Author: Neale Donald Walsch

There is a New Thought teaching going around — actually, it has been going around for years — that can be both misleading and disserving (to say nothing of being dangerous) if it is not thoroughly explained.

This teaching is that “everything is perfect,” and that our job is the “see the perfection” in things being just the way they are, and not look at any condition as “not okay,” or as being negative in any way.

This disservice of this teaching has been exacerbated by some of the writing in one of the most widely read and best-selling books on contemporary, New Thought spirituality — namely, Conversations with God.

That book talks about the so-called Law of Opposites, asserting that certain conditions, situations, and circumstances arise in life that appear to be unwelcome, that appear to be opposing us, but that they are actually supporting us on our soul’s journey — and that should therefore not be judged as “bad” or condemned as “evil.”

I think it’s important at this stage — given where our species is today in its planetary experience — to go over this teaching very thoroughly, and to invite your reactions to it.

I want to begin by saying that what brought this all up for me was an entry in the Comment Section under the last article to appear in this top-of-page headline space on The Global Conversation — a story having to do with violence in our world, which asked if humanity would ever see or create an end to it. The Comments entry came from a reader named Tina Ashe Brown, and is republished here:

“I am wondering simply why we are judging these actions as good or bad? I have been so confused on this since reading the CWG books. There seems to be a message that either I am not understanding correctly or we are having a hard time understanding here.

“I understand that we were sent here because God wanted to experience herself and could not do that because there were no contradictions… opposites. In heaven, or at least in God’s world, all there is is love. Are we here to return this plane to the same? To a place where only love exists or instead are we here to remember and see love even in the face of the violence?

“To love those beings unconditionally even in the face of the thing we are calling bad. Can we experience if we turn this world into a place where there is only love? Isn’t this place just as much a part of God’s world as any other plane? Is there only love here, too, and we are not able to see through our ego and judgments surrounding good and bad?

“I long for home and for that place where there is only love peace and joy, that place inside of me. I do my best to create this here in this plane each and everyday despite the pictures I see. I know we are all one and connected and I send my love to all regardless of the pictures that I see that do not resonate me with me to the best of my ability.

“I chose to focus on this and not on perceived imperfections that might be happening in this world, for I have the faith that everything is just as it should be even if I don’t understand how!”

I would like now to respond to these very sincerely asked questions, and in so doing perhaps bring some clarity to the New Spirituality teachings about Perfection and the Law of Opposites.

Tina, you have said…“I am wondering simply why we are judging these actions as good or bad?”

I experience that simply observing that something is undesirable is not judging it to be ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ and it is important to be clear about that. I personally find butterscotch flavored ice cream to be undesirable. I much more desire chocolate or vanilla. This does not mean that I have judged butterscotch as a flavor to be “bad.” It merely announces my personal preference in the matter of ice cream.

Speaking of violence as something that I find undesirable is not a judgment that it is “bad.” It is merely an announcement that I find it undesirable. Others may disagree. Others may actually desire violence as a part of human life, or think that it is in any event necessary, or natural to the human condition. Still others may think that it is required in order to create a Contextual Field as part of the Law of Opposites as described in Conversations with God.

It is my belief that the violence we see on Earth is neither natural to the human condition, nor is it necessary in order to create a Contextual Field within which we can experience nonviolence. This latter knowing arises out of my awareness that the Contextual Field within which the Law of Opposites plays it effect is much larger than the environment known as Planet Earth.

But let us return to Tina’s entry, so that I may ‘contextualize’ my observations within her inquiries.

Tina, you have said…“I understand that we were sent here because God wanted to experience herself, and could not do that because there were no contradictions…opposites. In heaven, or at least in God’s world, all there is is love. Are we here to return this plane to the same? To a place where only love exists? Or, instead, are we here to remember and see love even in the face of the violence?”

Your first understanding, Tina, matches my own, as given to me in Conversations with God. We were sent here because God wanted to experience Herself, and God could not do that in the Realm of the Spiritual, just as you point out, because there are no opposites there.

The answer to your question is that we are here with an invitation to produce the experience of a world of Divine Love, Divine Peace, Divine Wisdom and Divine Oneness, so that God could know Itself experientially as all those things and more. Yet it is not accurate to suggest that we can only remember, and allow God to experience, those things “in the face of the violence” that we now see on Earth. Indeed, God invites us to create “peace on Earth, goodwill to humans everywhere.”

Yet how can we experience this in the absence of a Contextual Field that holds its opposite? Simple. As explained in Conversations with God-Book 3, all we have to do is understand that the entire Universe is the Contextual Field within which the Law of Opposites operates. Therefore, it is not necessary for us to place on Earth and endure, create or suffer the opposite of Peace and Love, Harmony and Joy, Wisdom and Clarity in order to experience it here. We merely need to know that it exists elsewhere.

Just as I experience and appreciate, more than ever before, the good things in life that I enjoy today by noticing that its opposite exists elsewhere on this planet, so, too, can I experience and appreciate the wonderful aspects of life by noticing that its opposite exists elsewhere off of this planet.

That is the reason that the Universe is so unfathomably large. And Highly Evolved Beings in highly evolved societies in our cosmos (yes, they do exist, CWG confirms) eventually create environments on their Home Planet that provide for the experiences of Oneness of All Life and the Reality of Unlimited Joy, Abundance, and Love by removing its Opposite from their local environment — and simply noticing that this Opposite exists elsewhere. (Including the planet Earth.)

All of this is explained in CWG-Book 3, Tina, and with your review of that material your confusion about humanity needing to continue experiencing violence locally in order to experience its opposite globally will disappear.

Tina, you have also invited us…. “To love those beings unconditionally even in the face of the thing we are calling bad. Can we experience if we turn this world into a place where there is only love?”

The answer is yes, by knowing that lack of love, the opposite of love, exists elsewhere in the Universe. Also, Tina, by using another remarkable device — a magnificent tool revealed to us in CWG-Book 3: Memory.

Our memory has been given to us, Tina, for a singular purpose: To create a Contextual Field within ourselves, allowing us to know about the opposite of what we wish to experience without having to recreate the experience of that opposite condition, situation, or circumstance physically, over and over again.

This is why we create memorials to the Holocaust, Tina, with signs on them saying Lest We Forget. We do not have to recreate a holocaust in order to experience humanity without one — and that is the whole point of these memorials, erected around the world.

Going on, Tina, with your very wonderful and soulful letter, you’ve asked… “Isn’t this place just as much a part of God’s world as any other plane?”

Yes.

“Is there only love here, too, and we are not able to see through our ego and judgments surrounding good and bad?”

Yes. All there is is Love, and human beings have simply not yet learned how to express it in ways that produce pleasure and joy, peace and happiness, without the additional (and unnecessary) experiences of pain, suffering and violence. It is possible for humans to do this, however, and that is what the process of Evolution is all about. And it is why I and others call now for an Evolution Revolution on our planet. (For more information about this, see the special Blue Box in the right hand column on the home page of this global newspaper.)

And then, Tina, you have said…. “I long for home and for that place where there is only love peace and joy, that place inside of me. I do my best to create this here in this plane each and everyday despite the pictures I see. I know we are all one and connected and I send my love to all regardless of the pictures that I see that do not resonate me with me to the best of my ability.”

Wonderful, my friend. That is simply wonderful. It is through such intentioned choices that our world will be changed into one of those places in the cosmos where only peace, love, and joy are experienced.

Finally, Tina, you have concluded by saying…“I choose to focus on this, and not on perceived imperfections that might be happening in this world, for I have the faith that everything is just as it should be even if I don’t understand how!”

Ah! Now this gets us to this notion of ‘perfection.’

It is true, Tina, as Conversations with God tells us, that ‘everything is perfect.’ And God does invite us in this remarkable dialogue to “see the Perfection.’ Yet God makes it clear that this does not mean never seek to change anything.

God tells us that the very reason that everything that exists is perfect just as it is, Tina, is that it presents us with a condition, situation, or circumstance that allows us to know and experience Who We Really Are by expressing and creating whatever we wish to express and create in relationship to those conditions, situations, and circumstances.

This could involve changing a particular condition, situation, or circumstance in such a way that it reflects and demonstrates, evidences and reveals Who We Really Are. We don’t change it because it is ‘bad’ or ‘imperfect,’ but rather, because it simply does not represent (that is, re-present, or present again) Who We Are in the world and in the cosmos.

The famous injunction “Judge not, and neither condemn” did not say, “Change not, and neither alter.” It said judge not, and do not condemn.

The Master, therefore, is one who sees all of Life as perfect, because each moment and every experience, each condition and every circumstance, allows her to respond in a way that reflects and demonstrates every aspect of Divinity that she chooses to reveal, express, and experience in any given moment.

Again, Tina, so that it is very clear: Everything is “perfect” does not mean everything should remain “unchanged.” It merely means that the very existence of a situation or condition provides us with a wonderful Contextual Field within which to embark upon our next creation. The trick is to do it without judgment.

Now, Tina, I hope and pray that this somewhat lengthy response has helped to remove you from any confusion around the messages in Conversations with God as they relate to what you are seeing on this website. I hope you will share this remembering with your friends, so that soon, all the world will understand why the world is the way it is — as well as the spiritual reason we may have for changing it.

God sends Divine Blessings to you, Tina…and to all of you reading this…and, indeed, to all the world.

— Neale Donald Walsch

The headlines say it all:

WAVE OF CAR BOMBS IN IRAQ KILLS DOZENS
GANG RAPE IN INDIA: ROUTINE AND INVISIBLE
REASON FOR HOPE IN CONGO’S PERPETUAL WAR
PIRATES ABDUCT TWO AMERICANS

This is from just one day’s front page of the International New York Times. Violence, violence, violence.

It is normal for the human race? Yes. Is it natural? No. “Normal” and “natural” are not the same thing. It is natural for humans not to be violent, yet the normal behavior for our civilization is extreme violence.

Why is this? And, is there no way to stop it? No way to turn this around? Will our species forever be relegated to the level of barbarism — even as it declares its own higher evolution and even enlightenment?

And why have all the acknowledged and extraordinary advances made by humanity in science, medicine, and technology not produced an end to its most primitive behaviors?

These are the questions that are not being asked nearly enough in the halls of our legislatures, in the corridors of our general assemblies and senates, and in the thickly carpeted offices of our world’s heads of state.

Sadly, there seems to not even be a forum for such a discussion. The United Nations is not it. That international body has proven to be utterly incapable of producing world peace, its members completely unable to even agree on simple resolutions — much less concrete actions — aimed at bringing an end to violence. Its discussions seem forever focused on who is right rather than what is right, and who is at fault rather than what is at cause in the matter.

There are those who say that violence is simply part of our nature; that it is, in fact, natural for us to aggressively attack each other, physically assault each other, and wantonly disregard each other’s well being when we disagree with each other. Could this be true? Is that the basic underlying and unchangeable characteristic and attribute of human beings?

What are human beings, anyway? Are we simply biological entities — essentially, chemical creatures born out of a process of chemical interactions initiated by other chemical creatures? Is this who we are at our basis? Or are we more than that…? Are we, at the level of essence, spiritual creatures engaging in a biological expression, for reasons having to do with spiritual realities?

Our answer to these questions will set the course of humanity’s future for the next several hundred years —- presuming that our species has several hundred years in which to experience a future. The way we are behaving today, that is far from a guarantee. It may not even be a probability.

What are your answers to the questions just above? And what, if anything, do you think could change humanity’s present conduct? I am very curious as to your notions about all of this. Can we discuss it? Could this be at least one of the forums in which humans from all over the world exchange views, ideas, suggestions, and even propose solutions, regarding our violent and non-sustainable behaviors?

Let’s have a global conversation.

— NDW

In what an International New York Times editorial called a change of views that is “startling,” one of Japan’s most poplar former leaders is calling for a total ban on the use of nuclear power in that nation.

Junichiro Koizumi, who served as his country’s top official from 2001 to 2006, was “an enthusiastic proponent of cheap and clean nuclear power,” the Times lead editorial on Oct. 15 noted. Now, the newspaper said, he is completely and unequivocally against it.

The remarkable reversal comes in the aftermath of the international calamity two and a half years ago at the Fukushima nuclear power plant — the effects of which are still being felt by people around the world.

An official Japanese legislative investigation concluded that the disaster was man-made, and polls in Japan show that a majority of its citizens oppose nuclear power, but that hasn’t stopped the government of current Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (often thought of as Mr. Koizumi’s protégé) from approving policies that would reopen as many nuclear power plants as soon as possible.

Such plants, now all shut down following the Fukushima catastrophe, dot the Japanese coastline from north to south — a coastline that the Japanese government itself estimates stands a 60 to 70 percent probability of suffering another massive earthquake and tsunami within the next 30 years, the Times editorial notes.

While the present government supports reopening those plants, Mr. Koizumi staunchly and surprisingly (given his past strong support for nuclear energy) opposes any such thing. Even as Prime Minister Abe asserts that nuclear power is essential for economic growth — something his country is said to badly need after an extended period of economic stagnation — Mr. Koizumi says that nuclear power is not required to produce such growth. Indeed, he says, exactly the opposite may be true.

The Times editorial points out that the former prime minister offers a compelling argument that if a zero nuclear policy were embraced by the government, Japan “would come together in the creation of a recyclable society unseen in the world.” This alone would spark a major economic recovery, he asserts.

Whether or not a zero nuclear policy would be good for the economy, there are those in Japan who argue that it is necessary for the safety of their nation — and of the world.

The government led by Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany has already made such a determination, declaring many months ago that Fukushima was the last straw for nuclear energy, that it wasn’t worth the risks to all humankind to use such means of meeting energy needs, that new and alternative forms of energy production (including increased use of wind and solar power) would be utilized, and that all nuclear plants in Germany would be closed permanently. The public in Germany cheered wildly.

It is, perhaps, time for a serious worldwide discussion of nuclear energy, with a look at whatever people feel are the pros and cons — and so we invite that exploration here in The Global Conversation. The Japanese Diet has not so far had any such serious debate on the issue, and other nations as well (not least, the United States) have pretty much avoided making nuclear power a political issue — though it may be one of the most important matters involving the body politic of our time.

We invite and encourage your views below. We will forward your comments to officials in both the Japanese Diet and the United States Congress — and to any other legislative body in the world that you suggest.

Let the global conversation begin.

===========================
UDATE OCT 25: Elizabeth Chuck, Staff Writer for NBC News, has reported that “a 7.3-magnitude earthquake shook Japan early Saturday,” according to the U.S. Geological Survey. “The quake was off the Fukushima region of Japan, 231 miles east off the island of Honshu. It was 6.2 miles deep, officials said, hit at 3:10 a.m. Saturday local time and was felt 300 miles away in Tokyo,” Ms. Chuck’s report said.

“The Japan Meteorological Agency reported a one-foot tsunami was observed after it issued a yellow-colored warning Saturday morning, meaning a small tsunami could reach the coast at Fukushima, site of Japan’s 2011 nuclear power plant disaster,” the NBC report additionally noted. The full report can be found at here.

The biggest mystery of life has to do with what human beings call “reality.”

What is “reality,” anyway? It is a static thing, based on “facts”? Or is it a fluid thing, based on individual interpretation of those “facts”?

Most people agree that reality is fluid, changing from person to person. This is captured in the ancient observation: One person’s treasure is another person’s trash.

If two people can look at the same set of facts and see entirely different things, then what is “real” and what is not?

A great many politicians in Washington D.C. are trying to figure that out right now. Most of the world knows that there is a huge squabble going on there right now over what is called Obamacare — or, more formally, the Affordable Care Act.

A cohort of highly conservative members of the Republican Party in the U.S. claims that the new health-care-for-all law passed two years ago will be the ruination of America. Most Democrats, meanwhile, believe that it is long since past time that such civilizing legislation was passed and such a humane program put into place in what both parties claim to be one of the greatest nations on Earth.

Members of both parties are looking at the same data and the same country and coming up with entirely different realities. Yet if “reality” is a subjectively created thing and not an objectively observed thing, the solution to this present political conflict in Washington would be to be collaboratively creative.

So, too, would this be the solution to all the conflicts — armed and unarmed, political and military, economic and social/spiritual — all over the planet.

Such a thing appears, however, to be too much to ask of people who feel they have too much to lose by stepping one inch away from their staked out positions. People remaining stubbornly and utterly inflexible in their views and absolutely unyielding in their demands make collaboration impossible to achieve…and that is pretty much the nature of things in our world today. We are a species lingering at stalemate.

Is there anything — anything at all — that can change this? An entirely new Cultural Story could and would do it. A New Idea about Who We Are (Humans, that is) and Why We Are Here (on Earth, that is) and The Purpose of It All (Life, that is) is the answer — but from where would such a new idea emerge? And who would help spread it? And who would listen to it?

The answer to the last question is: everybody. Everybody on the planet would listen to it if they felt that it offered a New Way to Be Human that was possible, viable, feasible, workable, practical, and achievable.

I believe that the 1,000 Words That Would Change the World from Conversations with God — found lower in the right-hand column of this online newspaper — would be a good place to start. Will you take a moment to read those 1,000 words? Will you then consider becoming part of the Evolution Revolution?

Let me know. We can do something quite extraordinary here. People have done extraordinary things before. Let’s go. Let’s do it again. Let’s start A Conversation That Could Change The World.

As nearly everyone in the world now surely knows, the government of the United States has been shut down by the U.S. Congress after its House of Representatives and Senate failed to come to an agreement on a budget that would have kept it open for business.

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have said they will not approve an annual budget for the government unless and until the controversial Affordable Care Act (known more widely in some circles as Obamacare) is completely defunded, or its implementation is delayed for a year.

Democrats have said that, as U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren put it:  “It’s time to end the debate about whether the Affordable Care Act should exist and whether it should be funded. Congress voted for this law. President Obama signed this law. The Supreme Court upheld this law. The President ran for reelection on this law. His opponent said he would repeal it — and his opponent lost by five million votes.”

Given the above, many Americans are left wondering, Is this fair? The law was passed, the Supreme Court approved, the American people voted against the candidate who said he would repeal it on his first day in office — what more is needed to end this debate?

Having lost in the previous Obamacare debate when the health law was originally passed by Congress, having lost before the Supreme Court where it unsuccessfully challenged the law’s constitutionality, and having lost at the polls in the last presidential election, the far right wing of the GOP has now decided to stop the entire government from operating if the Tea Party and its followers don’t get what they want anyway and see the new health law, which took affect today, repealed or delayed for a another year.

For their part, Democrats have said there will be no repeal of Obamacare and no delay in its implementation — but that they would be ready and willing to negotiate improvements in the law, including some of the ideas suggested by the GOP regarding certain taxes that are slated to be instituted to fund it. Yet Democrats have insisted that they will not negotiate “with a gun to our heads.” They have called the GOP’s forced government shutdown not negotiation, but “extortion.”

The spiritual opportunity here is for both sides in this debate to move toward the highest good for all people (it is questionable that shutting down the government would be that), and for both sides to see their particular approach as not the only way, but simply another way to resolve the Obamacare disagreement.

Then they might take a pure, clean, and honest look to see if they can find a method of resolution that is distinctly different from the ones both sides are now employing as they position themselves around the health care issue. Yet the larger question remains: Is it fair for a minority of those both in Congress and in the United States at large to push their country into fiscal chaos in order to advance their agenda even though they’ve lost the argument three times already in every other forum available?