At the age of 8 I chose to separate from myself. The gap that I created between me and myself has been filled for most of my life with an array of debris that has masqueraded itself as life. One such piece of debris was the belief that evolution works like a ladder – as you climb up it, you evolve. 

For a very long time I had a strong sense that I was ‘getting somewhere’ – I felt that I was slowly making my way up the invisible ladder of evolution. I have always been a happy person and never worried too much about anything; I felt that I had things pretty much sorted and I took my happiness as evidence of my bogus ascension. 

Looking back now, I can also see that I mistook the feeling of being very physically fit as a sign of being in genuine good health.

For me, physical well-being was somehow linked to evolution. I did not question my need to exercise, in fact I prided myself in my commitment to keeping myself very physically fit. I saw it as a strength, another rung mastered and an indication of the fact that I was getting somewhere.

In my mid-thirties I trained as a yoga teacher and it was at this point that I really started to get deeply into the illusion of ascension. There is much within the yoga consciousness that revolves around the idea of ‘moving up the ladder.’

The physical poses themselves go from basic to advanced and so it went without saying that the ‘better’ you are at the physical yoga, then naturally the ‘higher up’ you were getting. Those that practised a lot were considered to be, in some way, more dedicated to the pursuit of evolution. It was not discussed, however it was quietly understood, that those who practised under well-known teachers seemed to accrue more credits in the game of ascension, and ‘bonus points’ were rewarded to those who studied yoga in India.

The goal of the game was to reach enlightenment. I saw enlightenment as being the moment when you reached the very top of the ladder… the moment when the veil of illusion would magically lift. Did I think enlightenment was achievable? Yes I did. I was embroiled in the belief that I was climbing up the ladder.

This belief lay like a canopy over my entire life. It infiltrated my thoughts and engineered my body to move in certain ways. The belief owned me; I was its puppet, its plaything, acting out the characteristics of the belief. 

I was not being Me, I was enacting a belief, as sincere as a game of charades.

Pick a category, any category will do.

When we take on a belief, we take on a pre-selected set of characteristics that come with that belief. It comes as a bundle.

One of the components of the ‘Belief in Enlightenment’ package is levitation, and as I had brought the whole package, I was under the illusion that it was very possible that one day I would lift clean off my yoga mat and hover in the air effortlessly. I find it both funny and sinister at the same time. Funny that I thought that any moment I was going to hover over the mantelpiece, and sinister when you consider that some ‘belief packages’ contain killing as part of their bundle.

When you download a belief you subscribe to the whole package, you don’t choose the parts you want. 

Within the beliefs that surround yoga there are clear ranks of distinction, the top of the pile being God-like figures who are revered by everyone underneath them.

The belief that I was climbing the ladder of evolution managed to cling onto me for all of 20 years. It gripped me so tightly that I was unable to feel the damage that my relentless yoga practice and deep lack of self-care were doing to me.

My body tried repeatedly to let me know how it felt but my beliefs were so ingrained that they kept me motoring along at the same breakneck speed every day. I lived with intense pain and extreme exhaustion for years until, eventually, my body broke down: it literally stopped going.

It was around this time that a friend introduced me to Serge Benhayon and the teachings of The Ageless Wisdom. I took my battered body along to workshops. Due to the fact that my once athletic body was no longer willing to even walk to the local shop, I had no choice but to start to slowly question my long held beliefs.

By attending workshops, having esoteric healing sessions and listening to audio recordings, I have slowly, over many years, let go of an incredible amount of beliefs.

I have discovered that what lay underneath beliefs is truth and the truth is, we are born already knowing God unencumbered, but we layer over the top of our connection to this knowing – false ways of being, beliefs, ideas, practices, habits, behaviours, personality traits, pain etc., they serve to distort our connection with ourselves, and it is through our true connection with ourselves first, that we know also our connection to God. We forget altogether that once upon a time we knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that;

In our essence, we know God.

This connection is found by looking within and not by seeking outside of us.

Serge Benhayon found his way back to this knowing and he now teaches others the way back through ‘The Way of The Livingness.’ This is a U-Turn because it teaches us that we already know God, we just need to remove the impediments (and belief systems) that prevent us from feeling this connection in our bodies.

It is not possible to ever be separate from God, it is only possible to have the belief that God is separate from us. Take away the false belief and we return to this knowing.

I am eternally grateful to Serge Benhayon for returning to this knowing and for then lighting the way back for everyone else.

By Alexis Stewart, Care worker with the intellectually disabled, Yoga teacher, Mum, dedicated Student of the Livingness, Sydney, Australia

Further Reading:
Beliefs V Truths
Evolution is about us returning to who we truly are
Happy New Year: Snakes and Ladders or Evolution?