How Jetsunma Ended a Nightmare When No One Else Could
In commemoration of the 21st anniversary of the enthronement of Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo on September 24, we are presenting testimonials from Jetsunma’s students about her impact on their lives. This story is from Eleanor.
“You’re definitely not possessed,” said the solemn Jesuit priest sitting across from me in a small room at Georgetown University. He was reputed to be an expert on exorcism.
Within me, relief struggled with disappointment. “How then can I get these horrors to stop?” I pleaded.
To an outside observer, my life in 1980 would have seemed almost idyllic: a great marriage, two fabulous sons, a Ph.D. from N.Y.U., a published scholarly book, and a stimulating teaching job at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
We lived in a large house in Chevy Chase, with a ballroom on the third floor. Yet I was having some strange experiences. At first, they were benign, even exhilarating: knowing who was on the phone before picking up the receiver (long before caller-I.D.), knowing exactly on what rack at Saks I could find the perfect green dress. Most exciting was accurately predicting to a presidential candidate which primaries he would win.
Gradually weird became disturbing. I was alone in our bedroom when a hanger flew out of my hand and across the room. But when the bed started shaking, my sensible professor husband was lying awake next to me, both of us not moving. Often there were strange smells, and a heavy, uncomfortable feeling in our house.
The worst development was a terrible pain at the base of my spine. Doctors could find nothing wrong. The only way I could fall asleep was with a hot water bottle. Many nights I spent hours lying in a fetal position on the blue rug in our bathroom, praying, overcome with sadness. Several times I felt death was near, and my depression was so deep that death would have been not unwelcome. My only regret was for those I would leave behind. This went on for a long time, and I was desperate for relief.
As I told all this to the Jesuit priest, he listened carefully. Then he said, “I have a suggestion: try playing a recording of Gregorian Chant in your house continually, day and night. I think it will help.”
It did. The first night was peaceful and pain-free. But gradually, despite the chant, the weirdness and pain returned. “There must be someone,” I thought, “who can tell me what is going on. Someone with spiritual insight who can put a stop to this.”
I sought out every reputedly powerful spiritual authority in the area. Often they could sense that something was wrong, and tried to help. While they did a prayer, ritual, or simply held my hand, I felt relief. But at home, there was no change.
I scanned the newspapers for visiting spiritual leaders. I attended lectures and workshops, approaching the speakers afterwards. An eminent spiritual healer looked at me closely, then backed away, sadly shaking her head. A turbaned Sikh stared at me, then said: “Your aura is worse than a dog’s!” A guru from California told me he couldn’t help, though he sensed the vibration of a Hindu guru around me.
I felt a shudder of recognition: Yes, I had studied with a powerful Hindu guru for several years, until he died a sudden, violent death. I made arrangements to go to the New York retreat to be given by my former guru’s guru, Swami Muktananda.
Meanwhile, at one spiritual gathering, a kind-looking woman approached me and said, “I feel guided to give you this.” She placed in my hand a small plastic baggie containing what looked like ashes. “This is a sacred substance from my guru, Sai Baba. I sense that you need it.”
At home, I sprinkled the grey powder around our bed, thinking, “”This is ridiculous!” That night, to my joy and relief, all was peaceful. But during the next few days the torment returned.
I was feeling totally discouraged when my friend Lilias, the famous Yoga teacher, handed me some cassette tapes of lectures by Jim Goure, a New Age teacher. “You’ll find these interesting,” she said.
As I listened, his teachings impacted me strongly. “He seems to have real spiritual insight,” I thought. The only address on the tapes was Black Mountain, North Carolina. Information had the telephone number of a Jim Goure, and I reached him at home.
“I was moved by your teachings,” I told him. Then I described my ordeal and added: “I think you can help me. If we pay for your air travel, will you come for a weekend visit to Washington?”
A long silence, then “Yes.”
After our first dinner together, Jim took me aside, and held my hand for a long, thoughtful moment. “Yes, he said, your problems come from your former guru.”
“But why?” He couldn’t give me a satisfactory answer, but while he stayed with us, the nights were blessedly normal.
Gradually the horrors returned. Then I remembered Hilda, a spiritual teacher my former guru had praised. I learned that she gave talks at a cathedral in New York City. I took the Metroliner.
Making my way through a huge throng, I approached her and explained the issue. She listened kindly, patiently, and said: “I can’t help you, but I know someone who can.”
She sent me to Orestes, a shaman in New Jersey. His exotic rituals seemed to bring some relief. Later, I was dismayed to learn that a chicken had been sacrificed as part of the ceremony.
It was too late to return to Washington, so I spent the night on his living room couch. I felt surrounded by strange though not unfriendly spirits. Right above me was a huge picture of the Virgin Mary. I prayed, then slept soundly.
Nights at home unfortunately did not change. With a dollop of hope, I left for Swami Muktananda’s ashram in New York State. My request for a private consultation with the Swami had been granted.
The Swami listened thoughtfully to my story. He said he could end the problem, and gave me a hug that left me speechless with bliss. In his presence I felt wonderful.
There were about a thousand of us at his Darshan. At the end of a talk entitled “You are your own friend, your own enemy,” Muktananda walked along the rows of devotees, blessing each one on the head with a feather duster. It seemed as if at least a quarter of the people thus blessed moaned in bliss.
But even then, during the ceremony, the pain at the base of my spine returned. When I was lying in obvious discomfort on my bunk bed in the women’s dorm, one of my roommates said she knew exactly what I needed––a stool softener.
No, that did not help. After I got home, a group of orange-clad swamis, as Muktananda had promised, came to do a blessing ceremony at our house. The relief lasted a few hours.
One day each week, Jim Goure’s friend Elizabeth Nichols came to our house to do his Light Prayer with me. We sat in a corner of the ballroom and visualized light filling everything, starting with our bodies, and gradually spreading to the whole planet, affirming only wholeness and peace. She knew about my suffering. One day she said, “I know just the person who can help you.” She named the fiancée of someone I knew.
I laughed. “All the great spiritual masters I’ve asked were unable to help. How could she possibly …”
“Well, come for lunch,” she said.
Into Elizabeth’s apartment walked a beautiful woman in a white wool designer suit, with glorious black hair and sparking, joyful eyes that seemed to look right through me. Never had I heard such fascinating stories as she told at the table, about Ancient Egyptian mystery schools and other-dimensional realities. I longed to connect with her but somehow could say nothing. After lunch she walked up to me and said, “We need to talk.” I invited her to my house.
Eyes closed, she sat across from me in my little study. For once, I felt no need to explain my nightmare. After a quiet minute, she said, “You’re fighting for your life, aren’t you?”
Deep relief washed over me. Finally, someone understood! Someone could see what was happening! “Let me look some more,” she said.
“A Hindu guru is involved here,” she said––though I had given her no background information. “Most people don’t know,” she added, “that some of these Eastern gurus wrap themselves around your chakras. They control you that way. Let me work on this a while.”
She sat with me quietly for about an hour, her eyes closed. Then, while I stood next to her, she did some hands-on-healing on my stomach, right through my clothes.
“This can be done only a little at a time,” she said. We made plans for further sessions. I reached for my purse to pay her. She stopped me, saying, “I never take money for spiritual work.” She added that she had worked a long time gratis at Jim Goure’s center. “He gave me all his difficult cases.”
I told her I could not accept her help without paying something. What followed was my first completely pain-free night. The ugly haunting had been going on for more than five years!
After each subsequent session I felt even better, more free. During perhaps the tenth one, I suddenly felt as if something heavy and dark was lifted from me. “What did you do?” I exclaimed, “What happened!?”
“He’s gone,” she said. “And he won’t come back.” She was right: he never did.
I asked how she had done this. She simply said, “I showed him the heart of God.”
This was a few years before any of us were Buddhists, before H.H. Penor Rinpoche announced that she was the incarnation of a great Tibetan saint.
When Jetsunma started teaching, I became her student. Once, I asked her about the bliss that Muktananda bestowed. “It’s easy to give bliss,” she said. “What’s difficult is getting people enlightened.”
