This section is an extract from a forthcoming (watch this space) e-book, "Reiki for Co-METs".

A Preamble

A warrior of light always has room
in his heart for love,
even when that heart is battered and torn.

I was travelling in a taxi to Heathrow airport, on my way to work in Turkey for a while. I suddenly saw how the taxi driver earns money from my company, taxi-ing people to and from the airport. He probably saves up some of that money to take his wife and child on a summer holiday (I worked at the time for a holiday company). And some of the money he earns her will spend on groceries at a shop that employs people who will come on one of my company’s holidays. The abundance of the universe flows in this way, I realised, as currency—that which flows in currents.

There is a wide network of these currents through which currency flows. Some are minor culverts—some tiny creeks going nowhere. To experience the full abundance of the Universe we must position ourselves in a major stream, and allow it to flood through us. Should we take in more than we give out, we may drown, and should we give out more than we take in, we could die of drought. We are refreshed and nourished by allowing the abundance to flow through us—which is what we do when we give someone Reiki healing.

What we can do, in addition, is to become a “value-add” conduit. We can connect to Rei, the Tao (or God, Allah, Yahweh, the Buddha—or to Amma Meera or any other Divine source), or to any celestial conduit and use that energy to condition and add to the quality of that which flows through us. It’s all energy, after all, and we can learn to move it, use it, take it in, pass it on, and benefit from its currency—it is current: it is flowing; it is Now!

Current (French, courant, meaning running) can mean flow—as in a current of water, or it can mean happening now, in the present[1]—the current rate of exchange; the current day’s news.

It’s all energy, and Reiki is just another way of working with that energy, positioning oneself in a major waterway, not a minor tributary, and allowing all abundance to flow through, for the greatest good of all concerned.

Reiki for Co-METs

I have written this to introduce Reiki to people who have taken the basic Co-MET course, and who have learned to use the Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT). Many people who learn EFT through Co-MET want to go on to see how other forms of working with the body’s energy can enhance their practice. Reiki is probably one of the most powerful ways of working directly with energy.

You don’t have to know EFT or Co-MET to learn Reiki—the majority of Reiki practitioners have probably never heard of EFT. However, this course, and this manual, are designed specifically for EFT practitioners who have taken the Co-MET course, and I will frequently refer to EFT and to Co-MET, assuming that you know what I’m talking about!

Reiki Lineage

Reiki was discovered (or re-discovered) by Dr Mikao Usui, of whom more anon! Reiki is passed down from Reiki Master to Reiki practitioners, and it is common for any Reiki practitioner (especially if they are Masters, or Master Teachers) to declare their “lineage”. Here’s mine:

The First Degree of Reiki

Introduction

These notes are “slimmer” than you might normally expect in a Reiki class. That’s because I’ve fallen in love with a wonderful little book called “The Secrets of Reiki”, written by Anne Charlish and Angela Robertshaw (Angela is the Reiki Master), published by Dorling Kindersley. It’s so packed with good Reiki stuff, with much better pictures than I could produce, that I decided, as soon as I read it, that I would give a copy to all my Reiki students. If you’ve somehow managed to get hold of a copy of these notes without the Secrets of Reiki, then pop out to your local bookstore, and get a copy! It’s only £4.99, and you can get it from Dorling Kindersley’s website: www.dk.com. The ISBN is 0-7513-3562-2.

So, from now on I’ll assume you have a copy beside you, and when I want you to read a chunk, I’ll just put (SR pp6-7), meaning “go read pages 6 to 7, inclusive, of Secrets of Reiki”.

Everything else in these notes is either my slant on it, or stuff that’s only relevant if you’re already into Co-MET and/or EFT. Or, when we get to the second and third degrees of Reiki, stuff that only people who have been attuned get to know about, like the Reiki symbols, for instance.

What is Reiki?

You don’t have to hold to any religion to become a Reiki practitioner. However, you will need to keep an open mind on matters that one could describe, in general, as “spiritual”. Having somewhat of a scientific background myself, I’ll bung in a few bits of science (some might say pseudo-science, but they are playing the game of keeping an open mind!) as we go along.

And I regard myself as a Taoist. Taoism isn’t a religion—it’s more of a philosophy, a way of explaining the world at quite a deep level. It’s probably fair to say that Taoism is the world’s oldest “green movement”, as it recommends that we learn from nature, and treat nature with all the respect owed to a Master Teacher. In the spirit of letting you know where I’m coming from, I should tell you that I don’t regard myself as being an adherent of any religion, but I’m an admirer of a number of modern Taoists, such as the Barefoot Doctor and Benjamin Hoff. At the same time, as I write this, a young 21^st century Indian holy woman (Mother Meera, who is probably culturally Hindu, but teaches at a spiritual level—she isn’t bound by any religious rules) smiles down on me from her photo which is blu-tacked to my hotel bedroom wall (I’m in Turkey as I write this!) You’ll find that Reiki is a bit like that! Mikao Usui was a Christian monk who found some Buddhist scriptures hidden in a Shinto monastery, and eventually learned Sanskrit so that he could try to understand how Jesus healed people simply with touch.

Now we are getting a bit religious, maybe—except that religions ask you to take stuff on faith. In Reiki we don’t. We are pure empiricists: try it out; if it works for you, fine! If it doesn’t—well, never mind! There are hundreds of thousands of people around the world for whom Reiki works, at many different levels.

At one end of the scale, a Reiki session may just be a gentle, peaceful, relaxing experience. At the other end, it may cure (yes, I did, rather boldly, us the “C” word!) a wide variety of ailments. I offer no guarantees, of course, but then the makers of Aspirin won’t guarantee that it’ll cure your headache! Which doesn’t stop millions of people swallowing Aspirin every day.

The word “Reiki” comes from two Japanese words, “Rei” and “Ki”. SR goes into it, but I’d just like to add my few pence worth.

Rei: The Ultimate, The Tao

When I was just a lad at school, I was fascinated by what happened when things got smaller and smaller. In biology we got down to cells, and then just to chemistry (or so it seemed, in those far-flung days). In physics we got down to molecules, and then atoms, and then “elementary” particles. What happened if you tried to go further, I often wondered. Einstein had the “ultimate” answer—matter was just congealed energy, he said. He even came up with the little equation that shows just how much energy you have to congeal to get just the tiniest bit of matter: E=mc². “C” is the speed of light, which is a VERY big number (light really shifts!) And if you square the speed of light (multiply it by itself), you get an EXTREMELY big number. And that number shows how much energy you get from a little bit of matter (as was shown when we turned just a very little bit of matter into energy just above Hiroshima and Nagasaki).

But, inquiring child that I was, I wanted to know what came next. If matter was congealed energy, then what was energy?

Matter, energy—everything, is just ripples on the surface of the Ultimate One-ness. And although the day-to-day intricacies of the world’s religions and philosophies may differ, when you dig down to the “mystical” layer of each, you come up with the same notion. God, Brahman, the Tao, Rei.

A wave breaks on a rock, and a thousand drops fly through the air. To us it’s only a second before each drop lands back in the sea, and is indistinguishable from it. But during that brief moment, the drop lives a lifetime, forgets the sea, loves, hates, marries, divorces, dreams of glory, comfort, riches, and believes itself to be immortal. And then it splashes back into the sea, and remembers, at last, that it always was the sea, and always will be, even though at any moment it might be a drop, a wave, a ripple. So are we all, just ripples on the surface of… Rei.

Ki: The Energy of Life

In Japanese, Ki. In Chinese, Chi, or Qi, depending on which system of spelling Chinese in Latin characters you are using. Chi is the force of life. It is what an acupuncturist seeks to regulate with her needles. It’s what we aim to comb out with our EFT tapping. It’s what a martial artist becomes a master of—it’s what regulates and controls how healthy (or otherwise) we are. It’s the energy we refer to when we talk of Meridian Energy Therapies (as in Co-MET). Have another look at SR p12. Angela sums that all up in a couple of paragraphs!

And do you need to believe all of this to become a Reiki practitioner? Probably not. But it probably won’t work that well for you, either, if you aren’t at least prepared to keep an open mind! But then again, maybe it will. Maybe the spirit of Reiki is just waiting to act as a can opener on closed minds! We’ll just try it, and see what happens!

Reiki Precepts

Angela has written a lot about the precepts in SR pp34-43. I didn’t like the English translation of the precepts as they were first taught to me, so I made my own:

If you like my version, feel free to use it. Whatever version you choose, make it your own; take it to heart.

Here you are, first thing in the morning, saying the precepts, and you get to the end of the first line, and come to a grinding halt, because you are worrying about stuff, and you can’t help yourself, and now you’ve said you will let your worries go. Which, of course, they won’t, so now you can worry about the fact that you’re worrying!

And so on. So now you have a tool that you can use to help you keep the precepts. I can’t tell you what a comfort that has proved to me. I can make a commitment to myself not to worry, not to be angry, and I can use EFT when the anger or the worries well up.

In the notes that Susan Joy Smith (my Master) gives to her first Degree students, she says, “The only real mastery is self mastery”, as she recommends that we say the precepts night and morning, and even meditate upon them. I think that she might be talking about being a Warrior of Light.

The Warrior of Light

On the cover of this book I describe myself as a ‘Warrior of Light’. I have searched for many years for this name, and am eternally grateful to Paulo Coelho for giving it to us. Until I found his book, “Manual of the Warrior of Light”² all I had was the word “warrior”, and when I used that word, in workshops, seminars, training sessions, and in my writing, it was very variously received—seldom as I intended!

Some people—often those who are somewhat ‘new-age’, or those who are erudite in Eastern philosophy—knew what I meant, but in talking to them, I was preaching to the converted.

A true warrior, born (or born again) of the warrior spirit, seldom fights, seldom goes to war, and then only as a last resort. In fact, while a warrior is warring, he is probably also musing on what he got wrong that led to this state of conflict.

But if she must fight, then she will, and will do so impeccably (as she does all else) to achieve her outcome for the highest good of all concerned.

In our modern world, it seems to me that the so-called strongest are seldom true warriors—of light, or of anything else. Which explains why they often seem to rush to war, and frequently only ‘win’ by the application of overwhelming technical force. And even then they frequently leave the field of battle with all sides—including the on-lookers—wondering whether or not the so-called ‘victory’ wasn’t just Pyrrhic.

But—‘warrior of light’! This term immediately interrupts people’s rush to understand ‘warrior’ as a warmonger. On the contrary, a warrior of light is the total antithesis to the warmongers. Her weapons are simple, not vast and complex. And though he may sometimes seem to lose the battle, even when ‘obviously’ defeated, he never loses the true war.

Throughout the rest of this book are some thoughts about the warrior of light. Each of these thoughts is my own, but each was inspired by many mentors in general and by Paulo Coelho in particular, to whom I owe eternal thanks.

The warrior of light can rise above Hamlet’s dilemma. Hamlet only saw two possibilities: to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and, by opposing, end them. The warrior of light understands the French saying, Recueillir pour mieux sauter³. and waits, patiently, for time to improve.

A warrior of light constantly strives never to make the same mistake twice. And when he does, he knows that there is still some aspect of this situation from which he hasn’t yet learned the lesson.

A warrior of light listens intently when the gods whisper to him, “Eventually… but not yet”, and learns to cultivate patience.

A warrior of light talks to his angels, even if he’s not sure that he can hear their reply.

The warrior of light knows that any path, impeccably trod, will eventually lead him Home.

The warrior of light carries three things with him at all times—faith in herself, hope of eventually returning home, and a love of all things, including herself.

History, The Three Degrees, and other Important Stuff

The Chakras

SR pp 18-19. The only other thing that I want to say here is that the chakras are not beautifully painted transfers stuck onto your t-shirt, or even directly onto your skin. They go all the way through! So when using your hands, you can put them front and back, and let the energy flow through that swirling vortex.

[1] …and the present, of course, is an absolute gift, should we chose to accept it.

[2] HarperCollins, 2002, ISBN 0-00-714571-3

[3] Withdraw, the better to leap forward.

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