My Reiki Journey with Frans Stiene Part 1—Questions on the Reiki Journey

Sundar KadayamArticles, English 7 Comments

Sundar 2

Time: July 2007

My personal Reiki practice and experiences over the years had left me with a number of questions.

What is Reiki?  We say it is universal energy, and yet, in my practice, and I’m sure at least some of you will admit this to yourself, I’ve always looked outside me for the source of it!  If it is “universal’, shouldn’t it be inside me already as much as anywhere else?

Why are there 80-100 varieties of Reiki?  Are there really 80-100 different healing energies or 80-100 narrow interpretations of the one healing energy (kind of like the story of the six blind men and the elephant )?

What do the symbols really do?  Do they each magically bestow a unique power to the person wielding them?  I don’t know about you, but I certainly was under the impression that I could swish a symbol in the air a few times, and something magical like, protection, peace, power or whatever would descend into that space!!  Symbols can do that?  Even for people like me who are not even fully formed babies in the spiritual path?  And all it costed me was a few hundred measly bucks to get this sort of magical power!

What is it with people conjuring up more and more symbols and coming up with newer systems of Reiki that each claim to be more “powerful” than Reiki?  Master Usui is said to have been “enlightened” – i.e. he was a self-realized master.  And yet, in the modern world, there are so many so-called “masters” (and “grandmasters”, yikes!), who, as far as I know aren’t enlightened, yet claim to have come up with a system of Reiki “more powerful” than what Master Usui found and taught!  I, like millions of Reiki practitioners, ate that up in my quest for “more power”. In time, I’ve come to see the utter fallacy of it.  A non-enlightened person producing something “more powerful” than a masterful system created by Master Usui — Huh!  What utter rubbish / garbage was I believing in?

What about the attunement itself?  What the heck is actually happening in the attunement process?  On the one hand there is an elaborate series of rituals involved, and we are expected to follow it as teachers, and on the other hand, there have been numerous occasions where I’ve missed steps in the attunement process and yet the recipients had an amazing experience of the attument.  What gives here?  I too have given myself the semi-logical-sounding explanations such as “intention is what matters” – but really, if it is all about intention, then why don’t we sit across the students and intend that they get attuned?  Why all these ritual steps?

What is the deal with installing symbols into people’s aura or their chakras or whatever?  Is that the purpose of the symbols in the attunement process – to place those symbols into someone else?  And what does it mean to place a symbol in the aura or whatever that might be?  If symbols are ‘installed’, then is there a ‘de-installation’ process associated with it too?  I certainly hadn’t gained a concrete understanding of this.

What about the even more fanciful theories and stories about the attunement?  There are those who say that your are attuned to a lineage.  There are others that go further to say that you are attuned to the energies of your teacher and their teacher and theirs and so forth etc.  If Reiki is “universal energy” where did all this other stuff come into the picture?  Seemed like a load of hooey to me but I’m not alone in having heard this sort of story about attunements.

What is it about distant attunements, self-attunements, healing attunements, and an ever increasing number of different attunements for different “types” of Reiki?  Are these for real?  If so, how do they work?

Why are the precepts even there in the system in the first place?  At one level they look like “motherhood and apple pie” – nice, feel good elements.  They seem like stuff thrown into the mix as things we should do, or follow, but why?   How are the precepts connected with the symbols, hands-on-healing etc.?

And how is this distance healing stuff working anyway?  Surely we are not “sending” energy 10,000 miles away to a person across the globe are we?  And yet our vocabulary is all about “I’ll send Reiki for you” – really, what are we “sending” here?

The practice of Reiki has brought a flow of miracles in my life.  I have been grateful for the multitudes of times healing and other miracles have occurred in my life.  My experiences with Reiki pointed me to a very different, more profound understanding of the system.  It was inseparable from my spiritual path.  But this sense was not matched by my intellectual understanding of the system as I had been taught to date.

How did I get here?  Coming in Part 2.

 

Comments 7

  1. Avatar of FRANS STIENE
  2. Avatar of Mary Murray

    Lovely artical, looking forward to reading part two. I to was feeling some thing was missing from what my first teacher taught me. Reiki is more than just hands on healing and Frans and Bronwen have taught what was missing, the precepts, daily meditation, the true meaning and practise of Reiki.

  3. Avatar of Colin Powell
  4. Avatar of Kris Azzarello

    Wonderful article, Sundar.  You stated so much of what I had wondered about earlier in my Reiki journey.  You know the truth that Reiki is real and powerful and that there is so much more than what you have been taught, but then there is all that other “stuff”, some of it downright silly, that you have to sort through to get to the truth.  Perserverance on the path (and some wonderful friends) led me to the International House of Reiki and to experiencing Reiki as more than a modality – it is a spiritual practice and a way of life, continully unfolding.  I’m looking forward to Part 2!

  5. Avatar of kathi richards

    I absolutely loved this article and will patiently wait for the next installment (okay, maybe the patient part is pushing it for me). The questions are questions I too have asked. Some I have answered and others are still perplexing. Learning along the way, always learning.

  6. Avatar of FRANS STIENE

    Hi Sundar,
    I like what you say about Mikao Usui being an enlightened teacher:
    “A non-enlightened person producing something “more powerful” than a masterful system created by Master Usui—Huh!  What utter rubbish / garbage was I believing in? “
    Mikao Usui was in the right state of mind to come up with the tools of the system of Reiki, the symbols, mantras, precepts, meditations etc. But as you state, nowadays many teachers come up with new symbols and the rest but are not really in the enlightened state of mind like Usui. Which teachings would you rather practice?

  7. Avatar of Ann

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