In This Issue
Reiki Tip From Hawayo Takata
"Let Reiki Teach You"
Our Fall Class Schedule is Now Available!
Please visit us at learnreiki.org for details.
Next Month:
Interview with Phyllis Furumoto
Welcome to the August 2008 newsletter! We hope that you are having a wonderful summer. All of our flowers and vegetables are loving the results of abundant rain, and continue to grow bigger and bigger. The vines in our pumpkin patch have dared to escape their boundaries; the huge green tendrils, adorned with small yellow flowers, are now decorating the front lawn! Our blueberry bushes, which John Harvey and I have been enjoying in countless ways, are providing us with a prolific crop of juicy berries this year!
This month we have a special treat for you! In 1975, Mrs. Hawayo Takata, the Japanese-American woman who brought Reiki to the West, presented a number of programs on Reiki at the Trinity Metaphysical Center, in Redwood City, CA. Trinity Metaphysical Center was a chapter in the Universal Church of the Master, and also served as the first Reiki center in the United States. John’s former wife, the Reverend Beth Gray, was its pastor, and John Harvey Gray was the Reiki Master in charge of its Reiki Wellness Center.
Takata, as she liked be called, granted John Harvey Gray permission to record these programs on Reiki. At that time, John Harvey Gray was studying with Takata to become a Reiki Master. We have selected a question and answer taken from one of these programs to present to you in this newsletter. The audience consisted of Takata’s former Reiki students who were also members of the Trinity Metaphysical Center.
After learning Reiki from Dr. Chujiro Hayashi during an extended visit to Japan in 1935, Takata returned to the Hawaiian Islands and opened a Reiki practice in Honolulu. (Hayashi had previously received his training as Reiki Master directly from Mikao Usui, the originator of the Reiki system.) In 1937, Hayashi traveled to Honolulu to visit Takata. He stayed for five months. During this time, he completed Takata's training and initiated her as a Reiki Master on February 21, 1938. Takata's Reiki practice flourished for nearly 40 years. In addition to her very busy Reiki healing practice, Takata gave Reiki classes to Japanese-Americans and native Hawaiians.
In 1973, Takata began traveling from Hawaii to visit her daughter in Keosauqua, Iowa, and made stops along the way in several cities, to teach Reiki classes. At that time, no one outside of Japan had heard of Reiki. Although, Mikao Usui was the originator of the Reiki system, it was Takata who introduced Reiki to the Western world. Takata spent the last 40 years of her life practicing and teaching Reiki and held an immense reservoir of knowledge, experience and colorful stories about Reiki!
These recordings are owned privately by John and Lourdes Gray. They are not available anywhere else. We are in the process of creating a number of CDs, which will be made available to the public. In the meantime, we will be presenting to our readers some of the questions and answers transcribed from these lectures. We plan to do so periodically through our newsletter. We feel that it is of the highest importance to share this material. The information contained in Takata’s questions and answer sessions is fundamental to the theory and practice of Reiki. Takata’s teachings provides us with a strong and solid foundation upon which we can build our knowledge and practice of Reiki. Just as in building a house, a strong foundation is essential to support the structure. In Reiki, Takata’s teaching provides the base, upon which our knowledge and practice of Reiki can grow, expand, and evolve. Remember, in order to know where we are going, we must understand fully where we have been.
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By Dr. Lourdes Gray
For this newsletter, we have selected one of the questions from Takata’s question and answer programs to present to you. The question we have chosen was recorded by John Harvey Gray at the Trinity Metaphysical Center in 1975. John Harvey Gray was the first Reiki Master trained by Hawayo Takata in California, and the third Reiki Master trained by her in the West. At the time these recordings were made at the Center, John was a Reiki Master in training with Takata. Reverend Beth Gray, was also master of ceremonies for the programs held there. The audience was made up of Reiki students living in the San Francisco Bay Area, who were also members of the Center. They were also all students of Takata. Takata was the only Reiki Master in the West teaching at that time.
Takata was the guest speaker for the Sunday evening program at the Trinity Metaphysical Center. The program that evening was a question and answer session, and the persons asking the questions were the members of the audience. The Reverend Beth Gray presented the questions to Takata.
Because we believe it is vital to maintain the complete integrity of the original Takata recordings, it has been presented here verbatim. Any inaudible sounds (word or words) have been noted. The response to the question, provided by Takata, is presented here in its entirety. Correct punctuation is attempted.
Reverend Beth Gray: “Will you speak about reactions?”
Hawayo Takata: “Yes. Reactions are active. Now very few people will have a reaction after one treatment, but if they are very, very ill, they may. And when reactions come, don’t panic. But most people will say, ‘Oh, they made me worse.’ But when you feel that you have become worse, that means the whole body has taken effect. The pure, the (inaudible word), the Reiki is beginning to cleanse you. And so, the internal organs, the twenty-eight feet of intestines, will be cleansed, and you will start to have diarrhea, and fever. Now, especially in the chronic arthritis cases, when you have lots of calcium in your body, if your body does not burn, or raise fever, you cannot get the calcium to dissolve. And so by treating it, and when your body temperature rises, you may have fever for four or five days. But all during the time, the calcium begins to dissolve. And it may come out through your urine, through your bowl. Sometimes it forms a great big sore anywhere. It could be on the knees, it could be on the elbow, a great big ripe tomato-like, and that’s filled with dissolved calcium. And this patient asked me, ‘Mrs. Takata, what do you do (inaudible word), fork, knife, or a needle?’ I said, ‘No. We Reiki. We just treat. We are not surgeons. We are not doctors. So all we have to do is to treat, and we’ll leave it up to nature, and see what happens. But be sure to have a double bed sheet by your feet. Someday this is going to burst.’ And while treating, this became very, very raw, and then it burst. And, you know, the force of this ripe tomato was so hard that it splashed, not only the walls, but to the ceiling. He grabbed the sheet, put it on, and then I squeezed it, and then it drained for five to seven days. And before, the hole was that big, but before it completely healed, I told him, ‘Now that your swelling from your feet and your thighs and legs and all your arms have gone, and you can walk now without pain, please go to your doctor, and check with him and tell him about this.’ So, he did. And the doctor was very, very happy. And of course, while the doctor was examining and looking at the hole, he squeezed it. And when he squeezed it, something like cottage cheese jumped out. And that was all the calcium that had gathered from the body. Now, this man had 13 years of arthritis, and he was not an old man. He was only about 45 years old. But he was unable to work. He was bedridden ... bedridden. And pain, pain, pain. So, when you entered his home, on the door it says, ‘Please, do not slam the doors. The screen door has rattles, so please do not slam. Please, do not turn on the TV.’ Everything that (has) vibrations (she claps), even that hurt him more. And so when he got well, he did get well to a perfection. And he lost … he was about 175 pounds, and he came down, and he minused, he minused about 35 pounds. And so he could wear his wedding suit at that time, and he went to the doctor, and showed him, and said, ‘This is where it came out.’ And the doctor said, ‘If this had covered the whole surface,’ he said, ‘I would not have believed it. But seeing is believing, and I’m very happy you had the sense to come when this was still (inaudible word).’ And the first thing I told him, I said, ‘Every Sunday, you used to argue with your wife. Your wife said, ‘Let’s go to church.’ And he said, ‘Oh, I have to go fishing.’ And he would say, ‘Today, I have to clean my yard.’ And then he always had some kind of alibi, but never went to church. And so, I say to him, ‘Now that you have gone to the doctor, and find yourself okay, the first thing you are going to do is to go to the house of God, and thank God. Take your wife down.’ It was only two blocks … that was the Episcopalian church. And so I said, ‘Wear your shoes and your Sunday clothes, take your wife’s arm, and walk to the church, now that you can walk. And, you walk right to the altar, and then, bow your head, and then thank God for having mercy, and grace, and for the, healing.’ I said, ‘It was through God power, that you were healed, and, it was not (inaudible word), I only gave you the time.’ And then, the wife followed the diet. And so, in 30 days, 13 years of arthritis was absolutely gone. And so, that is another happy, happy story. But it ended it. You have to remove the cause, and then the effect. No effect … if you remove the cause there shall be no effect.”
John Harvey Gray and I are pleased to announce that we are in the process of compiling the first CD of all of Mrs. Hawayo Takata’s question and answer sessions held at the Trinity Metaphysical Church in Redwood City, California. The sessions were all recorded and then transcribed verbatim. It will soon be a new product!
For those of you who are new subscribers, or for those who have not yet had the chance to do so, take a look at the changes that we have made to our website! We have added a Reiki Resources page where you can find free copies of previous newsletters, articles and view Reiki training videos featuring John Harvey Gray and Dr. Lourdes Gray. We think you will find the contents of this page informative and helpful. We have also added new photos, and an in-depth article introducing Reiki Master Teacher, Dr. Lourdes Gray, to our readers!
We are looking for some interesting Reiki stories for our newsletter. If you have a Reiki story that you would like to share, please send it us! Please keep the length of the submission to no more than 500 words.
Thank you for taking the time to read our newsletter. John and I wish you a healthy, peaceful, and prosperous month. Please look for next issue in September.