It is difficult to convey how much the information from the Searching Within course by Belsebuub has impacted my life. This write up will certainly not tell the full story, but I hope to give a sense of what it meant to me.

A Bit on My Early Life

I want to start off by saying a few things about my childhood in order to put the opportunity I gained from the course into context.

I remember that in my early childhood, I perceived life in a different way, not as in a difference in worldview but an actual different way of perceiving the external world. It was more conscious. Everything I could see, everything I could hear, it all felt incredibly real. The sheets against my cheek as I went to bed, the sound of the spoons hitting the kitchen sink, the stillness and appearance of everyday objects I observed in the living room.

As I grew up, I became aware of the gradual changes in the way I responded to life, becoming immersed in constant daydreams, bound in a cloud, but I also had a growing feeling deep down that something was missing.

On the surface, I had a pretty ordinary youth as a kid and teenager, bouncing around with energy and leading an enjoyable life. But deep down inside of me I had an unanswerable yearning for something more. In the background there was a persistent thought, is this all there is? Is this pointlessness life?

I felt like I was in an inner prison, for what felt like (due to me not knowing there was more to life) the longest time. You could say a depression, but it wasn’t so much an emotional thing but something on a much deeper fundamental level. A yearning that I could not and did not know how to fulfill.

Finding the Work of Belsebuub on Out-of-Body Experiences

I first came across another course from Belsebuub, a ‘Course in Astral Travel and Dreams’, like most back then I believe. Hugely popular, and as a teenager I was keenly interested in the astral dimension, in astral travel and in hearing about the reality of the supernatural side of life.

I had many experiences, and I remember one instance of a particularly memorable conscious experience where it ended with me feeling myself merging back in my physical body. And then looking at my clock and realizing it was time for school, I was back to my normal everyday life. When cycling to school the thought crossed my mind thinking “who is going to believe this?” It was wonderful to have this whole magical world of mystical experiences opened up to me.

The Searching Within Course

Of course at that time I was very interested in the astral side of things, more so than the ‘self-knowledge’ part (or at least I thought I was). Yet when I took on the next course, I did find something in the Searching Within course material and the Peace of the Spirit Within book that resonated even more with me than the hugely exciting astral travel side of things — that was awareness.

The material in the course and what Belsebuub taught unlocked again that perception of life (and the opportunity to perceive even more) that I had in my childhood. It was that which I was looking for. It opened me up to see and literally perceive life in a different way again and to pursue my heart’s goal.

And this experience and set of circumstances of being an online student enabled me to explore, investigate, and discover the actual workings of these practices by myself.

My green village in the Netherlands, especially the local park at the heart of it, became my training ground. As I walked there it was just me… my inner world… and nature.

Here are some extracts from my journals where I describe those walks where I explored awareness.

“Belsebuub explained techniques of awareness and self-observation which allowed me to try to get out of the sleep, that dream of the psyche. I would go for walks every day in my local park where, with a lot of consistent effort, I sometimes managed to break through and get trickles, glimpses once again of the perception of reality. I’d often walk very slowly and deliberately, as it wasn’t about walking itself but about exploring the way the consciousness and my psyche worked. I would touch the leaves of trees, try to pick up on natural smells, concentrate on the calls of birds, place my hand underwater feeling the coolness on my skin, attentively watch the sun’s glistening reflection in it.

Don’t get me wrong, these walks were a real struggle, a constant search. I could work hard and try to see, but I wouldn’t see. Try to hear, and I would hear the sounds, but would not hear. My perception of the park and external world was in ‘2D’. I could function in it, but I could not really feel it. Yet at times for moments I would step into the true present moment.

Where the world around you and your perception of it is so real, as if only now you are alive and all that other time in the subconscious before seems like a dream. Where simply the experience of life is like an indefinable “beauty.”

It was a bit like coming ‘home’ to a place within I’d been away from and had been working to find ever since. Its ‘memory’ written deep in my heart somewhere, in my essence, although my mind didn’t know of it in all this time. As it was only when I experienced it again that I could remember and know what that way of being felt like.”

On the deep level where I hadn’t felt complete before I was now feeling an immense joy, having been given this information by Belsebuub.

Starting to See the Need to Study Myself

The walks were great but I soon noticed that this state of awareness was very difficult to get to and moreover it was so easily taken away! At first I was only interested in perceiving consciously with the five senses. I wasn’t interested in self-observation or self-knowledge. On walks I just tried to push away thoughts and emotions and bring myself back by willpower. However I began to see that this wasn’t going to work in the long run, as I kept bumping my head into the same obstacles.

The course work mentioned a lot about inner change and self improvement and such things. And though frankly at that time I found that to be a bit ‘boring’ compared to the other esoteric things Belsebuub was writing about, I started to understand the need for it and why.

For example I’d be fine walking on my own, but as soon as other people would be in the vicinity I would feel this anxiety which would cripple my ability to be in the present moment. Having this happen again and again was getting tiresome. I knew that if I wanted to have that state of consciousness in a more permanent and stronger way I’d need to understand and tackle what it was that was taking it away.

From then on, because I was already directing my conscious perception towards the external world, I also directed my attention inwardly and when a thought, fantasy, emotion would come I would naturally see it right there. And I was taken aback by what I saw.

The subconscious sleep was preventing me from being conscious and alive which I so badly yearned for. Also I could see how anger and negativity were blocking the love I had within. That huge patterns of laziness and pleasure were blocking my ability to be active in helping others and myself. That I had ingrained fears deeply rooted which have a huge influence on my everyday interactions and which crippled my ability to truly be myself. That pride was incessantly hijacking my inner light and spiritual experience.

I believe having seen this reality also opened the way for me wishing for true inner change and opened the road to the spiritual within. And all of a sudden the title of the book by Belsebuub The Peace of the Spirit Within seems even more appropriate. :-)

Gradually in the many years of using the techniques and information from the Searching Within course, things have changed. Where not only knowing of the need for self-knowledge has grown, but the inherent wish to change as well, having been confronted with what I saw inside me that was far from pleasant.

The information from Belsebuub also gave me the techniques and means to develop love. How to grow it within myself. How to tackle what is opposed to it within me, e.g. selfishness, which blocks its outpouring.

Indescribable too is being freed from previous mindsets which has enabled me to connect to and develop a relationship with the divine, and especially my own higher being. For which I’m more than grateful.

All of these things; love, peace, a relationship with the divine, have been indescribably wonderful for me.

Continuing My Journey

This course was a huge, if not the biggest, thing to happen in my life. It changed my life completely. Belsebuub has given me the means through this course with which I can really perceive reality once again, and through which I feel I can truly become alive. I still use these tools to the best of my ability every single day. I’m very grateful to Belsebuub and most thankful for the chance to work towards that increase and growth of conscious perception, to work towards the extraction of the light from the darkness, to work towards action for others, goodness, love. To journey my way back towards the divine.

~ Karim