Prasad, Reiki and Me: The Lizard King OR Where I've Been The Last Four Days And What I've Gotten Myself Into

So if you've been following the blog closely you've probably noticed a bit of a lack of upkeep over the last week. That is not do to laziness or a lack of things to report. Rather, I've been away, incommunicado, in the countryside at a place called the Sajan Club, a nature resort, taking part in a very special Meditation and Reiki intensive. It was very cool to see another part of the country (which was gorgeous of course) and to spend some time away from the hustle and bustle of Bombay. The electricity there was on a generator that was constantly flickering and going off for periods, and there was a lot more wildlife. Sajan Club has it's own organic farm with cows, there were chickens just hanging out whom I named Larry and Gary and there were tons of Lizards whom, for whatever reason, really liked my room. At one point a lizard fell down onto my bare shoulder and scurried off and at another point one scurried from my feet to my head across my bed and woke me in the middle of the night (fun stuff I know). All in all I found 16 different Lizards in and around my room. Here are the names I gave them:
Carl
Philliam
Allen
Mohinder
Roberto
Felix
Rembrant
Gus Gus
Mortimer
Zander
Rebar
Gangol
Burgess
Winny
Petey
and Fantasia Berino

A taste of the countryside


Philliam


Anyways, the four of us, Megan, Ren, Hannah and myself were fortunate enough to have been invited through a connection with our friend Leenata to take part in this intensive with Reiki Grand Master Prasad Karmarkar. Prasad is a well respected, heavily followed Guru with thousands of students who (in the Indian way) are completely humbled by his presence and would really do just about anything for him. In his ten years of doing meditation, leadership and Reiki seminars and intensives he has NEVER done one this small, so we are all very lucky that he, for whatever reason, chose us to be on it and spent such close time with us. Usually his seminars have 50-100 people or more and receiving the kind of attention we got constantly for four days will occur only in small nuggets.

Now, to clear a few things up. First of all, I realize that when I say the word Guru the immediate image is an 80 year old man with long robes and a big beard. Prasad is not this. He is 34 (though he doesn't look a day over 28) and he generally wears jeans, a t-shirt, and a pretty nice watch. He's an awesome guy and someone I will forever consider a friend and teacher. Reiki is a Japanese method of healing using the energies of the universe. Essentially, one focuses the energies of love and peace and all that happy good-timey stuff around them into their own body or into the body of the person they are healing in order to balance the Chakras, thus putting the body and soul at harmony (at least that's how I gathered it). While you can read as much as you want about Reiki and I could (theoretically) teach you everything Prasad taught me, you cannot learn Reiki without being initiated by a master, someone who has reached the fourth level of Reiki (I'm now on level 1, 2 is fairly simple to get to, 3 and 4 are complicated). Prasad happens to be a Reiki Grand Master, one of only 9 in the last century. As a level 1 Reiki initiate I now have learned touch Reiki, and after my initiation process is over three weeks from now I can, if I so choose and find one, take a Reiki two seminar and learn what I suppose you could call airborne Reiki.

The whole group


The important thing to note is that Prasad is an amazing and important person. There are hundreds, if not thousands of people who would kill to have gotten to spend the kind of time with him that we just spent with him, and for whatever reason he had some feeling about us and saw something in us that made him choose us for this time. It's pretty cool and pretty special. Anyways, if anyone out there has been feeling a few extra positive vibes or really if anything at all good has happened to you in the last four days it's because I've been sending out a lot of love and positive energy to all the people in my life so you're welcome.

Prasad and Me