Shamal ka Kamaal

Permission to reproduce this article has to be obtained from The New Indian Express, Kochi


Reiki Master, Shamal Durve, claims to have healed the ozone layer

By Shevlin Sebastian


“From 1991, I have been working on healing the ozone layer,” says Shamal Durve, 49, the founder of the Mumbai-based Reiki India Research Centre (RIRC). She is in town to give courses in reiki.

“This has been a big project for us,” she continues. “Most of the holes in the ozone layer have been patched up. We have certain processes and mantras to achieve this. We have been working and working, without informing anybody. And now I have read articles that have confirmed that the ozone layer is healing. This is the most amazing story in my life.”

Skepticism immediately rises up, like black monsoon clouds, in the mind of the listener, but Durve is palpably sincere and the elderly adherents of RIRC, who sit cross-legged near her on a floor in a house near Mermaid Hotel, nod in unison.

Durve is plump, clad in a purple salwar kameez, with dark shadows under her eyes. Her most attractive quality is her bubbly laughter, which erupts often, in between stretches of impassioned talking about reiki.

So what is reiki?

It is a Japanese word consisting of two words, Rei and Ki. Rei means spiritual while Ki means energy. “It is the Universal Life Energy which is found all around us,” says Durve. “When you are initiated and become receptive, you receive the right amount of energy.”

Sitting next to Durve is Augustine A. Thomas, 57, a former principal of Maharaja’s College. Thomas read about reiki ten years ago in a magazine while traveling on a train. Thereafter, he got in touch with the RIRC and took his first level course. Today, he is a reiki master and the head of the Kerala chapter.

“According to reiki, there are two bodies,” he says. “There is the physical body and around this body, there is an energy body, which is invisible and is called the aura. It has seven chakras, which are connected to the physical body.”

The purpose of the chakras, he says, is to absorb the universal energy 24 hours a day. For most people, the chakras are not working properly. “But once you learn to get the flow right, your life changes,” he says. “Pre-reiki, I was struggling with life, but post-reiki, I am flowing with it.”

Durve smiles, nods at Augustine and says, “After initiation, you get attuned with Nature.”

Durve, who lives in Mumbai, was a professor of Hindi in KC College and took a doctorate on the Hindi writer Mohan Rakesh. One day, in 1989, along with her husband Pradeep, she attended a course by a reiki master, Karl Everding from Germany. “Something happened to me during that course,” she says. “When Everding said, ‘You can heal the universe,’ I said to myself, ‘Yes, this is what I can and want to do.’ I had found my life’s purpose.”

In less than a year she had set up the RIRC. Within two years, she healed 162 people.
So what exactly does she do? “In reiki, when we touch a person, in the 27 points in the body, he or she draws the energy from the universe through us. So, we are the go-between. Sometimes, I feel something warm go through me. Sometimes, I feel a vibration.”

In Kochi, Durve is giving a refresher course for 12 Reiki masters. One of them is Dr. Jeesha C. Haran, professor of community medicine, CSI Medical College in Thiruvananthapuram. “I have been practising reiki since 1999,” he says. “Reiki enables you to become stable. You don’t get agitated at all.” When he has to say goodbye to Durve, the professor lies prostrate on the floor, and the reiki master taps him gently on the back.

Another participant is builder Shaji Ayyappan, 38. “When you practice reiki, your listen more to your intuition, instead of depending on the advice of other people,” he says. “In business, decisions are very important. Because of reiki, my judgement has become better and I have taken correct steps. In five years, I have done eight projects.”

So, is reiki a viable project to take up? Sceptics will always be there but, perhaps, attending a course might help sweep away the clouds of doubt.