Recently I have been pondering a lot on the subject of beliefs. I have come to the startling realisation that for most of my life I have held beliefs in most categories of life, and that those beliefs have governed the way that I have lived.

I know that I have not recalled all of my beliefs because there are hundreds of them, many are obvious but many are very subtle and more hidden: they have all influenced my life in some way.

Here is a tiny snippet of some of the beliefs that I have held:

• The more you do as a woman the stronger you are.
• Putting others before yourself is a positive thing.
• Being ‘nice’ is good.
• Being ‘good’ is good.
• Exercise is more effective if you go as hard as you can.
• Doing yoga postures leads to enlightenment.
• The more fruit and veg that you eat the better.
• Everyone should eat 3 meals a day and protein in at least 2 of them.
• Evolution is like a ladder, you climb up it as you evolve.

The list is endless…

Even though there are many things on my list that may not be shared by others, what I have come to realise is that we are all walking around with our own set of beliefs. These beliefs influence the way that we move, the way that we think, the way that we talk, what we do, the way that we do what we do, the relationships that we have, the relationships that we don’t have, the jobs that we do, and the jobs that we don’t do etc…

The beliefs that we hold are influencing our lives moment by moment, and like a puppeteer pulling on invisible strings we are moved and positioned around the chessboard of life, falsely ‘believing’ that we are moving ourselves when in truth we are being moved by our beliefs, our minds coerced into thinking and our mouths manipulated to say certain things.

And as sinister as it may sound I have come to wonder if it is us that holds our beliefs or is it our beliefs that hold us?

When I first attended Universal Medicine I heard Serge Benhayon present the fact that the thoughts we pull in are governed by the way that we move. Without imposing at all, he presented that although people generally believe that they are free thinking individuals, science is now waking up to the fact that we pull in thoughts from one of two energetic sources and that the source that we pull thoughts in from is pre-determined by the way that we move. Serge added that the type of thought that we pull in then ensures that we move in a certain way, which guarantees that we will then get a similar thought that will then guarantee the same quality of movement, and so it continues….

So here we all are, living our lives under the illusion that we are deciding what happens to us in life when all along we are moving around our lives as freely as a train on a train track!

This, for me, makes sense when I look back on the mad rush that I did everything in. Because of my belief that the more that I got done the stronger I was, I packed my days full of ‘doing’, which caused me to rush frantically through everything in order to pack even more in. The way that I hurled myself through life ensured that I continued to pull in the thought that the more I did, the stronger I was and so the cycle just kept repeating.

Similarly with my belief that hard, punishing exercise was good for me, kept me exercising in this way even when my body was in a lot of pain. I clung to the belief or rather the belief clung to me and I continued to exercise even when my body was screaming for me to stop. How strong must the hold be when something is so obviously not working yet we still keep following in the same rigid tracks? Imagine for a moment a world full of people all following their own pre governed tracks, unable to deviate because the very movements that they repeat, feed them the beliefs that keep them in those well-worn tracks.

What on earth is going on?

How much choice did I really have? If my thoughts were dictating my every move and my every move was dictating my thoughts then what was I choosing? I always thought that I was a free thinking, open minded, spiritually aware, loving, funky kind of a girl but now I understand that I was a puppet and that the so called qualities that I thought I had were interchangeable traits that could be changed as easily as the clothes on a doll.

So where do these beliefs come from?

They come from many, many places. Our parents of course, family members, teachers, books, films, influential friends, historical figures, the newspaper, TV, radio, organisations, in fact it feels like the air is thick with beliefs. For most of us, many of our beliefs are passed on by our parents.

What parent can say that they have not passed on a single belief to their kids? Here are a few examples:

• It’s good to play sport
• It’s good to play an instrument
• It’s good to be creative
• It’s good to try as hard as you can
• It’s crucial to get high marks
• It’s important to have manners
• Being good gets you recognised
• Cross country running builds character
• Boarding school will be good for you
• Going to University is essential to get on in life

In many countries in the world, parents have also passed on their beliefs that certain nationalities are bad, that certain pieces of land need to be fought for and that revenge is all that matters.

Are we therefore guaranteeing that the world stays a certain way by passing on our beliefs to our children?

What would the world be like if we allowed our children to grow up free of beliefs? Over the last 4 years my beliefs have started to crumble. I am at a point now where I am naturally suspicious of any remaining beliefs that I have. What I have come to realise is that:

My beliefs prevented me from feeling the truth. They stood like silent guards blocking the way to the truth that lay patiently in my body, ever ready to be revealed.

Looking back I realise now that my body continually showed me the truth of every situation. It was my beliefs that came from my mind that overrode the messages from my body.

The pain in my body was telling me very clearly that the way I was exercising was not good. My bloated stomach told me that eating copious amounts of vegetables was not what my body wanted. My exhaustion was a clear indicator that cramming so much into my day was not making me stronger but my beliefs around these things denied me access to the truth.

One of the divine functions of the body is to consistently show us the truth with no attachment as to whether or not we listen.

To me beliefs seem to originate from the mind and feel:

• Limiting
• Hard
• Binding
• Immoveable
• Stubborn
• Blinding
• Rigid
• Historical
• Suffocating
• Confining
• Dead
• A trap
• Individual

A truth comes from the body and feels very different:

• Expansive
• Freeing
• Limitless
• Alive
• Known
• Joyous
• Universal

Some truths that have come from my body are:

• Strength as a woman comes from her fragility.
• Putting yourself first is the best way to care for others.
• Being ‘nice’ is not a true way of being.
• Being good is an illusion – just be yourself.
• Exercise is important and is best done in a way that honours the whole body.
• It’s best to listen to the body when exercising and to adjust according to what you feel.
• There is not an ounce of ‘doing’ in evolution, evolution is the state of our being.
• There are no ‘shoulds’ when it comes to what to eat.
• Eat what and when the body genuinely guides you to eat.
• Evolution is not an up it is a back towards. It is a U-turn.

When life is governed by beliefs, it feels confined and limited but when life is impulsed by truth then it feels spacious and limitless.

I am eternally grateful to Serge Benhayon, the Benhayon Family, the Student Body and every single aspect of God that has ever dedicated itself to reminding those of us who have forgotten that we too are equal parts of the One God.

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

Further Reading:
Truth
From Ideals and Beliefs to Making Loving Work Choices
Oneness – A Confirmation From Within