Jordan
Click Here to go to Jordan's Healing Web site: www.reikitransformation.com.
Born and raised in San Francisco, I have always had an interest in the diversity of beliefs and points of view of which humans are capable. Perhaps for this reason, I was never satisfied that his point of view represented the truth, as most people are.
There was a question I held which motivated me more than any other. It was not easy to even express the question, but I knew that the answer held great power. "Why am I here? Why do people make life so difficult for each other? Why can't I enjoy my life?" These questions all sprung from the unnamable tension that pulled at me from inside.
In my college years, I discovered Philosophy, both as a major academic field and as a possibility for human interaction. Here, reading about historical thinkers such as Socrates, Descartes, Hume, and Nietsche, I began to be able to ask the question. Finally, I discovered Buddhist thought and meditation. By then the question had evolved to "How can I understand the truth beneath the logical mind?"
After college, the question still burned brightly, especially as I read about and practiced Zen sitting meditation. As I began to ponder my "plan" for a career, a small voice within me began to speak. Following that voice, I chose to begin a Buddhist Studies postgraduate degree at a magical place called The Naropa Institute (now called Naropa University).
At Naropa, I first began to find some answers to the question. Although there was a fog of confusion that I discovered in my mind, I saw a means of clearing that fog. By the time I had finished my studies at Naropa, I understood that there was a part of my mind that had been working against me. I was beginning to understand that I was not the person I believed myself to be.
Fast-forward several years in the future: I found a spiritual community which reflected my awareness of what is at that piont clearly a battle within each person to claim the power that we hold inside. We call ourselves Toltecs, and the tradition we follow has its origins in early Mexican culture. However, the most valuable knowledge of this lineage is not the mythology, or even the tools, but the Silent Knowledge which supports all sacred esoteric traditions.
Studying in a different way with Heather Ash, a Toltec Nagual in the Eagle-Knight lineage and Wiccan High Priestess , I was reminded again that the power I seek was not outside me to be achieved, but within. All the beliefs and emotional wounds inside me were using the power I generated as a divine being, a Buddha.
To the extent that I held my old beliefs and agreements about how limited I was or what was possible--the wounds which held my emotional poison--my energy was channeled into these little beings I have created. I began to practice being a warrior in the war for my own attention. The Buddhist teaching that compassion is inseparable from wisdom became crystal-clear. The false ego, now identified as a parasite which I have created, sought to retain control of my attention. I remembered the Buddhist teaching of maitri, that loving kindness towards oneself is the most powerful weapon at one's disposal. I set my intent to practice the discipline of using that weapon without mercy.
I have come to understand more and more clearly that I was already Buddha, already a magician, but the ways in which I chose to use my power were constrained by all the magic which I had mastered long ago: The magic of creating scarcity, powerlessness, and confusion. This old spell, this samsara (as the Buddhists call it), sapped so much of my energy at first, that it was all I could do to forgive himself for falling back to sleep, again and again.
After years of apprenticeship with Heather Ash, working with other Toltec teachers, many "power journeys" to sacred sites with the larger community of Toltecs, and the experience of discovering my own integrity through rituals, practices and active self-love, I have begun to teach what I have learned. I teach with the intent of expanding my own mastery, as well as empowering others to master the dream of their own lives. As don Miguel Ruiz, the Eagle-Knight Nagual and teacher to Heather Ash, has often said, "Practice makes the master."
