by Simon Asquith, Byron Bay, Australia
My name is Simon. I’m a 38 year old single male and I feel to share how I discovered, and my experience of, Universal Medicine.
At the time, I was a professional musician living a life that I had always dreamed of, and had worked very hard to make a reality. Some years earlier I had left a well paying career that didn’t “make me happy” to pursue my dream to live six months a year during spring and summer in Australia, and then six months a year in spring and summer in Europe, travelling the world performing my own music.
One time, I returned home to Australia and met another musician and his family that were my parents’ neighbours. Not long after, I began working for him helping him tour, as his roadie/sound engineer and selling CD’s. On an early morning drive once, he asked me if I had heard of this guy named Serge Benhayon, and he played a recording of a presentation on the stereo.
I listened for an hour or so, and I remember very well that although I found some of the language unusual, and parts of it a little hard for me to follow, I turned to my friend and just simply said “wow, he really makes a lot of sense, doesn’t he?”.
The following months we listened to more of the presentations when we went away to do shows, and each time I remember how what Serge Benhayon was talking about was not only just making sense and felt relevant to me personally, but it also seemed to connect the dots of the bigger picture of what is going on in the world. I say this having spent a lot of time travelling and meeting new people from all nationalities and cultures: the life of a musician on tour involves a lot of free time to sit in a cafe or on a beach with friends, old and new, or go off on random adventures to new places with local people you meet.
From these adventures and conversations, I was aware of a common thread from so many different perspectives and people with seemingly nothing in common: from street kids in Macedonia, to diplomats in Switzerland, to ‘tradies’ and their families in the streets of Byron Bay, that everyone seemed to be experiencing similar feelings to me that the world is “going a little crazy”. The way Serge presented seemed to address this bigger picture with a perspective that was not quite like anything I had heard before, and again – just made sense.
Not long after starting to listen to the audio, I decided to go and have a session with a practitioner of Esoteric Healing. I didn’t have anything in particular I felt I needed to see someone for, just the usual little niggles and aches and pains, and feeling a little flat. At that time, I felt that I was taking reasonable care of myself. At an earlier time in my life I was overweight by about 25 kilos as the result of an excessive lifestyle (from 18 to 26), working shift work in hospitality and being a musician: my diet was terrible, I drank lots of alcohol and consumed other drugs recreationally. Looking back, I was in pretty bad shape physically and emotionally. But I had made a shift in how I looked after myself almost ten years earlier, and I was now slim. I had quit smoking five years ago; my alcohol consumption had gone from excessive to sparse – I had even gone through phases of 6 to 12 months of not drinking alcohol at all – and drug use of any kind I had let go off a long time before. Those who had known me for a long time were often quite amazed at how well I looked compared to before. I had gone through phases of doing various forms of yoga, I walked and swam for exercise as often as I could, and I would often treat myself to a massage or a spa/sauna as a way to take care of myself. Living in Byron Bay there are a million different techniques and massage/healing modalities to choose from, and I had often used some of those to feel better when I was out of sorts. The idea of trying another one really wasn’t a big deal.
What was a big deal though, was how I felt after the treatment.
The treatment itself was very simple, and gentle: I just lay on the table, fully clothed, and the practitioner asked me how my body felt and listened to what I said. My reply: ‘a little bit of a sore back, a little tired, but nothing major”. And then she said to “just let go and feel whatever comes up”. As I lay there she gently put her hands on parts of my body, my calves, my kidneys, along my spine; at one point, one on my heart, and one on my stomach. But as this was happening I felt myself really able to let go and relax into a place that was very deep and still. I had heard Serge talk about breathing gently through the nose in the short meditations on the audios, and followed along with it (I had tried various form of meditation before, so again no biggie to try another), and as I did this simple ‘Gentle Breath’ breathing technique while the practitioner placed her hands on me I felt my body let go more and more, and a deep sense of awareness of myself. I could feel what I can only describe as a warm glow that seemed to come from inside. I could feel it in my chest. I could feel it in my lungs. I could feel my kidneys get warm from inside as her hands rested on them on my back. My hips and knees just kind of relaxed, all my joints and muscles kept relaxing more and more. I soon just let go and went to a kind of half sleep. It was LOVELY!!! After the session I walked away and spent the rest of the day just being really gentle and still and feeling the effects and enjoying how wonderful I felt. And that night I slept like a baby.
From that experience I started listening to the audios more often and practising the breathing gently through my nose, and found that I could feel that same sense of yumminess. Through doing that more, and starting to feel that with varying degrees of success I was able to connect to that same warm glow again, I began to realise that the way that I really felt for the most part, from day to day, which I had always thought was O.K, actually was not so great. It was like once I felt how good I CAN feel, and started taking the time to regularly let myself connect to that beautiful warm glow inside, the goalposts had moved for what “I feel OK” meant. The more I explored that, the more I realised that I was actually really, really tired for the most part. And although I was seemingly fit and healthy, if I was honest I was also exhausted by the end of each day (actually, by mid-afternoon if not lunch time). Things became much more obvious having that ‘warm glow’ as a comparison, such as when I got moody, when I was angry and short with others around me, or how others’ emotions affected how I felt in my day. I began to notice how often I craved sugar to get me through the afternoon, and how actually those little niggling things like the sore back or knees that I had ‘every now and then’ were there most of the time, but I just didn’t pay attention to them.
And when I compare them to that new version of ‘feeling OK’, these little things in reality felt pretty awful.
About six months after I had heard the audio for the first time I had been to a couple of presentations in person, and while I still had a few reservations, sat at the back, and was studying the various types of people that seemed to be from all walks of life (from doctors and professionals to working class families, to elderly men and women, to teenagers), that guy at the front talking, Serge, just kept on making sense. More sense than anyone else I had ever come across in any talk, any self-help or spiritual book or documentary, any conversation, all around the world. Yes, some of what he said really challenged certain perspectives and widespread beliefs. Yes, some of the language was strange initially.
But there was something simple and solid about what was being presented that just stuck as what I somehow knew to be true inside.
The next thing I did with Universal Medicine was a one-day workshop, then called “Heart Chakra – One”.
$120.00 for a one-day workshop is actually pretty cheap! I’ve paid $300 or more for voice coaching and songwriting workshops. On that day we went through a few techniques – simple and easy ways like breathing gently through the nose and paying attention to that same warm glow. We felt what it was like to connect to that, and be in a conversation with someone who was also connecting to that same feeling in themselves (twice as lovely as doing it by yourself!), and then compared it directly with talking to that same person straight after when you are not connected to that feeling within yourself, or each other. The difference was very clearly discernible and surprisingly vast. And during the day we did a few other exercises that simply involved connecting to that really yummy feeling inside, and doing things while you felt that good. Pretty Simple. And again, pretty awesome. I walked out of there feeling like I had never actually spoken to someone properly before that day. At the time I was a well-spoken, confident, approachable person, but after the workshop I felt like there was this deeper layer underneath that we can communicate with. And I felt like I had connected on a much deeper level with complete strangers than people I had known for years. Old, Young, Male, Female – it didn’t matter. It was easy. It felt natural. And again, it was LOVELY!
That is what Universal Medicine is about. Realising for yourself that there is this beautiful other layer. It’s just inside of you. It’s natural. It’s yummy, and everyone has it. It doesn’t matter who you are, what you do, where you live or how much money you have… it’s the same for EVERYONE. And if you connect to it, and choose to explore it, it can have a beautiful and profound effect on all areas of your life. It’s like all the goalposts have moved – things naturally start to change. You realise there are things that nurture that beautiful connection and there are things that drastically hinder that connection (and doing the same thing with the connection feels MUCH different than without it). That’s what the workshops and presentations are about. Understanding for myself the things that foster that beauty in me – and understanding the things I choose that prevent me from having it all the time in everything I do.
One of the things I like most about Serge Benhayon is that he is NOT special. He is just a man… a human being. He is just like every single one of us – he walks, he talks, he sleeps, he eats, he works, he has a family; I’m pretty sure he even goes to the toilet. (Actually, I know he does, he talked about it in a presentation once.) But he is a man, a human being, who has felt that connection to the warm glow inside of himself, recognised that it is something real, profound and beautiful, and perhaps against what anyone else has thought or said, followed it all the way and applied it to all those areas of his life. To every area of his life. And he simply presents what he has found for himself in doing that. And there is a wonderful tangible difference that I have felt for myself, as well as seen in him (and many others), that serves as an example.
It is almost four years later, and no-one has ever told me what to do at Universal Medicine; no-one has told me how to think, what courses to do or what to do with my time or money. If I stopped going to presentations no-one would ever worry or even ask me why, and actually – from one workshop I have been presented with enough simple, practical and wonderful information to continue on and change my life for the better in so many ways, without ever having to attend another Universal Medicine event again. Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine have simply presented for me the wonderful gift of what is possible if I truly choose, like Serge has done, to become a student of myself.
It is difficult for me to express how appreciative I am; not sure if words can truly capture it. The depths of tenderness and loveliness that I have found within myself, and the beauty I now recognise in others all around me are beyond what I used to imagine possible. And yet it seems to match the magic that I remember thinking as a child – that this is the way the world is REALLY meant to be. And the level of understanding I have of myself and who I am in the world, my desire to be fully present and active in it, as well as my connection to and involvement with all others around me, grows more and more each day.
Thank you.
Thank you Serge Benhayon.
Thank you to all at Universal Medicine.
From the depths of who I truly am.
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
Richard I feel you have hit something when you say that we seem to be looking at what we can get from life but actually when we turn this around to what we bring to life the changes happen and we feel more fulfilled. That empty feeling and that feeling of there must be more to life just seems to evaporate.
“Understanding for myself the things that foster that beauty in me – and understanding the things I choose that prevent me from having it all the time in everything I do.” What a beautiful sentence – it’s so rare in the world for people to even claim a beauty, let alone something that is equally within each and every person. In a world of ideals with people striving for different forms of success, be it outward beauty or achievement, which often comes at the expense of others because it’s competitive based, this equal beauty you talk of is what will eventually revolutionise how we are with ourselves and each other when we, as a human race, return to soul.
I agree with you Simon the world has gone crazy and in this intensity of life to me there is a beacon of light that stands out not just because of the light that is pulsing outwards but there is a stillness similar to the eye of a Hurricane and in that stillness is an offering to humanity which we can either accept or ignore.
Lovely to read how you are again feeling the magic in your life, ‘the level of understanding I have of myself and who I am in the world, my desire to be fully present and active in it, as well as my connection to and involvement with all others around me, grows more and more each day.’
As we deepen the goalposts keep moving and sometimes it feels as though it’s too much, too hard, but what I am beginning to feel is it is not the next level that is too much, but it is the pain of not living that depth that we have actually known all along and come from, and we won’t go past that by pushing on forwards or trying harder, but we will by surrendering, falling backwards deeper into the arms of the Beholder.
Very impressive read Simon, and there are many such stories that can be shared from Students from all walks of life that have come together under one common thread of brotherhood.
I remember when I first started to attend the presentations of Serge Benhayon I felt that what he had to say to me made complete sense it was as though he was talking to me directly. He wasn’t of course but everyone who was in the room felt held and understood. That is a very rare gift to have and to share so freely is another gift, as most people would want to use such gifts for their own gain but not Serge Benhayon, he shares everything with everyone. It is not for him alone to have this download of information from the hall of the Ancient Wisdom.
Saying that we feel “OK” often means that we are hiding how we are truly feeling.
I know when I use the word ‘OK’ it is to avoid being honest or making the choice to go deeper and look at how I am really feeling.
I just love reading and feeling the level of appreciation you have Simon for the Sacred Esoteric Healing modalities; they do indeed move the goalposts on how we feel and the specific quality of that feeling too in our body and also being. When I have such [Sacred Esoteric] healing sessions my entire body feels exquisite, focused and deeply reflective about the purpose of myself and myself in life.
So true Simon. My level of ‘fitness for life’ has been completely raised. Thank you Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon.
Accepting anything less than true vitality is telling us that we are accepting a standard that is less than we deserve.
I love the way you use the word loveliness, it has such a ring to it!
Simon, your life before Serge sounds to be the dream .. and its no mistake we are given what we want. There is a HUGE BUT though. That dream does not deliver truth in reality therefore, no feeling of joy that lives and stays with you. Its a moment of attracting you or deepening yourself further into the abyss of creation. The other side is you can have it all too however, this time you have to be responsible and what that means and looks for you personally in respect, decency and love for all.
Very beautiful Simon. I always love hearing how people find there way to Universal Medicine and even more how life has become a richer experience.
The life of my dreams says much about our sleep and this says much about our movements during daylight. Could it be that what we dream of is related to how we move?
I love that you went for a session without a need. That is rare yet shows a true inquisitor. We know in every cell of our body that we are not living the Love we are from. We feel the tension and the shallowness of the world and the depth of the Love we are from is constantly calling us back.
“…the goalposts had moved for what “I feel OK” meant. The more I explored that, the more I realised that I was actually really, really tired for the most part” – I totally agree with you Simon, attending Universal Medicine is well worth all the exposure that one gets from its Ageless Wisdom Teachings. Until we understand the true meaning of love, being love and loving, we really have no idea about life or the actual state of ourselves in it.
That a great point that you have shared Zofia. We even have no idea of what life is for..we live, have an experience, then we die. I for one am eternally gratefully to know of the richness available in any moment. The words living life has been totally re-defined.
Thank you Simon, it’s a beautiful beginning you have described to find the work of Universal Medicine and Serge, and to return home to yourself.
Listening to our bodies and making self-loving choices can change your whole outlook on life, your health and your mental well-being.
Yes Self Empowerment……”Understanding for myself the things that foster that beauty in me – and understanding the things I choose that prevent me from having it all the time in everything I do.” It is about understanding from the inside who we are and how we work and using this knowing to inform our lives, from the inside out.
It is amazing what we can begin to feel in our body when we let go and surrender to the healing. The wonderful thing is that unlike so many healings I have had prior to Esoteric Healing is that it carries on after you get off the table, and as you showed Simon we begin to notice things in our life that we may not have fully felt before like, tiredness or moodiness or going for sweet things at certain times of the day.
Very true Elizabeth, our sensitivity definitely heightens to what is not inline with what we are feeling within our bodies. For me something I have often found myself doing is not knowing how to cope with the level of sensitivity and awareness I have and so turn to things like sugary food to dumb it down but see that all that happens is I detach myself in a way from the situation but it comes back anyway so all I am doing is delaying. Whereas when I stay with deepening my love I get to see the situation more clearly and so understand what is going on and embrace my sensitivity and awareness rather than trying to crush it or quell it down wanting things to be different.
It was great to read your comment this morning James, as I too turn to sugary foods because I can feel something that is so grand but there is a part of me that wants to trash the grandness as though I’m not worthy of these feelings. You have given me the insight that I need to stop and understand what is going on because I can feel that as you say I’m just delaying the fact that I am grand indeed we are all from the same grandness because we all come from the Universe and we will all return there it’s just a matter of how much we delay.
It is great to step back every so often and reflect to where I was and where I am now and what was acceptable and normal and what now seems unimagineable. Your blog is a great reminder of the many changes I have made in my life and whilst not always making the best most loving choices, I am learnign from them and no longer simply trying to get from day to day rather enjoying what is presented before me to learn from and bring more of me and more love to the world which is very much needed.
I agree, our normal can change vastly and it is well worth reflecting and being honest on where we are and where we have been, observation of the process of learning develops a confidence, we understand life – this is empowering. And Yes normal is a choice of perception.
The confidence we get from simply observing life and staying present is very empowering. For me it means I get to clearly see what is going on and so do not react. I see that there is far more going on than purely what my eyes alone see and honour more what I am sensing. This truly is empowering knowing that everything we could ever want or have access to is within and so we do not need to go outside of ourselves for anything. We can then bring this all to the world and others rather than seeking them to confirm us in anyway or need them for anything – it changes our relationships and pretty much everything when we are coming from the knowing we are already everything and are simply returning to this love.
The seeking to be acknowledged or to be found correct by another is a big thing, I still find myself dipping into waiting for someone to say Yes, you are ready, amazing, beautiful in moments, but this ongoing commitment to practicing observation, presence and honesty enables me to keep on track and not get sucked into it for very long.
That is great Samantha and as it is trap that is easy to fall into but great the quicker we catch ourselves going into it. I am currently working on honouring what I am sensing and not letting myself be swayed by what others may say or do and the more I do this the more I then observe what is going on as I am not getting so caught up in all the games.
I constantly have people say to me that they feel okay when they are not. We seem to have measures of okayness, for example, if we do not have cancer then we feel okay. But not having cancer is not an indication of how okay we are because in truth if we have any dis-ease in our body at all we are simply not okay.
How lovely that you were able to feel so much in your body in the healing session you had. It feels as though you were fully supported to connect to yourself and open to the healing offered.
Totally agree Simon. Since Universal Medicine the goal posts have moved several ovals!
Serge Benhayon not only helped to ‘shift the goal posts’ for me, the goal posts totally changed their shape and form in such a way that I no longer recognised them. But it was the fact that Serge was making sense of a world that hadn’t made much sense up to that point, that I realised that it made absolute sense the goal posts had moved. And 13 years on I am so delighted they did as life is definitely way more enjoyable and fulfilling to live than it ever was when they were stuck in the same old uninspiring place.
Yes, I agree, I have such a different outlook on life now and am so deeply appreciative of that because I can now see that I would have missed so much had I continued to live my life in such a blinkered way with this constant nagging feeling that I was missing the point.
I like reading this account of your experience with Universal Medicine. It was great because you didn’t go desperately needing to be fixed or even looking for something in particular. But what you got was a re-awakening of how you can feel and live rather than just being ok – which most of us have settled for. ‘Ok’ seems to have become the new ‘healthy’ even though joy, vitality and a connection to something grander are missing from our lives
The more we love and care for ourselves the less abuse we tolerate and hence why the goalposts change in terms of what is acceptable and what is not as the yardstick is measured from love and not from what is not love.
Many live following a dream and once they get there they start living a life they had always dreamed of. We do not pay enough attention to really feel where the dream came from and why are we really wanting to go there. All we know is we want to get there and once that happens, all will be good. Yet, what if the reason why you pursue that dream does not come from your heart but from your hurts? What if you building a life just to buy further safety from your hurts, only help to confirm them deeply as the foundations of your movements?
I very much like what you are addressing here Eduardo, we are encouraged to follow our dreams and follow our dreams, but we never really question on what these dreams are built on.
Thank you for the reminder of the warm inner glow inside of me, waiting to be let out.When I read this “I felt my body let go more and more, and a deep sense of awareness of myself.” I realised it is in the surrender, the letting go, that we find ourselves (and our warm glow). It is not seeking something outside ourselves, but the surrender to ourselves.
“That’s what the workshops and presentations are about. Understanding for myself the things that foster that beauty in me – and understanding the things I choose that prevent me from having it all the time in everything I do.” – Serge Benhayon’s workshops are truly empowering in this way, supporting a deeper connection with your innermost and with your whole body that give us a marker for what really feels true to us in life.
I remember the time I listened to one of Serge Benhayon’s audios, the first thing was that they made sense, and then he shared some of his experiences and said to myself I’ve felt that too, I listened to more and more audios and I began to realise that what I had been looking for in life, I already had I just had to reconnect to the love that I am.
The Gentle Breath meditation is such a simple tool but a very profound one.
Simon I loved reading your blog, and I could relate to a lot of what you experienced, the Gentle Breath meditation has become one of the tools I use to reconnect back to myself, what I love most is that it takes only a few minutes and is very effective.
Since I began attending the wise and common sense filled presentations by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine so much has changed in my life. As you say: “It’s like all the goalposts have moved – things naturally start to change”. And it is the naturalness of how everything changes that is the magic. There’s no need for trying but simply making a choice to connect to the beautiful being we innately are and then begin to live in a way that is self-loving, and honouring of all others as equals.
It’s amazing that when we start to observe the patterns and pick me ups that we use during the day our definition of what fit and healthy is can grow and change and if we are open to it, be redefined.
How awesome it is to be able to feel the quality in which we move our bodies and see just how amazing we are when we simply appreciate, pause and observe through the re-connection to the what is. Super cool thank you Simon.
It struck me as I read this blog that of course no-one who attends Universal Medicine presentations gets told what to do because what Universal Medicine presents is energetic responsibility and energetic integrity, that is that we need to be responsible for ourselves in every way, including energetic.
“Realising for yourself that there is this beautiful other layer. It’s just inside of you” – absolutely. No one gives it to us, or does it for us, it is already here and for us to reconnect with it at our own timing, and Serge Benhayon keeps sharing with us what it would be like when we did.
Universal Medicine, and its practitioners are game changers for sure. They are totally moving the goal posts around much of our current thinking about health, well-being, religion, science, truth, connection, meditation. It’s like they are blowing the lid off what we thought was the top of the ceiling and showing us the vastness of what else is possible past that point.
Wonderful blog Simon, yes , Serge Benhayon offers the way back home to our true selves – with no attachments!
I remember my first session with Serge Benhayon. When I left the building and entered the busy streets of London I felt so in the world but not of it in a way that felt very solid and very lovely from my inside out. This was very different from any drug induced experience I had had and also different from the highs and blissful feelings I have had with many Indian gurus and other International sages, teachers and healers. This feeling I know now to be a connection that I had been denying myself and/or ignoring.
Gorgeous blog of appreciation. No other course, I have ever attended has come close to what Universal Medicine presents, and like you have stated Simon, brings back that childlike quality we have with God and the world around us.
It’s so important to consider and to question what we have settled for. ‘Feeling a little flat’ is for many the accepted normal way of being, but what if that was the sign of alarm bells – that we are very far away from our most normal state? The Universal Medicine therapies introduce a marker in our bodies that remind us that feeling exquisite and surrendered from the inside out can be our normal – and that there is a way to live that can support bringing his most natural way of being back into our every day life.
It’s quite possible to be living in overwhelm, pain and overdoing it but not stop to admit it. What happens when we start to be honest is acknowledging how momentums rule our life, and it’s through addressing these perhaps that our energy levels and vitality will change.
harryjwhite I agree with you we all have momentums that can seem like a freight train out of control but once we start to deal with the core of these momentums that have been with us for life times, the feeling of overwhelm lessens and we feel we can actually feel that ability to deal with the emotions and not let them dictate to us.
“it also seemed to connect the dots of the bigger picture of what is going on in the world.” With all the chaos in the world it is beautiful to be reminded that underneath our outer facade all humanity shares an equal inner love and the free will to choose to be who they truly are.
What I used to consider was okay years ago I now see as absolute abuse. Our radar for abuse changes once we start to self-care and self-love.
Thank you Simon for walking us through your experience of coming across all that offered by Universal Medicine, Serge Benhayon. I love the way you write and I love reading how it was for others when they came across something so practical, so do-able and so real..