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The
Origins of the Ishaya
Keys
The origins of the
Ishaya Tradition are lost in remotest antiquity. The
Ishayas honor Isha ben Joseph, Jesus the Christ, by
putting his name in the Tradition (Ishaya means "for
Isha" consciousness, or Christ consciousness). According to the
tradition of the Ishayas, as MSI, (also known as
Maharishi Sadashiva Isham), told it, Jesus traveled
to the Himalayas where he was instructed and trained
to use the Keys. Then Jesus (Isha) returned to
teach these Keys to his apostles and anyone that
would listen, until the time of his death. Before
dying he entrusted the Apostle John to return to the
Himalayas and protect these teachings until the
world was ready to receive them. The Ishayas
have been holding the Teaching of Ascension for the
human race, awaiting the appropriate moment in
history to release it, complete and undistorted,
back into the world. These Keys were brought
to the western hemisphere in 1991 by Maharishi Sadasiva Isham, also known as MSI.
The story of MSI is a
very interesting one. He followed a spiritual path
from a very young age.
In 1970, MSI met his Teacher,
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of the Transcendental
Meditation (TM) movement. MSI became deeply
involved in TM, becoming a teacher soon afterward,
and through many wonderful and painful experiences
found himself in Fairfield, Iowa, home of one of the
worlds' largest TM centers, with a wife and two
children. Content in his experience of expanding
consciousness, he settled into a quiet lifestyle of
writing and architecture.
The universe, apparently, had other
plans. In 1988, MSI's world completely fell apart.
In a matter of months he lost all his money, his
house, and got a divorce. Quickly, he realized that
his own Self-Completion was worthless if he did not
extend his knowledge to others and that to teach was
his only purpose in life. Although TM had given him
so much, he had become disenchanted with the rules
surrounding the teaching, and he knew that it could
never reach the entire world. Therefore he took his
recent losses as an omen that he was to begin a new
journey, a quest for a universal method of Healing.
He soon found the Ishayas, an ancient
order of monks located in the Himalayas and dedicated
to the original teachings of Christ, from whom he
learned the Keys that he would later bring to
the rest of the world. The circumstances surrounding
his journey are somewhat shrouded in mystery, as he
never spoke openly of his quest. Even in his book
First Thunder, the journey was changed in order to
allow people to more easily accept the story. It
seems somewhat ironic that his boyhood longing for
Truth in the mountains wasn't fulfilled until after he
fully lived the Truth within, but that is a major
point in his teachings. When the inside is completely
fulfilled, the outside can't help but change to match
that experience.
MSI’s return to the West was marked by
firm dedication. He knew he had the Keys to change
the world and bring about the prophesied new
millennium—Keys collectively known as The Ishaya
System of Excellence—yet virtually no one would listen. His
first years of teaching the Ishaya Keys were
filled with unanswered advertisements and unattended
lectures, but through 4 years of traveling through
much of the US and the writing of five books, he saw
the seed of his commitment begin to sprout in western
North Carolina. Through the power of his one-pointed
focus, the Society For Ascension, a non-profit
educational outreach dedicated to spreading the
teaching of the Ishayas, was born. In less than two
years, his meager group of three teachers expanded
into seventy, and teacher training courses that at
first held three or four people began to hold sixty or
more.
On August 12,
1997, MSI passed from this world to continue his
Healing elsewhere. The sprout of The Ishaya Keys firmly
rooted in fertile soil, the message of his life —That
perfection on this earth is possible and more so, that
it is coming—will live on in all who experience that
profound truth through the practice of the simple
Keyes of the Ishayas.
Shortly after his
death in 1997, the center in Waynesville, North
Carolina basically dissolved and many of the
teachers traveled throughout the world teaching the
Keys and opening centers in many different
countries. Sakti Ishaya (now
known as Isha) and Bhushana Ishaya started
the first center in Venezuela, South America in the
fall of 1999, then another center in Colombia in
2001. On August 1, 2006 a new center was opened in
Uruguay. This center continues to be the most rapidly
growing of all the centers. During the last seven
years over 40,000 people throughout all of South
America have learnt these techniques and most claim
that their lives have been transformed for the
better.
Although the teachings appear to have religious
origins, they require no belief and are, in fact,
mechanical. Scientific studies have proven that when
people use the Keys, both hemispheres of the
brain become congruent. This causes the mind and
body to rest and deep healing takes place in the
nervous system. As we heal ourselves on the inside
everything begins to transform in our lives, on the
outside.
Bhushana was
personally trained by MSI and is also the co-author,
with Sakti (Isha), of three books: "Oye Dios es hora de
despertar" (Hey God! It's time to Wake up!), "Ensenanzas
de Los Ishayas" (Teachings of the Ishayas) and the
most recent book, "El Eslabon Perdido" (Ishaya
Techniques, The Missing Link) all published in
both Spanish and English by Editorial Kier in Argentina. Our mission,
as well as all other Ishayas, is to heal the world
beginning with the self.
It is time for people
everywhere to remember the truth of who they are and
to wake up to that incredible awareness, thus the
name of the book, "Hey God! It's Time to Wake up!"
and to remember that this is a game of choice. We
can choose to play it anyway that we desire.
Whether people are
looking to discover the path to enlightenment or
simply looking for stress relief, the Ishaya Keys are the missing link. We are teaching
weekend seminars in Florida, Chicago and in
Puerto Rico. There are also many Ishayas throughout
South America spreading this priceless teaching. For
their schedule please go to
www.Isha.com
For more information
on the teachings in the Northern hemisphere, please
write to
bhushana@IshayaTechniques.com or
call Bhushana at 954-554-2869.
More
History of the Ishaya
Tradition
Any
discussion of the Ishayas' historical tradition must
begin with a reminder that the Ishayas' teachings are
centered around personal experience and empowerment
only, and require no belief whatsoever. All traditions
teach some form of inward contemplation or prayer, and
the Ishaya Keys-- being a very
powerful tool to achieve this inward movement -- can
exist within and even without any system of belief.
Nonetheless, the history itself is quite
long and beautiful. Several segments of that story are
recounted in the Thunder series of books, which hint
that the Ishaya Keys have been active in the human sector for
many thousands of years -- far longer than most
historians would consider plausible.
Other
than the present time, the most recent revival of the
Ishaya Keys began approximately 2,500 years ago
in India, when a young boy named Shankara set off to
become enlightened. Being especially gifted, he
achieved his goal at an early age, attracting a large
following in the process. He rediscovered the
principles of Ascension, and founded the four major
schools, or Maths, that still exist in the four
corners of India. Before disappearing from the world
at about age 30, he taught at the northern Math. To
this day, principal teachers at all four Maths are
given the honorary title of Shankaracharya.
Descendants of that tradition were traveling in Egypt
some 500 years later, and met another very special
young seeker known as Isha, Yeshua ben Joseph, or
Jesus, son of Joseph.
From a
very early age, this gifted youth had known and lived
one central truth -- that I and my Father are One --
and had an intense desire to share this forgotten but
explosively beautiful human legacy with others. He
had, with the assistance of his merchant uncle,
traveled extensively seeking a spiritual tradition
that resonated to this Truth, but to no avail. When he
met these sages from India, however, he knew that his
search had ended.
Jesus
made the dangerous journey to India and practiced this
tradition for several years, then returned to Judea to
complete his mission. Second century Tibetan records
exist that recount his return journey. The New
testament describes many aspects of the three years of
Jesus' public ministry. For the most part, however, it
details the public mission, and refers only
off-handedly to the teaching he was giving his rather
large body of followers -- those going out in pairs to
share his teaching with others.
There
are many casual references to the esoteric teachings
throughout the Scriptures, but because they were
ignored by the Pauline tradition, they are much more
apparent in texts that have not undergone centuries of
editing. Of these, the recently discovered and
authenticated Gospel of Thomas serves as a clear link
between the inner and the outer teachings of Jesus.
After
the Crucifixion, the remaining disciples traveled to
the boundaries of the known world to continue their
mission. It was, of course, in the Roman Empire that
Pauline Christianity flowered, flourished and finally
crowded out teachings it labeled as heretical. John
the Beloved was entrusted with assuring that the inner
teaching would survive undistorted. He was captured by
the Romans and exiled to Patmos for a number of years,
where he wrote the Book of Revelation and perfected
his practice of the Ishaya Keys.
Upon his
release, he and twelve companions began a journey to
the mountains of India. He and the three others who
completed the pilgrimage contacted the Masters who had
originally welcomed Jesus. With their assistance, the
Ishaya (meaning for Christ) Order was
established in a remote valley of the Himalayas. This
beautiful and remarkably temperate garden setting,
which has been a favorite retreat of enlightened sages
for millennia, has been referred to in the legends and
lore of many cultures. The Ishayas call it Vashti,
and it is there that the tradition of ascension has
been preserved for the last 2,000 years, awaiting its
advent into the modern world. It was in Vashti that
MSI
was trained in the Ishaya Keys, and it was
from there that he brought the Ishaya Tradition to
America.
Upon his
return to the US, MSI
began teaching the Keys to all who were willing
to learn. He also instructed those who responded to
their hearts' desire to fully live the Ishaya Path how
to teach and share the Ishaya Keys.
Hosted in living rooms throughout America, the
teaching quickly expanded to several countries
including Canada, Europe, Japan, New Zealand and
Australia before he died.
Today,
the teaching continues to expand wherever the interest
is expressed. As it has in centuries past, the
Ishayas' Tradition continues to serve the desire of
all who choose to.
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