Activating Your Own Reiki Energy

Please read my articles - What is Reiki? and Reiki and Highest Ki for more information on this topic.

This page is one of a series where I give my ideas on aspects of Reiki. The pages are intended to give some "food for thought" and some are only my viewpoint. While a number of Reiki facts are included, you should decide for yourself how much (if any) of the content feels right to you.

. "Activate Your Own Reiki Energy" - You've probably seen this kind of claim in some books or at some web sites.

I think those who talk about awakening your own Reiki are actually talking about personal energies in general. They are using the term "reiki" for the generic set of energies that assist with healing and personal development. That's like saying you drive a mini van when you actually drive a sports car. You might think that the term van refers to all automobiles, yet if Reiki is a van, and yours is a sports car, your passenger capacity is a bit different. Neither one is better than the other, just more useful in specific situations, and yet both get you where you wish to travel. Being more specific helps to lessen confusion.

The family of Reiki energies tend to have a certain type of feel to them, as in a base energy or frequency. You might think of this as having a common carrier wave as in FM on the radio. They are usually activated or awakened with the assistance of someone who has received teacher training as well as certain helpful energies at the 3rd or 4th level of a Reiki system. The energy lineage (in Japan) or teaching lineage (in the West) is then given and it always can be traced back to one of Mikao Usui's students.

Everyone has these types of energies - I call them your Highest Ki - and none is necessarily the best for all, yet like Usui Sensei, your own can eventually become the best for you. You can certainly awaken yours and improve it on your own. In the case of Reiki, Mikao Usui (the founder) did a lot of inner spiritual work before his own highest energy was suddenly and unexpectedly accelerated. While he did not teach energy healing, he did teach simple ways to accelerate spiritual growth and thus some of his students found they too developed a tremendous Ki or energy. In honour of Usui Sensei, some of these students borrowed a term from his Usui Gainen and named this Usui Reiki Ryoho. They built a healing and learning system (a Gakkai) around this and explored ways to easily assist another to activate this same set of healing energies, and to apply the energy to heal others. This became what we later referred to as Reiki. (Note that another popular system from one of these founders, Eguchi, became known as Teno Hira Ryoji.)

Everyone has these types of energies
- I call them your Highest Ki

There are also stories of how some of Usui's students would suddenly experience a level of his personal energy just by being in his presence or touching his robe, which of course means they were very near him (source: Toshitaka Mochizuki's 2002 book "Cho-Kantan Iyashino Te")

These are not experiences unique to Reiki history, as other spiritual systems have similar properties, such as in Tibetan Buddhism. One might experience the Dalai Lama's energy just by being near him.

There are many types of energies. I've known people to activate their own, and some have activated very strong healing energies. It's as though they have activated their own personal and special music. I have a web page on such alternative healing energies. Powerful healing type energies like Seichim (SKHM), Sekhem, Magnified Healing, Urevia, etc. tend to have similar properties as Reiki but definitely feel different to experienced or sensitive energy workers. Depending on the healing subject and their condition, one might have more success with one energy than with another at any given time. Yet all make similar overall healing claims. Reiki is simply a particular family of energy activated within Japan in the early 1920s.

What makes Reiki different is that there is an additional energy shared in the 3rd level that greatly assists activating any specific energy in others. It is usually called Empowerment but Western Reiki calls it "master." In a way, it's like having a really good music teacher help you to learn a new instrument, or it's like having access to a hydro transformer when activating the electrical box of your house.

Some very talented energy people can pick up on Reiki on their own, but the ones I have worked with - even very experienced natural healers - have all said that the Reiki energy I attuned them to was far stronger or better or higher, etc. Other Reiki teachers have had this experience as well. I have yet to work with someone like this who said their original energy was better, but I am sure there are exceptions out there. If so, then these are very fortunate persons indeed who have activated their own Highest Ki to levels beyond the average Reiki person, and I applaud them.

"Call it Amanda-Ki."
That eliminates confusion with Reiki, and anyway,
it's much more personal and special.

So it seems that we do much better (and more easily) when assisted by someone who already has the energy of the target system, and who has that additional 3rd level vibration activated - which is just another energy everyone has lying dormant. That energy was actually noted by Taoist teachers and it was through old Taoist teachings that Usui Sensei came across this as well as the other 3 symbol energies he would teach.

In my Threshold Reiki classes I also try to help students to awaken their own Highest Ki as I feel in the long run, this is a much better energy for them to develop. And I think this is part of what Usui Sensei had in mind as a by-product of the personal development system he originally taught, sometimes referred to as Usui-Do. However, I do not suggest students use the term "Reiki" for their personal energy once developed. As I suggested to one lady who told me of a powerful awakening of her own energy and who's name was Amanda, "Call it Amanda-Ki." That eliminates confusion with Reiki, and anyway, it's much more personal and special than Reiki.