Personal development – the many paths of not finding me

For decades I have focused on my own personal development, following many pathways, but in 2009 I acquired a copy of The Way of Initiation by Serge Benhayon. It was a very different book to anything that I had read previously.

This purple book was thick – really thick – some 700 pages, strewn with some biblical phrases and liberally scattered with the word God. Aghast, I put the book to one side; I was not prepared to read about God just then because, in my opinion, He in his many guises was causing so much harm around the world, now and in centuries past. This word was used to peddle religion in its many colourful forms and felt false and insincere. It was not a happy marriage and a word that made me feel very uncomfortable.

But at some point over the next year or so I felt the urge to open the book again; and this time I read it from cover to cover over many months. I still felt uncomfortable with the word God and so I double-checked religious and cultural references, feeling that it smacked somehow of science fiction based loosely on fact … but I was encouraged to set aside my objections to religion and to read the book with an open mind.

That in itself was really difficult for me – but something kept me going. It was very hard to read; the words did not flow sensibly and I had to re-read paragraphs over and over again and sometimes even turn back pages to establish some sense to the words I had just read. But I completed it, and my eyes and heart had been opened. Truth was massive; and so too would be my commitment to a new way of life.

The book is festooned with post-it notes and adorned by my own curious and doubting hand as I tried to justify what I was reading, but as much as I found some paragraphs challenging to say the least, many were just simple plain common sense, and others just seemed uncomfortable . . . hard truths that felt strangely welcome as though I had been waiting for so long to read this vindication of something I somehow felt I already knew!

Sometimes it was as though the words spoke to me at a deeper level, bypassing my hunger for knowledge and resonating deep inside. Stirring a place within me of which until then I had not been aware; a very intimate, safe place, sacred to me only!

And this is Serge’s unique ability. He writes in such a way that he is able to communicate deep within us, to this safe place of ours that we’ve forgotten. His books are like keys that unlock this sacred, intimate space that somehow seems to hold all that we’ve ever known.