Hawayo Takata, Mother of Modern Reiki
© Reverend Dina Ely
The following is a biography of Hawayo Takata, as well as any such biography is known. It's important to bear in mind that the history of Reiki and its earliest masters has become rather convoluted over the years, since practitioners and teachers have added elements of their own culture and understanding to the stories.
As student of Reiki Grand-Master Chujiro Hayashi, Hawayo Takata spread the healing art of Reiki ("universal life force," or as Mrs. Takata called it, "God power") through the Western world. As a Japanese American, she helped to promote understanding of Japanese spiritual culture, in a time when all things Japanese were rather taboo.
Hawayo Takata was born in 1900, on Christmas Eve, in Hawaii. For thirty years she lived in America with no exposure to Eastern holistic healing methods. In 1930, when her sister died, she traveled to Japan to inform her family there of the passing. While Mrs. Takata was in Japan she became very ill and was hospitalised. As surgeons prepared to operate on her, she kept hearing a voice in her head telling her that surgery was not necessary. Finally, she asked if there were other healing options available to her, and the doctors referred her to Dr. Chujiro Hayashi, Reiki practitioner.
Dr. Hayashi was the Grand-Master of Reiki, as appointed by Dr. Mikao Usui, the founder and discoverer of the Reiki practice. He was also an officer in the Japanese naval reserve. He healed Mrs. Takata, and as she begged him to teach her the healing art. Reluctantly he complied, and taught her to the level we now call Reiki II, which meant she was able to self-heal, heal others, but not to train others.
Mrs. Takata returned to Hawaii, where she carried out regular Reiki healings on friends and family. In 1936, Dr. Hayashi visited Mrs. Takata in Hawaii when he traveled there for a speaking tour to promote Reiki. There he trained her to what we now call Reiki III, making her a Reiki Master, and giving her the ability to train others. He also made her promise that should he summon her to Japan, she would immediately heed his call.
As the political climate in the world worsened, and the storm clouds of World War II loomed on the horizon for Japan, Mrs. Takata received a psychic dream in which Dr. Hayashi appeared to her and asked her to visit him in Japan. When arriving to Dr. Hayashi, Mrs. Takata found him in a state of much distress. He believed he would soon be called into action in the navy, and forced to fight. He told her that his spiritual developments over the years prevented him from being able to partake in violence. He passed his Grand-Mastery of Reiki on to Mrs. Takata, and with his family and fellow practitioners around him, he willed himself to die. Thus, Dr. Hayashi's life ended, but his work continued through Mrs. Takata.
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