The education I have received at the Beshara School has shaped how I see the world and understand myself. It has become the guiding principle of my life – not through a set of rules but perhaps by putting me in touch with myself and with what is real. There is great joy and freedom in the invitation to be myself to the fullest of my potential – it is like a neverending drink of the most refreshing and sweetest water. The news that there is one existence and that all that is flows from mercy affects how I treat other people, myself and the world around me and informs my life choices, both at professional level in the workplace and at home. There is no need to be in opposition to myself or to fear for my future. I am free to take risks that push at my boundaries and self-imposed limitations knowing all the while that I am held safely, even if outward appearances seem difficult. At times life can appear impossibly challenging and heavy but when I am reminded of the unity, the whole perspective shifts and beautiful openings can be revealed as having been the situation all along. Each moment is an education and an invitation.

Hannah Kenner, 2008 (UK)

It would be absurd to say "Beshara changed my life". There is a Daoist saying - you struggle for years to understand, then, when you finally see the truth, it is as if you understood all along.

Beshara is not just about understanding the meaning of one person's life, but the meaning of all life, of all aspects of any kind of existence anywhere. Unity is all there is, ever has been and ever will be.

Beshara taught me that when you are in distress and turn to the One Being, from the depths of compassion comes the response, "Here I am".

All the rest is learning to hear that response in your heart. The reality that you are invoking is your personal connection to the transcendent integrity of the living cosmos, Creator and Sustainer of all life.

Then, when you understand, when there is distress or something that needs doing or a calling to a better way of behaving, it is you who responds with the "Here I am" as the sincere servant of truth.

Beshara is about remembering who you are.

When I was younger, my lonely "Here I am" scared me rigid. Consciousness of my own existence sent me into a blind panic. The enormity of the precipice of life and death and me teetering on the edge. Precarious and elusive, yet all that I could know, confined by Sylvia Plath's bell jar.

Beshara showed me the path of liberation from the absurdity of being trapped in myself.

There is nothing remotely irrational or supernatural about Beshara, rather it offers access to ultimate rationality, a glimpse of the miraculous implications of "Here I am".

Allan Levack, Edinburgh 2007

What is offered at the Beshara School is the opportunity to take the most important step any person can take in their life: to discover and fulfil their own potential. I firmly believe that this education is absolutely essential on a personal and global scale.

Maria S.A. Young (UK)

Having trained as an engineer for rural development and surveying at the ETH Zurich, I (48 years old) have been working mainly in Switzerland but also abroad on several occasions. I was happy to be allowed as a student on two six-month courses.

It certainly opened my view to a horizon which was not limited by any specific direction of East, West, South or North but one that was open on 360 degrees. By this I mean that all aspects of life are included and taught during these courses. The fact that the courses of the Beshara School are attended by students of all ages, coming from all over the world and from different social, racial and religious backgrounds is not only most enriching but shows that this education also reaches a universal audience.

Peter Knecht (Switzerland)

I greatly enjoyed the course and have found the education I received to be of enduring benefit. The breadth and depth is impossible to quantify, but has greatly enriched my life, and as a direct result I trained as a chef and to this day this is a means of earning a living.

John Brix (UK)