There are two sentences that are important to me which I say at the beginning of my seminars and with which I often start presentations in associations:
“The beauty of Reiki is its simplicity.”
“The importance of Reiki is the self-treat.”
In a way, I could stop here because these two sentences convey everything to me. I need not talk about hand-positions or precepts, and frankly, I would not mind at all if everything I say in this article is reduced to these two sentences. But I guess you don’t want it so … abstract, I guess you want something more personal. Fair enough. But before I go into this–with my reconciliation hat on my head-let me add this:
From the early 90’ies I have been a full-time Reiki teacher. Additionally, I have been involved in Reiki organisations, mostly in some sort of leading position deep into the 2000 years. To a lesser degree I still am. During the last 15-20 years my extracurricular activity (i.e. beyond teaching) focused very much on contribution to the reconciliation process in the Reiki community. Many projects in this realm are invisible (e.g. mediating) and many seek the public eye, i.e. my video work. As such I have spoken to very many Reiki people all over the world. Many of them are at loggerheads with each other still today. Because they are human – let’s not judge over-hastily! The reason why I emphasize their disagreement, even animosity is because they all agree on one thing. At the end of the day, they hold up their hands, point at their palm and say something like this: “That which comes out of our hands, is always the same.”
So, if I had another important sentence to add to the above two, then it is that. The ‘energy’ (modern scientists question if Reiki can be called that – which is one reason why I differentiate my spelling between the practice, the history, etc. of Reiki and the energetic phenomena Reiki) … let me start again: The Reiki-‘energy’ in our hands is the same irrespective of our tradition and styles. This is an important, pacifying factor from whence we can draw confidence.
After this last paragraph, the topic of initiation is not far, for initiation is the prerequisite to have ‘that’ which is flowing from the hands in Reiki. Speaking freely and trying to answer your question, I start with the magic of initiation.
My wife and I initiate children (not all Reiki Teachers do – and that is fine). We also initiate people with disabilities. A German couple, Reiki students of ours, had a son who was mentally and physically disabled from birth to the point that he had to be fed through a gastric tube. He had no control over his limbs and lived in a wheelchair. Instead of putting him into a specialised home the parents kept him at home. As he grew and became heavier, they rebuilt the house, bought a special car with a lift for him in his wheelchair. They underwent special medical training. They learnt to feed him through the tube in his belly – a procedure normally done in hospitals by specialised nurses.
Puberty came, the boy went into manhood. It was at this threshold when the parents decided it was time their son “received Reiki himself”, which is what they said when they asked me to come to their house to give the youngster initiation. Why, you might ask, initiate such a person? I’d like to answer that later and continue with this profound experience:
I had dealt with handicapped people before, initiated impaired people without arms, initiated people in a comma, I was an experienced and professional Reiki Master. But I had never seen, leave alone met a human being such as Rob and I was utterly unprepared to be in his presence. The mother sensed my awkwardness, my loss of words and said: “Rob cannot understand you, he cannot express himself.” And, as an afterthought, she added: “Except when he seems very happy, that is when he throws his arms and legs around.” Then she left me alone with Rob so that I could give him initiation.
Did he throw his limbs around! And never before and never after have I heard such sounds of rejoice and jubilation. As I write this, I am overwhelmed with gratitude.
In fact, recounting further experiences would not do Rob justice and I’d rather stop this article here, willing to answer more, if you want. Maybe just one more of those sentences: “Initiation is a spiritual gift of karmic magnitude.” (Quote of a Buddhist monk and Reiki student of ours after his Reiki 1 initiation.)
Artcle by René Vögtli
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René Vögtli is a Reiki Master Teacher ‘Usui Shiki Ryoho’, Source of Reiki-Conciliation, Co-founder of ProReiki and European Reiki Group ERG, Host of the talk-show RTalk. Full-time Reiki teacher since 1992. Before that, he worked as a commodity trader and lived in Europe, Africa and Asia.
Together with his wife, Mischa Vögtli-Egloff, they run reiki-international.ch giving Reiki classes and training Master-teachers globally. They live in Switzerland and Greece and have two sons.
René Vögtli has been founder and member in committees of exclusive and inclusive Reiki organisations. E.g. The Reiki Network, ProReiki, RIO and ERG. Today, he focuses on reconciliation within the Reiki community. His projects can be observed on reiki-concilition.org. Most notably the talk-show RTalk in which he welcomes guests from all walks of life in the spirit to ‘agree to disagree’. He is considered one of the best-connected Reiki professionals in the world.
Websites: reiki-conciliation.org | reiki-international.net
Facebook: REIKI Conciliation
YouTube: REIKI Conciliation
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