True School and True Expression

Some of my earliest memories are of being told that my schooldays were going to be the best days of my life. Consequently, I held an ideal around school – that of it being play-full and offering students ways of developing relationships within everything school had to offer.

What I experienced in those early years was that the teachers would never encourage the enthusiastic play-full-ness and freelance writing attempts of their young students. This form of open-ness in their written expression was always marked down with red lines. No credence to creativity was given, so one felt punished for being creative in their expression.

Learning then became a rigid, rote-type discipline, offering no slack or allowance for a child to develop at his or her own pace. This meant I learned very little grammar or spelling because, after a lot of perseverance in doing what seemed correct to me, I was awarded marks that, at best, still were usually three out of the ten allocated to the task. As for any homework we were given, the results would always be the same – red lines and low grades.

I discovered that shutting down my natural expression was an approach that worked. It became the way I coped and managed to play the classroom game.

Social interactions within the class put anyone who was part of it at odds with the teacher. I became the class distractor who interacted with his classmates by turning around and talking or listening. For me it was mainly listening, as I did not talk much because of the lisp that resulted from my having my two top front teeth knocked out at the age of four.

At that point in time, discipline in first and second class was the edge of a fifteen-inch ruler being applied to the back of our fingers and hands that resulted in blood blisters on several occasions.

I found it was easier to simply put English into the too hard basket, because learning English always felt too difficult due to the lack of any true encouragement. All this added up to my getting grades that placed me as a student in the lower ten percent of the class, scoring well less than thirty percent in exams.

Then out of the blue came a teacher in third grade who responded to what the students were offering. She was able to connect with me and the other students in some way that the other teachers had failed to do. The whole class’ percentages shot up and I started to be in the top twenty percent of the class or higher.

For that one year my grades skyrocketed, and this was simply because my grade three teacher recognised some form of creativity in each and every one of her students, which probably related to the whole class having a co-creative relationship – a feeling of connectedness as they learned together.

After that particular year, my grades improved from where they had been in those earlier years at school, however, I never experienced such understanding from the teacher as I had enjoyed during my grade three year. Being a student and finding a true way of understanding of all that was being taught was possibly on offer, however, my focus for the rest of my days at school continued to be about having fun and not so much about learning.

By grade six I was regularly getting caned, sometimes three times a day. It even reached the point where getting caned on a regular basis became a game between the teacher and me – a time where learning to relax through my breath so the cane flicked painlessly on my hand became a normal occurrence. I had found I could stop reacting by responding to the situation by focussing on my breath, which eliminated the tension in my hand and therefore the painful aspect of each blow.

Breathing gently was a valuable lesson, however it took another forty years for me to realise its true blessing. It is something that I will always treasure thanks to the presentations of Serge Benhayon!

I remember that at one point in sixth-grade, the teacher caned me so gently that the whole class went into hysterical laughter, as the cane literally just touched my finger without any force. Even the teacher had a smile on his face. This was probably the fourth time for that day that I had been given six cuts with the cane.

I had to wait until I was fourteen before my front teeth regrew. This was also when my voice started to break. I was one of the first boys in the class whose voice broke and I got laughed at yet again. I became even more silent and further shut down my natural expression.

Some fifty-five or so years later, I am a student once again, this time with The School of The Livingness where presentations and experiences have led me to have a deep understanding of the following:

  • The way we express has a lot to do with our connection to our essence;
  • That this is a co-creative relationship;
  • It could be said that the way we express is paramount to everything else in our life;
  • This is a procedure that starts with our being, at least, gentle first.

Finding a True teacher who will allow us to express and learn from what we are offering will always bring out our essence in the most lovingly supportive ways.

A teacher who brings True expression and wisdom so that the energy we are connected to in that expression is loving, has been inspirational to me, as I have developed an understanding of the difference between True expression and ill expression.

Each is shown for what it is offering and the subtle difference in what it feels like. Learning from our own mis-adventures into the ill energy is available to everyone and it supports us to develop an understanding of what true values and decency in true expression are all about.

With experience and an understanding of what each energy feels like in my body, I have realised each and every one of us has the choice to be connected to our True essence of Love or to continue living in love-less ways. I have developed an understanding that the emotional reactions, which I now realise are mistakenly seen by people to be an expression of love, are in truth actually love-less.

True Love has no emotions.

I have learned that even our thoughts have the power to be co-creative; that when they come from our essence, they convey Love, otherwise they are destructive in what they are conveying.

I now know this originally started as a journey that was taking me further away from the Truth and how that expressed itself. I was seemingly on a path that was considered by many to be evolutionary, however I eventually came to the realisation that it was actually deepening the illusion I was in, keeping me in my quest for individuality and providing the motivation and drive behind my wanting to become spiritually enlightened.

Understanding the difference between divine connection, which comes by way of our Soul connecting to that essence and what our conniving spirit feels like, is a learning curve we will all eventually face. Starting the journey to learn to express from the Soul as a way of living comes via the process of understanding:

  • Just how manipulative the spirit is in its wanting to control this life;
  • That when we look at what is happening around us it is not a true picture;
  • That we are trying to better a life that has no True purpose.

Learning the value that expressing in Truth brings a divine purpose, which is a Loving and purpose-full-ness to all we do, then we start to understand that: 

“Expression is everything.”
(Serge Benhayon,1999)


Because expression is everything,

so too is everything an expression.

Thus, everything is communication

as everything is communicating.

Every angle, every colour, shape, light, tone, word,

sound, reflection and movement is communicating

what is and what is not of our true future.”

(Serge Benhayon, Esoteric Teachings & Revelations Volume II, Ed 1, p 332)

Words, thoughts, expression and being Loving in their delivery is changing the way I and many others live as students of life. The School of the Livingness presents these and other practical sciences in a simple language that is easily understood and supports us to evolve back to our Soul. I am learning Life is an art that brings in all the sciences, and that is full of philosophy and religion.

Hallelujah! The Truth is that for me and many fellow students, our Livingness is ever-deepening with True understanding; learning that will never end as it is forever-expanding. These days as a student of life are truly the ‘best-days-of-my-life’ in contrast to my early school experiences as they are exponentially allowing true evolution, bringing a deepening of connection to myself, others and to life itself… and with not a red line or low grade in sight.

By Gregory E Barnes, Student of The Livingness; Writer, Lover of Energetic Truth in Words; EPA (Esoteric Practitioner’s Association) accredited for Esoteric Healing, Esoteric Massage, Esoteric Connective Tissue Therapy, Chakra Puncture; Handyman, Painter, Gardener with Cert 4 in Organic Horticulture, Carer, Loving Husband, Australia

Further Reading:
How to truly express yourself
Expression is everything – feeling anxious much?
Trusting our ‘True Voice’ and Expression

120 thoughts on “True School and True Expression

  1. ‘I had found I could stop reacting by responding to the situation by focussing on my breath, which eliminated the tension in my hand and therefore the painful aspect of each blow.’ I’m not sure how I feel about this. A profound lesson learned that what happens to us doesn’t have the power to take away our choice to breathe our own breath and respond. This could have been an invaluable lesson for life but I know for me such abuse would have almost definitely have eroded trust in the world and my fellow man – as it did when I saw another pupil getting the slipper. Only through the presentations of Universal Medicine have I been able to begin to restore my trust in humanity and God.

  2. “I have learned that even our thoughts have the power to be co-creative; that when they come from our essence, they convey Love, otherwise they are destructive in what they are conveying.” If this was the only thing we learnt at school boy what a wiser and healthier world we would live in.

  3. The ‘core truths of The Way of the Livingness’ are constantly on offer to us all because to be honest, if they weren’t then they wouldn’t in truth be ‘The Livingness’. The Livingness has to be a living way that’s equally accessible to us all because if it wasn’t then it would only be a very bastardised version not borne from truth and it is these versions that are so harmful because they mimic the truth and so those searching for truth (like I was) fall for the counterfeit version and end up flailing around in no man’s land for another millennia or two.

  4. And what a writer you clearly are! I noted how your grades changed when you found a teacher who connected with you and your class, everyone’s grades went up. So there must have been an adherence to the box that teacher needed to tick but not at the expense of you all.

  5. I remember being told school days are the best of you life and thinking no way! How bad can life get?! I remember thinking, ok now I have to pay attention and play the system but not get caught in it – not sure that was the intended result of the teacher’s in saying his comment!

    1. I love the fact that a child has the awareness to know it needs to play the system because that is how they can make it through school. That does not mean there are not the very basic aspects of decency and respect present, but there is an acknowledgement that there is a system that is not designed to honour the being but one that is designed to make you think you are defined by your grades and your ability to recall.

  6. The purpose of the education system as we know it is to mold the students to fit into the system and society that is thought to be appropriate and for the benefit of the individual and society by those in positions of authority. However, is it really for the benefit of the individual and society? Or is it for those with real power and wealth, unseen and indirect, who do not wish to relinquish their privilege and above all the rest not wanting to take responsibility and forsake comfort?

  7. “I am learning Life is an art that brings in all the sciences, and that is full of philosophy and religion.’ And yet the school of life we’ve been given reduces our experience and promotes grading systems and competition: level of education received, house or neighbourhood we live in, car we drive or what we wear, all become markers. Constant comparison, and rating, based on the material and external shows how far we’ve strayed away from true connection and relationships based on who we truly are, not what we own.

    1. It is beautiful to be a student of life knowing the magic and majesty in life and that we are part of it as is every other human being.

  8. Just reading that first sentence Gregory is such a lie that we fall for
    How can they be the best days of our lives when we have to sit straight look at the Blackboard or now Whiteboard listen to what the teacher has to say even though you know that they are not themselves they are tired, overworked and under paid and everything angle of their body is screaming that they cannot cope with the education system themselves, let alone the issues they have in their private lives.
    Everything about school the way we are educated is a whopping lie, I want to know why have we done this to ourselves why have we shackled and condemned ourselves to a system that clearly doesn’t work. Children enter the education system full of vitality and wonder and they come out the other side dull, bored and exhausted why do we insist on perpetuating something that has such an ill effect on everyone.

  9. ‘The way we express has a lot to do with our connection to our essence’ .. and also if we are not connected to our essence it can be felt .. so therefore how important is it for us to be connected to our essence? ✨❤️

  10. Most classes I remember at school were all about the individual, keeping up and not being left behind to be judged as less in some way. It was all about praising those that conformed.

    But I know now the feeling you mentioned of the class when everyone worked together. I realise I do know this working as one, each person being an equal and invaluable part of the whole. And because I know this way, there is nothing stopping us from living this in life. If I present this just in my attitude, my way then it’s on offer, or if others offer this way I can join them.

    1. I do not feel I ever remembering ‘when everyone worked together’. However, I am now experiencing it and it is a joy.

  11. “These days as a student of life are truly the ‘best-days-of-my-life’ in contrast to my early school experiences as they are exponentially allowing true evolution, ” I agree Greg and, as you comment, no grading system. We all develop and evolve at our own pace – what do we choose?

  12. There are some teachers who are in the profession simply because their hearts blossom every time they stand in front of a classroom. Other teachers have managed to shut that down & stay in their job because of security, financial needs or because they don’t know what they could do with their lives. I had a teacher who adored us, he cared for us &amp our achievement way more than we probably ever did. We all knew it & the majority of us really respected him, regardless of how late he kept us after class to explain something & make sure that we get it, regardless of whether he got cross with us (which he almost never did) we sat and listened because we felt cared for, we felt listened to & with that our commitment to the subject grew naturally.

    1. The teaching profession is no different to any other in respect of staying in the job for security is it? Yet the impact on foundational aspects of sensitivity and shaping how young people feel about themselves is very different. Teachers who care about their students inspire an interest in their subject so much more than teachers who teach by rote.

      1. Yes, you’re absolutely right. We each either stay in our professions because it gives us a reason to wake up in the morning or because we see no other path. The second is very damaging to all around us, regardless of whether you’re a teacher teaching primary school children or you are a barrister serving adults, you can have the same inspiring or draining impact on those around.

  13. What if school started like a sampler box of chocolates? The basics of reading, writing, arithmetic and a general true foundation of subjects without all of the complexity and rules. And then, we get to choose what we find interesting to study. It’s like a job you love doing, how can you call it hard work!

    1. Yes, exactly, supported to discover and follow a career that is in line with one’s inner most being. Currently there are so many family pressures as to which career to pursue, social judgements about which jobs are more worthy or held in high esteem, practical barriers to education etc. that it’s easy to be thrown off course. What’s ignored is the gold each job can bring.

  14. Children no matter what age read the teacher and adjust themselves knowing what they can and can’t get away with. Sometimes they know that they won’t get away with things and know that they will be punished, just as you did Gregory, only these days they don’t get caned or the slipper. In my mother’s day, they would slam the desk down onto the child’s fingers – now that had to hurt. These days that punishment would be considered as child abuse. When I was at school the girls got the slipper and the lads the cane or the one size fits all of the dreaded blackboard rubber. We had one teacher who was deadly accurate when throwing the blackboard rubber at someone’s head.

  15. I hated reading about the cane. Like so many things in life it was so unnecessary. I love however how you have found you and your true expression … super cool 💫

  16. ‘That when we look at what is happening around us it is not a true picture’. This really spoke to me. We can be deceived by what we see and hear but when we allow ourselves to truly feel we too ‘see’ beyond those illusions into the heart of the matter. We are innately sensitive beings, we feel everything so very naturally and when we embrace this sensitivity, things start to make sense once again.

    1. Deep down we do all know that the pictures that we’re surrounded by are false but hardly anyone’s prepared to stand up and call it out. Serge Benhayon has continually stood up and called it for what it is, as have so many other people throughout history but the majority of us continue to play dumb.

      1. Alexis I agree with you we do know deep down that we have created many monsters education is just one of the many that abound. And now it seems we are too hard headed to admit our mistakes and instead try to fix what we know deep down cannot be fixed.

      2. And that is the problem Mary, we are busy trying to fix the problem using exactly the same energy to fix the problem as created the problem in the first place. It’s like trying to wipe a stain off a wall with a stained cloth. The only possible way out of the incredible mess we’re in is to switch to a completely different energetic source, one that is impulsed by our soul.

      3. Serge Benhayon reminds me of the little boy in the story of the Emperor’s new clothes by Hans Christian Andersen. The Emperor didn’t care for the people or the country he ruled as he was self-obsessed about fine clothes. He is so vane he chooses to be hoodwinked by some crooks that pretended to make him some fine clothes. The crooks said that only intelligent and clever people could see the clothes and so of course everyone wanted to be clever and intelligent so no one said anything at all. The Emperor rides out into the city riding on a huge horse so that he could be seen. The people in the crowd are all cheering as they watch the Emperor ride by and the little boy notices the Emperor isn’t wearing any clothes and makes the observation so that everyone can hear. And then the Emperor knows he has been caught out by his own folly, vanity, conceit and inability to call out the crooks that have long since run off with all his money. We are all pretending that life is working and that we are all happy and content and Serge Benhayon is the little boy that is calling us all out by saying that actually life is rotten to the core and we have all been deceived. Will we listen and take action or will we chose to ignore Serge Benhayon and the truth he calls out and be hoodwinked by our misplaced cleverness and intelligence?

      4. We call the deceit of life out by our actions. All of our actions bar none are either confirm and contribute to the lies of creation (our spirit fabricated world) or we move in a way that conveys co-creation (a world that is impulsed by our soul) and that is what life boils down to really, two camps, two ways of being, two outcomes.

  17. One of the greatest poisons of our current Education system is it leads us to think that learning is hard and unpleasant to do. In truth all of life is one big class supporting us to be joyful.

    1. Learning is often hard and unpleasant to do because the things that we are directed to learn are utterly meaningless. We are given dried up topics that have no relevance to our lives or indeed life as a whole. Not only that but dreary unrelatable topics make it incredibly hard to stay connected to our essence as they seem to suck the very life out of us. True learning on the other hand is totally relatable, seemingly hand picked for us for exactly wherever we’re at at any particular moment. True learning has a vibrancy about it that promotes vibrancy in those that have chosen to learn.

      1. Ah it used to make me laugh when doing teacher training there was so much emphasis on making the learning ‘meaningful’ but being told what had to be taught that had such tight rules. Teachers who could manipulate material to fit interests like football were applauded. I didn’t master this at all though I do remember a lesson I had relatively free reign over -religion. Total attention from all students, couldn’t tell who was in high set or low and all in it equally. It was very cool how natural it was, no attention issues but enthusiastic pupils because they could express their own knowing. I couldn’t deliver this in main subjects like maths because I was still beholden to the rules being hard to grasp, the getting things wrong. Shame because there’s so much joy in learning.

      2. ‘Getting things wrong’ is, in itself so damning. Just the consequences of getting something wrong once can change a child’s perception of themselves and their attitude to learning. We are such sensitive beings, we really are. How different would our experience of learning be if we threw out ‘right and wrong’ and just all jumped into the pot together to share our experiences and understandings of life and not only that but held each other in constant love and respect.

    2. The most natural thing for kids is to learn – it is hardwired into them as is playfulness. If we can continue to link the two for them then joy is easily sustained. What a difference it would make to humanity if we could create environments where learning continued to be fun and natural rather than forced and anxiety ridden.

    3. A great teacher can transform a dry topic and make it meaningful. And many of us will remember good teachers who cared for their students and took an interest. I cant recall a thing they taught me but I can remember how they treated me and most of their names nearly sixty years on!

      1. Maya Angelou said that “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel”. I totally echo this. When someone has truly connected to you from the heart this is unforgettable – the imprint of it exists forever.

  18. ‘I discovered that shutting down my natural expression was an approach that worked. It became the way I coped and managed to play the classroom game.’ I can relate to this after feeling confused and hurt that what I had to say was ignored or frowned upon and not celebrated. Understanding what’s at play means I can choose to come back to my natural expression and no longer devalue it with the critical voices I let in.

  19. ‘True expression’ is the only thing that will set us free from the shackles of illusion. The shackles of illusion are not made of iron or any such man-made material they are made up of false ways of being.

  20. Thank you Gregory, this is a beautiful contribution. Goes to show that rules and harsh discipline do not work, they seriously thwart our expression.

    1. So true. It always makes me wonder about the trend for military style schools to combat poor behaviour. No doubt there’s been waywardness, a lack of loving boundaries, but it seems what we can offer is capped by previous generations of subdued expression.

    2. Rules and harsh discipline have never worked and yet we have persisted with them as a way to abuse legitimately. To me this has always been disgusting and is never acceptable.

  21. I have mentioned this before and from holding workshops in schools feel this more than ever that we need to make it about connection first, treating all as equal and allowing children and young people to express themselves and how they are feeling. If you give them space children and young people share absolute gold, however if we make it first about stats, tests and grades we all miss out on this gold. What you have shared here alone shows when we are truly met just how huge the difference it makes is ”For that one year my grades skyrocketed, and this was simply because my grade three teacher recognised some form of creativity in each and every one of her students, which probably related to the whole class having a co-creative relationship – a feeling of connectedness as they learned together.’

  22. The memories of being teased or made fun of at school can stay with us for a lifetime and influence how we feel about ourselves unless we reconnect to knowing those things are not true.

    1. School certainly has the capacity to crush and this it does to almost everyone who passes through its halls. Understanding that there is fragile feeling in all of us that is yet denied by the system and which continues to be undermined and dismissed is to the detriment of us all.

    2. Pretty much everything that we currently think about ourselves is not true, unless it is the knowing that we are the collective consciousness of God. Even our belief that we are a man or a woman, young or old, English or Chinese are all simply just the interchangeable outer layers of who we believe ourselves to be. We are the never ending essence of Life, one continuous thread.

  23. The source of what we learn determines if it’s true learning i.e. learning that will support us to evolve back to our soul or if it’s false learning which amounts to filling our heads with irrelevant and futile information that will simply aid and abet our futile wanderings away from soul. One form of learning supports us to unravel back to the truth of who we all are and the other clogs us up and adds to our already heavy load of who we are not.

    1. And not just schools, Remembering our first teachers are parents, and family is our first school yet how often do parents teach us how to be in life whilst still retaining our true essence.

      1. So true Kehinde for if parents were to support their children to maintain their essence it off-sets so much the influence of the education system enabling them to live in the world connected to their Soul.

  24. I disliked school intensely and ran away from it as often as I could to evade the teachers. For me it was as though I was being put into a strait jacket, there were so many rules and regulations, do and don’ts I found the experience suffocating. The first day at school is the start of the forcible separation from our natural essence and it is almost impossible to resist this.

    1. And these days so many children are in day care and nursery schools. I wonder if this separation from our essence begins even earlier than the state school age.

  25. I can remember being deeply disturbed and sick to my stomach seeing a classmate being given the slipper by the Head Master. It felt such a violation, sexual too. I usually quite liked the Head Master but what came through him disgusted me. It wasn’t a simple case of naughty boy being taught a lesson. It felt brutal and mean what was done to teach him a lesson. I wonder what he did learn. For me, I lost all respect for teachers and adults in general, to me their standards were lies and they couldn’t be trusted. I decided I would play by the rules but if they weren’t too abhorrent and if not, I’d make sure I’d not get caught.

  26. We do not recognise the harm being laughed at does on a sensitive person rather, we say toughen up and get used to humour. Perhaps we should consider why we are hurting another to get a laugh.

  27. “I never experienced such understanding from the teacher as I had enjoyed during my grade three year”. Understanding each other is the absolute key, it really is. It takes the heat out of so many potential flare ups, it takes away judgement, it builds a bridge between us and others and paves the way for deeper relationships.

  28. “These days as a student of life are truly the ‘best-days-of-my-life’ Like you Greg, I feel exactly the same. In fact I sometimes wonder what my life would be like, had I not met Serge Benhayon and become a Student of The Way of the Livingness.

    1. There is certainly a divide between the bubble of school and what life really needs and demands from each of us. Whilst school does try to support children with their physical and emotional health the focus is still very much on academia and what can be achieved from the head amongst the rules and regulation of having students behave a certain way. Children are not supported to see themselves as valid equals or to understand how to stay emotionally healthy, which to me should be the number one focus of any establishment let alone an educational one.

      1. Yes, the divide is attempting to mold children to fit an ideal that is an illusion and hence does not match reality.

  29. It really feels like control issues with teachers in schools, by organising the children, it makes their job of teaching easier. But this comes from a supremacy energy and is bound to curb natural expression of children, because there isn’t the honouring of the children or the understanding that we all have so much we can bring. When you explained how that happened in the one grade at school, Gregory, it proves how children will develop and grow when the connection is there.

  30. ‘She was able to connect with me and the other students in some way that the other teachers had failed to do. The whole class’ percentages shot up and I started to be in the top twenty percent of the class or higher.’ We need to feel safe to learn. Simple.

  31. Teaching is one of the many jobs I have had in the past and what I am now realising is that with virtually all of them it was the connection to the people that I was working with that was key. It is always a 2-way process and when teachers get caught up in ticking boxes children quickly switch off and everyone gets frustrated. Children have so much innate wisdom and if this is nurtured we all benefit.

    1. Whilst the quality of relationships are fundamental for us all many, many children filter life through them as their primary focus (when I was a child my filter was purpose and the bigger picture, which it still is), so for these children any relationship that doesn’t make them feel totally safe and secure is going to impact on their learning. I see this so often in children at school. They flourish under a teacher they know cares, but take that care away and their attitude towards learning immediately changes as does their progress.

    2. I agree Helen, and it is often forgotten that there are many teachers in the classroom, not one. The most inspired teachers lovingly nurture the innate wisdom of children and feed it back into learning and group work. This makes teaching a two-way, not one-way, process.

  32. Great blog Greg, in France we didn’t get caned in my class but boys were physically hit for either being disruptive or for getting poor grades. I found the whole experience very stress full. Going to class was not about learning anymore but trying to find ways to avoid punishments. So I was pretending to be sick or make sure I would go sick if the first one wasn’t working to avoid being at school and it would work. I was petrified.
    My parents getting so desperate as my grades were really deteriorating more and more, it was just a painful experience for me and my family.

  33. “Finding a True teacher who will allow us to express and learn from what we are offering will always bring out our essence in the most lovingly supportive ways.” True teachers are worth their weight in gold – and Serge Benhayon is one such.

    1. Remembering also to equally appreciate our own worth in gold, as we lovingly walk our essence and reflect to others another way to be.

  34. True expression comes from soul and to know if and when we are coming from soul is a commitment to a religion called The Way of the Livingness, an unfolding of the path of return to live life from soul.

  35. Who supports and nurtures the teacher, whether trainee or experienced? I suspect this is not high on the agenda and if not, then how can we expect them to offer the same to pupils? Some teachers, when aligned to their own innate and loving qualities can work within the school factory system and bring humanity into the classroom. But for many, it may seem like an uphill struggle to truly ‘meet’ pupils when they are barely meeting the many demands placed on them

  36. Great blog Gregory! I can relate to most of my school days, and my papers were always bleeding with red ink, and English had too many rules that did not make sense. I did excel in art, photography, chemistry and physics; I thought they were fun. My English aversion followed me through life by rarely expressing anything with the written word to my late 50s, until, the understanding of life that Segre Benhayon has presented for all to ponder on. And, your expression of ‘Life is an art’ says it all, when we feel what requires expressing, there are no limits to our expression.

  37. We don’t often think of getting good marks at school as a negative thing but if it sets a child up to rely on getting good marks as a way of feeling good about themselves then that can actually be very harmful. Any education system should be about confirming and celebrating the being of a child/person and then supporting them to develop and learn from there.

  38. “No credence to creativity was given, so one felt punished for being creative in their expression”. Shut down a kid’s creativity and you shut down their connection to God. God is free flowing and as we are the expression of God then so too are we free flowing. Start imposing on a child and it’s like adding a stop valve to God.

    1. I agree jstewart, Serge simply presents. He lays the information out in front of us and then it’s completely up to us what we do with it, which is in stark contrast to how many educational systems work. Often students in ‘traditional’ education feel that information is rammed down their throats. It comes with a force, an expectation and an insistence. But the most valuable way to learn is to want to learn and then the student (of any age) actively engages in the learning and even becomes thirsty to learn.

      1. Yes, I agree Alexis, with the extra dimension of Serge Benhayon’s teaching he ‘draws-out’ what the student(s) know, inspiring them to expand further and thereby confirming them.

      2. Yep jstewart and it’s because Serge teaches from another dimension that he is able to draw out the knowledge that each of us already has because we are all multidimensional beings and not the flat pack human beings that we have currently mistaken ourselves to be.

  39. I love hearing stories about those days from the elderly, I always get so fascinated as to how different things were. I remember always asking my grandmother to tell me of her experience of the war, she would tell me that they couldn’t have their lights on & would have to eat their dinner in the dark, otherwise a bomb might be thrown at their homes and kill all of them. She used to tell me how she couldn’t go to school so she had to educate herself & study under a tree while out with the sheep. In those days I couldn’t really understand what the big deal was, almost naively I used to think that there isn’t much of a difference eating in the dark than in the light, you just have to be more focussed on what you’re doing and all will be fine – but not taking into account how terrifying it may be, eating your dinner and thinking that at any point you may be bombed and lose your life, or see those closest to you die. These experiences can really have an impact on our development and boy oh boy had they impacted my grandmother.

    1. Looking back at my education that started in the late 50s, in the last century, that sounds old! I did not like English for it had too many rules to say the same thing and could still mean something different. Art was a reflection of life, as it felt to you, so how could it be wrong? The hard sciences had rules that were true or false. After most of this lifetime and maybe other life’s, not speaking anything, I have found that there is a way for our expression to be true when it comes from our heart rather than our head. We will never be too old or young to express the truth.

  40. Thank your Gregory for sharing so honestly about your experience at school. I love it that you had this special teacher as I too had such a teacher who really connect with us students. What a different it was to be seen like this! Therefore I too love it to be a student of the livingness to see others for who they truly are and also to be seen who I am truly are and not to play this role game anymore.

  41. It’s amazing what we can deliver when we’re held in the amazingness of who we are and given that permission to be and to express.

  42. My schooldays of enjoyment and being the best days of my life have only come recently in my 50’s and 60’s in the classroom of life within the school of The Way of The Livingness.

  43. Beautifully expressed Greg – the love of a teacher/person who meets a child/person for who they are and not for what they do is truly inspiring.

  44. When we give children a mark for something, be that their ability to spell or do maths it feels like a very arbitrary way of scoring a person. We are all multidimensional beings and so how odd and limiting to score a child or anyone for that matter on the tiniest of irrelevant abilities. Not only that but scoring children sets them off on the illusion of ladders i.e. that they are somewhere on an imaginary ladder, be that close to the top, right at the bottom or somewhere in the middle. This notion of life being a series of ladders is one that so many of us hold and it interferes with our understanding of the true spherical nature of life.

    1. A parent yesterday, told me their child was awarded for kindness by fellow pupils. While not the ideal, this school at least values qualities, not just success in the three Rs.

      1. Hmmm although I agree that it’s good that schools recognise qualities and not just abilities, we still have to be careful what we’re instilling in a child. Kindness can easily become something that we do, a way of being that we adopt to get a certain outcome or response or even a gold star from the teacher. When we are our natural unadulterated selves then we all treat others with care and respect and I feel it’s important to talk to kids about who we already are without any need to take on ways of being from the outside. Confirmation of who we all already are, is very matter of fact, even for kids because it is very matter of fact.

      2. Thank you Alexis. Kindness is not something we do, but who we are and who we are in essence is Love.

      3. There is no kindness in love, kindness has a damp quality about it that does not come from the responsivity of the moment but comes out from a person based on their ideas about life and how to behave. Love however has a vibrant fiery quality that is pure intelligence and knows inherently what is needed in each situation. Love operates completely independently of the person that is the funnel for love. Love is completely void of any ideas or beliefs about how to behave.

    2. The craziness of this is demonstrated by Greg’s 3rd grade teacher who through connection and supporting her students true expression increased their marks so much. When teachers get themselves out of the way magic happens.

      1. “When teachers get themselves out of the way magic happens”. If only we all just got ourselves out of the way and stood back then God would be standing at the fore. The fact that’s he’s not is indicative of the fact that we’re all meddling in His business all of the time. Interfering in Gods business is what we call life, not that God cares, He’s not invested in any outcomes and he knows who He is.

  45. “No credence to creativity was given, so one felt punished for being creative in their expression”, this feels utterly dreadful. Not only does it feel heavy and confining but it feels condemning as well, which are all things that would effect any of us but to impose them on children when they are forming their ideas about life and who they are within that life is pretty awful. Children are naturally playful, expressive and creative and these qualities should be encouraged not discouraged or worse still condemned.

  46. ‘Finding a True teacher who will allow us to express and learn from what we are offering will always bring out our essence in the most lovingly supportive ways.’ Finding this kind of teacher can be a rare thing given the system by its very nature shuts everyone down – staff and pupils alike. But when we can appreciate the gold that is before us in our pupils in the knowledge that we are all equal and that the teacher can learn from the pupils just as much as they learn from him/her, the art of teaching and learning becomes enriched for all.

    1. The beauty of every relationship is learning from each other: it is never one directional. The most enriched teachers or carers are those who are inspired by and aware of reflections offered them by pupils or clients.

    2. “But when we can appreciate the gold that is before us in our pupils in the knowledge that we are all equal..’ Appreciating both teachers and pupils as gold is to understand the oneness we’re all part of.

  47. I love teaching and I completely agree that the art of true teaching is supporting someone to bring out and access their own wisdom or learn a skill or knowledge in their own way, rather than dictating or imposing a certain package of information or learning style on to them.

  48. I am realizing more and more how the evil of that right/wrong thing is so deeply ingrained in our behaviour. Being right has earned us some degree of security in all kinds of situation and set-up we find ourselves in, but we have forgone honouring what is true while we are at it, when truth is presented, we still want to measure it by our right/wrong stick to see how much would keep us safe.

    1. Agreed, Fumiyo and thank you for reminding us that being good and being right are not always being true to yourself or the situation at hand but can easily be manipulated to keep ourselves safe.

  49. We can all feel the difference when we are talking to someone how connected they are to themselves and how they connect with us. Teachers have such a huge role to play with their expression and connection to children in schools, they can bring so much more than teaching us the 3 R’s.

  50. Such an amazing blog! I smiled because I remember being told at school these were the best years of our lives and thinking, dear God I trust not! I had a troubled and confused time at school because my expression did not fit what was being asked of me. Thanks to the teachings of Universal Medicine I’m coming back to the expression of what’s true.

    1. Yes, I wonder who coined that phrase? I suspect it has been repeated so many times because there is a perception that when you go to work you are no longer in charge of your time but children at school have high expectations now and so this idyllic ‘no pressure’ childhood doesn’t really exist.

  51. What is the old saying – ‘A diamond in the Rough” – you are and have always been the diamond Gregory and this reflection of your experience during your primary years is very powerful. There are so many diamonds that have been shut-down by the current education system but as you have shown, there is always time and space for all to pause, connect and express what is living within. Thanks Greg.

  52. “Expression is everything” and so at any point in time we can ask ourselves what is it that we are expressing. And as everything is either God in expression or not then this narrows down the answer considerably. For me the governing factor in answering the question is what I am conveying with my body. If I am moving in connection to my body and my body is deeply surrendered in it’s physicality then I feel that I am moving in a way that allows God to come through. However if my movements are contracted for example when I am frantically trying to get something done then I know that although God is right there with me, there is no way that His expression can come through me.

  53. Gregory your account of how one teacher radically changed not only your relationship to learning but the entire class dynamics is not unusual and personally I find this alarming. Alarming in the sense that a child’s whole future can be radically altered by one single teacher. I suppose the crux of the matter is that our children can so often be misread, judged and neglected by everyone in their life and unless they have at least one person in their life that can see through the misunderstandings then that child may well grow up with a totally skewed idea about who they are.

  54. The way your third grade teacher really connected to you and the class and appreciated what each individual uniquely brought to the group with great results indicates to me just how simple it is to live in this harmonious way that helps everyone involved expand with their natural expression. But when all kinds of rules, beliefs, and ideals of what it means to be intelligent, a good student, teacher, etc. enter the picture, it tends to put everyone into a box, judge and categorize them, and stifles that innate creativity and joy of learning and sharing.

    1. Yes I agree that learning is actually innately joyful fun and creative but I’m sure most of us would agree that our experiences of education in all its forms has mostly been the opposite to this!

  55. The beauty of this article is it also shows the power of a single teacher to transform a child’s experience of school, from being so-called underachieving to reaching their true potential. These teachers are gold, and yet not enough is done to study them and their way of working. We’re talking here about the quality they bring into the classroom that supports, inspires, transforms and elevates a child’s sense of self and experience of learning.

    1. Teaching is about so much more than just delivering a subject and the experience of a child or a whole class can be transformed by the teacher’s commitment to connect and honour the innate wisdom of every child they teach. This makes Ofsted and testing so irrelevant as this comes from within and teachers need to be encouraged to allow the space for this magic to happen rather than being pressured to tick boxes. Too many feel ground down by the system and lose sight of why they entered teaching in the first place.

      1. I know standards are needed but the fear of survival regarding what Ofsted report is so counter productive. Schools and councils will work the system to look good, just like students get taught good exam technique but so often at the cost of what’s important and often covering up the very real short-comings.

      2. ‘Teaching is about so much more than just delivering a subject” And when teachers first and foremost connect to the being inside every child, wonderful and wise, learning becomes accessible and enjoyable to all children, not just a few.

  56. I too remember being told, ” schooldays are the best days of your life” What a set up and a lie. As you show Greg, school days can be utter misery, if you happen to be in a class with a teacher disconnected from themselves and unable to understand and appreciate their pupils. Faced with mechanical and rote learning it is easy to see how many shut down their natural expression. Your recovered self proves that despite early school experiences, we can re-align to our true purpose and live gloriously no matter what age we are.

    1. Yes, this a beautiful story of someone sharing that it is never too late to re-align to one’s “true purpose and live gloriously no matter what age we are.”

  57. Such beautiful expression Gregory, often we remember one teacher who was different from the rest because they connected with us. It was inspiring and encouraging and such a different experience, and it left us with a feeling that anything was possible. I hadn’t previously realised it was because of connection but that is obvious now.

    1. I still remember with much affection one supply teacher. The way she moved when she entered the room had me transfixed. Her walk was unhurried, graceful, in full command of herself yet warm and open. Rare among teachers, she spoke to us, not at us and in her presence we felt loved and appreciated.

  58. How awesome you are feeling this now ‘I am learning Life is an art that brings in all the sciences, and that is full of philosophy and religion.’ supporting you to evolve back to your Soul. It is not so awesome that it has taken so long for you to truly feel and know this …. this should be something you and everyone in the world should be fully supported with from day dot. But if the world is not currently living this then how on earth can it be reflected back to another/others for them to be all that they are. Through students of the Way of the Livingness this is starting to happen. I agree with you in that schools should be places that allow and encourage creativity and support children and young people to be all that they are, currently however I feel children and young people have the most pressure and stress put on them than other generations, constantly making it about grades and stats, which is not okay and needs to change. We need to make it about people, connection and true wellbeing first and foremost.

    1. “We need to make it about people, connection and true wellbeing first and foremost” I agree Vicky and the forces that are working behind the scenes to prevent us from re-connecting to our soul also know that making it about people, connection and well being would take us back to our soul, which is why they actively engineer life to take us away from those things. And it works because most of us have stumbled around and continue to stumble around in the wilderness, knowing on some level that we’re lost but seemingly unaware of how to get back to ourselves. But as you say The Way of The Livingness is the way back. The way back Home.

      1. We all know the truth is very simple and we all know that the truth and love that is inherent in the building of simple connection with ourselves and with others is incredibly profound. Today at a CPD session on mental health I was at, this was discussed as a way of supporting ourselves and each other, among with many other simple ways of tackling the awful rise in mental health issues we are facing; being ok with being vulnerable, sharing with others how we are feeling, bringing care back into our work places, taking care of ourselves so that we can take care of each other, being authentic and so on. We are all getting to feel the core truths of The Way of the Livingness, so even if we don’t actively engage with the teachings we still have access to them nonetheless as evidenced by the conversation that took place today.

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