Have you, like me, been looking for happiness, love and contentment? Have you, like me, tried dating apps and new hobbies, moved and changed jobs to feel fulfilled, to find love and happiness?

I started on this journey of seeking inner peace about twenty years ago. At that time, I stumbled upon the Ishayas’ Ascension meditation practice. Its simplicity, its purity, its quick results and the radiance that emanated from the teachers, spoke to my heart.

“Commitment” can seem like a scary word sometimes. In my younger days, I would rebel against the concept, rejecting it as the end of my individual freedom of choice.

The Ishayas’ Teaching is that experiencing peace, love and oneness with the world is our natural state. That we are beings with unlimited creative potential – we are luminous and Divine.

I didn’t know why it was so difficult for people to be kind to one another or why we treated nature with such disregard. I also noticed friends and adults around me were often sad or struggling.

At the core of conscious growth lies the ability to live in the present moment. For most people, this requires practice. If we have lived a whole life away from this moment, paying attention to “right now” takes some practice.

The words  “waking up”, “enlightenment”, and “consciousness” are used so often in meditation or spiritual conversations, yet, they can seem so unreachable to us. For most of our lives, we believe they are experiences just for special people – those chosen by God, not for us.

For me, there was always a what if?. It was never enough; I used to compare myself with people. I wanted to change the world, but it was almost impossible because, apparently, no one was doing their part. First, they all had to change before I could do something, no matter how beautiful, magical and perfect it could be.

Okay, let’s first define devotion. The dictionary speaks of “Religious love, veneration, and fervour.” Chat GPT says devotion “…may refer to a passionate and persistent commitment to a person, cause, or activity.”
However, I want to give you a slightly different perspective on devotion. Through my journey, I would like to share with you what I experience devotion as and what I experience devotion towards.

When I learned to meditate with the Ishayas it seemed that my head became busier. It appeared that, rather than quieting my mind, I noticed more and more thoughts. This wasn’t what I had expected when I learned. Was I doing it correctly?

On the surface, my life is full of the same sort of daily activities and events as everyone else’s. I’m happy, I like to spend time outdoors, and I appreciate the people in my life. Every so often, I lose my cool trying to get my kids out of the door in time for school. What makes my internal landscape extraordinary is my familiarity with the field of awareness that exists within us all and is the foundation of everything.

You are probably familiar with watching or reading love stories. One theme is where two people separate, go through lots of experiences (good and bad, intense and light), and finally meet again, complete each other, and live happily ever after.

I would like to make another suggestion for the ultimate love story. It is not about finding someone else or anything else. It is a beautiful love story in which you experience the place of origin, where you realise there is actually nothing to complete, and there is no space even for the concept of separation.