On a rainy Saturday morning I made my way to Gulshan to the house of Reiki master Savina Shah. I was greeted at once by the smell of incense and saw many spiritual artifacts in the entrance lobby. Buddha figures were the majority of the decorations while some figures of ladies doing yoga poses stood on a mantle in the entry way.
I then entered through another door to a large spacious drawing cum dining room with beautiful white leather sofas at the far end. That was were Savina was seated with another student who had arrived before me. I could see the rain pattering gently against the windows behind the sofas. It seemed like a nice day to learn about spiritual healing.
She started with the story of a boy name Mikao Usui who was born in Japan, destined to become a scholar and spiritual healer. He was educated by missionaries and became a Christian and when he grew up he became the head of a Christian boys’ school in Kyoto. One morning in Chapel during the service one boy asked him if he believed in the Bible literally. When he answered that he did, the boy asked him to demonstrate his belief by performing a miracle. Dr Usui was unable to do so.
When Dr Usui failed to perform a miracle, the students declared his faith to be baseless. He was deeply affected by this incident and immediately resigned his position to go and study about the miracles of Jesus in the West. His intention was to return to Kyoto with some proof of his beliefs.
Dr Usui went to USA to study the Christian scriptures more deeply. His focus was on the healing miracles of Jesus but he could not find out how it was that Jesus healed, so he started to study the other great world religions. He found out while studying about Buddhism that Buddha and his early disciples had been able to perform healing. His intuition told him that Buddhism might give him the answers to his queries.
He returned back to Kyoto and lived with Buddhist monks for several years. He kept studying about Buddhism and read the Chinese version of the scriptures as Buddhism had come to Japan from China. He questioned that translation too, however, and decided to learn Sanskrit as Buddhism had originally come from India. In this language he found the answers he was seeking. He had found the secrets to healing.
Savina Shah teaches Reiki in Dhaka. Photo:Courtesy
He went to a sacred mountain a few miles outside of Kyoto to fast and meditate for three weeks, in the expectation that he would be shown the real meaning of the information that he had found. He left the instruction that if he did not return then someone should go and collect his bones eventually as he did not intend to return without an answer.
Once at the location he started his meditation and only allowed himself water during the long fast. Nothing much happened during the first 20 days. On the early morning of the last day he was sitting in the dark. It was right before dawn and he was looking at the sky when he saw a distant light approaching. The light became very bright as he watched. As it zoomed closer he realized that it would strike him. He did not follow his first impulse to dodge and sat still as the light struck him in the forehead and he lost consciousness.
While he was passed out he received the information he was seeking. He saw each of the Sanskrit symbols in his mind and instructions for their use. As he memorized one symbol and its set of instructions, another symbol appeared with another set of instructions. He kept all of this in his memory and with it he created the system of healing called ‘Reiki’.
Full of energy and enthusiasm he set off for Kyoto and strode down the mountain. As he was rushing he stubbed his toe quite painfully and decided to put to test what he had learned. As he touched his toe he experienced instant healing and felt his vision validated.
On his way back to Tokyo he realized that he was very hungry and stopped at a roadside food stand. The stand was run by an old man and his grand daughter served Dr Usui his food. The girl was in a lot of pain from an infected tooth and had tied a cloth around her face which was swollen. Dr Usui asked permission to touch her face and when he did the pain ceased immediately and the swelling went down much to her and her grand father’s surprise. After this Dr Usui felt even more validated.
His teachings eventually spread to the West and then to the rest of the world. The essential principles of Reiki are: “Just for today do not worry. Just for today, do not anger. Honour your parents, teachers and elders. Earn your living honestly and show gratitude to everything.”
The first thing that Reiki teaches is to heal yourself. And during the workshop we learned how to do this. The energy of a person’s body is made of seven chakras and you must first activate these chakras. The chakras are: Root chakra, Sacral chakra, Solar Plexus, Heart chakra, Throat chakra, Third eye chakra and Crown chakra. The colours of the chakras are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet respectively.
The practice of healing yourself involves touching 24 points in the body for three minutes each to activate these chakras. Once you have learned to heal yourself, it will be possible for you to learn to heal others.
The day of training concluded with an initiation session during which the Reiki master transferred her energy to me and the other students individually. For me this was a deeply spiritual experience as I felt a lot of positive energy entering my body. Once initiated, I was able to practice the self healing in the teacher’s presence. I then continued the self-healing process for 21 days. That is 112 minutes per day for 21 days. It was an intense experience for me as I felt all the energies inside of me gathering and rearranging themselves in the correct way.
Different people experience Reiki differently. But the first 21 days are truly transformative. I felt like a different person once it was over. Having our energy aligned can help us attract the right type of energy in our life and reject the wrong types of energy. For me it was simply a great experience that made me feel more balanced and full of positive energy.
