At first glance, 35-year-old Sanjukhta M’s life as a reiki healer in Chennai might not seem all that unusual. Not, that is, until one realizes that the other members of her household include 5 dogs and 17 cats, and her reiki skills are dedicated to animals as well.
“I also do rescue and foster work,” she explains matter-of-factly, and seeing the shocked reaction to those numbers, chuckles, “Sure we have our bad days, but we deal with them like any parent does with kids – with love and firmness.”
Image: Some of Sanjukhta's "kids" as she puts it
Sanjukhta did not always practice for animals. She started out, like many reiki healers, with people. Her first four-legged client was a friend’s cat. “Some of the cats in her house were misbehaving. I realized that they were the older ones and their behavior was an attention-seeking exercise.” She then used communication and reiki to calm them.
As a healing practice, reiki has many skeptics who find the intangible concept of ‘energy’ healing too far-fetched. “I am also from a science background. I have done my doctorate in the field of molecular biology. You just have to be open to new ideas,” she replies.
To that effect, Sanjukhta says that animals are usually a lot more responsive to the method than people because they aren’t prejudiced against the method. “Animals are much closer to nature. They are more receptive to this energy because they do not have the fear of being ridiculed.”
She adds that many times when she is practicing, some of the cats and dogs at her house come near her or surround her till she finishes. “They are drawn to the energy as it makes them happier and calmer,” she says.
However, Sanjukhta says, reiki is not a substitute for medicine. “Reiki is not a substitute for veterinary care. However, if an animal is in pain, say when going through treatment for a disease, reiki makes them calmer, more at peace. It makes the experience of the treatment easier,” she explains.
Sanjukhta says that having completed the second level of reiki training in 2015, she can now practice what is called ‘distance healing’ where most of her feline or canine clients do not need to be in her vicinity. She does however, require a picture and a history of their condition.
She recounts a case where her friend’s 15-year-old dog had a haematoma (a solid swelling of clotted blood within tissues) in his ear. His old age along with the medical treatment had started taking a toll on him making him completely unresponsive and unmoving. “I would then send healing to him and ask her (the friend) to check on him. She told me that her dog was perkier and was eating too,” she said.
Sanjukhta does not advertise her skills except through word of mouth from happy clients and through her Facebook page by the name of “Gaia Mitra”. “Gaia is the primordial Mother goddess — the mother of the universe you could say — in Greek mythology. Mitra is Hindi for friend. I wanted a name that was close to the Earth,” she explains.