The attunement process is a ceremony of spiritual awakening that symbolizes the creation of a new connection between you and the Universal Source of Light that aligns you with your Highest Good. You can imagine it as being similar to the process of turning the dial on a radio to find a station. During an attunement, you are ‘tuned in’ to a different station. In other words, you are being attuned to a higher frequency.

A Reiki attunement must be given by a Reiki Master. A Reiki Master is someone who devotes themselves to attaining and maintaining a very high frequency of energy respective to the general masses. A Master’s connection to the Universal flow of energy is high enough that he or she can create a stronger connection between you and the Universal flow. After the final attunement, a person is technically labeled a Reiki Master, but the process of attaining Master-hood takes an undefined amount of time, depending solely on the person.

One of the unique characteristics of Reiki is its tradition of attuning people to the different levels of vibration that are represented in each degree. During the first degree, you receive four attunements and the second and third degree each require one attunement. Attunements are short ceremonies in which the Reiki Master performs a sequence of acts that connect you to a greater flow of energy. The ceremonies create an energy pattern around you when the Reiki Master imprints symbols into your aura. Your energy frequency immediately adjusts to the higher frequency represented by the Reiki symbols. The attunement is permanent.

Remember the definition of Reiki. It means ‘Universal Life Force Energy’. When someone says that they work with Reiki energy, it doesn’t mean that they are accessing a special kind of energy.

I work with Reiki energy = I work with Universal Life Force Energy

There is no distinction between ‘different types of energy’. There simply is energy, or there is no energy. There is no ‘good energy’. There is no ‘negative energy’. Once you realize that everything is energy, you begin to fully understand what the attunement process is and what being a Reiki practitioner means.

There are many sources that will tell you that the purpose of an attunement is to allow you to access ‘Reiki energy’ in order to heal a person or a situation. This is misleading. The purpose of an attunement is simply to give you greater access to the Universal flow of energy. What you choose to do with this new connection is up to you although it is important to recognize that wanting an attunement in order to heal others or to heal a situation are secondary desires.

You will not be able to heal anyone or anything until you begin to heal yourself.

To heal means to balance.

Until you balance yourself, your ability to balance elements around you is limited.

Enlightenment is a two-way process. You are invited to share your experiences of attunement with others who have gone through it and/or who have questions about it by adding your comment here Why don’t I start by sharing an attunement experience with you…

I was attuned to master level in Toronto, Canada – although I was slow to start and tried to ignore that inner voice for as long as I could…because of fear.

My whole attunement process took approximately 2-3 years. I had intensive periods of lessons and attunements with my teacher. These were followed by longer periods with little-to-no contact with him during which time I was encouraged to put the teachings into practice and to observe the changes that were to take place within myself, in my life and to those around me.

I was not encouraged nor deterred from giving Reiki sessions to others. My teacher was supportive throughout the process. I was often reminded that free will was a governing Universal Law and I had the choice each step of the way.

As I became more and more comfortable with the changes that came with this process, I began to hear that little voice in my head more often…although I wasn’t as afraid of it anymore. I noticed myself being inspired to try new things and face fears that I knew were holding me back. I took Kundalini Yoga classes which I thoroughly enjoyed, and opened a Reiki practice that allowed me to give Reiki sessions and attunements to others.

After about a year and a half of advertising myself as a Reiki practitioner – all in the name of empowering others with the benefits of Reiki, I decided to close down shop. My personal experience made me feel that offering Reiki in exchange for money tainted the process and actually limited to flow of energy. This is my experience, and I am by no means saying that this will be the case for everyone.

Since my first attunement, I progressively learned more about energy and made the conscious choice to apply what felt right. After experimenting with different approaches, I decided that rather than singing in the streets about the ‘miracle of energy’, I would respect the fact that everyone chooses for themselves and took the indirect route of simply providing the information to others through my site.

There are three degrees of Reiki practitioners. If you choose to go through the process, feel free to ask your teachers about the topics listed below.

The First Degree

In the first degree, students tend to learn about the following things:

• The History of Reiki
• The Attunement Process
• Energy
• The Chakra System
• How to do Reiki on yourself
• Hand Positions

The Second Degree

In the second degree, the following information is revealed:

• How to do Reiki on others
• Symbol of Power
• Symbol for Mental/Emotional Healing
• Symbol of Distance Healing
• Self Empowerment Positions
• The Bodies
• Kundalini Energy
• The Rays of Manifestation

The Third Degree

The third degree is taught in one of two ways, depending on the Master’s beliefs. Traditionally, the third degree was the highest level in Reiki. At this level, you were taught everything about the final symbols and how to attune others.

Through time, it became evident that many people wanted to reach the third degree and learn more about Reiki but had no intention of teaching or felt that they were not ready to guide others. For these reasons, many Reiki Masters saw the need for an intermediate stage between the second degree and Master level. The tradition of only having three degrees broke, and the third degree split into two parts: 3A and 3B. Under this adjusted system, people normally train up to level 3A unless they want to become a Reiki Master and teach Reiki.

At level 3B, people learn how to pass the Reiki philosophy onto others and give attunements.

After you are attuned to the First Degree, you have a new choice in front of you…

You can choose to begin working on yourself, or you can return to the life you led before your first thought of Reiki appeared. (Although you are reminded that since you have initiated a powerful energy transformation within you, beneficial changes will occur slowly even if you do not practice on yourself every day – they will simply be more subtle and unconscious.) If you choose to embrace a new level of vibration into your existence, then there are a few things to keep in mind.

Firstly, you have been given access to a much greater flow of energy then you were most likely connected to prior to your first attunement. In order to develop a full awareness of what it feels like to actually function on a day to day basis at a higher frequency, you have a responsibility to work on yourself as often as you can. You may choose to do a Reiki session on yourself once a week. You may also choose to do full Reiki sessions on yourself twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. Rather than imposing rules, it is suggested that the more energy you allow to directly flow through you, the greater results you will notice.

Working on yourself

The most important thing to remember is not to judge. Judgment diminishes the results of a treatment, but in a way that you may not expect. If you judge what happens, you will by no means be punished for it. It is simply a case of energy distribution. If you choose to judge, you are utilizing energy for the creation of doubt and fear. The energy that is used to judge is then no longer available in the moment to balance your chakras, heal your body, sooth your mind and all of the other benefits that come with attuning to a higher vibration. Remember that there is a cause to every effect. If you choose to think one way, you will be affected in that way. Rather then creating illusions of what you think is happening, put faith in the process and simply BE within the energy.

A reiki session may start off as an exercise in meditation. You may wish to clear your mind as you place your hands on your chakras because our minds get in the way of the things we are here to work through. You may find that you drift off into a place where you are not exactly sleeping, but not completely awake either. Sometimes your body asks for a deep rest during a session and will put you to sleep in order for you to receive the full benefit from a session. You may dream or see visions. You may have thoughts that you would normally have missed in a busier state. You may not remember anything that happens during your session including when your hands moved to different positions but your inner knowing tells you that all was done perfectly.

Allow nature to run its course. Your body enters into its natural state of harmony while energizing. At first you will feel the differences between your natural state of peace during Reiki and your daily state of preoccupation with life. Once you pass this stage, you will transition into a more harmonious state even while walking down the street. It is a process. Allow it to take you to your highest good and trust that you are cared for by the powers of love.

Many souls will look to different ways of becoming fully enlightened. If any school of thought does not lead you within, you should remove yourself from that school. However, if it leads you within, you can be sure you’re on the right track. All the answers, knowledge, enlightenment, and peace lies within you. You will never become truly enlightened by any school, nor by any person external of yourself. It does not do any harm to be aware of another’s opinion. Just remember; you are cautioned not to become that opinion.

I somehow find myself attracted to Shiva and Shakti lately. It first came up when I was reflecting about the way my life has shed a layer of itself as I knew it and is now sprouting new buds and seeing fresh branches extend from the maturing trees I planted who knows how long ago. Shiva and Shakti came up again when I was writing a post about meditation in which I shared with you a mantra that I find very powerful. Today I have come across it again through my exploration of the various aspects of the Third Eye.

The January 19 2009 entry on the A Light in the Darkness blog talks about “The Eye of Shiva” (a.k.a. Third Eye Chakra) in which it explains that in order to have a fully functioning Third Eye Chakra, three elements (on the physical and etheric planes) must activate and be able to function harmoniously. The required balance in the relationship of these three elements is almost breathtaking in its perfection. Read on to see what I mean…

In order for the Third Eye to be fully functioning, the Ego must fully immerse into the physical body. When a Soul is just beginning its evolutionary path, the Ego first makes contact with the physical body through the top of the head (where you would find the Crown Chakra). Once the Soul has evolved into a sufficiently conscious state, the process of immersion continues until the Ego absorbs into the area of the pituitary gland. (Keep in mind that this process of immersion takes place with each new life when Spirit enters into a new body each time it returns to a physical existence.)

The state of a Soul’s consciousness dictates not only how deeply the Ego can immerse into the physical being, but this also impacts the physical senses of the body. The more evolved the Soul, the higher the sensitivity and receptivity of the being. In other words, the higher the consciousness, the higher the receptivity to higher and more subtle vibrations. (This is explained further in the blog entry I mention above.) But the point to understand here is that once the Ego is able to immerse deep enough that it makes contact with the pituitary gland, the evolution of consciousness can progress into fundamental levels.

“As these three types of energy, or the vibration of these three centers, begin to contact each other, a definite interplay is set up. This triple interplay forms in time a vortex or center of force, which finds its place in the center of the forehead, and takes eventually the semblance of an eye looking out between the other two. It is the eye of the inner vision, and he who has opened it can direct and control the energy of matter, see all things in the Eternal Now, and therefore be in touch with causes more than with effects, read the Akashic records, and see clairvoyantly.”

Source

I’m not someone who signs up for a lot of e-mail newsletters. I enjoy subscribing to blogs because of their variety of content mixed with the personal musing of their authors, but newsletters usually seem to be filled more with advertisements and event announcements then meaty content. I suppose I liken them to weekly columns (blogs) vs. the classifieds (newsletters).

That is, with the exception of one ‘newsletter’ that I have been receiving for years. Once a month, a new Beacons of Light – Reminders from Home broadcast pops into my inbox. The delivery usually comes at a time when I get more emails than I want to read, obligations demand more of my time than I am willing to give, and ‘work stuff’ outnumbers the ‘fun stuff’. Regardless of all that though, the Beacons are always a welcome change of pace.

Rather than being a traditional newsletter, Beacons is a transcript of a channel that is conducted monthly. It’s delivered in numerous languages (and they’re even looking for more volunteers to translate the messages and make them more accessible to others) and are even in video format now. I like to digest it word by word, at my own pace, sometimes reading it once over during a three day period as I reflect upon its multi-layered messages. All this isn’t to say that I resonate with all that is presented in the broadcasts, but I do find comfort in reading a story, experience or perception shared by someone else that so closely resembles my own. In a world that still places so much emphasis on the physical, it can be easy to wonder if you’re ‘crazy’ for feeling that something ‘different’ is happening in the world lately.

I believe in magic. I know it to be true. Synchronicity is magic. Love is magic. Dreaming is magic. Perhaps you will find magic in this month’s broadcast too…

I understand something now that I didn’t understand as I was in the midst of the experience itself. You see, I have recently experienced the Shakti energy in my life. It cleansed, it took away, it cleared out the energies that would not be able to support the higher vibration that I am moving toward, into and through. Shakti (Kundalini) is the destroyer as Shiva is the creator. At some point, the two energies meet, they mingle and dance together until the time for the second comes. The second, the Shiva, the creative part of the journey – it has started for me again. I reached a point in which I was loosing the spark of joy, my passion for things was fading, I was seeing the loss around me, the sacrifice, the cost of change and transformation, and I was getting too tired. Too tired to hold on to what was no longer there, so tired of feeling the pain of loss, and too tired of trying to fit the old me into the new place in which I have found myself. Then I prayed. I prayed for the Universe to guide me to the passion and the joy and the creativity of life once again. Not even two days later, I felt the spark again! I felt it, and because I was so afraid of not feeling joy in each day, I drank in this new vital energy and ran with the inspirations I was given. Sometimes action takes courage, and at other times, it just takes the intention to want to change – the knowingness that there must be change.

One of those sparks was this blog. I have been pushing writing out of my life the moment I felt the strength of the written word. I think the potency…the power…the alchemical magic of writing was so overwhelming that I just simply wanted to run away from it…because I didn’t understand it…I didn’t know where to begin… But, when someone with the inspiration to create blocks off every outlet to express creativity, there is an eventual suffering – a suffering that comes from not letting creativity flow and blossom and heal everything it touches. It is magic, and magic deserves to breath, it deserves to be honored.

I have been asking for the opportunity to shine light everywhere I can. I believe this is part of one of my sacred contracts in this life. I have been waiting for the opportunity, but because it meant so much, on so many levels, when it did come, it scared me away with its possibility! The power – my power – my Higher  Power – was showing itself to me, and I ran away. I have been carrying this fear with me for a very long time although I still don’t really understand why because shouldn’t something so beautiful and so magical as the awareness that anything is possible be, in theory, easy to embrace? After all, isn’t that what we all want? Some proof that there is more? Some sign that we CAN?

Lord, use me as an instrument of thy peace so that I may assist you in bringing Heaven to Earth.

When I was living in England, I would say this prayer to myself as I walked to work each morning. It would help me find peace when I was nervous, or stressed, or sensing that I was loosing perspective of the bigger picture. Maybe it can help someone else out there, so I share it with you now, in this moment.

So…I fill my cup with LIGHT and FUN and LAUGHTER and I sip from my cup as much as I want…because…I am amazing, I am brilliant, I am the Creator of my existence and all my choices reflect my Brilliance because I am in Command!!!

Love and Light!!

Kundalini and I have a peaceful relationship. I have read the experiences of many others who have had spontaneous Kundalini awakenings that have…caught them off guard.

To me…
Kundalini is force.
It is intense, focused and merciless.
It is throbbing, pulsing and whirling.
It is unseen yet unmistakably felt on this side of the veil.
It is multi- and omni-present.
It is simple, subtle, supporting and sustaining.
It is nurturing, natural and native.
It is complex, cumulus and cohesive.
It flows, spins, shoots and thrusts.

Polarity.
Attraction.
Magnetism.
Unification.

When awakened, Kundalini is the fire of life that weaves itself through our energetic essence, mingling with the chakras, melting obstructions and exploding life into all it touches.

Whether it be through yoga, meditation or spontaneous awakening, Kundalini is a force of indescribable potency, intensity and union with all that is.

What is your relationship with Kundalini Shakti?