Honouring all the flavours of Reiki

The lovely thing about Reiki is that there are so many styles, so many different ways of working with the energy. Various people on the Internet have tried to compile lists of the different versions, and I think the total runs to a hundred or more.

Reiki seems to work as an effortless ‘carrier’, rather like a radio station and transmitter that you can play endless different songs through, but you need the underlying radio waves before the songs can be played.

Reiki is like those radio waves: a carrier that supports very many different ways of working.

What Reiki song do you sing?

Is it Karuna Reiki or Seichem, is it Reiki Tummo or Celtic Reiki or ‘Traditional Usui’ (in all its sub-flavours), is your song Jikiden or Raku Kei?

Or maybe it’s Rainbow Reiki or Lightarian Reiki, Violet Flame or Usui-do.

Some systems use a few different symbols, some use *loads* of symbols, some are structured, others are more ‘content free’; Reiki accommodates them all.

And it is true that some people will be attracted to a particular approach over another because everyone is different and one approach may feel more ‘right’ to one person than another.

I like to get back to the historical roots of things

To my eternal shame, I suppose, I am into folk music [there, I have said it: I like folk music!]. I play the five-string banjo.

But rather than playing Bluegrass music, which came into being in the 1950s, I prefer to play ‘clawhammer’ style banjo, which takes you back to the very beginnings of ‘Old Time’ music when the syncopated ‘slave style’ of playing blended with immigrants’ Irish and English tunes.

It feels right to me to play in a way that is authentic and ‘original’, so far as it is possible to recreate that style.

I also dabble with the ‘Anglo’ concertina and my preference is to get back to playing the ‘original’ English Anglo concertina style, so far as it is possible to glean what that was.

So it’s not surprising, then, that when I became involved in Reiki I was attracted to what was known about the form of Reiki that Usui Sensei was teaching in the 1920s in Japan, rather than the later styles that had developed and changed and mutated after the time of Mrs Takata.

Discovering Original Japanese Reiki

I was lucky enough to have been in the right place at the right time, and received a lot of guidance from people who brought me a lot closer to understanding what the original system was all about, and my “Reiki Evolution” courses are based on that principle: to practise Reiki, so far as it is possible or practical, in a way that comes close to what we know that Usui was teaching to most of his students.

And for me that’s the bee’s knees, a wonderful way to practise that, *for me*, is much more fulfilling than the more standard ‘Western-style’ Reiki that I was first taught.

And we have taught many other Reiki people from a standard Western background who have found that the original system that we teach has many advantages.

There is no ‘one true way’

But not everyone is attracted to that way of practising Reiki because everyone is different, of course, and what I want to make clear is that I do not believe that what I teach is the ‘one true way’, the Reiki that everyone should learn, better than everyone else’s.

How arrogant and blinkered that would be, if I was to say such a thing.

I meet many lovely and open Reiki practitioners and teachers, who are happy and content to be practising Reiki in their unique way, and to accept that others can practise Reiki in their different way, and that’s it’s ok to differ. These are the Reiki people that I want to spend my time with: those who are open and content with the path that they are following, and who do not feel the need to look down their nose and impose their flavour and their rules on everyone else.

The curse of blinkered dogma

Sadly, there are some Reiki teachers out there who do actually believe that their way of teaching Reiki is the ‘correct’ way, that there is a ‘correct’ way to use the symbols, for example, and that if someone has been taught in a different way then they’re wrong.

This is sad.

This is divisive.

There are even people who believe that an attunement needs to be carried out in a certain prescribed fashion in order to be ‘correct’, yet the attunements that Mrs Takata taught have evolved and changed endlessly in different lineages; some are almost unrecogniseable.

And do you know what? They all work fine.

So I think we should be wary of Reiki Masters, no matter how prominent they appear to be, who tell you that what you are doing is wrong or that you shouldn’t do a particular thing: we are all on our journey with the energy, and our journey is our journey, leading us to practise in *our* way, not better, not worse, just different.

My belief

I believe that we should celebrate these differences, and be happy that there is infinite variety.

I believe that Reiki people should be free to find their own comfortable path with the energy, working in the way that suits them, rather than having to kow tow to the dogma and blinkered beliefs of another.

Over to you

So there you have it: my ‘manifesto’ for tolerance, acceptance, and mutual respect within Reiki.

I hope you agree with me.

 

And if you do, why not post a message below. 🙂

 

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