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To Heal or Not To Heal... or... Don't Ask, Don't Heal

© T. Darlene Cheek

There is one question of Reiki ethics that I am often asked to explain - "Why can't you send Reiki without someone's permission?" There's no simple answer to this, and not every Reiki practitioner believes that you have to have permission in order to send healing. However, with traditional forms of Reiki, it is definitely a requirement and the first thing you must do before giving Reiki to someone. Let's see if we can help answer this question, and if you have questions after reading the article, please post on the discussion boards!

Regardless of what your spiritual or religious affiliation, I think that most of us believe that we are here with a purpose in our lives. We have goals of things that we want to learn, and some of those things require that we go through things in our lives, such as illness and disease, whether physical or mental/emotional, or even spiritual imbalance. Everything, after all, has a purpose.

Imagine that you have a loved one who is faced with cancer. It's a horrible thing, and you'd naturally want to help your loved one heal from the cancer. You've discussed Reiki with your loved one, but their spiritual beliefs are against it. It doesn't matter that you don't agree with their reasoning - they simply don't believe in it! You know in your very heart that Reiki would help this person, and it's breaking your heart to watch them suffer. Do you send Reiki anyway? Absolutely not!

Even something like cancer can have a purpose in your loved one's life! If you believe in reincarnation, you know that something like an illness or disease can help us learn valuable lessons that will help us evolve spiritually. We might also be balancing some type of karmic debt from a past life. If you don't believe in reincarnation, perhaps you still believe that God has a purpose for each and every one of us. Perhaps that person takes the fact that they have cancer and uses their life to help others heal or helps others cope by the example that they set. It may very well be their sole purpose for being on this earth! Would you want to interfere with that? Of course not!

If you have none of these spiritual concerns, then there's another very simple reason for not sending Reiki without a person's permission - respect. One of the Reiki principles is, "Respect all life." If you go against someone's wishes to send them Reiki, you certainly aren't showing them respect, plain and simple.