Sarfaraz Husain is a senior Reiki master based in Islamabad. He has been practicing Reiki for almost two decades, having completed his masters in Japanese and western Reiki. He has worked as CFO/director of finance in the development sector in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Along the way he has delivered Reiki trainings, talks, seminars and orientations for various organisations and universities. His other areas of interest are capacity building through training, spiritual healing, counselling, social work and Kyokushin Karate. Dawn caught up with him and talked about Reiki and his interests.

Q: What is Reiki and how did you start practicing it?

A: Reiki is a Japanese technique for healing and stress reduction which can be practiced by anyone after a simple attunement process. There are levels of attunement, however, and with level one you can transfer Reiki – universal energy – to another being. With later levels you can send Reiki at a distance and attune or initiate others to be able to practice Reiki. I learnt about Reiki when I was invited by one of my friends for a Reiki orientation session at Rozan about 18 years ago. After that introduction I decided to get initiated into level 1.

My experiences during the attunement were very interesting as I saw colours. After Reiki level 2, I was able to send distant Reiki to many people at one time and found the empowering goals, sending Reiki to future situations, programming gemstones and crystals very interesting.

After practicing extensively, I completed my Reiki masters and started teaching others this wonderful technique.

Q: What do you mean by practicing Reiki?

A: I do multiple things both daily and routinely. For instance I meditate and have a list of people I send distance Reiki to daily. Then I organize orientation sessions at different organizations where I introduce Reiki to people for the first time. These can include a lecture on the subject, questions and answers and even a demonstration treatment. I, along with some other Reiki masters in the city hold smaller meetings where Reiki practitioners can get together to discuss their experiences and share what they have learnt in their own practices. I conduct one-on-one Reiki sessions for people who want to receive Reiki. Finally I hold initiation or attunement sessions which are the way through which one can become a Reiki practitioner.

Q: What sorts of things is Reiki beneficial for?

A: Reiki is both powerful and gentle. It has aided in healing virtually every known illness and injury including serious problems like multiple sclerosis, heart disease, and cancer as well as skin problems, cuts, bruises, broken bones, headache, colds, flu, sore throat, sunburn, fatigue, insomnia, poor memory, lack of confidence, etc. It is always beneficial and works to improve the effectiveness of all other types of therapy. At no point do I suggest that any other form of treatment – medical or otherwise – should be abandoned for just Reiki because Reiki improves the results of all medical treatment by reducing stress, encouraging relaxation, reducing negativity and side effects, shortening healing time, aiding pain management and generally increasing positive energy.

Q: This is very different from your profession. What do you do for a living?

A: My specialisation is financial management, which means compliance, training of non-finance and finance staff, developing and implementation of controls, formulation and review of policies and ensuring that organisation is delivering its commitments to stakeholders in relation to financial management, across sectors and industries. I chose to work with the development sector as the objective of working for improving the quality of life of people especially in remote areas is close to my heart. There is an element of making things better in the development sector which is similar to what the practice of Reiki is about.

Published in Dawn, November 8th, 2018