New Adventures In Backpacking

As I have mentioned in my previous blog, Pushkar was in the middle of a cyclone and the majority of the time I was there it was either cold or wet, but most of the time both. Now I can stomach a temple or two if the weather suits, but in the rain no thanks!

The Indian tourist industry does not have to factor in rain 99% of the year, so when it does rain here, there is not a lot to do apart from drink tea, read your book and watch the world go by. However, there is only so much tea I can drink so I decided to enrol in a course to help me pass the time.

Now I will be the first to admit that I am a sucker for alternative medicine. I’m not saying I believe in it 100%, but I tend to be ill more than the average person and I will try almost anything to make myself feel better. If that means herbal medicine, ear candling, acupuncture, reflexology, or drinking teas and rubbing crystals, then so be it. So when I saw a sign offering to teach you the way of Reiki on a wet soggy Thursday I thought ‘why not’. Unsure what Reiki was exactly, I presumed it was something similar to reflexology but for the hands. I was quite wrong as it turns out.

I will spare you my teachers/guru’s name just in case he ever googles himself. He explained to me that Reiki is the Japanese word for the “Universal Life Energy Force,” and is based on the Seven Chakras. The seven Chakras are in the Crown, the Third Eye, Throat, Heart, Solar Plexus, Hara, and Root. Reiki was a lot about harmonising and balancing these Chakras out. All fairly alternative and hippie so far, but who am I to judge with my new hippie trousers and an urge to pick up some beads some time soon. I reckon I’m about three weeks away from sporting dreadlocks and a henna tattoo on my face.

Then I received the history on Reiki, a bit of a time wasting exercise I thought. I’ll spare you the history lesson but it all sounded pretty believable and interesting enough until the last bit where the Reiki founder Dr Chujiro Hayashi went into the mountains for twenty one days without food or water and on the last day the sun shone on only him and covered his whole body and the origin of Reiki was born. At this point trying to keep a serious face became a bit to much for me and I wondered what I had let myself in for.

Then my guru began the process of giving my gift of Reiki healing. I had to say a prayer to Dr Chujiro Hayashi and ask for his blessing of Reiki healing, and if he was not convinced with my prayer then I’m sure the 1500 rupees I left beside the photo of him more than swung it for me. I sat down on a chair whilst my guru chanted a little, rang a few bells, then what felt like him making a motion similar to that of chopping a carrot on my head. For thirty minutes at least he went on tapping my shoulders, my hands, my knees, clasping my hands together and blowing in between them, then blowing on my chest and face. After yet another prayer I was asked to stand up and asked if I felt the warmth in my hands. ‘Yes,’ I replied. I was informed “that this is the Reiki energy passed from me to you,” and definitely not the effect of having my palms clasped together for thirty minutes!

And there you go, I was now a Reiki master, and all I had to do was sit there.

Then the fun began, I was told I now had to cleanse myself for the next twenty days just like the great Dr Chujiro Hayashi. Fortunately I did not have to go up a mountain but to touch twenty-four different bits of my body for the next twenty-one days (opposed to the usual one bit twice daily – my hair). Then once my course had been done I would then have the healing powers to practice on others.

So once I have done that, I can now help heal the pain of Aids, Cancer, Amputation, Diabetes, Epilepsy and all sorts of horrible diseases, and all that without actually practising any reiki. Truly amazing! I can now even channel energy to dogs and plants. They don’t know what they have coming!

Unlike the scam artists of Delhi, my guru managed to get 1500 rupees off me. That’s a lot of money to your average Indian. I’m not too bitter. It was nice to keep warm for five hours and the last two hours were really fun trying to not laugh at my new found powers of healing. Several hours later I’m still chuckling away. I’m sure I will dine out on this tale for years to come.

A valuable lesson was learnt today. Stick to ear candling.

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Tags: Backpacking Puskar, Reiki

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 12:21 pm and is filed under India. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.