Does Reiki Awaken Kundalini?
December 26, 2011 in Q & A, Reiki Articles, Reiki Manual
Q: Does Reiki Awaken Kundalini?
Question:
Does Reiki awaken Kundalini, either my own or of those around me?
Answer:
A fellow from the Kundalini mail list, Benjamin, recently replied to a post that essentially asked the same question. I felt his reply was very good, and asked for permission to reprint it here. Benjamin granted permission, and what he has to say is as follows:
“Somewhere around the year 2000, Reiki became dogmatic. What happened prior to that time was that many individuals [...] underwent the attunement processes, and began an awakening. This was so prevalent that people talked and talked about it, helping the appeal of Reiki grow. Reiki as a system back then did not have the amount of information–technical limitations if you will–that it has today.
Prior to 2000, when a person began an awakening through the Reiki process, they could seek teachers such as Arthur Robertson and Iris Ishikuro who had a tremendous amount of knowledge from Tibetan Mysticism. Although Tibetan techniques per se really had nothing to do with Reiki practices as a system, those Tibetan practices offered a tremendous amount of wisdom to those looking to it for answers because people have been writing about the effects of it for so long [note: the same is true in India as spiritual practitioners have been writing about Kundalini for thousands of years--I seem to recall one former(?) participant of this list, Irmansyah Effendi, began with Reiki, underwent a (controversial) Kundalini awakening with the help of Mystress, and then went on to found Reiki Tummo / Open Heart, a yoga system that uses Reiki as the first three degrees of entry into the higher mysteries of kundalini/yoga]. Reiki practitioners loved the attunement process of Reiki in that time because of its simplicity–and many discovered that after a short period of time, the mantras and symbols ascribed to the Reiki attunement process became unnecessary (they could successfully perform the attunements without them). But the problem was that no Reiki-specific philosophical literature existed to help a person understand the wisdom they were experiencing and gaining through the attunements, and the problem was compounded by the people who were not ready for the awakening process (but wanted it).
Around 2000 more and more Reiki literature began to appear that authenticated its origins in Japan, and unlike the literature of India and Tibet and was accompanied by philosophical discussions and explanations of the experiences that inspired the reader to think and discover more about the experience, Reiki literature simply began prescribing rigid techniques that anyone could do. Many who were awakened and were in the process of awakening said that those rigid techniques were not necessary to do Reiki, while the authors and their fan base (i.e. dedicated students) insisted that if it wasn’t done the way they wrote it, it wasn’t Reiki. Many people who were awakening continued to be attracted to Reiki, and many more who were not spiritually awakened but deeply desired to be awakened became involved in Reiki with the hope of becoming awakened.
What happened over a period of several years is that the number of people who where not awakened but strongly desired to be so outgrew the number of people [...] involved in Reiki.
Rigid techniques, ritual if you will, has its usefulness. For someone who is in the process of awakening, it serves to create a stable landmark from which to observe energies, and a stable landmark to return to re-experience similar (but oftentimes different) energies. This is useful because on a very practical level it can help a person remain more sane in the process, and on the spiritual level it does, albeit slowly, help a person gain greater spiritual strength (another way to say that is that it helps a person become more spiritually aware and grow).
People who teach Reiki techniques that are not awakened have a greater tendency to focus on the process of the technique rather than the effects of attunements, and take great pride when their students begin to experience spiritual awakenings as it allows them the vicarious experience of it… and all too often, those not awakened who are teaching Reiki respond in ways that keeps the student in their place–beneath the teacher.
Explore the Reiki forums (what few there are nowadays) for a bit and take an objective look at the replies to questions like [these]… is the reply simply a revised version of something you’ve read in a Reiki book, or is it different? Most people teaching Reiki today and who actively participate in the forums simply repeat what they’ve read in the books and present the information in a way that, unintentionally or not, results in the student not finding the answers they need. That’s the best way to keep a student beneath the teacher.
Reiki as a system as it exists today is not going to give you the answers you need because most teaching it are not awakened.”
Benjamin is right. Most teaching Reiki are not awakened, which makes it difficult for them to provide feedback at the level of understanding Kundalini beyond a textbook-level of understanding.
Reiki can help a person’s Kundalini awaken, and even the Kundalini of others in their energy-field because of sympathetic resonance.
Benjamin’s text reprinted with permission from Benjamin. The Kundalini list is a free e-mail discussion list available at http://www.kundalini-gateway.org. Special thanks to Mystress Angelique Serpent for creating the longest running free e-mail based Kundalini discussion list on the internet.