Awakening Now

Silence Is Effortless And Ever-Present With Ishtar Thomas Howell

• Ilona Ciunaite / Ishtar Thomas Howell • Episode 76

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Silence is ever-present and recognising that is self-realization. 
Ishtar Thomas Howell is a Meditation Teacher, Monk, Writer, Astrologer, Enthusiastic Gardener, and today he shares his awakening story and advice for a seeker. 

Ishtar's websites: 

https://www.awakenedlightastrology.com/
https://www.ascension-meditation.com/

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http://www.IlonaCiunaite.com/sessions 

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Music by Valdi Sabev, Visit his channel for more calm and relaxed music 
https://www.youtube.com/c/ValdiSabev/featured

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Websites
http://ilonaciunaite.com
http://liberationunleashed.com

Welcome to the show! This is episode 76, Silence Is Effortless And Ever-Present With Ishtar Thomas Howell

My name is Ilona Ciunaite. I am a guide, an author, and a co-creator of the Liberation Unleashed community. If you’re are interested in all things awakening, you’ve found the right place. Over the past 13 years, I’ve had the privilege of guiding and supporting seekers on their journeys to discover inner peace and freedom.

In this podcast I dive deep into the heart of awakening. Together with my guests, we explore the pivotal moments that spark transformation, what life looks like beyond the shift, and how to navigate the challenges and beauty of living an awakened life. Whether you’re a seeker, a teacher, or simply curious, there’s something here for you.


Silence is ever-present and recognising that is self-realization. 
Ishtar Thomas Howell is a Meditation Teacher, Monk, Writer, Astrologer, Enthusiastic Gardener, and today he shares his awakening story and advice for a seeker. 
 hello hello Ilona lovely lovely to meet you it's lovely to lovely to be here with you on our our little internet screens yeah yeah um today I'm talking to Ishtar Thomas Howell and if you haven't heard of Ishtar I never heard of

Ishtar um just a few words that he's a meditation teacher he is also a Mystic very interesting human being with a lot of strange experiences and yeah let's let's hear about Ishtar from Ishtar and see where it takes us sure absolutely uh and and what um what's what interests you the

most well I'll just go I don't know I don't know it kind of feels like there's a lot of richness a lot of like mystery and a lot of curiosity also here just being with

you well uh I think I I won't spend too much time on my history of of but I probably have to start somewhere and of I it's looking back at at my life at the early life it seems of course obvious that uh life would have gone in the direction of meditation and of mystical experiences but at the time of course it really didn't seem seem like that at all I I I was grew up in a small um Midwestern town in the United States uh you know I was I was very much interested in sports and that's what's doing well in school and and these sorts of things very conventional uh you know you might say but along this at the same time with all that uh sort of conventional sorts of stuff uh there were you know all of these moments that uh you know would kind of break through the veil and they kind of went back to Childhood in my crib and so I think some of my earliest memories the richest memories in this nervous system uh still uh to this day are sitting in my crib maybe at about 4:00 or 5 in the morning something like that who knows before the sun would come up and just sitting down and breathing into my stomach breathing out and from doing that having this profound sense of being in all the things in the room and and sort of being in everything kind of at once and the what at the same time that I would do that there would just be these flows of bliss that went through my little you know kind of baby body you know up up up from my feet up up to the spine this is just how how it was I just figured you know obviously when you're when you're a baby you're not really thinking about much at all and and this kind of persisted for a while uh this sense of kind of being in other things or being in this big silent space was there until about age seven or age six and I remember I didn't want to learn language of uh you know my I remember my parents talking at me and not exactly understanding what the what the sounds meant but but having an intuitive understanding of what was actually going on inside everybody and I think part of the reason I didn't want to learn language was I started to get a little bit confused when what was going on inside people didn't seem to be matching uh what they what I was understanding of their words and what their representing so I was like well that seems like a like like an inefficient thing to to pick up uh language uh but anyways I did because it's like you kind of have to join the party so so you know I I remember you know going going around my house and you know like like most little kids for about one year I'm asking everybody what's this and you know trying to gobble up nouns and and Gobble up words only I remember in this gobbling up process um when I remember my mother taught me what a bookshelf was or the word bookshelf which which held some Fascination for me and when she pointed to the Bookshelf at the same time that she she pointed at I felt oh I'm in the bookshelf no there's no so you know at the time it wasn't anything interesting looking back at I started to raise my eyebrows you know looking back at these these memories and so that I kind of cruised with that and I I speak about this you know every now and then people kind of point to language as the thing that sort of causes us to uh you lose our sense of primordial Unity that we may or may not have and I I have to say that it didn't pull me out yeah there so something a little bit subtler and deeper than language at the same time lots of weird stuff I I turned to um uh I I remember being in my crib and having this uh lady with curly white hair and a blue night down walk into my room and walk by me and I wasn't afraid at all of her and then she walked out the back wall of my bedroom and and I was so this was like okay you because I'd never seen that done before and I had I had let you yet learn the concept of spirits or ghosts or any any any like that and that was kind of the first of what what started uh a bit of a parade as a young kid of these things uh kind of coming in the room and uh maybe for for sort of a spiritual podcast the more interesting thing about that was uh to deal with this I I chose sort of an unusual methodology I I set my room up as um sort of a Consulting detectives office I was into Sherlock Holmes at the time and the the Jeremy the Jeremy Brett uh 1980s version of that was that was on TV and I would sit in this little child-sized rocking chair and I would I would have the quote unquote client you know about five feet on the other side of me over there I would close my eyes and I would find myself just sort of instinctively going into this back back back back into this sort of Never Ending space that was brighter than bright of you know and when I would you know kind of immerse to a certain level something would happen where it would sort of move through me I don't know how you know at the thing I I didn't know how the thing could move but I was just kind of going with it and you know would go into the space in front of me and and then I would wait usually just a second or two and I would have a sense of uh something clearing out something something releasing wow uh so so yeah stuff like that would happen and then I like like most you know children you sort of forget about that you're trying to develop an ego maybe we're not consciously thing is something that most I don't know about most children that sounds pretty unique to me yeah uh I grew up in a in a in a weird town too it it turns out lots of interesting phenomena are were happening in the in the town that I I grew up in at least at the time uh you so so that was happening uh and then at about age six I was in a a kindergarten parent teacher conference and the the the teacher told my mother he's got a great personality I had no idea what a personality was so after the conference I was curious on you know what that word was what what is this accusation from the kindergarten teacher and my mother explained to me what a what a actually very well what a personality was a light bulb went off in my head because I've been wondering why people uh why people behave the way they do I didn't I didn't quite understand what was going on and people and then suddenly I understood I knew I I realized that a personality was some kind of um uh filtering unit where inputs would go in uh they would be determined by some kind of equation or series of equations in here and they produce an output and I said that's what I've been missing I need to have one of those because I don't really have one of those quite yet so so now I'm going to have one by by golly and and I'll I'll catch up with everybody and so for about you know several months uh when I would get up in the morning and my mom would you know I was the baby of the family so she's like helping me pick out clothes um I would you know make up a backstory a different a different backstory today I like this today this happened to me at such and such a point which didn't actually and and that's why I'm going to react like this and and and so when this happens today I'm going to you know reacted this way and it was very fungible and and changeable so uh at some point one of them just kind of stuck around and I and then I I I kind of got caught up uh in in one of them and you know what it sounds like a wizard came to the Earth with all its powers and then he had to learn to be a boy yeah got to pick up his own personality like a robes yeah 
yeah a wizard or a reincarnated stage actor God knows you know or or both but U you know uh so so you know that that was uh you know childhood was very normal um besides that besides all that stuff it was normal and then when I was uh 13 um I had sort of a a tragedy and a revelation in one I had uh I was in a car accident uh my mother died in it uh and you know more or less I had a near-death experience in it aha I I say more or less because I I seem to have gone through a lot of the um uh textbook experiences of of near experiences uh before getting um knocked out uh in the accident and and so there was a lot of stuff around that uh a precognition of of the event to a certain degree the night before i' I'd asked my mother if she was going to die soon uh wasn't anything I was ever afraid of wasn't a normal uh wasn't normally on the menu of my worries at all and yet here it was coming out of my mouth without me uh you you know without it coming through my brain first and and so she was sort of kind of there was some power in it you know and she was she was kind of taken aback for you know maybe a second then she gathered herself and then of course she said well not for a while you know I'm healthy you know I'm not sick etc etc and I I was fine and um until the next morning when I woke up um breathless as if I was running some distance sprinting into my body from somewhere and it was just the moment that she and my father were outside my door then I was shouting at them like there's something I have to tell you and and then I I became so frustrated because I couldn't remember what it was and and and they had they I was so I mean uh Jarred by that they they took about five minutes to try to calm me down and and then I just sort of shook it off and you know went went off to uh a day of school and you know that afternoon we we had our car accident and and uh the the thing about the car accident that was most important for me uh was was what happened afterwards it sort of stuck around and and that that became interesting uh and so at the same time that I was going through what what most people go through with the stages of grief you know um I don't know them all by by heart right now but I remember punching the walls in my garage and and being really angry I didn't necessarily have I didn't have a religion so I didn't have any kind of solid belief in a deity or anything like that but I'd be you know if there is a God you know you're some kind I'm I'm I'm I'm pissed off you know you know why why would you you know why would you do this and at the same time uh there was this vast silence that was inside that I that even deeper than I remembered from childhood uh and that was puzzling to me um because in this silence there was also this just total sense of being held a complete sense sense of of Joy even which was the most confusing thing because at the same time that the my emotions were just all over the grief map uh if I if I put it all my attention into this vastness flows of bliss would run up through my body uh complete a complete sense of Peace was there at first I thought this was shock you know I I wasn't looking to Mystical experiences or anything like that as an explanation there was a a 13-year-old who just lost their mother uh having all the you know experiences of sadness anger loss disbelief you know that that people go through and and there's this bizarre sense of a infinite Dimension you know it felt as if um you know in a good way like like the back of my head wasn't there anymore or or the back of my body as if I was melting into into just some totality and this totality that I felt I was melting into also appeared in all the people around me as if they were as if we were all at least in our forms just Hollow little shells kind of tiny little tiny patina of of form around around something just you know big and infinite and that there was this this joy as well of you know another thing that was you know interesting about that period was I wasn't afraid of a damn thing uh and and it was uh bizarre uh to see just I had an what I consider a very easy life you know in many ways I mean not not as easy as some but I think easier than most 13 years not that much tension not that much reason for stress and yet when when all the when it all all the baggage was stripped off of me it was it was so surprising how much I was carrying how how much how much weight and trying to be this some kind of little character uh was was produced and I of course I had no no Reckoning of that until it was taken off and and so there I was not really afraid of anything of going around and and you know in a certain way still being a 13-year-old and you know maybe trying to uh you know trying to go with that a little bit and that that was was an interesting period that that lasted for two to three months sort of the the most of the time span of of um a summer break in between in between school years and uh I didn't really talk to anybody about the internal experience at one point I was about to uh ask my dad if he was my poor dad um if he was feeling this Bliss and then something you know from like way back deep inside said answer is no you know good not to good not to talk about this with with any of the adults you know good good to keep your sort of um allow allow this thing that you're experiencing to kind of be pure and allow yourself to investigate it that was that was the advice so I followed that um some someone I think it was a an older student several years older actually of you know I met them at the at one of the parks just ran into them and they they sort of looked at me and um uh they they noticed that I'd been different for a little bit and they were wondering if they could uh partake in that difference as well of and and you know how you know what what what's happened to me to to affect that change and well I told them um well I I guess you could you just kind of have to get really close to dying and not die you know maybe I said maybe go get in a car accident and then we both laughed because we knew this is completely dicey advice you know that like had no you know there was no answer to that it's like a terrible advice right and and so kind of went on but there was a scene in that when I said that there was sort of this deep um I think knowing uh in the heart that said you and and this is exactly what's going to happen it said you're you're going to forget this you're going to forget this state because you you need to to find it again in a way that you can you can um tell others how to do it in a sense where you could leave breadcrumbs behind that that doesn't involve like almost dying or or something like that so I said okay you know and then sure enough that's what happened you know in a couple weeks I'm I'm I'm back to school and and trying to fit into the old uh to the old Persona and it was very very ill-fitting and and the suffering with a capital S underlying was was intense and because the previous months there was pain and grief and all these feelings but there was no resistance to them mhm they were they were just flowing through now there was a hell of a lot of resistance because they trying to be a trying to be a little um person box again how interesting is that yeah yeah it was it was rough you know it was great to have that contrast I didn't have words for for why the mechanisms exactly of you know why it was you know when when the clouds came back things were pretty cloudy and and so I kind of muddled through um a year of school with a little bit of the you know some of the residue of I don't know the freedom uh that was there and and so I you know I spent a year of of muddling through things and then the next summer I was the Summers were always the chance to kind of grow because I didn't have as many responsibilities and things to do and so I was on Q I was like what the hell was it that I was experiencing a year ago I want to get back to that and and so then I started I you know I started like jumping off of heights um because you know historically I was afraid of heights and jumping off of them I was like I'll do stuff that'll scare me because it'll feel like I'm going to die and that that'll be the way I get to this I I had a friend who had a um had sort of a golf cart of and and so we got that thing up uh to about you know 20 miles per hour I said okay I'm gonna I'm gonna jump now off the side I I I pulled off a few jumps you know until one of them I forgot to roll and then I almost broke  my arm and and then I decided okay this is not working to to get me back to whatever that was and and so thankfully I was going around with my sister one day and and she wanted to go into the local metaphysical bookstore and I kind of gravitated to the back of the store and just just because I was bored also and I picked up a book at random and just opened it and I started reading and the experiences it was describing which were Samadhi experiences uh sounded exactly like what I'd been experiencing year before and and it was a book on Himalayan yogis and not not autobiography of Yogi something more obscure I don't even remember the was actually a very old book in in that shop and so I was reading reading through it and I was like what is this oh Wow and and I was sort of getting down on myself because I I knew about Tibetan Monks I knew about these sorts of things but I I'd never made any kind of connection that perhaps something that they were doing could have any connection to the experiences I was having you know post uh post car accident and until that moment and so I was hooked then I was uh you know didn't make any kind of free being out of me but it definitely made a spiritual seeker and and so I was in that that bookstore in the public library across the street and any Library I could find um uh reading voraciously trying to sort of some way get a scent of what a scent of something and of at a certain point at dawn that I I probably need to do meditation you know okay um uh I I was taught a few different practices I was I was still a teenager so I don't think I was doing them as in a in as disciplined manner as I should uh mainly because I was also a little bit afraid of opening that door I think that's something a lot of people actually experience at at some level I I I knew that if I open that door or I felt that if I open that door and went fully in um basically all all the um uh maybe the BS
parts of my life would explode and I wasn't quite quite yet ready for my life to explode and so and so for three years I think I was sort of you know 14 to 17 I was doing things in a little bit of a half-ass manner uh by by my my standards at the time and and so you know at at some point I I at the end of that um I realized okay let's let's go 100% we have to go 100% uh I and and so we we decided okay I I'll do um six hours a day of meditation only? that's probably what yeah I don't know I mean that that's what like 100% looked like you know that like this is not praiseworthy or yeah well I mean I don't think this praiseworthy or or necessary for for people but it it just happens to be my peculiar psyche has when it wants to scratch an itch there's this this need to there's always this need to scratch it as intensely as possible otherwise I felt like what am I doing here and and so you know that was uh what I did and I would get up at 3 in the morning and uh meditate you know take a cold shower do yoga uh then you know meditate for two to three hours uh and then do something in the middle of the day and then do something in the evening and so I had sort of three sort of sitting periods and I was doing a lot of concentration meditation sort of that counting breath thing that drove me crazy at the start you know 1 to 10 you know nothing else and then see if you can how many times you can go one to 10 in a row um you know at first I think I was very bad that I think most of us are designed to be at that uh I I remember I was sitting down for it was going to be 40 minutes which seemed very daunting to me at the time in the public library and I I wanted to look at my watch I think clearly I've been at this for like 15 minutes and I looked at my watch and it was said 38 seconds and I was like oh my God you know you know um so I I honestly I kind of put myself through a bit of Hell uh because I was also fasting a lot and uh you know At first I felt like sort of superhuman doing these fasts uh you I'd be I'd be jogging and fasting like it's that's kind of nuts uh and and then thank thankfully uh because I I knew I hadn't quite found my path I I knew I was I was searching around for a monastery and my heart said you have to get yourself to some kind of monastery or an ashram there's just that sense and and so I was looking online those those were the days where you click on a website then you got to go make some toast and come back in five minutes for the page to load right so there's a lot of that going on and um I was sending out for brochures from different didn't matter what denomination or or path I was just one of the place where I I could be a contemplative where I could work to earn my keep uh and and you know do this thing so I was you know getting brochures from carmelite
Christian communities from Zen communities um from Ananda the krya yoga folks in Northern California from self-realization fellowship and Southern California you know people in crestone Colorado whatever was sending but none of the brochures had the right music to them none of them had the right feel I could tell that I just knew that like no these aren't where I'm supposed to go so thankfully one day uh I I think it was my first brother-in-law uh you know real real angel actually um uh gifted me uh autobiography of a yogi uh you know by by Yogananda and reading through that just you know just the act of reading it not even doing a meditation practice just reading it somehow just felt like doors that I had no idea were shut were being blown open oh wow especially in the heart uh and and I was just just being in my my meditations had changed I wasn't changing the meditations at all but something just reading this book book and then going and doing my concentration and my breathing

meditations it it it it Not only was was silence there in a stronger way but there was this just flood up and down my my spine of of this kind of just Blissful these Blissful currents and uh you know at a certain point I I read Yogananda makes a promise in that book he's like hey when he's writing about Babaji you know he's saying like um and I wasn't necessarily sure I was believing everything that yoga was saying I was still you know skeptical keeping my feet on the ground right you know talk especially talking about this Immortal Babaji you know it's like my heart wanted that to be true but my mind was like yeah you know so he makes this promise whoever prays to Babaji uh you know will will be heard and so I was like all right Yogananda I'm taking you up on that you know so so the the deepest part of my meditation in my evening meditation when I felt I'd probably be most connected and I could you know quote unquote send a signal uh with the most Clarity I said all right Babaji
you know if you're if you're there and and you are who Yogananda says you are etc etc uh I've I've I'm at I've been searching for my path and and I don't think I found it any help would be good in determining where I need to go next um and and and so I I did this twice like two nights in a row just sent it out the second night to my great surprise uh immediately after the sort of stating my my my question there I felt this kind of sensation almost as if somebody was pouring honey into my brain it was like a ball like like it's a weird it's a weird thing to describe exactly because we don't usually have honey poured through our skull right and and so and I thought okay that's interesting and at first you know I was thinking is this a benevolent you know thing it's like I think it is I think it is you know I don't want to be possessed you know like like an you know uh the movies and and so I kind of went with it I was you know still kind of like oh I don't know what this exactly is but and and then it kind of came you know not really a voice but it's just sort of I don't know telepathic communication might be the best word and and it was like gave me a frequency it said listen remember listen to this pitch the next time this frequency comes that'll be your clue oh cool I was like okay and that I could dig with because I was I was in like a lot of doing a lot of musical activities so I think I was uh sort of that was a good thing for me to be attuned to as a pitch I could I could pick it out uh and I said okay well thanks uh Babaji or whoever you know you are I don't know uh and you know then you know went to sleep and then it was I think was two days later uh I was coming back from like picking up litter which was something I did and I I was walking on my home street a few houses down I start to feel that pitch I like is that really the thing and then as I as I kept getting closer to my house you know it's kind of growing and then as soon as I turn to my front door there there's my sister and my soon to be brother-in-law and as soon as my soon to be brother-in-law kind of opens up his mouth and and he it starts to go high that that pitch and and and it turns out that he was inviting me to a meditation course because that he and my sister were going to go to up in I think Michigan had been cancelled and now they're going to go to this one the next weekend do you want to come your course fee I I we got your course fee covered you know kind of gave me a line that some money just showed up in his bank account I'm not quite sure if that was true or not but anyways we're going to cover my course Fee
I just found myself saying the a massive volcanic yes uh to to the invitation I mean um uh I didn't do any reading about his meditation practice or that he he did it or any of that sort of stuff like I usually probably would I just said yes and uh uh I I get to the class that weekend I'm I'm very very skeptical of it actually the more I learn the more I'm like this I think seems kind of you know you know iffy here I was actually skeptical of most things dubbed workshops or seminars because I had this crazy romantic image that for the spiritual path people need to sort of Stow a board a old timey steamer ship and make their way to the Himalayas risking death you know I had these very romantic notions of like this is how it's done and you need to you need to be at your last ounce of life and then the then they will allow you into the monastery you know like go to a workshop in Minneapolis that didn't sound like that sounded too easy to me um and and so I'm sitting there and of not not they were doing these Mantra techniques in in English of all languages and I thought oh that's really not going to work because spirituality should be done in Sanskrit I just read Yogananda and he you know he goes on and on about the glories of Sanskrit as as a as a spiritual language and and so but within 45 seconds of of doing their technique uh in that little basement of a chiropractics uh practice I was back in in the deepest silence I had experienced since being in the near death near death death State I mean that I was completely surprised uh they were even allowing me my mind to have thoughts which is something I wasn't allowing through all that concentration meditation they were saying no you could be easy it's like really I don't necessary believe it but I'll for this weekend I'll do your Technique the way you tell me you do it just for the purity of the experiment and uh you know at first my mind's having thoughts and I think well this is nothing to write home about then I then I I I noticed that my right arm is completely relaxed and immobilized and I'm like what the hell and it felt like that scene in The Matrix where Neo's Consciousness is kind of going into you know kind of a funnel or something was just sucked into this massive silence and and it basically stayed with me that um not only for that whole weekend but for the next two weeks or so uh you know sometimes completely in the foreground covering everything sometimes you know a very definite base tone in the background with a rest of Life on top of it but there and and so I was you know I was pretty convinced that this was you know this was my my direct the direction was clear and true you know that this is where I needed to go it had the right had the had the sort of same frequency I'd been looking for my whole life kind of a you know the feel to it uh so you know three months later uh I I found myself no longer living in Wisconsin but living on the Oregon coast or actually first living in Seattle and then I I had been pestering these people who did that meditation practice called the Ishaya's Ascension uh or whatever  I'd been pestering a certain group you know to let me come and interview so I can come and come and be at their little Monastery and I I I scored sort of an interview and and uh there we were uh for the the next several years basically uh from 18 to 25 or so I'm you know doing this practice sometimes four hours a day so you know two two hour blocks and then having a work day in between um other times I was fully in sort of in service uh because I was also paying ahead of time doing a work exchange to pay for a long six-month teacher training Retreat where I would be doing nothing basically and so I I had the luck of working in a community-owned restaurant and uh I started as dishwasher and I worked was trained in every job up up until head chef uh which was fantastic but then sometimes I was working from 6:00 a.m. to 10 at night so which I was up for uh there was a funny thing about that because uh the year before when I was you know 17 sort of on the edge of kind of becoming allowing the crazy monk to come out and you know run the life uh I was wondering where I'd be in a year because it you know that was a time when you know juniors in high school think you know are thinking about where they should go to college if they're keen on that or you know what they should do and uh that was still my plan but I just decided let's ask the Universe I was walking around in Walmart of all places place at night I know a good place right I actually remember right where I was the women's section was right to my right you know anyways uh I I said it just came to me to to ask the universe where am I going to be a year from now and and so I asked that and then to my surprise kind of a what looked like a TV screen or something like that popped up in front of me you know sort of in midair not not a real TV screen just you know sort of in our eyesight and it was kind of like a hilarious game show voice with it um uh which said you know glad that you asked you know that that sort of thing uh but and then I I was treated to this narration that said I would a year from now um I would be working in a mostly vegetarian Cafe with a bunch of monks many of whom wear all white clothing and that I would start out as the dishwasher and and work every way every job up until head chef and I was like you know after it was done I was like okay thank you Universe for telling me that I don't really believe that's what's coming so I just kind of threw it away you know and you know kind of went on with with my life and and then uh I remember the my interview call to to come down to this place on the Oregon coast the last thing the the fellow said was oh by the way we're about to open up a cafe there might be a job for you maybe dishwasher and and so like that was the last thing he said and I was like and then I remembered that thing from a year before I was like oh what you and and I was I was kind of playing a coy

which I I really didn't need to do but I was for some reason I felt that if I told them I had that as a vision they'd think I was crazy and and wouldn't let me come so I didn't say anything I was dishonest uh I was withholding um in that but uh I still didn't necessarily believe that I thought oh clearly most um monastic organizations clearly open restaurants you you know it's like it's just it's just coincidence you know that's kind of what I was thinking but then one one day um about a year into it I was you know there I was at the end of this trajectory being an apprentice to a a proper Chef who joined our group and chopping onions and I looked out the ticket window you know and the scene that I saw in that moment was the exact same scene I was shown in that in that Walmart Vision the same same people the same um sort of raw iron plant holders against a wooden wall with a juice bar and and a juicer everything in in in detail and I was just like good Lord how about that uh so that's that's where the yeah the magic and the synchronicity was was kind of you know always sort of nipping at the heels and and sort of inserting itself into uh yeah the process so it sounds like you had a very very unique extraordinary life like you know talking to normal everyday people you don't hear stories like this no yeah yeah I guess so I I mean yeah with with those things you know plenty of like um working hard also at jobs and not making enough money and struggling and worry and you know just the you know the normal uh normal stuff but yeah with with all of this stuff going on at the same time yeah for sure can I ask you yeah um you work with Seekers is that correct yes yes yes and what is your message if you would could distill your message people are looking for awakening for enlightenment for for that silence for inner peace and you having have gone through so many very unique and interesting experiences and it's like a wizard okay so what's the message of the wizard to the Seeker the main I I think there there's several messages but I I might start with silence is effortlessly achieved because it's in a sense it's not really an achievement in the in the proper way you know it is it is something that's ever present and always waiting for us and you know most of us are going to have a life which looks like a bit of an A to B path and that's perfectly wonderful and and so we don't you don't have to be these people who I I often disagree with the advice to you know end the search you know don't you know that's useful I think in sort of 2% of cases at a certain point you know or people at a certain point but uh it meditation uh spiritual practice whatever you want to call it uh itself can be effortless and it it doesn't need we don't need to sleep on bed of nails we don't have to be some kind of a extraordinary spiritual Mozart uh we just have to be persistent and and if you're persistent and one-pointed and and do a little something every day and in practice sooner or later uh we're you're going to start to have uh you're going to start to slip into the silence or you're going to start having the sense of love you know overflowing in the body and in the heart or there's going to be a sense of openness or expansiveness or or any of the other words that are really in a sense pointing towards different dimensions of the same thing the same basic transformation into presence with a capital P and it's it's it's waiting for us it's and and when whenever people find it and this is so so common uh in in meditation classes or Retreats or just in conversation with people they'll say like oh my God so you know I was just going along and riding my bike and all of a sudden I realized that uh I was sitting in in total silence everywhere watching watching from this deep place of Peace the the the the Turning action of the world and then they also go on to say and I realized that that place that I was watching from that space has been there the whole time and was there when I was a kid was there last week was there when I was having a stressful argument uh was there here and there and

everywhere and it's it's it can can really be simple as going for it wholeheartedly hell I think people get get great progress by going for things half-heartedly sometimes you know it's like do falling into that just falling into it exactly we don't have to be some spiritual Olympian uh if if we have just just I think sometimes just one pure intent to go there amidst a bunch of other junk that's plug in the mind if we just water that seed a little bit every day and and and and and go for it uh things change things transform uh so I don't even think what people have to do 6 hours of meditation a day or or you know or whatever go to a monastery I've met plenty of people who who've been meditating you know an hour a day which can sound sound very daunting you know start at 20 then then you'll see it gets less less daunting but people who've been doing an hour a day for for several years uh living uh outwardly a regular life are are tapping into to silence love are are having experiences of not only a deep like inner silence but having that that sense of joining that silence everywhere having these unitive experiences where subject object Duality falls apart and and they feel themselves everywhere that that that's that's just open to everybody so Ah that's lovely message yeah um also another message
is is you know don't be afraid to have a tender heart don't don't be don't I mean that's something that we're trying to be afraid of obviously but but don't don't be afraid to sort of  innocently ask you know from your heart or even let the intention of you know let let the let the dreams the Deep dreams of the heart move through the body and move move into your Consciousness know don't I mean I'm glad that I've asked the weird questions to nobody that asked in my life like Babaji whatever you know the hey Universe where am I going to be a year from now I mean that's that sounds ridiculous um and yet there's a potency if we're open so you know allow yourself to be innocent uh I often start meditation classes with an invitation instead of saying beginner's mind which is a lovely a beautiful term um I'll sometimes try to make it a little bit less clinical sometimes it can have little and and I'll say like let yourself be like Winnie the Pooh you know let yourself meditate like your your your Winnie the Pooh which is which is to say just very innocent easygoing uh no masks you know no no need to be right or wrong and no no need to be particularly worried about perfection just as is exactly as you are simple that way just have the intent to have an ounce of that and and and and that changes things of 180 degrees Yeah that's very much not like what we hear normally yes sometimes not definitely with with the I think the kind of like very heavy no pain no gain um Protestant culture that I that I emerged
from yeah you know yeah very it's very different than that for sure I'm gonna share something um was it yeserday day before yesterday I'm on the beach it's nice it's really lovely Beach here Sunshine so I meditated a little bit listened to the waves very nice and I'm walking back it's quite funny I'm walking back and I see there is a card in the sand a playing card like this right a playing card and I thought here's a message for me here you go let's see what's the card it's just kind of curious oh let's reveal it and then what you get what's this I knew it'd be a joker I knew get the Joker go there all these binoculars looking look at that look at that you got the fool the Divine fool showed up yes the Divine fool showed up oh God that that's so wonderful yeah and it's light up yeah exactly yeah it's it could be um a comedy I think a comedy is um I think that there's some Merit in deciding what what genre of movie one's life could be actually in and um there's nothing wrong with the tragedy uh you know but if I think it's I I think there's a lot more space if we allow it to be a tragic comedy and then merge into a comedy there's a lot more space for the weird and the unexpected to come in and uh I I think often the most magical things is that we we get sort of caught into these sort of funnel like reality tunnels where where you know there's maybe two options and both of them are kind of shitty and you know for me say like the beauty of of say like Krishna as as as an archetype here just pick make Krishna or Pan or the Joker you know the fool in a certain sense um yeah is is that there's always a door number three there's always there's always like a a much larger door that's sort of you know beckoning from the side saying like but if you could just like let go just a little bit more um then we're going to come into your life and and um you know fill it with weird synchronicities or fill it with you know loving leelas and and and surprise you I I've always loved that aspect of of of divinity more than more than many others uh I there there's a sense of that there is a uh of a great playfulness uh with with divinity that just wants to dance with us a little bit just a little bit and just a little bit and and and it just requires us to kind of sort of allow ourselves just a little bit you know to to to have that that soft child's heart again and and I say a little bit because you know someone might say well I've got a damned crusty heart my child's heart's buried beneath 50 years of BS or something like that that could be very honest

but and yet no uh even if there is 50 years of junk it just takes a tiny little one singular moment One Singular instant One One Singular dive an opening Can Can can change the whole equation right and obviously there's going to be cleanup work often uh you know when often it's like people get dismayed when they start having very deep experiences of samadhi and and and then the next day they're like I feel like I got hit by a Mac Truck and and all of my stuff is up yeah the body takes more time and and and so you know but that that doesn't mean that the the true thing is is totally gone and totally totally buried uh just means that a lot of stuff gets gets to be healed along the way and and we we get to be taught um you know taught patience and compassion yeah lately I hear is just from a couple of people when is my life going to start I'm so trapped into this situation there is no exit like you say just shitty situation yeah and when is my life going to start how can I um surrender or how can I yeah find the exit yeah so I think your messages for that for these people yeah there's a there's a Wilder thing which which may be harder let's hear it  there's a scene there's actually a scene from the the what the 1968 film uh Butch Casidy and the Sundance Kid Robert Redford Paul Newman they're they're um you know trapped between I think the Bolivian Army and a cliff and and their only solution is to jump off the cliff and and uh Robert Redford's character doesn't want to do it and it turns out he doesn't want to do it because he doesn't know how to swim because there's there's a river at the bottom and and uh you know the Paul Newman character uh you know Butch says like you know what are you crazy the fall will probably kill us and and then you know it's not logic but it then then of course they both both jump off and survive and even even the and and to me that was always somehow that scene that moment was completely instructive in in in those sorts of situations I I and always brought me back um uh to the moment when I was fairly certain that my Earthly life was over uh age 13 looking turning to my left looking at a car a big car at high speed about to crash into us and in less than a second probably and there was no like you know oh please let me survive or anything at that moment it was just oh you know it's curtains okay and and you know from there whoa and and I know it's a it's it's an easier said than done thing so I never give this as actually advice to people so uh but but it's it you know just realize that yeah you know you're you're going to lose in that sense the fall is going to kill you um there's there's nothing in a sense that you can do okay it's over and and that to me that doesn't make me melancholic or bring um me down but it actually it there's a profound freedom in that like there there's we're you you know we're going to wonderfully lose the game and and then and that's the wondrous part of it because in and and not having to sort of struggle and and and play the game in the limited way that we've been conditioned in our head you know that that's when we win by giving up hope I'm by giving up yeah yeah exactly

uh I I I like that message because sometimes I I I mean I hope I'm not overdoing it but um sometimes I encounter what I I'll call maybe like toxic positivity or something like that okay there is such a thing yes or or trying to yeah you know kind of like um like way too much trying to sort of paste sort of a superficial love and light and and positive spin onto every situation now of course I see the the value to a certain extent of of you know positive thinking and you know not not not going into the doldrums but at the same time it's like um not not not when it's superficial it it's it's okay to to kind of see the beauty in um the our plans of mice and men as Shakespeare would say uh you know coming to not it's totally okay and that would be a message 
I'd want to give too I I I've always felt a very um I don't know a closeness to death even before the NDE in in a certain sense with all this ghosts coming into my room and feeling their issues and feeling their regrets and then feeling the sense of release when they would poof out of the room uh I think being present for that that sort of touched me in ways that I wasn't processing at the time but it it is just this sense of of hey uh this this is kind of a dream world you know it's also a real dream in the sense that everything is is is completely filled with this reality but um our perception of it is is just so small are it's it's just so so small and narrow and and there's just so much joy in those moments of letting go there's so much joy in falling into falling into being oh that's beautiful you know when you are speaking these words just you being here it really feels like there's this 3D image that is going going on doing the things and then there is this back of the openness of the Stillness just this pure potential pure magic yeah and just there's this invitation to fall back into that know that this image is just that an image yeah it will continue doing what it's doing yeah but at the same time you can have both you know leg in in this world and leg in that world that's right that's right to see both yeah exactly and and the living from that rather than from this yeah and and the more and the more we go into that I mean it's like water you know water is going to um going to find all the little nooks and crannies and cracks uh and and and exploit them and and and erode things and so the more the more we sort of spend time touching samadhi the the more it starts to filtrate all these other aspects of Our Lives that we thought were largely perhaps largely separate or uh it's going to find its way into it it it has the wonderful power to sort of you know take the grasping hands of of the the wounded three-year-old that's still somehow in the mix when we're 40 or 50 or 60 and and starts to kind of ah you know kind of kind of unwind it and and change it and and you know that that's uh it it it brooks no opposition in other words uh it and sometimes that's the challenging part um for for people also on the path is some people are very good at going into silence and then they kind of have to learn how to surf again because it it's like uh if if there was a moving part of Stillness if if it would we could call it Shakti I think it's a wonderful as good a word the power of power of of the divine power of God and so then Shakti wants to come through and and sort of rearrange the furniture back into a much more optimal optimal homeostasis and and so you know that that's also uh part of the fun of the journey is is to allow these these things to happen and to allow the renovations uh that want to happen in life to happen and and sometimes they can be very inconvenient or they see seem like they're inconvenient like I I need you out of this relationship or I need you in this relationship but but in a different way or I we I need you um to make a fool of yourself more often or I need you to risk making a fool of yourself more often by doing these spontaneous things uh or or or this or that and and so when it's that to me is where where some something of surrenders as a word that that actually means something starts to come into come into play is is that there's sort of like a uh almost like a Divine theater director that that's that's emanating out of the silence that's trying to urge us to like okay three steps that way all right okay oh there there there yeah and and you know and and um each of us had think our theater director has a different bedside manner so so some people are going to have one that's almost like kill them with kindness like like like a Lakshmi character like here you go other us have have like Durga who's like you kind like that or or or or Kali with gasoline and a match you know and they're all

wonderful good fun it's really great to talk to you and you know what I'm wondering how many people are gonna be saying now Universe what am I going to do a year from

now yeah for it I hope so yeah

yeah well thank you so much uh thank you Ilona I I hope it wasn't uh I wasn't too rambly uh there's so much more going on then just words here you know this is true yeah feel you feeling that how can people find you if they are wanting to connect or to work with you or go to your retreats or something right well I I keep a couple websites going uh one of them is for my work as a meditation teacher and and that is uh www. Ascension dash meditation.com and my other website what I often think of as a parallel but very different line of work uh is is my work as an intuitive astrologer where I I think I maybe I'd almost reframe that as I I take joy in in uh I suppose helping people line up with with their their the Divine myth that's trying to live through them and and you know with their Dharma with with the with the joyful purpose that's that's that's looking to animate them and and so that is www. awakened light astrology.com so interesting two different ways of Engagement sometimes they cross-pollinate sometimes they don't uh you know you know different things there I have a very nascent
YouTube channel which I I have I don't post enough up to as well but that's that's there if you just search for my my name uh as Ishtar Howell and uh I actually have a fairly active still on Facebook I feel like a fossil for saying that uh but you you know I put little missives out uh as the spirit moves there so that's a that's probably a good place to connect as as well yeah oh so wonderful thank you so much I ask this question in the beginning of everyone but we started differently as you are unique um just for the end of it what is your definition of Awakening just for the record yeah absolutely I think I'd say Awakening as I'd like to Define it is when you touch and not only touch but then realize that you're this deathless silent vast observing aspect of Consciousness when you when you start to abide in that sometimes I I'll use maybe it's a vulgar metaphor like a board of directors of the psyche that's a silly metaphor but you know it's like that you know the ocean wave analogy we start out thinking that we're these little wavelets and we have these biographies and these personalities and kind of have this Hall of Mirrors going on up here of of who we think we are and then we we we you know some somehow something happens in life that we end up touching this vastness which is unboxable formless boundless feels infinite and if at a certain point if we keep making visits to that vast ocean the perspective flips and instead it much more rather feels like uh being that vast ocean that's living through all the waves or living through a single wave to start and that that to me is is is true Awakening I know that word gets used in a lot of different context of course probably all your guests are now saying that word gets used in a lot of different context so it's you know it's it's it's um but but but that's that's you know maybe the the I think there's different realizations within the the broader term Awakening different flavors that different people experience at different times some people uh I don't think it just stops at realizing the the this witnessing Consciousness like a true witness I think that's maybe one of the first iterations in capital A Awakening um because you know that ultimately wants to lead into recognizing that presence is everything and having no more Duality and and so I think that like a a deeper nonduality not necessarily saying the deepest but a deeper nonduality is not only to to have this sense of being melted into vastness but to have this sense that the vastness is in the is in the windows and the floors and your your your your romantic partner is in the um the birds and the trees and the flowers in the sky and having this sense of of unity between those things you now that that's that's also a a flavor of Awakening so gorgeous yes

okay well thank you so much oh my pleasure thank you thank you for having me on and thank you everyone for watching for listening if you have comments and anything just write it below and we'll see you in the next episode bye for now bye