Dhriti Upekkha Ananda
Twenty years ago, I began a journey that changed my life forever in the best way possible. I met Jnanda through a group of mutual friends and blew him off for six months before agreeing to work with him. At the time, I was married to my second husband, we are now divorced, and we were raising each other’s children and doing a horrible job of it. We were both alcoholics and I had many other negative behaviors and habits that I was unaware of at the time. It was a classic case of denial and being comfortable with my own misery. Being clairvoyant without any discipline, training, or discernment caused excess trauma due to my inability to understand what was going on. The many experiences and data I received in this clairvoyant state, coupled with the massive trauma and fear I experienced as a child, made me feel like I was going insane, which may have been the case at the time. A motivating factor at this time was seeing that there was a wedge forming between my son and I due to my many survival mode behaviors. This frightened me and I made the choice to find a way to fix this. He was my motivation to change at that time. Changing for myself would not have motivated me at that time because I was raised to believe that I was not worthy of healing, love, healthy relationships, or anything of a positive nature and I bought into those lies. Knowing how to fix my life was a foreign concept to me because I only could identify that some things were bad. I had no idea of what the right behaviors were and that deeply bothered me.
As time passed, I kept calling my best friend and complaining about my life, my now ex-husband, etc. She kept telling me to call Jnanda and start working with him. This finally sank in after about six months, and I made an appointment with Jnanda. I missed the first appointment and felt guilty about it, so I made a second appointment and was determined to keep it. This Reiki session was the first experience in my life that had any effect on my mental/emotional bodies. It was the first time someone was able to quiet the multiple voices in my head that I had no control over and could answer my questions with clarity and facts. I had so many questions in life and everyone else just said, “God works in mysterious ways.” This was always something that really bothered me, even as a small child. During the first session with Jnanda, I looked at him when the session was coming to an end and realized that he was the person I had been looking for since I was a little girl. I told him this and he chuckled in his Loving way. I knew then and there that I would never stop healing, never stop doing what I had to do, no matter how hard it may seem. Finally finding peace for the first time in my life was a pivotal point for me and was further motivation to heal, change the toxic behaviors I had, and become aware of my connection with the Divine. Jnanda taught me how to use real tools to help myself heal, grow, and learn, how to be of true service to myself first by applying the tools necessary to change the bad behaviors and undo the damage of my terrifying childhood. He taught me that I can be of service to those who are open to receive and still Love those who are not without any judgment. Doing my first works was pivotal in healing and becoming the yogini that I am today capable of helping myself and others.
A fond memory I have of my early practices with Jnanda was his unending patience and my inability to manipulate him to do what my ego wanted him to do. Early on in my training with Jnanda, he would assign specific tools, practices, or disciplines for me to use, and I always wanted him to explain to me what the effects and benefits of each one would be prior to me doing the assignments. He would smile and tell me that “Application brings about understanding.” This was an ongoing habit of mine for at least the first six months. Jnanda would give the same answer with a smile and wait for me to get over myself and do the assigned tasks. He never gave up on me, nor judged me for my trauma responses. Each time he would tell me “Application brings about understanding” I wanted to punch him in the face. Instead, I would do the assignments and discover that his words were right and return with Humility and a willingness to progress. Today, this is a story I share with joy and fondness because it helped me break through so many of the barriers I had set up as trauma responses. I am happy to say that I have been on this path for 20 years now and would not trade a single moment of it. Life’s journey is wondrous and I am grateful for the training and teachings we are all learning.