Happy Birthday Usui Sensei!

Mikao Usui was born on August 15th, 1865 in the village of Taniai in the Yamagata district of Gifu prefecture, which is located near present -day Nagoya, Japan.

He was married and had two children. According to my Reiki Level 1 & 2 manual,

"He had an avid interest in learning and worked hard at his studies. As he grew older, he traveled to Europe and China to further his education. His curriculum included medicine, psychology, and religion as well as the art of divination, which Asians have long considered to be a worthy skill."

"Usui Sensei also became a member of the Rei Jyutsu Kai, a metaphysical group dedicated to developing psychic abilities. He had many jobs including civil servant, company employee and journalist, and he helped rehabilitate prisoners."

"Eventually he became the secretary to Shinpei Goto, head of the department of health and welfare who later became mayor of Tokyo. The connections Usui Sensei made at this job also helped him to become a successful business man."

"The depth and breadth of his experiences inspired him to direct his attention to discovering the purpose of life. Ini his search he came across the description of a special state of consciousness that once achieved would not only provide an understanding of one's life purpose, but would also guide one to achieve it. This special state is called An-shin Ritsu-mei (pronounced on sheen dit sue may)."

"In this special state, one is always at peace, regardless of what's happening in the outer world. And it is from this state of peace that one comes to understand and achieve one's life purpose. One of the special features of this state is that it maintains itself without any effort on the part of the individual; the experience of peace simply wells up spontaneously from within and is a type of enlightenment."

Usui reached a point in his life when a burning desire arose within him to achieve that enlightened state. He began to practice Zen meditation rigorously. After 3 years of this he asked his teacher if there was anything more he could do to reach his goal. His teacher suggested that he go to Mount Kurama, where an 800 yr old Buddhist temple is located and undertake a traditional fasting and meditation retreat.

Usui took his teachers advice and planned his meditation retreat. His teacher told him that he must proceed with an attitude of "enlightenment or death". Usui took this to heart and resolved to meditate and fast until he either reached enlightenment or died. On the 21st day of his retreat he felt very weak and had lost hope. Just when he had resigned himself to failure and death as the sun was setting, he was struck with "a bolt of divine lightening" on the top of his head and passed out. He woke up in the morning feeling incredibly blissful and energized. He had achieved An-sheen Ritsu-mei! He felt immense peace, love and wisdom.

He ran down the mountain, excited to share the good news with his teacher. But in his haste he stubbed his toes on a rock. He sat down and placed his hands on his aching toes and was amazed when the pain subsided within seconds. He realized that his hands had become very hot with healing energy.

There was an inn near the bottom of the mountain and Usui, who was famished from the 3 weeks of fasting decided to obtain food there. He was greeted by a young woman who worked there. He noticed that her jaw was swollen with an abscess and asked if she would let him heal it. She consented and Usui began to treat the abscess with his Reiki hands. The abscess soon began to shrink as the Reiki healed the infection.

Usui was then able to eat a large meal, which normally would have been impossible for a person who had fasted for 3 weeks. If you have ever fasted for a significant length of time, you know that it hurts your mouth to begin eating again and you must have only warm broth, or a small amount of bland food at first before you can eat a full regular meal.

Usui's enlightenment had happened in March 1922. His reputation as a healer spread far and wide quickly. He created his Reiki Ryoho Gakkai (Reiki healing society) and taught Reiki to 2000 students before he died in 1926.

Usui was ahead of his time. He wanted Reiki healing and training to be given to everyone regardless of social status and ability to pay. His dream did not come true until many decades after his death.

A native of Hawaii named Hawayo Takata went to Japan to get treatment for a tumor, gallstones, appendicitis and asthma. She found a Reiki clinic that was run by one of Usui's students named Chujiro Hayashi. She got Reiki from 2 practitioners several times a week for 4 months and was totally healed. She then got Reiki training from Hayashi in 1936 and apprenticed in his clinic, eventually returning in 1937 to Hawaii where she opened her own clinic and became very successful. in the 1970's she traveled to America to teach Reiki. By the time she died in 1981, she had trained 22 Reiki teachers. But Reiki was spreading very slowly because, like Takata, her students were charging thousands of dollars for the classes.

Iris Ishikuru was the first of Takata;s teachers who began to lower the class fees in 1989. I think she may have been motivated to do this by the AIDS crisis. In any case, Reiki began to spread more widely in the 90's and then after the 2001 9/11 attack, it went viral global. Usui's dream had come true!

New Moon Intentions & Quantum Manifestation

The New Moon is the most potent time of the month to set intentions because the subconscious mind is more receptive and your intentions (software) are more easily downloaded into the subconscious mind (hard drive). Here's how you do the New Moon Intentions 5 Elements Ritual™ -
- Write intentions list in the form of affirmations - I am always safe wherever I am and whatever I do, I am very successful in my work. My finances are always improving, etc. .....
- Ether Element - place list on altar (gesture of turning it over to the divine to be blessed, supported and made manifest)
- Fire Element - on the day of New Moon burn list and save the ashes in an envelope.
- Air Element - smoke of burning list sends intentions up into the air / heaven
- Earth Element - take ashes, bury them outside in the earth with a seed (flower seed, acorn, any kind of seed)
- Water Element - water the ashes / seed. (You can make "holy water" by saying prayer over it, charging it with Reiki)

Whether you do the 5 elements ritual or not, what's most important is that you practice the techniques of -

Conscious Intentional Creation of Reality™ -