I am a student of The Way of The Livingness, and no lesser am I now a student at University. I have the same commitment for both, knowing that they interlink and complement each other every day. Life has become beautifully simple once again.

Being a student of The Livingness is nothing complicated or unattainable. It is simply about living in a way that allows you to connect to the real you within and to express this in everything you do thereafter.

For me, it is about being in touch with my innate and essential feelings, my truths of life, and my tender and sensitive ways that I have as a man. By committing to my Livingness in this way, I am able to have a more solid flow and balance within my everyday life. This includes my University studies. This inner balance means I never allow my studies to take over my life and take control of me. I am not ever defined by them.

My Livingness allows me to create a point that I can come back to when I am not feeling myself. This is important because it allows me to not stray too far away from the person that I know I really am.

Without The Way of The Livingness to guide me in my way, my life would not be as rich, as deeply rewarding, connected, as fun, purposeful, or as beautiful as it has turned out to be.

I have learnt that committing to life is also about committing to who you are and what you take part in; committing to my friendships and the connections that are around me; committing to what I study and making sure I keep up with where I need to be; and committing to expressing joy and fun as best I can in my every day, letting this level of commitment light the way for others to feel that they can do the same, if they so choose. Commitment is all about feeling and knowing what you can bring to the things you do in your everyday life, and not holding any of it back.

I love being myself and expressing this in the world around me. I have found that people really appreciate the reflection of another person who is bringing true commitment and dedication to what they set their body to each day, whether it be working in an office, studying, or raising a family. I have learnt that it is important to commit in full to the world that we live in, bringing all of us to everything that we do. 

I have come to understand that my living way is felt by everyone and that I have, in every minute and every second, the choice to feel the beauty of who I truly am.

By coming back to my Livingness and the love within me every day, I solidify my constant relationship with life. For me this is all about learning, appreciating, feeling, and expressing who I truly am.

 I now have an ever-deepening appreciation that there is beauty before me in the day because of how I allow myself to be open to it. Sometimes I may not always like what I see, but if I hold who I am as best I can, I see that this beauty is actually about forever expanding my awareness of life, and appreciating, sometimes in retrospect, all that has happened.

Being at University is beautiful in so many ways.

Yes, you read correctly. University can be a fabulous and life-enriching experience, full of commitment, connection, learning, and true fun.

How… ?

I have found the key is to be me — the real, true me; to feel who I am within, and to have the humility to be in my heart as often as I can be, without perfection. I have simply surrendered to what presents in my daily life, not needing to know the specific details due to a desire to control life and make it the way I want it to be, but instead allowing what is there for me to guide me, trusting my own truth that it would all be okay.

I came with plenty of preconceived ideas and pictures of how this year might look before I began living in the Halls of Residence. “Too many late nights, too much alcohol and binge drinking, too much intensity,” and “How can I live away from home?” These were all thoughts that I gave too much credit to, and they were thoughts based on experiences lived by others, but not yet by me.

However, I have accomplished this – I have lived away from home and I have found that it can be done with love, and it can be amazing too. I simply chose to be the real and sensitive me, and allow this choice to light my way forward. Whether it was going to bed early to look after myself and my body, or staying a little later at dinner time in order to connect deeper and spend time with my friends around me, it all unfolded from me being me first, and bringing this amazing spark and love wherever I went.

I have come to the truth that we can be anywhere in the world, in any environment or place of life, and we can still be ourselves, carving out a path from our heart every day. Of course there are obstacles, challenges and difficult moments where we are asked to be more in many different ways, but in the past nine months I have learnt that allowing space and time to feel everything around me and within me is the cherished answer. By not choosing to react, but rather choosing to listen, ponder from me, I can respond with care and with my own knowing of what is true from within my body.

This piece of writing is offered to let every fellow teenager know that there is nothing to be afraid of when choosing their path after high school has finished. My path for now is studying at University, but your path can be whatever you feel is true for you.

Through Serge Benhayon’s presentations and his living way, I have come to the understanding that nothing is bigger than me. Equally, nothing is bigger than you.

Through knowing that nothing is bigger than me, I have come out the other side of these challenging times with all of me still intact, and all of me still to come back to.

Through knowing that nothing is bigger than you, choosing a career path after high school isn’t so daunting after all. Allow yourself space to feel deeply, by cherishing all that you are. Choose what you love doing and what you feel the world needs, and if that may seemingly not work out as you had hoped it to, you are still you, wherever you are.

And it is this lived quality, this Livingness of who you truly are, that I have realised is all you ever need.

By Benjamin Campbell, a joyful Student, NZ

Further Reading:
What exactly is the Livingness?
The Way of The Livingness – It’s My Religion
The Outlier – Thanks to The Way of The Livingness