This weekend I attended a Reiki intensive training with my teacher, Reiki Master William Bagley. Reiki (pronounced Ray-key) is a gentle hands-on (and also distance) healing art. A Reiki healer channels Unconditional Loving Energy through their hands (or through visualization if by distance), and the person receiving the energy usually feels a relaxed sense of well-being.

Because the Unconditional Loving Energy is non-violent, it won’t force anything to happen. It is intelligent and it only works to the degree that the receiver gives permission for healing to happen. Once permission is given, and the person is open to receiving healing, then the energy flows into the person and works wherever that person needs healing. The Reiki Practitioner doesn’t decide where the energy will go (and in what order), but rather, the energy itself decides where to go. For example, if a person most needs healing at the emotional level, then the Reiki energy will work on that level first.

During the training weekend (my second time to take the weekend, and the last step towards my certification), we focused a lot on healing at the emotional level, because many “illnesses” stem from emotional pains. (I put the word illnesses in quotes because in Reiki healings, rather than labeling the receivers with certain diagnoses, we consciously see all “illnesses” as mysterious, evolving energy patterns that we send energy into.) Will said that really the only thing to cure is the separation from Love. He said that the illusion ~ of being separated from Love ~ is what keeps us from being cured. So, in Reiki healing work, we start with the solution rather than the problem, and the solution is Unconditional Love.

So when Reiki healers open themselves to be clear channels for Unconditional Loving Energy to flow through, then that Love flows into the receivers and works on the deepest root of all the physical illnesses: the feeling of being separate from Love.

We discussed the three main emotional energies that block the flow of Love: fear, sadness, and anger. Once purified and healed, fear transmutes into wisdom; sadness into compassion; and anger into clarity. We talked a lot about anger, which, in addition to clarity, also transmutes into creativity, assertiveness, and self-empowerment.

Then someone brought up the topic of rage, and how repressed rage can lead to low self-esteem. Will explained that in Reiki healing, which is mostly a non-verbal process, it is important to acknowledge the feelings, and to accept all the emotions without judging them. That is how Unconditional Loving Energy is ~ It doesn’t judge anything, including anger and rage. After discussing how to work with clients when they have rage coming up, there was quite a bit of angry rage energy taking over the room, so Will asked each of us to go inside and just feel what that energy felt like in our bodies.

As soon as we acknowledged the energies in the room, and we watched how they felt in our bodies, those energies began dissolving into the Unconditional Loving Energy of Radiant Awareness.

Later in the day Will taught us another method for working with rage. He led us in a visualization of a red Tara. She had black streaks, fangs, and claws, and resembled the Hindu Goddess Kali. She was storming through the universes, crunching planets and galaxies with her hands. She was snuffing out suns and destroying everything in her path. He guided us to visualize ourselves merging with Her and experiencing that Enlightened Anger. He said to notice the transmutation when you take on that Form.

That visualization technique creates a great container for safely experiencing rage or any other emotion. So whatever emotion is arising, you can visualize Tara having the enlightened version of the emotion, and then merge with Tara in it. Last night I was feeling some sadness passing through, so I visualized a green Tara crying compassionate tears for all the beings who are suffering. Today I am focusing on the mantra to Green Tara: Om Tara Tutara Ture Svaha.

I send out healing spiritual energies to wherever they are needed in the Whole.

May all beings everywhere know Peace and Happiness.

Om Shanti (Peace),

Yogini Tejaswini

Photo of Om Tare Tutare Ture Soha by alicepopkorn - CC license