Dara "Darananda" Blumenthal, PhD

I offer contexts for embodied healing and awakening to unfold. What I transmit is not a method—it’s a field. A grounded, coherent field of pure Presence that others are invited to participate in, with, and as. This is who and what we truly are. Said differently, I transmit pure Presence through the most subtle dimensions of reality, directly to those receiving the transmission.

The invitation is to awaken to your true nature—
and to live that realization in embodied form and relational connection.

What I offer supports people in accessing and relating with deeper and deeper layers of direct experience—beyond the dense physical body and personal self-construct. As these layers are contacted by Presence—effortlessly, without striving—karma resolves. Self-trust and inner guidance blossom. As the nervous system refines, patterns of separation long held in the bodymind begin to clear and return to Wholeness. Spaciousness and peace naturally arise. Embodiment matures. And from this clarified ground of Being, the natural state reveals itself. This is a path of embodied awakening through honest, fearless, and compassionate presence with what is.

My life has always pointed toward Divine Reality. From an early age, I carried the phrase “the richness of Being” and a deep inner knowing that the only real pursuit was Self—Truth. As awakening clarified, a quiet knowing emerged: there was no moment when awareness began. I was born inside the witnessing. I also never developed an inner critic, nor did I internalize an external voice of authority. There was no voice of “Dara” inside my head. I was raised in a way that supported me to trust and follow my inner knowing, and my path has unfolded with a kind of quiet constancy ever since.

I began studying mind-body awareness at age 20, including mindfulness, meditation, and movement modalities such as Feldenkrais Method, Alexander Technique, and Kinetic Awareness. My undergraduate colloquium was titled Music, Metaphysics, and the Conscious Life: How sound has shaped nations and made lives. During that time, I also began studying energy healing and esoteric medicine, and by age 23, I became a Usui Shiki Ryoho Reiki Master. I’ve practiced energy healing ever since.

I hold a BA in Sound, Self, and Embodiment from NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study, an MA in Critical Theory, and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Kent, United Kingdom. My academic work focused on self-identity, embodiment, society, and ethics. In my early 30s, I completed Integral Facilitator certification with Diane Musho Hamilton—which included training in adult development, Zen awareness, subtle energetics, and conflict mediation—and also trained in Hakomi Therapy.

In 2019, after fourteen years of embodied spiritual practice, a spontaneous Kundalini release burst forth while I was in a deep state of absorption, on a Buddhist meditation retreat. What followed was a three-year journey of rising fire—cleansing, refining, illuminating the bodymind from root to crown. The subtle architecture reorganized. The nervous system rewired. What was once held in separation began returning to Wholeness.

The Shakti rose through the Chitrini Nadi—an exquisitely subtle and rare channel said to yield profound inner knowledge of the hidden dimensions of spiritual life.

After the ascent, the descent began. A yearlong retreat followed. The “me-sense” dissolved. Shiva and Shakti united and danced down the central channel into the heart. There was a flowering into God Consciousness, Unity, and Brahman stages—until even these distinctions gave way. The following Spring, the fundamental “I-sense” spontaneously released. And not long after, the soul—the individuating factor—reabsorbed into Source.

Each layer of release brought not distance, but intimacy. Not transcendence, but luminous embodiment.
From this still ground of Being, the transmission deepened—
not as something I offer, but as what naturally expresses when separation has fallen away.

My teachers and mentors over the past two decades include Dr. J. Robin Powell, Diane Musho Hamilton Roshi, Dr. John Churchill, and Rob Daishin McNamara. I’ve also been deeply supported by the work of Reggie Ray and Chloe Folan—particularly her Rainbow Bridge and Advanced Monadic Thread Techniques, which have been central to refining the subtle body architecture.

I don’t affiliate with any particular lineage, though I’ve had a powerful, multi-life relationship with Tibetan Buddhism and Dzogchen. Since 2020, I’ve also found deep resonance and suppoamong a group of profoundly awake teachers who emerged from the lineage of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi—including Dorothy Rowe, Davidya, and Lorn Hoff—each offering their own distinct transmissions, writing, and insights.

I’m here in service to healing and awakening.
If you have any questions about my path, my work, or your own process, please feel free to reach out:
[email protected]

--June 2025