One? Our 45th! Markus auf der Maur. After 2 years of training. Truly a reason to celebrate. Which we did the day before yesterday.
But can one train a person to become a ‘Master’? Teach him how to be masterly, explain her how to lead the life of a Master? Not really. You can give tips, maybe even show he the odd trick or two. And maybe even awaken a degree of consciousness. Looking at it that way, maybe verbs like coaching and motivating are more appropriate. Or console, support and challenge. The imparting of factual knowledge is not so much the point.
Of course, a Reiki Master distinguishes him- or herself by activating Reiki in people’s hands by a procedure called atonement or initiation. Purely technically speaking this is a simple enough procedure. At the same time though it is something mystical, spiritual … some would even say holy. To reduce this to a mere craft is not possible and certainly not respectful. The Master in training or should we say in the progress of maturing is facing himself. On all levels of our existence, with all facettes of personality or – to quote C.G. Jung – of our shadow and light side.
If a high level of training is reached for, which should find recognition by professional associations then many hours of practice have to be fulfilled. Additionally teaching elements need to be acquired so that information about history, current social developments and many other topics can be imparted to the attendant of a Reiki seminar. Our training handbook serves and of course we add instructions and information as the training progresses.
At first glance the practice of a Reiki Teacher and the existence of Reiki Master appear to be two different and definable elements. In reality and during the training they are intertwined, they complement an nurture each other. Thus the expression Reiki Master is often synonymous with Reiki Teacher … even though many who call themselves Master are not Teachers. Neither the other way round.
The way we guarantee our training the most essential element is what might be termed as “personal growth”. Which means to express a process of maturation. We, the Trainers, accompany the person who has entrusted him- or herself to us. Sometimes we walk ahead pulling, sometimes we walk behind pushing. Mostly we are next to the person, encouraging and informing. Occasionally we have carried someone part of the way.
Sometimes it happens that a training comes to an apparent standstill because the mentee, instead of solving assignments, is occupying himself with a change of job or she gives birth to a child. Often times such life’s experiences are in an interplay with the training. Such occurrences are often seen in hindsight as central insights and part of the training.
At the end we acknowledge that the trainee has learnt all there is to describe him as a teacher, including the fact that a Reiki Teacher remains a Reiki student. And we confirm that we have accompanied him through possible personal growth phases which have lead us to the conclusion that the necessary maturity has been reached that the Reiki Teacher can call himself that or Reiki Master.
In this spirit, dear Markus, once more our heartfelt congratulations!
René und Mischa
*Details about Master Training here.