When I think about it now after being in INDIA AND NEPAL FOR 4 MONTHS IN 1985 AND 1986 WITH MY FAMILY:

 I think that if you described the belief of Ascended Master now it would be like joining the Mystical Christian Tradition to more East India and Nepalse and even Tibetan Buddhist Beliefs. This is what I think now. But, as a child it was more immediate than that growing up in the 1950s because my parents were Ministers at the Hope Street "I AM" Sanctuary in Los Angeles California from 1954 when I was 6 to 1960 when I was 12 years old when my mother's father died and she had a minor nervous breakdown because of unresolved issues with her father after he died.

However, my personal experience then and now is that I was very scientific and mechanical and studious even then regarding religion simply because I had already had whooping cough (caused by my parents being Anti-Vaxers) and then I got a concussion rock climbing with my father at about age 9 which gave me night time seizures sometimes at night from ages 10 to 15. This forced me to become religious in order to not die during this time of the terror of Seizures from a heart attack or stroke. I wasn't allowed any medicine (except maybe B-12 shots to the posterior) and phenobarbitol was a terrible drug which is all they had then in the 1950s and my father refused for me to take this either.

So, becoming religious was the only way I was going to survive this anyway.

So, realizing that believing in God was my only way to survive all this this is what I did. And I have been grateful ever since.

However, the point here is that this belief system of Ascended masters has elements of Mystical Christianity as well as Hinduism, Buddhism and other Eastern religious Ideas and philosophies too. In fact, I was raised a Lacto Ovo Vegetarian which means no meat and no fish or anything that walks around on legs, but allows the eating of Milk and Eggs and fruit and nuts and vegetables too. The staple of a diet like this is usually Organicly Grown Baked Potatoes since this is only one of two things that one could eat ONLY the rest of their lives and be relatively okay.