Why I Left the Ishaya Ascension Community
The Ishaya Ascension and perhaps most forms of meditation and spiritual practices are tools that direct us back to our peaceful loving soul. Many, if not most people have not yet learned how to live a soul inspired life.
At some time in our lives, our compulsive mind has got the best of all of us. We have all gotten stuck in worry, fear, anxiety, blame, anger, grief, escapism, and addiction, and this is when spiritual practice is most needed.
The Ishaya Ascension is no doubt an ingenious method because it quickly steers our mind back to praise, gratitude, and love. As a result, we let go of our stress and discover our inner peace.
Then, you may wonder, why did I leave the Ishaya Ascension Community?
I started to discover that we were on different paths of understanding at the First Sphere training they gave in July. Even though the Ishaya tradition states their practice is not about belief (which is the case with the pure practice itself) monks do not shy from sharing their interpretations. At the very end of the training one of the monks gave a lecture that was full of beliefs that I definitely do not support.
She said, “Choose God over manifesting.” I can agree trying to make things happen to get what we want creates stress if we don’t give it up to our higher power after choosing what we desire. But this phrase is saying, just allow God to manifest for you. This viewpoint comes from the belief God is separate from you and is directing you.
As I connected with the monks over time, it became more and more apparent they believed in a God that is separate from self, which means to not trust their own choices. To get God, they must practice the ascension attitudes.
On the other hand, for years I have studied and practiced the I AM Wisdom, essentially meaning I AM, you are, we all are God embodied. Our suffering comes from identifying with our limited human self. The I AM teachings have led me to the success and fulfillment I cherish today.
She said, “Don’t be the director.”
To me, whether we like it or not, we are directing energy and outcomes all the time. We must make our own choices and decisions about our direction in order to learn and grow.
With this command, she is saying just allow God to manifest for you. Again, this lens comes from the belief God is separate from you. You are just to surrender and let God run the show. Well, I have walked that path and wound up lost. Because I dropped the reins of my life I became a lost puppy looking for the next sign what I am to do next. I would go to so-called gurus to tell me what to do., and I was definitely not in an empowered state. We are directors of our experience whether we believe it or not. When I believed God had all the power, I subconsciously believed I was powerless human, separate from God, and this belief kept me from hearing my inner guidance. I felt very stuck, my life wasn’t working because I stop making choices. I thought some God out there should decide each detail of my life.
The spiritual truth is God does not make choices for us, and God does not direct our lives much. Sometimes Higher Self / God steps in certain critical situations when we made too many unhealthy choices like attempting suicide when it is not our souls time to pass from the body. But the vast majority of the time we have to make her own choices and take charge of the direction of where we would like our life to go. And by the nature of our choices we evolve. Every choice we make and resulting experience gives us added wisdom to make more conscious choices. This is the Soul’s evolution of realizing itself as a Creator being made in the image and likeness of it’s Creator.
To summarize, our Higher self and angels do not choose for us. They only support our learning from our choices and may add additional support to anything we choose that is soul inspired, in alignment with our highest good and the good of everyone ––especially if we ask for this!
She said, “Get rid of the me.”
The “me” is our emotional body, also called our inner child. Trying to get rid of our inner child only creates more suffering. The “me,” needs love, not to be killed or ignored. As we learn to be loving to our inner child, its wounds get healed and we become happy and magically creative. The idea the ego must be destroyed or abandoned is old school, and it never worked. Neglecting our inner child’s pain, trying to shove it away only creates another inner trauma. It is a form of self violence. These wounds can and do get healed when we give our inner child the loving attention it needs. We must learn to love all our parts. We are as strong as our weakest link. All ego acting out was the an attempt to get the love we didn’t feel. When we love that part of us that feels unlovable, the need to act-out dissolves, and we have big growth.
She said, “Awareness is a thought.”
Not so. You can be aware of only sensation without having a thought about it, without assigning meaning to it. The soul is pure awareness, and this way of perceiving life comes through your heart chakra. You can just feel what is happening without added interpretation. Awareness is your spiritual Self that has the power to choose your thoughts. It is the conscious space between thoughts.
The Soul is Loving Awareness
Ram Dass
The ancient eastern teachings explain enlightenment can only be found in stillness. To have an experience of this, we meditate. The traditional practice requires a lot of time to unwind the mind and experience the stillness within (the divine space between thoughts) and this kind of practice renders a person unable to operate in the world. They need to be in a kind of monastery, cave, or just live in Nature with few responsibilities and no distractions. This is a vital stage, to have the time to give up our worldly drama that is running in our heads.
While it is true, thoughts in general are of a heavier vibration than pure awareness, they can also be wonderful expressions of the soul, for example teaching spiritual principles such as I am doing now. Insights and inspired thoughts that come from the Ascendant, I AM Presence, our Divine Source (whatever you call it) should be honored, not dismissed.
When I was in the Ishaya community, my insights and Inspiration were usually put down as “just the mind”, and to go back to thinking the attitudes.
I was even told, “Inspiration is just another experience. “
Not so. Inspiration means of the spirit. When we are inspired suddenly we have energy that we did not have before. We become motivated and creative.
I realize the Ishaya community I was involved with didn’t feel very inspiring to be around even though the practice itself somewhat inspired me.
When meeting together with the monks and students on zoom, I noticed that their favorite subject was to keep score with who had how many attitudes, and what attitude each person was working with. To me, the attitudes are the tools. It seems the community worships the tools more than the spiritual insights they get from using the tools. It seems to me, insight and inspiration is the result that is closest to the Ascendant, the absolute, to God, to Source. To be talking mostly about the attitudes is like carpenters talking about their tools instead of what they are inspired to build.
On this zoom call, one of the monks asked me how I was, so I told her the truth, “I felt bored being with a group who only talked about attitudes instead of what inspired them.” She commanded me to think an attitude, like I was being out of order. I finally realized that freedom of expression was not really allowed in this community.
This is the problem with cult-ures. When everyone is expected to think alike and those who think differently are discouraged, it’s a cult. It may be a super good cult with good intentions but it is still a cult. I am blessed to be in my Mount Shasta community of inspired independent thinkers, so it is easy for me to know the difference.
To me, inspiration is what heals and motivates us with co-creating heaven on earth. Receiving, acknowledging our student’s inspired thoughts and actions is what I AM U is all about. The true meaning of education is to draw out what is already there. This is what I expected from the monks but didn’t get.
I was surprised to see so many in the community infirmed. To me ascension is a big word. It means raising our frequency to light body. Those who are truly ascending are very high vibe, They carry a deep joy, and they are not afraid to think their own thoughts. They don’t need a mechanical process to go through to just answer a question. They are in total trust of the expression of their Soul. They are going to be vibrantly alive in their body.
She said, “We must separate our awareness from our body.”
This is a very popular ancient teaching in India, but not what is being called forth today by our ascended masters. While I agree over-identification with the body does cause suffering when we forget our essence is not physical, but eternally spiritual. But to develop our Light-body we must love it too. We must love being in our body. Focusing on going out of body is not ascension unless the soul has decided to drop the body as its path of ascension.
We are souls that include these living bodies. Just as we must learn to love our emotional body, so to, we must learn to love our physical bodies, for they are the vehicle of our ascension.
For the body to become a light body, we must be full of love through and through. We must love being in our own skin. As we breathe deeply and call in our Divine Source energy into our body and mind, we eventually feel what I call the “alkaline tingles,” the result of higher pH and oxygen levels because of being flooded with the Soul’s extra Prana, Chi, or life force.
This is what happens in our I AM BreathPlay sessions on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, and you are invited to join us in person or online.
To conclude, there are very big gifts coming out of this encounter with the ishayas Ascension, that I will share in my next post.