Takata's Teaching Story

Here is the story as I was taught it :

Dr Usui, a lecturer in Christianity, was teaching his students one day, when one of them stood up to ask a question - "Dr Usui" he said "do you believe that Jesus healed?". "Why, yes, indeed I do" Usui replied. "Do you believe Jesus taught his followers how to heal?" asked the student. "Yes" came the answer. "Then why is it that no one can do this today?" Dr Usui had no answer to this question and, leaving his students half way through a lecture, he immediately went in search of the answer. He began by knocking on monastary gates and asking the monks within if they knew a method of healing the body. At each one of them Dr Usui was told "we are too busy healing the spirit to be concerned with the body". After knocking on many monastary doors Dr Usui finally came to one where the Abbot was interested in what he said. The Abbot offered Usui the use of the library. There Usui spent many years studying, tracking down obscure texts, following up every reference he could find to any kind of healing system. They all lead to the same place - obscure Sanscrit texts of great age. Rather than giving up at this point Dr Usui took the time to learn Sanscrit so that he could translate the texts into Japanese. Upon studying these texts he finally found the symbols and knowledge he needed, but unfortunately not the skill either to use the information or to pass it on.

By this time Dr Usui and the Abbot had become firm friends, and it was to his friend that he turned in his despair. After talking things over with the Abbot, Usui decided to pilgrimage to the sacred mountain there to fast and meditate for 3 weeks - "I have given over my life to this search" he said "now there is nothing else to try".

For three weeks he sat and meditated on the mountain, taking no food, only water; and each morning he threw away one stone of the 21 he had gathered to help him keep track of the days. On the morning of the 21^st day as he threw away the last stone he saw a bright light just above the horizon, which, as the sun rose higher in the sky, seemed to be getting brighter. As he watched it doing so, he realised that in fact the light was coming towards him in a direct line and that if he did not move soon it would hit him. "I have spent so many years looking for something that I have not been able to find, that I may just as well give up my life now if this thing really is going to kill me" thought Usui and stood his ground. The light hit him square in the forehead, filled him entirely and seared the symbols he had found in the Sanscrit texts into his mind, body and spirit.

When Usui came to himself again he jumped up and almost ran down the mountain, stepping in his hurry on a plank with a rusty nail through it. As anyone would, he clutched his foot with both hands, hopping on one leg in pain. After a short while he noticed the pain had gone and sat to look at his foot - it was completely healed! He resumed his interrupted journey back to the monastary to share the good news with his friend the Abbot.

On his arrival at the monastary he was told that the Abbot was in bed with a severe arthritis attack. Dr Usui immediately went to his friend and after a couple of hours the two of them emerged, the Abbot now completely well.

Usui left the monastary shortly after this and set up as a healer in the poorest part of the city, where the beggars and deformed lived and eked out a meagre living. He set about healing the sick there and, giving them a new lease of life, sent them on their way to earn their living honestly. After about six months or so he began to see familiar faces, more and more of them. Eventually he began to ask them what they were doing back where they started. The reply he was given - that it was actually much easier to beg and steal for a living than do anything else - shocked him to the core. He now understood that these people had not valued what he had given them and therefor could not receive the full benefit of it. He vowed to insist on some kind of payment in future and left the camp forthwith to seek those who could and would value what he could give them.

After many miracles and adventures with Reiki, he passed the gift to, among others, Mr Hayashi, who set up a healing centre in Japan in the 1930's, where Mrs Takata was drawn for her own healing from a serious disease. It was Mrs Takata who brought Reiki to the West just before the 2nd World War. Mrs Takata initiated 22 masters during her life and it is from these "lineages" that the Reiki of the West as we know it has grown.