Reiki and sound together
The last pages of Sunita's notebook are not about bowls at all. They are about Reiki — what it is, what it is understood to do, and a seven-step sequence of hand positions.
Reiki and sound work are separate practices with separate histories. They travel together because the people who learn one usually learn the other, and because both are done kneeling beside someone who is lying down with their eyes closed.
By the end of this lesson you will know what Reiki claims to be, know the hand sequence as she recorded it, and — most importantly — know how to ask for consent for touch.
What the word means
Rei — universal. Ki — the non-physical, described in the notebook as the very essence of the soul, and associated with feeling healthy and enthusiastic.
Together: universal life force. Reiki is described as a form of hands-on healing, and the notebook calls it a gift from God.
Its claimed workings are given in three lines:
- Every living thing is connected energy
- It stimulates health
- A full treatment rebalances mind, body and spirit
And then a sentence that is more honest than most things written about Reiki: the best way to understand how it works is to experience it.
The philosophy in her notes
Alongside the practice she records three ideas, and they are worth reading even by someone with no interest in Reiki at all.
The wave and the ocean. Enlightenment, she writes, is the moment a wave realises it is the ocean — that it was never a separate thing that happened to be made of water.
The constructed self against the absolute self. The person you think you are, against whatever you are underneath that.
A borrowed idea of yourself. She credits Osho for the observation that your whole idea of who you are was borrowed from people who had no idea who they were either. Underneath it she has written a line that sharpens it further: I am not what I think I am — I am what I think you think I am.
That is a bleak and very precise description of how most people build a self, and it is the philosophical root of everything Course Two said about the chakras. The root chakra asks whether you are safe. This asks who is asking.
Where the evidence stands
There is no scientific support for the transfer of energy through the hands, and studies of Reiki have not shown effects beyond what would be expected from attention, touch and rest. We say so plainly because this course has said so about everything else.
What is real, and not small: consensual, unhurried, attentive touch from a calm person is genuinely comforting, and most adults receive almost none of it. You do not need an energetic explanation for that to matter — and a practitioner who understands the difference between the two claims is the one who will not overpromise.
Consent — before the sequence, not after
Everything in this course so far has involved bowls placed near or on a body. This lesson involves your hands directly on someone, including the chest and the back.
That raises the consent bar considerably, and it is not optional.
- Ask before the session, when they are upright and can answer freely. Not once they are lying down.
- Name the places. "This involves my hands on your head, your lower abdomen, your knees, and your chest and back. Is all of that all right, or would you like me to leave any of it out?"
- Offer hands-off as a standard option, not as a concession. Holding the hands a few centimetres above the body is a normal way to do this.
- The chest position needs its own question. Many people will decline it, and the correct response is "of course" and moving on. Never on breast tissue — the position is the upper sternum.
- Say they can stop you at any moment without giving a reason.
- Watch, not just listen. Someone tensing has withdrawn consent whatever they said earlier.
The sequence as recorded
Sunita's steps, beginning with the practitioner centring themselves:
- Go behind the person and place your hands on both sides.
- Hands on the crown.
- Sit beside them and place a hand on each side at the solar plexus, then move to the sacral.
- Sit in front and place your hands on the knees. Then return your hands to the crown.
- Give love and surrender — one hand on the heart and one at the back.
Steps six and seven. The notebook numbers seven steps. Step six is written as a number with nothing beside it, and step seven is in Nepali. We have not guessed at either. When they are translated this page will be extended, and nothing above will change.
Notice the shape of what is there: behind, above, beside, in front, and finally both hands together at the heart. The practitioner moves around the person rather than staying in one place, and the sequence ends closest.
Using it with bowls
The notebook does not describe combining them in one session, and we are not going to invent a method.
What practitioners commonly do, and what is consistent with everything in this course: bowls first, hands afterwards. The sound settles someone, and hands-on work lands better on a person who is already quiet. Ending with a hand on the heart, after half an hour of sound, is a natural close.
If you are trained in Reiki, use your training. If you are not, this lesson is a description rather than a qualification — Reiki is traditionally passed on in person by a teacher, and reading about it here does not make you a Reiki practitioner.
Practice
- Write out your consent script — the exact words you would use to ask about touch, naming each position.
- Say it aloud until it sounds ordinary rather than awkward.
- Ask someone you trust to hear it and tell you honestly whether they would feel free to say no.
- Then, with their agreement, work through steps one to five slowly, hands resting rather than pressing.
- Afterwards ask one question: was there any point you wanted me to move on?
Step three is the real exercise. Most consent scripts are written to be agreed to rather than to be declined, and hearing the difference from someone else changes how you write it.
Common mistakes
- Asking for consent once someone is lying down. Ask while they are upright.
- Treating hands-off as a lesser version. It is a normal way to work.
- Pressing. Hands rest. This is not massage.
- Claiming to move energy. Say what you are doing, not what you believe is happening.
- Calling yourself a Reiki practitioner after reading this. It is passed on in person.
- Continuing when someone has tensed. Move on without making it a moment.
How do you know you got it right?
You have a consent script you can say without embarrassment, and someone told you honestly that they would have felt able to decline it.
That is a higher standard than knowing the five hand positions, and it is the more important one.
You have finished all four courses
Thirty-six lessons. The seven chakras in full, both healing systems, hands-on work on other people, an eighteen-day treatment programme, the twelve-note system, and the material at the back of the notebook that most students never reach.
Your final certificate. Ten questions, four options each, from across all eight lessons of Course Four.
Something to sit with
The last thing in the notebook is not a technique. It is a question about who you think you are, and a pair of hands resting on someone's heart.
You have learned an entire system of sound. What do you think it was for?