Background:

I took a reiki level 1 course oh, 6 or 8 years ago. It was taught by John Harvey Gray and Lourdes Gray (so it was taught by folks who know a bit about reiki). I tried realy hard but I really didn't feel anything in or with my hands the way some others did. The only place I came close was in practicing holding the energy ball between my two hands, which I had tried before (for years with not much effect).

I continued to practice the energy ball. I actually progressed on that due to practicing another kind of meditation. In the other kind, you did the hand things where you touch the thumb and pointer finger for a breath cycle, and then the thumb and middle finger, then thumb and ring finger, then thumb and pinky. I used to prqctice in a wooded area under a tree I particularly liked. I began to feel energy flow? vibration? something between thumb and finger. I called the tree my teacher! anyway, subsequent to that, I felt like the energy ball exercise produced a result. When I was a kid I used to play with magnets and thought the way two north poles repulsed each other was funny. The energy ball had a spot where my hands felt a little like two north poles repusling each other. Hey, at least I feel something!

Current:

So recently I have had a problem with one of my ankles. I felt inclined to try some reiki. There is a bookstore nearby that weekly has reiki sessions given by folks who are learning reiki. You get a 30-minute session for making a donation. The practitioners donate their time. The bookstore has been doing this for years. I don't know why I haven't been going every week for the last year or so now that I have that time free. So I decided to sign up for a reiki session.

So of course I was almost late. I rushed in. Did I mention it has been cold lately? andhow! the room is full of tables and reiki going on. (about 10 or so tables?) I slipped off my snow-wet shoes and on to the table and asked to be covered by the blanket. January in New England is not for the fainthearted. So the woman who drew my name was very nice. I told her about my ankle and then tried to lay there clamly. Being late had my mind racing and I had to forcefully remind myself "be here now" kind of stuff. I was also visualizing the energy in through the feet out through the head thing that TMI uses. So I'm trying to focus on NOW and the woman starts the reiki. Her style was to touch me gently at certain points. I did finally relax and enjoy just lying there. So she moved from the head down. What was curious was that there came a time when I knew she had moved her hands but it still felt like she was touching me where she had been. It felt like I had 3 or 4 hands on me. Interesting. Then when she got to my ankles, she gave them extra time. Again, it felt like I was touched in more than two places. The sensation was not unpleasant and it lingered. It was intriguing. of coourse, 30 minutes is too short and you have to leave for the next person.

So I have never achieved any state that I am willing to call Focus 10. Now I am wondering if I got into some kind of Focus 10 state.

So I went back the following week. Different person, a nice guy. We were in the smaller room downstairs, only three tables, and you can hear customers walking on the creaking floor upstairs. My stomach was kind of gurgling that night and I thought it correlated with the creaking floorboards. it was hard to not laugh.

I got there on time but still had to focus hard to "be here now" and the energy reball. I told him I also had a slight headache in addition to the ankle so he spent a little time with my head. He didn't touch me like the woman did. With my eyes closed, I could not locate exactly where he was working. But as he moved towards my ankles, I noticed that my hands, lying by my sides, kind of felt like they do when I do the energy ball exercise. They also felt as though I had on those plastic gloves people put on for exams or to handle dirty money or whatever. Except the gloves were a size too big and filled with water, so that when they were touched, the sensation had to go through the stretchy material and the water. So it felt like my hands had these bags of something malleable around them.

The effect on my ankles was similar to the prior week. He did something on the top of my feet, then when he moved to the bottoms, I thought I could still feel it on the tops.  

I don't usually get that flush feeling either, but I did then. it is the way I used to feel if I swam alot if laps (like a mile) and then rested. Maybe long-distance running does the same. Also a little like what I used to feel in my legs sometimes years ago, like in college, when we tried herbal 'remedies' that are smoked.

I told the guy about feeling like I was touched in multiple places. He relayed to me that while he was working on my feet, he had an image of a Jesus lizard, the kind that can run across the water. He thought it was because he thought my name was Lizzie. I didn't correct him. But I have this thing about talking about walking on water, so I thought that was interesting! He thought I was pulling in alot of energy through my feet.

I was able to repeat the sensation in my ankles, though not as strongly, a few days later when I woke up before dawn. I lost it when I shifted my position to make my back more comfortable and I fell back asleep.

So does focus 10 feel like that for anyone?

Does reiki feel like this for anyone else? What does reiki feel like for you? Do you need to feel the reiki for it to work? or do you even think healing with reiki is the same as healing with PUL?

I bought a Reiki book, and as soon as I started reading it my spirit guidance chimed in with an image that basically said, this isn't the way I want to approach healing.

I believe that true healing ability comes from a high level of spirit being. The more a person lets go of limitations and allows his or her self to grow in love, the more he or she will be able to channel divine spirit being. When a person does so, techniques become secondary if needed at all. If a person doesn't develop his or her self spiritually, what does he or she expect to heal with?

There is also the matter of understanding what kind of healing a person needs. If a person has physical problems because he or she holds onto limiting thought patterns that cause energetic blocks and imbalances, how much will it help to provide a technique such as Reiki?  Often, you have to heal the mind and spirit, before you can heal the body.

Now I'll read what Justin wrote. Perhaps he wrote something similar. If so, please pardon the redundancy.

The Massage style that I studied in Hooksett NH uses Reiki constantly. It works and I have used it many times. It is the most PUL oriented healing art I have ever encountered. Without PUL you are wasting your time, but to say Reiki doesn't incorporate PUL is ridiculous. I can understand that some might find the use of the symbols to be a different, but they do not keep PUL out of the equation.

And here I must be honest about it and say I have never read a book on Reiki. I studied from a someone who had done it for years and they had been initiated by someone before them.  I know there is hogwash out there in every form. I was perhaps a bit too defensive in my last post. And it does get under my skin that Reiki has levels and some people are "masters," but I wouldn't blame the technique for that. That's all I'm really saying. People can make or ruin anything when it comes to perceptions. Your point is well taken spooky thank you

Yours,
Beau

betson wrote on Jan 17^th, 2009 at 11:32am:


  Hi Bets,

  I think true healing comes more from within, than without, though sometimes without can be a catalyst.  Particularly when you are dealing with a very spiritually mature, PUL attuned consciousness.

   Reiki has become very "New age" chic, and the New age has become such a business.   

   True healers heal for the sake of healing, not for money imo.  I'm not saying that a true healer cannot be a Reiki practitioner but so far, i haven't been all that impressed with the Reiki practitioners that I've tuned into. 

  Btw, i had Reiki done on me.  To the mans credit, he didn't charge anything for his brief demonstration.   He did have healing energy, but not so much because he was practicing Reiki, but because of who he was, what he was like, and his deeper intentions, etc.

  THATS what really counts, not the name  and type of the modality, etc.

Justin

Actually I do agree that reiki has been commercialized. Even back when I took the class, John Harvey Gray, made the same lament. Perhaps he was speaking from a different perspective, but I think he regretted that the technique he learned had not been patented. That sounds a little crass , but that is the way we use in this country to keep things intact. To him the passing on of the technique in a particular way was very important. As I said, having come from a religious tradition that honored laying on of hands as a way to pass things on, that didn't seem totally foreign to me. He lamented that folks could read a book and then claim they knew reiki. There is more to it than that.

Of course, that makes it seem exclusive, which doesn't appeal to me, but perhaps learning it from a master or working with a master might actually be significant in learning the tehniques. That is why the Grays are always careful to say where they learned the reiki. That lineage is very important to them.

I don't know if Bruce has patented his approach, but this would be like if someone with great marketing skills came in and took Bruce's techniques and sold them while leaving Bruce out of the loop. That is what happened with the reiki and I've seen that happen with at least one other thing. I guess one just needs to be aware that this goes on.

It occurs to me that these guys doing reiki at this place are students who do not receive compensation for doing this. You put money in a jar on the way out the door and nobody checks, you could put as little or as much as you want, you could skip out too. The recipient of the funds is listed on the jar. It's usually some group, you know, like a shelter or something like that. So I don't think of this as commercial.

I think maybe that what I really wanted to focus on was the sensations and not the reiki. I just happened to be in a reiki moment when it happened. It is the sensations that are interesting. So I would like to ask, have you (anyone) had sensations like this before? Under what circumstances? What did it mean to you? Can you recreate the experience at will?

Lucy wrote on Jan 18^th, 2009 at 10:57pm:



Hello Lucy;
Sorry a bit late but having problems with compu these days.. Vista.

Interesting reading your posts and the answers you were giving.
Not sure if i can help but will put my 2 cents in..

1- As for Reiki experiences up to 4 yrs ago didn't had any. but was able since a younger age to send healing energies distant or not to people ...Didn't know how i was doing it but was working
beause a few persons did tell me they recieived it and they knew it was me sending it.
Even if i did not tell them i was sending it until they ask me.!!

THEN i started reading about energy work and found a book on Reiki by Stein...something...then it open my eyes....Ahhhh..that's what i'm doing and there a name to it..

2-Never had any formal training then either !! (until 4yrs ago)
Formal to me is being taught by a Master. I'm on the Second level now whatever it means, not interested in Master degree cause i don't want to teach it. But i have the paper who says i'm 2sd degree, somewhere burry  with other paper... Did it made a difference..!
There are people who want to see it to believe i don't.
Like a friend of mine who is a Usui master said...it give more credibility to you knowing/technique...hummm..anyhow!

3-One of the reason i really did not want to take the training was i could not afford to pay for it ..Found an older lady who attune/train me for a few home cook meals..
(IMPO here) don't want to start a rush on ethic...but why pay for something that everyone can do, we all have the ability? and the Reiki energies are giving to you freely from HSelf..cosmic enery or whatever you want to call it. You can do it Lucy.

4-The sensation that i feel when asking for Reiki for myself or other are real to me..like a very comfortable warm like you sitting in front of a fireplace..warm and cosy.

5- As for F10 sensation ..F10 is mind awake body asleep..you don't need to be comatose to be in F10..no punt intended here...just plain deep relaxation...let you body relax and go with it...you said you like to relax under a tree when doing some of your exercises...you were problly in F10 then..there're no magic to this..it just a nice peacefull relaxation..
Let's hope we get more comments now...LOL

Hope this help
PUL Lucy.
R.

 Hi Lucy,

Re: how Reiki felt...  Well, during my one and only session so far, as far as i can recollect (this was a long time ago), i felt a warmth beyond the body heat of the hands, i felt some energy flow or movement but it was rather subtle.  

 That's pretty much it.  It was a nice experience, felt nice.

Being more discriminating now, if i were to ever have Reiki (or any other kind of energy healing) again, it would be with a person i felt was very loving, very balanced, and of the highest intentions.  In short, a very spiritually mature channel.  I'm of the opinion that one shouldn't mess with this kind of stuff with folks who don't more or less fit into that above state with those average tendencies.   I'm not saying they need to be what some call spiritual masters, or completed consciousnesses, but the closer the better and more helpful...

 The somewhat analogical equivalent is, would you want a clueless, careless, and/or inconsiderate doctor working on you during an important operation?

 Btw, your last comment was pretty funny.