There’s always lots to discuss about the system of Reiki. We have a question for you about attunements (or reiju) and Reiki treatments.
Is the energetic space created when performing a Reiki Treatment or an Attunement/Reiju different?
We’d love to hear what you think. Come and join the discussion below.
Bronwen and Frans Stiene are the co-founders of the International House of Reiki and co-authors of The Reiki Sourcebook, The Japanese Art of Reiki, Your Reiki Treatment, The A-Z of Reiki Pocketbook and the Reiki Techniques Card Deck. Bronwen and Frans teach in the USA, Europe and Australia. Visit the Courses page to find a course near you.
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For me, the energetic space ‘feels’ different. I don’t know best how to describe that difference – only that it is the difference in relationships that I also experience when I’m teaching (Reiki, Counselling and/or Hypnotherapy) and when I’m actually working with a client.
What is happening in my Reiki teaching, is I am using Reiju more whilst still honouring the attunement process I learnt from my own Reiki teacher.
More and more, there is no difference between the two, in feeling or in effect. I started noticing this when I would use the reiju ritual, mentally, during a treatment, to focus myself. But itʻs not necessary to consciously share a reiju for the experiences to feel the same. It is a state of consciousness, of being willing to be in oneness and expanded, to whatever extent I am able, that is the heart of both reiju and rx.
My first thoughts that come to this question are: The energetic space created is the same, the intent is different. It has taken me a while to reach this awareness through practice and experience. Blessings, Candice
I have not felt any difference between the energy used in Reiju and Reiki treatments. I try to move into oneness with whomever I am working with, to be open and receptive to what comes ( without directing it). Perhaps the energy is more intense as a Reiki treatment lasts longer and the energy always feels like it is expanding and growing continually. I do feel as I learn to become more open to the energy that symbols and mantras seem to have taken a backseat.
I find this to be a very complex question. I don’t think I can dissect the energies of Reiki out of the process. Both the healing endeavor and the Attunement/Activation process are sacred events and do not stand alone. I believe that many factors create the energetic space in which events occur.
I prepare the pysical space in the same way each time. I prepare myself slightly differently when I am engaged in a healing endeavor with another being. I set my intent to be receptive to the other individual as a complete multidimensional being. When we are together in the space the energy shifts according to what is coming up in the moment…the process is fluid. We have asked other noncorporeal beings to be present in the endeavor and these energies also contribute to the whole. The individual brings emotional, mental, spiritual and physical issues into the space as well. I respond to these fluctuating energies by adjusting my own energetic frequencies as they entrain and respond to what is happening in the moment. It is quite a dance
In the attunement process I prepare the physical space and myself. I set the intent to be a pure channel for the energy and that the student receive the energy and incorporate the changes that will occur with grace and ease. Together we invite spirits of the many beings who love us to be present for this event.
In both the healing endeavor and the activation process the energies are compex and fluid. The energies respond to the mental and emotional processes that are taking place in the moment and the energies are also profoundly enhanced by the noncorporeal presences of the angelics, deities and other multidimensional beings who have come to participate.
Wonderful to read others thoughts and experiences!
For me, there is a difference. The energy is what it is (and is what is) and is universal, but its manifestation differs. I view the symbols and mantras chiefly as a discipline, a focusing tool, and yet I can also feel an energetic and qualitative difference in each symbol/mantra, to the extent that, if someone is drawing one behind me, I can feel which one it is. So when they’re used in reiju/attunements, I feel all their energies, individually and collectively, swirling around and through me and, of course, the student. When I put my hands down to heal, the quality of the energy is different—-more unified and concentrated—-though its power is unchanged.
Good question, Frans!
To my mind reiju and treatment are both rituals, just like mantras, symbols, meditation and even precepts are.
We practice them to get as deep as we can, to connect. This deep meditation space is always healing, nourishing and balancing. What makes rituals differ is the mind of the practitioner.
It is again like a mountain. If we are at the foot of the mountain, we still bring our own “ideas” about what a treatment or a reiju is or should feel like. Then there are differences in what we feel.
Supposedly once at the top of the mountain, our mind is open and free of expectations, attachements and judgements. Then there is no difference in whatever element of the system of reiki we are practicing. We are all reiki.
I see it like this:
The deeper we delve within ourselves the more we start to realize that in essence there is no difference at all in the energetic space or state of mind when performing a hands on healing session or an attunement/reiju.
Say we can remember our true connection with our innate nature (reiki) and go into this space during a reiju/attunement because we know this is the most perfect state to be in during this ritual.
Wouldn’t you also go into this space during a hands on healing session?
You wouldn’t say to your client: sorry but you are only coming for a hands on healing session so I don’t go into this open space where healing is the most profound, I only do this when you attend a class and receive a reiju/attunement!? This would not be compassion in action.
This is entirely true, Frans! Ideally, we bring that same state to all our activities and interactions, not just during reiju/attunements and hands-on healing, but when dealing with people in our work, when we shop, in our lives. And of course when interacting with our fellow creatures! How can we approach a student or client in this state and not our partner, child or dog?! Our compassion, and thus our best effort, must be universal; otherwise, we’re just a bottle that we pour from, then cap. Surely this is the point of the practice of Reiki (and especially the Precepts), to make ourselves clear, open-ended channels that spread the Great Bright Light wherever we go.
Hi Elly,
Yes this states needs to be brought into all what we do as well.
First we connect to it only here and there when we perform a hands on healing or reiju/attunement. Then with more and more practice we can be in that state during the whole hands on healing session and reiju/attunement and then one day we might be in that state 24 hours a day.
As you say Elly, we are the precepts at that time. Isn’t it an amazing journey.
Amazing indeed, Frans! And exhilarating, awe-inspiring, humbling, grounding… there just aren’t enough words. How lucky we are to be alive to the world and to ourselves and be on such a path!
Lucky indeed, Elly 🙂
I was thinking about the conversation and in reality we need to become the reiju/attunement, hands on healing, symbols/mantras, meditations, precepts and then we are Reiki, so where ever we go we are in that state of mind.
That’s it exactly, Frans! I believe that this is what Usui Founder found, what he was, and what he taught, the Reiki legacy he left for all of us who follow the Reiki Way to find for ourselves through the Precepts, reiju/attunements, symbols/mantras, and all the other Reiki disciplines. Those who use the Reiki teachings to master themselves through the discipline of the techniques, rather than simply mastering the techniques, will become Reiki, become immanent, become everything.
Further to this: You once (unforgettably) answered a comment of mine with “I can [use Reiki to] heal your knee and still be a bastard.” I still think that’s the last word on doing vs. being Reiki!
Hi Elly, 🙂
Yes healing our knee is great but we can still be a bastard, but healing our self in such a way that we remember our true nature is very different. And this is, as you say, the difference between doing Reiki and being Reiki.
I hope that more and more people start to teach the system of Reiki from this perspective as it is so important and needed in our modern world.
Frans and Elly and all:
to become Reiki—to be it—would remove all need to frame our experience as “healer time” versus “other time.” This connection without the craziness of distinction between “giving time” and “not giving time,” and all those frameworks we consciously and unconsciously put on that.
I remember when I first started studying with you, Frans, and I felt the symbols kinetically, and needed them as a tool. My friend called them “training wheels” and I thought it was dismissive to say so. Now I hear that as a call to practice, to discipline. In order to simply “be” Reiki we need to use every tool until the tool feels like breathing, and then there will be no difference between the moment of using the tool and the next breath when we are not activating that particular tool.
Beautifully put, Carol! Thank you.
…“My friend called them “training wheels”…” I love that. I believe it’s also very apt.
In terms of my original answer, I don’t believe a client should have ‘less’ of Reiki and/or me in relation to a student nor the other way around. But I stand by the difference in energies being brought to the different relationships.
As a counsellor, I have a very different relationship with my therapy clients than I do with my trainee counsellors.
Professionally, the same applies in my relationship with Reiki therapy clientele and trainees. The space I enter in either aspect is the same, but the nature of the presentation and interpretation differs.
Thanks for sharing this post with us…nice work…good luck.
Through practice, I have found the energies to be the same. When performing a reiju or attunement, if the mind is quiet and open it has the same effect as when performing a hands-on treatment. Both feel like meditative states. When the mind loses focus there is not the same experience.