Healers say Reiki method helps put the force with you

By Maria Kegel

JAKARTA (JP): Political tension may prevail on the capital's streets but it's another story inside the Mahameru Center on Jl. Gatot Subroto in Central Jakarta.

With a cool, clean interior, the center practices Reiki, "a method of holistic healing", to treat people suffering from such illnesses as cancer, diabetes and liver ailments.

Agung, a Reiki master teacher and head of the clinic, sees one person at a time for up to 30 minutes, silently holding his hands several inches over the area that is causing trouble for the patient.

The patient may feel heat or a tingling sensation from his hands, even though touching may not be involved.

Agung is channeling energy from a "divine source" through his body, and the energy exits through his hands to the patient.

The cost for the service, available Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.? It is by donation only, Agung replied.

Yan Nurinda, the founder and chairman of the center, said people have reported that after one, two or three visits, they felt better and had more energy.

"Every disease is curable in our opinion, as they are all related to our etheric body and we believe many diseases are caused by not having enough energy," Yan, who became a master teacher after five years of training, said.

"Janet", another master teacher, says Reiki, developed in Tibet thousands of years ago and revived in 19th century Japan, is a tool or means of connecting to energy.

People can tap into that infinite source and energy-flow through a chakra, one of seven points of physical or spiritual energy in the body.

"It is defined as the universal life force, (from the Japanese word reiki) and it is accessible to everyone, with no skills or qualifications necessary to become a healer -- just a desire," she said.

And anybody who practices it does become a healer.

Initially though, a person needs the energy to heal oneself before healing other people, she said.

A daily exercise Janet uses to balance her seven energy centers is to place her hands for 30 minutes over her chakra to supply energy.

Chakra comes from the sanskrit word for wheel; by balancing all the chakras they spin in harmony, and when one is accustomed to balancing the forces, Janet said there is a noticeable difference when one stops.

She said that healers were simply channelers for the energy to pass through, and could direct it to any living thing.

A master teacher who holds small private classes, Haifa Shahab, said the healing energy could even heal pets and plants, as well as make flowers bloom all the time.

About a year ago, one of Janet's cats was seriously poisoned, and she gave it a Reiki treatment while she waited for a taxi to take the cat to the vet.

"The poor thing was writhing in agony and even the vet after the examination gave a pessimistic prognosis on its chances of survival, but she promised to do her best."

She left her cat with the vet, and it was put on an IV. That night Janet called the vet and was told her cat was surviving, and the next morning, the vet reported her pet was doing well.

"By the following day, he was fine and could come home," she said, adding that the whole family was relieved the pet lived.

"It is an intelligent energy, as the person receiving it determines how much of it to take in, so some people don't feel anything. But it can be strong if the person receiving the Reiki is unwell or has an injury; for example, if they have a sore knee, the heat will be felt in that area," she said.

Healing

Healing energy can also be sent to anyone in the world, and they may or may not feel something, depending on their sensitivity, Janet said.

Since energy is vibration, the treatment raises the vibration of the person receiving, and Reiki is a positive energy that cannot be used for anything bad, she said.

Healing is not Reiki's only function.

It also serves to protect the body and material possessions, such as your car, from negative energy and to aid personal spirituality, enabling you to mediate better, Yan noted.

"It can also awaken psychic abilities," he added.

Through Reiki, Yan said he could prevent rain from falling, and once he put out a fire at a shop-house during a visit to Bali almost two years ago.

"I was wondering how I could help, and I tried sending a Reiki symbol, which is learned at the second level, to this fire and amazingly, after two seconds it stopped."

The symbols, Haifa said, were for distant healing, protection or harmony.

For Janet, Reiki has changed her life, bringing more harmony into it.

"It has enabled me to love myself first of all, and to be able to change the way I react to things surrounding me," she said.

Haifa said Reiki had also changed her from the time she started practicing in 1994, making her calmer.

"It really helps people who are insomniacs, very stressed or have a lot of anxiety or panic attacks," Haifa explained, adding that most people who learn it become more relaxed and sleep well.

"Because of that, you can see your problems more clearly, and then you know how to handle them," she said.

Janet said Reiki was applicable in this day and age because, as humans, we are searching for the true meaning of existence.

"Reiki can bring you in touch with your true life purpose," she said.

Getting in tune

Yan compared the infinite source of energy to radio waves that are always present in the air for a person to tune into, and that first-timers need attunement to open up the various chakra.

During a Reiki class, a student will receive attunement to open up the chakra in their body so they can channel the energy. Every level is an attunement.

There are three levels of energy, with the third split into two, earning the person the title of master or the next highest, master teacher, Janet explained.

She said the amount of time needed to reach a level was a personal thing, adding that it took her about six or seven years to become a master teacher, which she has been for two years now.

"From the first to the second level, it took me a year, and from the second to first half of the third level less than two years, and then it took me a while to get around to becoming a master teacher," she said.

Yan said it was possible to receive Reiki attunement by concentrating on a photograph or through a phone call.

His web site offers a half-hour Reiki training session on Wednesdays and he said that by sitting in front of his photo in a receiving position for the full 30 minutes a student would be able to pick up the ability.