How does the Wayist ashram training program work?
The Sanskrit word āśrama denotes a spiritual retreat or place where spiritual training takes place.
Ashram residence is necessarily a structured residential program where spirituality is learned and lived. Accommodation may be in dorms at a centre or it may be in shared accommodation in houses in town.
Typically, aspirants (students) run the ashram program; keeping things in order, cooking, cleaning, etc., but are also involved in administrative and other tasks. Senior aspirants present programs to retreatees and services to clinic clients.
Aspirants, by definition, aspire to something and are in training towards fulfilling their aspirations. Such aspirations may be (in our case) preparing to become Wayist spiritual teachers and ordained ministers, or becoming certified professional pneumatherapists, spiritual healers in the Wayist tradition.
Aspirants are required to work at the pneumatherapy centre and ashram projects no less than four hours per day (apart from normal housekeeping), the rest of the day is available for online studies and attending lectures if available.
Ashrams keep long hours. We start at 6 in the morning and end at 8 in the evening, 6 days per week.
Wayist ashrams are old style, where students do not pay but work in programs. Modern ashram programs in India are totally different, it is a business with a strong marketing budget and “students” are served food, programs, and learning opportunities by staff members. Nowadays in India, the USA and Europe, an ashram is more of a resort or retreat business. Wayist ashrams are still old-school, but our aspirants work in healing clinics and help to host retreats for paying clients.
Aspirants are not cheap labour—on the contrary, in Cambodia and India, for example we can hire full time help for $200 per month. Aspirants in asham cost us more than that in upkeep and calls for a whole lot more time in management. It is not easily a profitable enterprise. One does it for a greater cause.
Economically, what is the difference between what we do and the new resort-style ashram? Well, old-style ashrams need income too. In the old days aspirants who graduated would donate sizable amounts of their future incomes, or gifts of land and such (even a daughter), to the ashram or master/swami/guru/teacher. This assured continuation of the programs. Some of those ashrams in India are more than 200 years old because of this. Our model is slightly different in that we have a foot in the modern style, even though we have an old-style business model. We run spiritual healing clinics and other retreat programs for paying clients, but non-paying students in the ashram make it possible. That way, we can afford the large overheads of running the programs. Students swap labour for training, and that is how the ashram keeps going.
Resort-style ashrams, on the other hand, employ staff who serve clients who expect western-style facilities and are prepared to pay much more than otherwise.
To apply for the Ashram Program, whether for Pneumatherapy studies or Wayist studies, use the Ashram Online Application form from this link.
Ashram FAQ
Loved ones often ask this question, which must be respected because it comes from a place of caring.
Wayism cannot even be a religion because it does not offer the Business of Religion anything to sell, or any power over people. Cults are by definition centred on the persona of some person, like the Pope or Dalai Lama, or something like that. Most Wayists do not even know if anyone is actually in charge of anything Waysit. Of course, there is a council of senior scholars who see to the purity of the teaching passed down but hardly anyone knows who is who in those circles. Wayism is not evangelistic and has no need for anyone to become a Wayist because as Wayism says, “Enlightenment will happen to you, whether you will it, want it, or not”. Enlightenment, or salvation from samsara is a natural process that will happen one day for all sentient beings in some future lifetime, sooner or later. Wayism is a lifestyle and worldview more than it is a religion with dogma and recipes and hierarchies. Wayism has roos in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jesus’ Wayist teaching (people of The Way) long before St. Paul used Wayism to cause a reformation in Judaism that people of his time called The Christians.
Wayism simply does not have the elements needed to make it into a cult.
6 days a week
06:00 Start the day. Chores and Breakfast.
07:30 Open the center.
08:00 Meditations
09:00 to 12:00 Programs, healing clients or studies depending on your shift.
12:00 to 13:00 Lunch
13:00 to 18:00 Programs, healing clients or studies depending on your shift.
18:00 to 18:30 close the center. Dinner.
20:00 Quiet time
Everyone studies Wayism. Wayists are found in almost all religions. We have Christians, Hindus and Buddhists mainly. Some are only Wayists. We also get Daoists, Muslims, New Age, Spiritual but not Religious, and Agnostics.
- You will not want to not go to hospital
- You won’t like being arrested
- You don’t want to be in jail
- You wont like to suffer heatstroke. Imagine the spiritual experience of passing sharp crystals through the urethra while you slip in and out of the worst flu-cum-hangover ever, you worry about peeing thick sticky yellow urine but the blood from the urethra makes you forget you worried about that and it lasts at least ten days, and the doctor says you’re lucky the brain damage is reversible. Small price to pay to learn to keep your electrolytes and hydration levels up.
- You won’t forget what happened after you pissed off a water buffalo
- You will most probably prefer to eat crickets and spiders over eating the beloved local delicacies durian or prohok (fermented fish paste). If you don’t like durian or prohok, you will want to go back home immediately after having tasted it.
- You won’t be the same after trying the local drugs cooked in Russian Mafia pots in the rural areas. They cook all sorts of stuff that fry people’s brains enough to make them forget how to go home—you will meet some of those people in town, they believe they are deeply spiritual—very sad.
What will I absolutely love about Cambodia?
- The people. They will be one of the best things ever happened in your life.
- Traffic rules. You will always remember this.
- Safety standards. You will never forget this.
- The Temples. You won’t see this anywhere else in the world.
- Funerals. You will want one of these, just to peeve-off your family as an act of going out with a bang.
- Weddings. You will forget the experience, but you may be scarred for the rest of your life.
This is a developing country. Think India, rural Africa and rural SE Asia. If the concepts of safety flip-flops, bamboo scaffolding, five people on a moped and towing your cow to the market on a trailer behind your 120CC moped makes sense to you, you will feel right at home.
Siem Reap is in a tropical region, slightly north of the equator. It is always nice, sometimes very warm touching on 400C and humid. Rainy season is beautiful, warm and wet.
- Minimum age of 25, maximum age of 70.
- Minimum schooling level grade 12.
- Complete the first stages of your studies. This is different for each program. For Wayist studies it is Unit 3. For Pneumatherapy studies it is Unit 2.
- Have a skillset for which there is an opening at the ashram. The following skillsets are on the list:
- WordPress or Joomla
- Writing articles, blogs, copywriting, or editing
- Video
- Graphics
- Hospitality
- Social Media
- Translation from English to your native language
- Online course creation
- Database
- Other
You need all of the following things—non-negotiable, no exceptions
- Passport
- Visa, money for visa extensions
- Money for return ticket
- Laptop
- Drug free (this includes marijuana)
- Money for personal items (toiletries, etc) for duration of stay
- Access to spending money for duration of stay
- Security deposit of $300 refundable. This is returned to you in your last week of stay. It will be used when absolute emergencies crop up – for example medical emergency, to get you out of police custody (maybe because you caused a traffic accident or something (bail money, bribe money), to get someone to dig you out of the mud because you got stuck in a rice paddy (this has never happened but we fantasize), to pay for the bicycle ($50) if you neglected to lock it in town and it got stolen or impounded or you forgot where you parked it (this happens).
- Licensing fees, book fees and professional association fees — $200. Non-refundable.
From one to maximum of ten people at a time. We take people from the two most common genders, male and female. Others are required to pick a slot where they would fit in. Typically, bedrooms are not mixed gender but living quarters are.
In ashram, romantic relations are strongly discouraged. Non-romantic sexual relations may be fine but for people who have not yet master non-attachment, it is almost impossible. There are several reasons for this, and not one of the reasons are about morals. The main reason being that of spiritual energy and how it affects self and co-workers—something you will learn when here. The other reasons are easier to understand and are as valid.
Ashram managers may end an aspirant’s residence privilege at any time.
Not in ashram, but yes we do have some uniform required when working in the spiritual energy clinic.
Oh yes, very much so. Writer of this encourages all Wayists to donate to him freely until it hurts, then donate just a little more. Please send money to my personal PayPal account. In return, I will be grateful.
The ideal of the ashram program is to make training and tuition available to serious aspirants notwithstanding their financial means. Some people have literally no money to spend during their ashram days and cling to their passports and return ticket and visa money as their only escape should they need to get back home in an emergency. They go to trouble to cook nicer kitchari every day because they don’t want to eat outside.
Many aspirants have some spare cash. Such people find that the food outside the ashram run from $2 to $5 per meal, beer is $1 (50 cent most of the time), fruit smoothies are $1, and excursions are about $10, and cheap accommodation can be as affordable as $5 per day to $20 per day. You do the math.
Meals in ashram are prepared by aspirants and the menu is almost always fruit, kitchari and tea. Many people feel they need more variety and are happy that they can afford to eat outside once or twice a week.
Yes. You can travel after you have been certified, which is ideal because you will then experience Asia with new eyes. However, you can also travel during your residency if it can be arranged to be convenient for others in the programs where you are involved—which is not difficult to do.
From 25 to 70