them, so that you have here a practical workbook that you can use over time to explore the potentials that Reiki has to offer.

I have also included all the work that I have done in developing “Reiki synthesis”: a way of using questions, language forms and a breathing technique to create bespoke symbols for yourself and others, and to deal with unhelpful emotions or beliefs. Reiki synthesis focuses specific energies on freeing you from what is holding you back in your life, releases negative emotions and beliefs and creates specific energies to move you forward in the most powerful and positive way.

This book will be of interest to anyone who is interested in exploring and experimenting with the energy and who wants to learn a unique and powerful system for self-transformation.

This professionally-printed Reiki book has 210 A5 pages, a glossy soft cover and we will send it to anywhere in the world!

Read the contents list before you order, if you like, by clicking on this link: Table of contents

Book: 210 pages.

Price: £15.99 + p&p




Or Download a PDF version now for only £12.49

 

 

 

Author:
Picture Credit: David Lofink

 

A simple way with Reiki symbols

simple reiki symbol method

Why so complicated?

In the West we like to make things complicated, and the way that most of us now use symbols is a world away from the simple approach that Usui used.

So how can we work with symbols in a way that echoes more the way that Usui taught his students?

Well firstly, Usui taught symbols to a very small number of people, just in the last few years of his life. The vast majority of his students were taught in a very different way.

Most of his students were given meditations to use so that they could, over a long period of time, become more and more familiar with the three energies taught at second-degree level, for example. Once they were thoroughly familiar with the energies, once they had *become* the energies again and again, then they were given a shortcut – a trigger – to connect them to those energies.

The triggers that they used were mostly ancient Shinto mantras called kotodama or jumon, not symbols.

In the West we do it backwards by comparison: we are given a trigger (a symbol) to connect us to an energy that we are not familiar with, and with which we may never become familiar, depending on how we have been taught to use the symbols. Usui had his students become the three energies again and again and again, and when they were ingrained, when they were innate, only then would you be given a way of connecting to the energies that were already within you and thoroughly familiar to you.

The symbols’ energies were viewed quite differently

The first energy was not seen as some sort of ‘Power’ energy, in the way that the first symbol is seen as the ‘Power’ symbol in the West.

The first energy was simply earth energy, energy of the physical body, a physical healing energy. The second energy was seen as heavenly energy and the third energy was said to produce ‘oneness’. Usui’s students learned to get to grips with these energies through meditation, so how can we learn to experience earth energy and celestial energy?

Well, we can do this by using the symbols.

Try this Reiki symbol meditation

Sit comfortably in a chair with your eyes closed and your hands resting in your lap palms uppermost.

In your mind’s eye, visualise the first symbol up in the air above you, and say its name silently to yourself three times.

Now imagine that cascades of energy are flooding down onto you from that symbol, cascading into your head, your torso, your hands; endless cascades of energy or light keep on flooding into your body, flowing over you and flooding through you. Do this for several minutes.

  • How does that feel?
  • What impressions do you get of the energy?
  • Where was your attention focused?
  • What were your thoughts?

Now repeat this exercise using the second symbol, again visualising it up in the air above you, saying its name three times, and drawing down endless cascades of energy into your body.

How does this feel by comparison? What impressions do you get of the second energy? Where is your attention focused? What is going on in your head?

Try this with a Reiki friend

reiki symbol channel energy othersIf you have a Reiki friend to hand, you can do this exercise together: one person sits comfortably in a chair and the other stands behind. The person standing up is going to send energy from the first or second symbol in quite an intense way.

What they do is this: ‘charge’ your hands with the energy of the first symbol, say, by drawing the symbol over your palm, saying the name three times, and press your hands together to ‘transfer the effect across’ to he other hand.

Now in your mind’s eye draw out the first symbol up in the air above you and say the name three times.

Move your hands so that they are hovering alongside the recipient’s temples, and imagine that you are drawing down cascades of energy from the symbol above you, which flood into your crown, through your arms and out of your hands into the recipient. Keep on visualising.

  • How does the energy feel as it comes through your hands?
  • What impressions do you get in your body?
  • How does it feel for the recipient?
  • What adjectives can they use to describe the essence of the energy that they have received?

Now repeat this exercise using the second symbol.

How does this differ from the first energy?

Having carried out this exercise countless times and with many, many students, I can generalise about the sort of impression that most people tend to get from the two symbols, the two energies. Maybe you will notice some, though not all, of these experiences.

The first energy seems thick, dark, heavy, dense, solid, maybe oppressive or claustrophobic sometimes, hot, fierce, coarse, penetrating, with pressure and slow pulsation, your focus is on your physical body. The second energy seems soft, light, gentle, ethereal, like soft fluffy clouds or marshmallows, cool, blue, expansive, exhilarating, and uplifting.

What you have experienced is the essence of earth energy and the essence of heavenly energy, and these are two energies that you have available to you when treating others.

These energies are the essence of Usui’s system at second-degree level.

The first energy focuses on the physical body, and the second focuses on thoughts and emotions and our spiritual nature. They are so different, so distinctive.

Try using them on their own, just one energy, just one focus, without mixing symbols together. Keep things simple and uncluttered by focusing like a laser beam on one thing at a time, and see what happens.

And with time, and with familiarity with the two energies, try producing those energies directly, using intent, and see what happens.

Over to you

Carry out the meditations and exercises I’ve suggested above.

How did you get on?

Is it new to you to experience the energy of a symbol on its own, rather than mixing the symbol with others all the time?

How did the energies of CKR and SHK feel to you, or your Reiki friend?

Need help with your Symbol meditations?

reiki meditation audio cds musicIf you’d like some help with your Reiki symbol meditations, I have just what you need!

On my “Reiki Meditations” CD (or MP3 collection) I have these helpful meditations, which can be carried out by people at all Reiki Levels:

  • Hatsurei ho (daily energy exercises)
  • Self-treatment meditation
  • Symbol meditation
  • Distant Healing meditation

My “Reiki Meditations” CD is by far my most popular CD and is used by Reiki teachers all over the world.

Here are the links that you need:

Order the CD now for £15.49 + p&p


Download the MP3s now for £13.49

 

 

Author:
Photo credit: zeevveez

The Kaizen of Reiki

If you have come across the word ‘kaizen’ before it will probably have been in the context of industrial quality control or personal development. “Kaizen” is a Japanese word that is usually translated as ‘improvement’, but it means more than that. The word has connotations of continuous, gradual, orderly and never-ending improvement, the willingness to constantly, relentlessly pursue improvement a small step at a time. The application of the kaizen principle is the reason why Japan’s economy was transformed after the Second World War. All workers were encouraged to make suggestions as to how quality and production could be improved, even by tiny, tiny percentages, but over time the effect of these tiny percentage improvements, applied consistently and built upon, transformed Japanese industry.

So what has this to do with Reiki? Well the word kaizen actually appears towards the end of the Reiki precepts. The line in Japanese is “Shin shin kaizen, Usui Reiki Ryoho”, which could be loosely translated as “Mind body change it for better Usui Reiki method”. So when Usui was talking about using his system to improve the body and mind, I get the impression that we are looking at a lifelong commitment to work with the system, to focus the energy on ourselves again and again, long-term, in order to produce small incremental improvements within ourselves, to dedicate ourselves to developing our effectiveness as a channel. But small changes build on previous small changes, an enhancement upon an enhancement leads to amazing development over time. And Usui’s original system gives us the solid, concrete techniques that we can use to develop ourselves: as channels, in terms of spirituality and in terms of intuition, to produce our own individual Reiki Evolution!

So how do we pursue our own kaizen of Reiki? How do we apply the concept of continuous and never-ending improvement to our practice of Reiki? Here are a few suggestions…

Root your practice of Reiki in daily energy work.

If you are serious about wanting to obtain the many benefits that are available to you through the Reiki system then you are going to have to work on yourself most days, ideally every day, and by doing so you will build up the beneficial effects of Reiki within you. It is not sufficient to use Reiki on yourself once a week, or to assume that if you treat other people occasionally then this is enough to give you the Reiki you need.

Your first priority should be yourself, and this means daily energy work. This does not need to be an onerous task, nor does it need to take a long time to carry out. Sometimes we decline to use Reiki on ourselves because we do not have the perfect opportunity, perhaps because we do not have, say, 30 minutes to work on ourselves. Yet even 10 minutes of energy work, when carried out consistently each day, would be far better and produce much better results than doing nothing for days, and then a great big blitz for a big chunk of time on a weekend to try and ‘catch up’. Spending even a small chunk of time working on ourselves each day builds up a momentum and stirs changes which build and build. Sporadic practice leads to some beneficial changes, but you are not maximising your Reiki potential.

So, how can we work on ourselves? Well, a good place to start would be to practise Hatsurei ho, a series of energy exercises taught in the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai (the ‘Gakkai), an association set up after Usui’s death by the Imperial Officers who had trained with him for a while. ‘Hatsurei ho’ means something like ‘start up Reiki technique’ and consists of a series of energy meditations/ visualisations that focus on your Tanden (Dantien in Chinese) and which are designed to be carried out every day. The effects of Hatsurei ho are to:

    Clear and cleanse your energy system
    Help to move your energy system more into a state of balance
    Help to ground you
    Help to build up your personal energy reserves
    Allows you to grow spiritually
    Develop your ability as a channel for Reiki
    Help to develop your sensitivity to the flow of energy
    Help to develop your intuitive side

The exercises take perhaps 12-15 minutes to carry out each day, and can be fitted into the busiest of schedules if the will is there. We can all make this time for our Reiki practice.

But we should also focus the energy more specifically on ourselves, on our own self-healing, by carrying out a self-treatment each day. Whether you carry out the Western ‘hands-on’ method of treating yourself, or use the self-treatment meditation that Usui Sensei taught, you should focus the energy on yourself on a regular basis to help bring things into balance for you on all levels, and to help you to release things that no longer serve you: mental states, emotions, physical things. The energy will deal with many aspects of your body/mind, many deeply-embedded imbalances, if we give the energy the opportunity to do its work on us, digging deep and chipping away at the ‘baggage’ that we carry, over time.

We prefer to use Usui Sensei’s self-treatment meditation because it seems more intense and versatile, but all self-treatment approaches are valid. Usui’s Sensei’s system was all about spiritual development and self-healing, so Hatsurei Ho and self-treatment can lie at the very heart of your Reiki practice. You need to put yourself first, and the principle of kaizen means that by working on yourself consistently, great transformations are possible. You owe it to yourself to allow yourself to obtain the benefits that are available to you through Reiki.

Receive spiritual empowerments throughout your training and beyond.

Training with Usui was rather like martial arts training, where you were in ongoing contact with your teacher over an extended period of time. Part of your training involved receiving simple spiritual empowerments from Usui Sensei, repeatedly, at all levels. Each empowerment reinforced your connection to the source, cleared your channel for the energy, allowed you to develop spiritually and enhanced your intuitive potential. To echo this practice, Taggart sends out a distant Reiju empowerment every week, on a Monday, which can be ‘tuned in to’ by any Reiki person. You can find out about this, and what to do, by visiting this page of the Reiki Evolution web site:

Reiju Broadcast

On each occasion that you receive Reiju you are given what you need, and as your needs change from one occasion to another, this simple spiritual ‘blessing’ helps you to develop. A one-off attunement or empowerment does of course give you something permanent, and when you learn Reiki for the first time the attunements or empowerments that you receive provide you with the ability to use Reiki permanently, but it does not stop there: by receiving empowerments on a regular basis you are building momentum and allowing the energy to penetrate more deeply within you.

If we are committed to ongoing improvements within ourselves then we should make the time to receive an empowerment weekly. And again it is the regular commitment which is the key, the key to deepening your experience of the energy and its beneficial effects on you.

Work on developing your intuitive potential.

Mikao Usui’s original system did not focus very much on the treatment of others, and any instruction on treatments would not have involved slavishly following a set of ‘standard’ hand positions that you had to apply to everyone you treated. Usui’s method was simpler and more elegant. You allowed the energy to guide your hands to the right place to treat, different from one person to another, and different within the same person from one treatment to another. The way we have been taught to do this is through a ‘technique’ called ‘Reiji Ho’ (indication of the spirit technique’), a way of emptying your mind and merging with the energy, getting your head out of the way to allow intuition to bubble to the surface. The exciting thing about Reiji Ho is that it works for everyone, and with time – we come back to kaizen’s small incremental improvements – your hands will move more quickly, more consistently, more effortlessly, and you will start to attract more intuitive information. So every time we treat someone we should spend time cultivating our ‘Reiji’ state of mind, and gradually, gradually, we develop.

Learn to become the energies.

…that you are introduced to at Second Degree and Master levels. Usui’s system didn’t involve symbols as far as most of his students were concerned. Students were expected to carry out meditations over an extended period of time in order to learn to experience different energies and, at Second Degree, students were introduced to the energies of “earth ki” and “heavenly ki”, which represent two fundamental aspects of our being. By practising ‘becoming’ earth ki and heavenly ki again and again – a powerful self-healing practice – these energies became so familiar to the students that they could ‘connect’ to the energy direct without having to use a prop like a symbol. Usui provided some Shinto mantras for some of his students to use to invoke the energies, but it was possible to move beyond these mantras with time, too. In my article ‘A Simple Way with Symbols’ I describe a meditation that you can use to ‘become’ these energies.

But again we see that to obtain the greatest benefit, to enhance self-healing, to free up our practice and move beyond symbols, takes time and commitment. A quick meditation carried out a few times is not enough: Usui Sensei’s students spent 6-9 months meditating on just one energy, and this was done because the principle of kaizen – plugging away and developing by small amounts again and again – led to deep changes over time.

Live your life according to Usui’s guiding principles.

Usui’s simple principles to live by offer perhaps the best example of the principle of kaizen in our Reiki practice: Usui Sensei’s precepts are a work in progress. They are not something that you read through and think “OK, got that”: the precepts are simple to read and understand but they are something that you drip-feed into your daily life over time, more and more over time.

We may begin by thinking about the precepts when we first come across them on a First Degree course: we reflect on how they might impinge on our lives, our thoughts and emotions, our behaviour; we might imagine situations from that past that might have proceeded better had we exemplified the precepts, and we might imagine situations in the future and see ourselves behaving in a way that demonstrates that we are living the precepts.

But this initial surge of interest in the precepts is not sufficient to produce the beneficial changes that the precepts can produce in our lives.

To fully embrace Usui Sensei’s spiritual principles takes regular reflection and ongoing thought. On an ongoing basis we consider our thoughts and our behaviour, we reflect on the principles and what they mean to us. If we do this then over time we will find that living the precepts becomes easier, that our behaviour is modifying itself, that there are more permanent changes in the way that we react and behave and relate to other people. But this will only happen if we ‘chip away’ at our current behaviour patterns, using the precepts as our guiding light. There are no quick fixes: the precepts are not just for First Degree. The precepts are the essence of our Reiki practice.

Now, we do not need to be perfect, we do not need to beat ourselves up for not applying each and every principle on all occasions, but by dedicating ourselves, and by forgiving ourselves, and by trying to do a little better each day than we did the day before, we transform ourselves.

That is the key to our kaizen of Reiki: dedication and commitment, patience and forgiveness, and openness to the source. Long term.

Were you taught the correct ‘Power’ Symbol: Variations on CKR

reiki symbol ckr choku rei

Reiki started simply

Reiki is very simple, you know.

You start working with energy at First Degree and at Second Degree you’re introduced to three symbols that you can use.

These symbols were taught to the Imperial Officers and a few others by Usui Sensei, and Dr Hayashi passed them on to Mrs Takata, who taught them in the West.

One of those symbols was CKR, perfect and complete on itself – see above.

So we started messing about with it, which is fine – experimentation is a good thing – but some of the experiments have become ossified in different lineages and passed on as ‘the’ way to do Reiki, rather than being taught as interesting variations.

Let’s have a look at some CKR variations

CKR with a spiral going the wrong way

There was only ever one CKR and it had an anticlockwise spiral.

If you’ve been taught one CKR and it has a clockwise spiral then you’ve been taught something that is quite different from what Usui intended.

Different shapes can be used to represent different aspects of the energy, and they will all frame the energy in a particular way, and if you want to frame the energy in the way that Usui intended then you do need to use the symbol that he taught.

Use two mirror-image CKRs, not one

There was only ever one CKR and it had an anticlockwise spiral, so if you want to use an additional symbol that is a mirror image of the original then that’s your choice, but please realise that this is not what Usui was teaching and most Reiki people don’t do this.

Certainly don’t feel that you ‘have’ to use these two symbols for Reiki to work properly because that simply isn’t the case.

Use CKR to put energy in and reverse CKR to take energy out

CKR is an image that you can use to represent or elicit earth ki, one of the two basic energies or aspects of our existence: earth ki and heavenly ki.

The person who you are working on will draw that energy to where they need it to go, and in the right amounts for them on that occasion. If you’re stepping in to decide for yourself that they need more energy or less energy, you aren’t really allowing the energy to do what it needs to do, unless you are doing this intuitively, in which case you’re working in partnership with the energy, and it is guiding you.

Usui Sensei didn’t teach two CKRs, one of them to take out energy; there was a reason for that: Reiki will do what people need to have done, and if energy needs to be released then plain Reiki will help a person with that without you having to use a specific symbol to achieve it.

If you are currently using a reverse-CKR to ‘take out energy’, you might try dispensing with that for a while and see what happens.

So if you want to use the variations on CKR then that’s your choice, but please know that while this is a way that you can work with Reiki, it is not the only way, other Reiki people work in a different way from you, and these variations were not part of the system that Usui taught.

Over to you

If you were taught some of these non-standard versions of CKR as “the” way that you should practise Reiki, may I suggest that you experiment:

  • Use the CKR that you can see on this page, meditate on its energy to get to grips with how it feels, how it affects you
  • Draw it over your palm to experience its energy
  • Use it in practice when you treat someone, flooding yourself and your client with its energy

How is what you’re doing different in quality or nature from what you were doing before?

Did you like this blog?

If so, you are going to love this book…

 

Liberate Your Reiki!

“Whether you are at Level 1, 2 or Reiki Master Teacher Level (regardless of the Reiki flavour you are trained in), this book is very much for you! Within hours of starting to read this book, it has rejuvenated and enriched my own practices with a wealth of information and useful examples too.

The more you read the more you’ll have those wonderful ‘aha’ moments. I know I am already benefiting personally from the knowledge I’ve gained, but so will all my family, friends and clients too. Thank you Taggart for creating this incredible, uniting, enlightening book.”

Heidi Gaffney-Evans

Liberate Your Reiki!

86 Articles About Reiki: One Inspiring Vision

In this Reiki book you will find 80+ articles about Reiki, written by Reiki Master Teacher Taggart King. You will discover how to set your Reiki free, free from the constraints, dogma, rules and regulations of Western-style Reiki courses. Get back to Reiki’s original Japanese method and embrace simplicity, flexibility, creativity and intuition.

This book is suitable for people at all Reiki levels: beginners, those who are developing their Reiki, and Reiki Masters/Master Teachers. You will find advice about self-treatment meditations, energy exercises to build your ability as a channel, you will discover how to work with your intuition and embrace the power of intent.

Explore different distant healing methods and discover the beauty of Reiki’s original Japanese form. Learn how to use creativity and visualisation to enhance your self-treatments and treatment of others, and ditch all the silly rules and regulations that stifle the practice of Western Reiki in many lineages.

Finally, read Taggart King’s “10 Rules of Reiki”, the essential principles for a powerful and fulfilling Reiki practice.

This professionally-printed Reiki manual has 370 A5 pages, a glossy soft cover and we will send it to anywhere in the world!

Read the contents list before you order, if you like, by clicking on this link: Table of contents

Book: 370 pages.

Price: £15.99 + p&p


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Picture credit: Nathaniel_U