The Grace of Reiki Attunement

Article by Taryn Walker

I couldn’t speak for about an hour after my first Reiki I attunement. I just sat there in a state of total bliss, if I have to choose a word to describe it, feeling like a great secret had been revealed to me, yet I didn’t know what it was. I stared in awe at my Reiki teacher, who smiled back at me knowingly and suggested I take a walk outside in the garden, which I did. The colours of the flowers were so beautifully intense and everything seemed to be shimmering and magical. I felt light and present in my body and deeply connected to the different layers of myself and everything around and beyond me. It was nothing short of Divine. I experienced a glimpse of myself as eternal and infinite and I knew then that I wanted to teach Reiki one day.

In Japanese the attunement ceremony is known as “Reiju”, which means spiritual energy blessing. When we receive a Reiki attunement we are inviting spiritual blessings on our path of self-mastery. We are asking for universal assistance in revealing all that is obscuring our true nature. I believe that during an attunement knowledge of our true essence, which includes our natural ability to heal, is transferred from teacher to student. Each person responds differently to this new piece of information depending on their state of physical, emotional, mental and spiritual development at the time. Some students have a really tough time following an attunement as they become more and more aware of what needs to shift in order to move towards wholeness. Others who are more advanced along a spiritual path find that there are less major adjustments required and shifts in awareness happen on the more subtle levels.

The Divine Grace that allows for an attunement leaves me in total awe each time I attune a new student. It is definitely not something within my power. Why this Grace occurs every time is a great Mystery which we can only accept and acknowledge with humbleness. I am always amazed by how Reiki is so immediately available to a newly attuned student. To this day, my most profound Reiki session was with a student who was practicing for the very first time.

A lot of people think that a Reiki session with a Reiki Master must be better than with a Reiki I student. This is not necessarily true. Reiki is not being directed by the practitioner and actually the less the practitioner does the better. Reiki is a receiver-driven treatment and this is why it’s important for the practitioner to get out of the way to allow the receiver to draw what is needed as the connection to Reiki is established. What is this connection? It’s the receiver’s response to the piece of information that has been passed on to a practitioner through the Reiki attunement. This is why we can have equally profound experiences from new students and experienced Reiki Masters.

Powerful healing experiences with Reiki come to us through Grace and we should always offer gratitude to the Divine Consciousness for allowing this.

Grace is a beautiful Mystery. When it is present we are instantly reminded of our existence beyond the material world. We are naturally humbled by Grace, seeing ourselves with an innocent curiosity. New Reiki students are known to express a child-like wonder at their own inner essence after an attunement. It is beautiful to see. Often I am asked,

“How is this possible?” “Are you a magician?”

It is simply, yet profoundly, Grace.

The more we get out of the way, the more space we create for Grace to flow. One of my students shared an analogy he heard in his yoga class about allowing ourselves to be hollow like a bamboo flute to allow the song of the Divine to be played through us. I often use this as a visualisation when I’m preparing for an attunement ceremony.

There is much wisdom to be found in emptiness.

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Taryn Walker is a traveling Reiki Master Teacher who wishes to inspire people to realise that they are miraculous! She believes that Reiki can reveal our natural ability to heal ourselves and this empowers us to take responsibility for our lives. She works a lot with distant Reiki and loves the way it allows people to experience the illusion of separation. Taryn is grateful for being able to connect with her Reiki clients even while traveling. She usually lives on a little island in Thailand, where she practices and teaches Reiki, but finds ‘home’ wherever she is. Taryn enjoys yoga, nature, creating art, cooking and finding magic in “ordinary” places. Follow her here: reiki-alchemy.com, and alchemyhealing.