The Global Conversation

Author: Neale Donald Walsch

  • MUST FEAR & SEPARATION RULE IN
    POST-ELECTION CULTURAL DIVIDE?

    The headline on the front page of USAToday two days after U.S. President Barack Obama was returned to the White House for four more years said it all:

    “POST-ELECTION DIVIDE SURFACES/Partisan pledges sour conciliatory remarks.”

    Could we have expected anything else? Certainly not from the mainstream media, which only considers that which reflects conflict and struggle to be “news.” And probably not from people themselves, who have been raised having been told that “fear” is the most desirable primal power, not love.

    Instead of celebrating the American political system that produced yet one more decision without violence about who shall be in power, the mood of the country, stoked by opinion-makers and the media, exudes not celebration but consternation, not joy but judgment, not happiness but hatefulness — as if, in a world full of economic downturns, conflict, and killing, the United States was not, in fact, still one of the best places on Earth in which to live.

    Did the USAToday article point out that last Tuesday’s election gave President Obama, House Republicans, and Senate Democrats a “new chance to resolve issues that they could not give in on before, because of the upcoming election”? No. It said that the election gave all parties “a new lease on strife.”

    Why point out the grandest possibility when you can help create the worst?

    Ours is a civilization craving negativity. If there is a positive story in the news that the media just has to report, you can count on it being on page 37. Yet why does humanity have such an appetite for that which it fears? The New Spirituality says it is because we have been told that God wants us to fear Him. Indeed, in many circles the highest compliment you can give a person is to say that he or she is “God-fearing.”

    And so, as it has been explained in Conversations with God, we have equated “fear” with that which is good. We’ve even confused “fear” with “love,” imagining that the second must be based firmly in the first.

    Nothing could be further from the truth.

    There is another way to be human. In this new way, we do not fear God, we do not fear life, and we do not fear each other. We live without fear. Or at least, without fear driving the engine of our entire experience; without fear running rampant over us; without fear ruling our every choice and decision.

    There is another way to be human, but it takes great courage. The new way is to imagine a God that has no reason to judge or condemn us. The new way is to understand and embrace fully who we really are. That is, our True Identity as aspects and individuations of the Divine. In the moment we accept our True Identity, we easily and joyfully let go of fear. And then, our differences no longer have to divide us. Contrast no longer has to produce conflict.

    The people of the United States face a great opportunity right now. They can demonstrate to the world that while they differ in their opinions, they do not differ in their determination to find and create answers to their society’s biggest problems from a place of mutual respect and of willingness to compromise and to forge collaborative solutions.

  • BIG MONEY AND IGNORANCE LOSES
    BIG IN 2012 U.S. ELECTIONS

    Todd Akin lost. Joe Walsh lost. Richard Murdouck lost. Tom Smith lost. That’s four for four of the Republican men who made absurd comments about rape in the past several months and paid the price for their absurdity.

    Elizabeth Warren won. Claire McCaskill won. Tammy Baldwin won. Tammy Duckworth won. That’s four for four of the Democratic women who took strong stands against the Republican establishment and walked away victorious.

    Eight of the nine so-called Battleground States — must win “swing states” that everyone on both sides knew would decide the election — went to President Barack Obama, despite the spending of nearly $150 million more by the Republicans, their surrogate super PACs, and a bevy of Super Rich individuals who poured millions into the campaign of Mitt Romney.

    On social issues, contemporary 21st Century Thought prevailed over Let’s Go Backward Mentality in several striking cases. The electorate of two states — Maine and Maryland — voted to legalize same sex marriage, and citizens in the states of Washington and Colorado voted to legalize recreational use of marijuana. Opponents of same sex marriage have long claimed that, if put to an actual vote, citizens in most states would reject the idea of legalizing it. They were wrong. Likewise, opponents of legalized marijuana predicted that ballot measures supporting it would fail. Washington and Colorado proved otherwise.

    Perhaps most impressively, voters across the United States fought back, and won, against Big Money, defeating candidate after candidate whose campaigns benefited from huge amounts spent by super Pacs (political action committees) and Karl Rove’s direction of phenomenal spending to try to capture seats with the sheer power of money, and the advertising dominance that it can buy.

    In short, People Power defeated Money Power in this election, time and time again — and that is good news for America.

    Huge amounts, for instance — almost unfathomable amounts — where given by big money moguls across the nation to Mr. Romney’s campaign. It just couldn’t “buy” the election.  Neither could it win a GOP majority in the U.S. Senate. According to a news story in The Wall Street Journal by reporter Brody Mullins, “In campaigns for the Senate,  Republican candidates were backed by millions of dollars in spending by well-coordinated pro-Republican super PACs and interest groups that hammered Democratic candidates in televised advertisements starting last winter.”

    The same story noted that “in the presidential race, pro-Republican super PACs spend far more money than those favoring Mr. Obama.” Two of those groups along—Crossroads GPS (created and controlled by Mr. Rove) and Restore Our Future—spent $250 million supporting Mr. Romney, The Wall Street Journal report said. The biggest group supporting Mr. Obama, Priorities USA Action, by contrast, spent just $65 million on behalf of the President, the newspaper report added.

    It did Big Money no good. Try as it might to bend the voters’ views with dollars, it simply could not buy this election.

    An example is what happened in Virginia, where millions were dumped into the state by outside groups to help GOP candidate George Allen defeat Democrat Tim Kaine in the race for the U.S. Senate seat. Mr. Allen lost.

    In Ohio, more than $10 million was spent by outside groups —  including another controlled by Karl Rove (who seemed deeply determined to affect this year’s elections) and the U. S. Chamber of Commerce — in an effort to unseat liberal Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown. Mr. Brown won.

    In Connecticut, Republican Linda McMahon spent $40 million of her own money to defeat Democrat Chris Murphy for the U.S. Senate. She lost. Ms. McMahon spent $50 million of her own money in a 2010 election bid, which she also lost, proving that putting $90 million into two successive campaigns guarantees nothing. Peoples’ votes are apparently not as “buy-able” as some people might have thought.

    Likewise, tens of millions in outside spending money was shipped off to Wisconsin by rich Republican individuals and money-powered groups to bring former Badger State Governor Tommy Thompson to the U.S. Senate — but his Democratic opponent, Tammy Baldwin, batted away the huge dollar advantage of her GOP opponent’s campaign and walked away with the Senate seat. She will become the first openly gay U.S. Senator.

    The U.S. electorate made wonderfully intelligent decisions in many races, defeating GOP candidates who made utterly irrational statements about rape. Mr. Akin, a sitting GOP Congressman looking to move up to the Senate, famously said in August that the female body automatically makes it impossible for pregnancy to occur in cases of “legitimate rape.” Until that remark, he was expected to defeat sitting Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill.

    Embarrassed to high heaven by Mr. Akin’s remark, the Republican Party pulled its endorsement and its funding from Mr. Akin, and begged him to get out of the race so that it could run another candidate against McCaskill. Akin said he was in the race to stay, with or without his party’s support. He lost.

    Mr. Walsh, Mr. Murdouck, and Mr. Smith made equally offensive and/or ridiculous statements on the subject of abortion in the case of rape, and they also lost their races. Mr. Murdouck famously declared that if a pregnancy resulted from a rape, “it is something that God intended to happen.” Mr. Walsh, a sitting GOP Congressmen, was asked a question at a debate about abortion and announced that  he was “pro-life without exception.” Then he added, “The life of the woman is not an exception.” Asked by the press immediately after the debate if he had misspoken, or was serious, Mr. Walsh said he meant every word, and justified his stance by saying that modern medical advances have made abortion unnecessary to save the life of a mother. He lost the election in that moment.

    Mr. Smith, the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, was asked by the media in August what his position was regarding abortion. He said he was opposed to abortion without exception. Not even in cases of rape or incest? he was asked. No, he said. Then he was asked by Mark Scolforo of the Associated Press: “How would you tell a daughter or a granddaughter who, God forbid, would be the victim of a rape, to keep the child against her own will? Do you have a way to explain that?”

    Mr. Smith then made the extraordinary comparison of rape with a woman having a baby out of wedlock. In the second instance, he said, he had a member of his own family who chose to have the child. But, the AP reporter, incredulous, asked: “That’s similar to rape?” Mr. Smith replied, “No, no, no…but…put yourself in a father’s situation…yes, it is similar. But, back to the original, I’m pro-life, period.” That was the end of Mr. Smith’s campaign.

    America has re-claimed its intelligence and re-claimed its power. Big Money and Ignorance have lost theirs — and with it, a stranglehold on the U.S. electorate.

    There is hope after all. People can and will think for themselves. People can and will overcome the onslaught of media buys by individuals and groups with millions to throw around. Sometimes when you “follow the money trail,” it leads, alas, to a dead end.

    It is as Mr. Murphy said when he won Connecticut’s Senate seat. “We proved that what matters most in life is the measure of your ideas…not the measure of your wallet.”

    Indeed.

  • FOOD FOR THOUGHT:
    SHOULD WHAT WE EAT
    BE TRANSPARENTLY LABELED?

    The question seems simple enough. Should foods containing genetically engineered ingredients be required to be clearly labeled as having been genetically modified?

    Simple or not, voters in California appear to be undecided, and so ballot Proposition 37 has no guarantee of passing when the votes are counted Tuesday night. If what would appear to be a “no-brainer” decision can’t be easily made by California residents, it may be in no small part the result of the “No on  37” campaign which has received funding in the multi-millions from some major food companies.

    “Top contributors to the anti-labeling campaign include biotech giants Monsanto, Dow, Bayer CropScience, Syngenta and BASF,” according to a news report from Erika Bolstad of McClatchy Newspapers, posted on the Internet. “Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Kraft Foods and Nestle all have donated more than $1 million” to oppose labeling, her report went on.

    The anti-label forces has raised around $45 million to get Californians to vote “No” on the measure, while the campaign to make labeling the law has had to work with only about $7 million, the McClatchy story said.

    At issue is whether consumers purchasing food at retail outlets should be told clearly, on labels, if foods have been modified from their original, organic form. Many products now labeled as “natural” would have to have that word removed from the label if the initiative passes.

    Those favoring Prop 37 say that the word “natural” on food causes people to be confused as to whether the product has been genetically modified or not. Some cynics among consumer groups go so far as to claim that this is, in fact, exactly why certain food manufacturers use the term “natural” on their labels, even though the food inside their packaging has been genetically modified, with their DNA altered.

    One typical form of alteration is to “re-engineer” a food crop with genes from other plants, or even by adding animal genes to plants, as well as certain viruses or bacteria. The purpose of such alteration is to maintain the growing life of a food (some bio-tech crops are modified to combat pests or to tolerate herbicides) or to prolong the shelf-life of the food product—or to produce both results.

    Pro-Prop 37 spokespersons say that what consumers want is not to eliminate or remove genetically modified foods from the marketplace, but simply to be able to make informed choices — to be able to “vote with our pocketbooks” whether they choose to eat food that has been engineered away from its organic form, as one person put it.

    The ballot measure is an effort to “increase the transparency of the American food system,” the McCatchy story quotes Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma.

    Why would anybody oppose the measure? And why would consumers be confused about whether to vote for it?

    Big Food sources have opposed the proposed labeling law on the basis of cost, they say, which would have to be passed on to families already stretching their food budget. It could cost the average family up to $400 a more per year, their argument declares.

    Opponent also say that the measure, if passed, would provide inconsistent information to consumers, since it applies only to food purchased in retail stores, and not to food found in restaurants, for instance. Nor would it apply to some meat products—even though many animals are raised on genetically modified grains. So, Big Food says, people wouldn’t be fully informed about which of the foods they are eating are engineered or not anyway.

    Supporters of the measure say that more information is better than less, and that just the forced removal of the word “natural” from food that is not “natural” at all, plus adding the words “genetically engineered,” or other words similar, would go a long way toward making it easier for the average shopper to make informed choices about which foods to buy and eat.

    Consumer protection groups allege that Big Food does not want such labels specifically because major food producers are afraid that consumers will then shy away from their products.

    On Tuesday, California voters will decide — and that decision could have major ramifications across the United States, persons on both sides of the issue say. If it passes, the new law in California would “bring one of the biggest consumer markets and food producers in the country in line with labeling laws in 61 other countries,” the McClatchy report from journalist Erika Bolstad said. And that, observers agree, might well force the issue in other U.S. states as well.

    The New Spirituality invites a new way of creating all of society, not simply its food industry, and that way is called Total Transparency. There can be no real reason in an enlightened society not to tell everyone everything about everything, such a model suggests.

    And your thoughts…?

  • WORLD WEALTH GAP AT
    HIGHEST LEVEL IN 20 YEARS

    A new study released by one of the world’s most respected international organizations shows that “global inequalities in wealth are at their highest level for 20 years and are growing, ” the BBC reported yesterday.

    The global study found “that in most of the 32 developing countries they looked at, the rich had increased their share of national income since the 1990s,” the BBC report said.

    Making matters worse is the fact that one reason the gap between the rich and the poor is widening is not necessarily because the rich are getting richer, but because the poor are getting poorer, the study shows. “In a fifth of the countries, the incomes of the poorest had fallen” over that same period since the 90’s, the BBC report said.

    The worldwide study was released by Save the Children, an international non-profit organization whose stated goal is to improve the lives of children everywhere.

    “The gap (between the wealthy and the poor) has become particularly pronounced among children, and affects their well-being,” the BBC report quoted the charity as saying.

    While neither the Save the Children study nor the BBC report regarding it made any mention of world attitudes around the so-called Global Wealth Gap, we will here.

    In the United States, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has been taking considerable heat from his political opponents in the Republican Party the past year for wanting to “redistribute wealth.”

    The Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, was famously caught by a hidden microphone at a GOP fundraiser last May talking about the “47% of Americans” who he said were going to “vote for this president no matter what” because they were “not paying taxes” and were dependent upon the government to get by.

    This 47%, Mr. Romney went on, were not willing to take responsibility for themselves. Mr. Romney told his campaign contributors, who paid many thousands of dollars per-plate to attend the fundraising dinner (served by white-gloved waiters), that it was not his job to be worried about that 47%.

    In the immediate aftermath of the release of the recording, when he was being criticized for his remarks, Mr. Romney stoutly defended what he had said. Only as the criticism grew overwhelming during the weeks that followed, threatening to derail his candidacy for his nation’s highest office, did Mr. Romney retract his remarks, repudiating them in full. “I was completely wrong,” he allowed.

    Startling, however, was the number of Americans who appeared to agree with his earlier-stated views. Public opinion surveys showed a remarkable number of members of his own Republican Party who supported his ideas. Presumably, after Mr. Romney repudiated his own statements, those Republicans repudiated theirs.

    Yet this is only the latest in a decades-long opinion trend — not only in America, but around the world — that now begs the question: Do people holding great, or even modest, wealth really care about the people holding none? Further, and perhaps more to the point, should they?

    Is it at some level the responsibility of those who “have” to be worried about (much less actually take care of) those who “have not”?

    This, of course, is not a small social issue; not an insignificant question. Human societies from the beginning of civilization have had to face it.

    Is it okay for such societies to “take from the rich and give to the poor” through taxes, levies, or by whatever legal means?

    Conversations with God is very clear on this subject. It says that in highly evolved societies of this future there will be no taxes, levies, or limitations on a person’s income whatsoever. It also says this would be so because in such societies people would voluntarily give a generous percentage of their income to a global fund for the poor.

    CWG also suggests that members of such societies would voluntarily place on themselves an upper limit on income…say, $25 million a year, as simply an example…and that everything above that amount would be freely sent to a global fund to help those living in poverty, but with the stipulation that those contributing the funds could specifically direct their use to the programs and charities of their choice — meaning they would still be in charge of where their money went.

    Such ideas are utopian, to be sure, but they do raise a continually nagging question: How much is ‘enough’? And, since the wealthy worked to produce their wealth (presumably), should they be required, even by social pressure, to share it with the less fortunate (or with, as Mr. Romney said in his now admittedly mistaken remarks, the 47% of people who will never “take responsibility for themselves”)?

    The question, of course, presumes an equality of opportunity for the poor to themselves become rich — an assumption that may or may not reflect the true state of the global marketplace.

    And your thoughts?

  • Do you believe that Hurricane Sandy is God’s punishment for the wicked ways of America, and that God is systematically destroying America? If you do, what is the basis of your belief? If not, what do you think could cause someone else to believe this?

  • You are living an illusion

    Understand that you are living An Illusion, and that none of it is Real. Yet The Illusion points to what is Real, and can give you an experience of it.

    How can you see The Illusion as an Illusion when it appears to be so real? And how is it that it seems so real if it IS an Illusion?

    The second question will be answered first.

    The Illusion seems so real because so many people believe that it is not an Illusion.

    In your Alice in Wonderland world, everything is as you believe it to be.

    There are thousands, millions, of examples of that. Here are two.

    Once, you believed that the Sun revolved around the Earth — and, indeed, for you it did. All of your evidences proved that it did! So certain were you of this “truth” that you developed an entire science of astronomy around it.

    Once, you believed that everything physical moved from one point to another through Time and Space. All of your evidences proved it!  So certain were you of this “truth” that you built an entire system of physics around it.

    Now listen carefully. The wonder of these sciences and these systems is that they worked.

    The astronomy that you created out of your belief that the Earth was the center of the universe worked to explain the visual phenomena you saw in the movement of the planets in your sky each night. Your observations supported your belief, creating what you then called “knowledge.”

    The physics that you created out of your belief about particles of matter worked to explain the visual phenomena you saw in the physical world around you. Your observations supported your belief, creating what you then called “knowledge.”

    Only later, when you looked more closely at what you were seeing, did you change your mind about these things. Yet that change of mind did not come easily. The first persons who suggested such a change of mind were called heretics or, in later times, foolish and mistaken. Their ideas of a new astronomy, with the Earth revolving around the sun, or of quantum physics, in which particles of matter did not move in a continuous line through time and space, but were seen to disappear in one place and reappear in another in what came to be known as “the quantum leap,” were labeled spiritual and scientific blasphemy. Their proponents were discouraged, denounced, and, in some of the early years, even put to death for their beliefs.

    It is your beliefs that were “true,” the majority of you insisted. After all, were they not supported by every observation? Yet, which came first, the belief or the observation? That is the central question. That is the inquiry you did not wish to make.

    Is it possible that you see what you want to see? Could it be that you observe what you expect to observe? Or perhaps more to the point, look right past what you do not expect to observe?

    And I tell you, the answer is yes.

    ========================================

    Editor’s Note: If you would like to COMMENT on the above excerpt, please scroll down to the bottom of the ancillary copy below.

    If Conversations with God has touched your life in a positive way, you are one of millions of people around the world who have had such an experience. All of the readers of CWG have yearned to find a way to keep its healing messages alive in their life. One of the best ways to do that is to read and re-read the material over and over again — and we have made it convenient and easy for you to do so. Come here often and enjoy selected excerpts from the Conversations with God cosmology, changed on a regular basis, so you can “dip in” to the 3,000 pages of material quickly and easily. We hope you have enjoyed the excerpt above, from the book: Communion with God.

    =====================

    About Book-On-A-Bench…

    If you believe that the messages in Conversations with God could inspire humanity to change its basic beliefs about God, about Life, and about Human Beings and their relationship to each other, leave those messages lying around.

    Simply “forget” or “misplace” a copy of Conversations with God on a bench somewhere. At a bus stop, or a train station, or an airport—or actually on the bus, train, or plane. At a hairstyling salon, a doctor’s office, a chiropractor’s office, a park bench, or even just a bench on the street. Just leave a book lying around.

    If everybody did this, the message of Conversations with God could “go viral” in a matter of weeks. So I invite you to participate in the Book-On-A-Bench program and spread ideas that could create a new cultural story far and wide.

    = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

    ABOUT the author of Conversations with God…

    Neale Donald Walsch is a modern-day spiritual messenger whose words continue to touch the world in profound ways.  With an early interest in religion and a deeply felt connection to spirituality, Neale spent the majority of his life thriving professionally, yet searching for spiritual meaning before beginning his now-famous conversation with God. His With God series of books has been translated into 27 languages, touching the lives of millions and inspiring important changes in their day-to-day living.

    Neale was born in Milwaukee to a Roman Catholic family that encouraged his quest for spiritual truth. Serving as his first spiritual mentor, Neale’s mother taught him not to be afraid of God, as she believed in having a personal relationship with the divine — and she taught Neale to do the same.

    A nontraditional believer, Neale’s mother hardly ever went to church, and when he asked her why, she told Neale: “I don’t have to go to church — God comes to me. He’s with me and around me wherever I am.” This notion of God at an early age would later move Neale to transcend traditional views of organized religion.

    Neale grew into an insatiably curious child whose comments about life seemed to possess a wisdom beyond his years, and often caused relatives and family friends to ask, “Where does he come up with this stuff?” While attending a Catholic grade school, Neale would often pose questions in catechism class that would extend past the traditional grade school curriculum.

    Finally, the parish priest invited Neale to his rectory to answer the difficult questions that he didn’t wish to address in front of the rest of the class. This meeting turned into a once-a-week visit that blossomed into an open forum in which Neale learned not to be afraid to ask questions about religion and spirituality—and also learned that his asking these types of questions did not mean that he would offend God.

     

    Joyless spirituality is observed.
    Is rigidity and anger sometimes produced by religion?

    By the age of 15, Neale’s involvement with spiritually based teachings led him to observe that when people got involved in religion they too often seemed less joyful and more rigid, exhibiting behaviors of prejudice, separateness, and even anger. Neale concluded that for many people the collective experience of theology was not positive.

    After graduating from high school, he enrolled at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, but academic life could not hold him and he dropped out of college after two years to follow an interest in broadcasting that eventually led to a full-time position at the age of 19 at a small radio station far from his Milwaukee home, in Annapolis, Maryland.

    Restless by nature and always seeking to expand his opportunities for self-expression, Neale in the years that followed became a radio station program director; a newspaper reporter and, ultimately, managing editor; public information officer for one of the nation’s largest public school systems; and, after moving to the West Coast, creator and owner of his own public relations and marketing firm. Moving from one career field to another, he could not seem to find occupational satisfaction, his life was in constant turmoil, and his health was going rapidly downhill.

     

    A life-changing accident.
    A desperate questioning that touches the world.

    He had relocated in Oregon as part of a change-of-scenery strategy to find his way, but Fate was to provide more than a change of location. It produced a change in his entire life. One day a car driven by an elderly gentleman made a left turn directly into his path. Neale emerged from the auto accident with a broken neck. He was lucky to escape with his life.

    More than a year of rehab threw him out of work. A failed marriage had already removed him from his home, and soon he couldn’t keep even the small apartment he’d rented. Within months he found himself on the street, homeless. It took him the better part of a year to pull himself together and get back under shelter. He found, at first, modest part-time jobs, once again in broadcasting, then worked his way into full time employment and an eventual spot as a syndicated radio talk show host.

    He had seen the bottom of life living outside, gathering beer and soft drink cans in a park to collect the return deposit, but now his life seemed to be on the mend. Yet, once more, Neale felt an emptiness inside. In 1992, following a period of deep despair, Neale awoke in the middle of a February night and wrote an anguished letter to God. “What does it take,” he angrily scratched across a yellow legal pad, “to make life work?”

     

    The books that began a spiritual revolution.
    The words that opened doors again.

    Now well chronicled and widely talked about, it was this questioning letter that received a divine answer. Neale tells us that he heard a “voiceless” voice, soft and kind, warm and loving, that gave him an answer to this and other questions. Awestruck and inspired, he quickly scribbled these responses onto the tablet.

    More questions came, and, as fast as they occurred to him, answers were given in the same gentle voice, which now seemed placed inside his head, but also seemed clearly beyond his normal thinking. Before he knew it, Neale found himself engaged in a two-way, on-paper dialogue. He continued this first “conversation” for hours, and had many more in the weeks that followed, always awakening in the middle of the night and being drawn back to his legal pad.

    Neale’s handwritten notes would later become the best-selling Conversations with God books. He says that the process was “exactly like taking dictation,” and that the dialogue created in this way was published without significant alteration or editing. He also says that God is talking to all of us, all the time, and that he has come to understand that this experience is not unusual, nor does it make him in any way a special person or a unique messenger.

    In addition to producing the renowned With God series, Neale has published 18 other works, as well as many video and audio programs. Available throughout the world, seven of the Conversations with God books made the New York Times bestseller list, with Conversations with God: Book 1 occupying a place on that list for more than two-and-half years. Walsch’s books have sold more than seven million copies worldwide and have been translated into 37 languages.

    The With God series has redefined God and shifted spiritual paradigms across the planet. In order to deal with the enormous global response to his writings, Neale formed the Conversations with God Foundation, a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to inspiring the world to help itself move from violence to peace, from confusion to clarity, and from anger to love.

     

    The work expands.
    A movement begins.

    Neale founded the School of the New Spirituality and its CWG for Parents program to bring parents the tools to share new spirituality principles of a loving, non-condemning God with their children. He also founded Humanity’s Team, with branches in over 30 countries, now promoting the concept of the Oneness of all people and of all of life.

    What Neale calls his “final creation” is The Global Conversation, an Internet Newspaper dedicated to exploring day-to-day events on our planet within the context of The New Spirituality, and offering people across the globe the opportunity to not only witness the playing out of humanity’s Cultural Story in the news, but participate in re-writing that Story, through their contributions and posted comments on the newspaper’s site.

    Neale’s work has taken him from the steps of Machu Picchu in Peru to the steps of the Shinto shrines of Japan, from Red Square in Moscow to St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City to Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

    Everywhere he has gone—from South Africa to Norway, Croatia to The Netherlands, the streets of Zurich to the streets of Seoul—Neale has found a hunger among the people to find a new way to live; a way to co-exist, at last, in peace and harmony, with a reverence for Life Itself in all its forms, and for each other. And he has sought to help them develop a new, expanded understanding of God, of life, and of themselves that allows them to create and experience this.

    (Neale Donald Walsch lives in Ashland, Oregon with his wife, the American poet Em Claire (www.emclairepoet.com).)

  • Who and what is God?

    Conversations with God was given to humanity to bring us answers to Life’s Great Questions. And the greatest of all our Great Questions has been, and continues to be: “Who and what is God?”

    Most of us clearly understand that God is not a very large and handsome man in the sky, with a long white beard and a flowing robe, sitting on a golden throne in a bejeweled room, surrounded by wing flapping angels.

    Yet while we are pretty clear about what God is not, we are not nearly as clear about what God is.

    So let’s see what God has to say on the subject.

    In Conversations with God, God made it clear that God is without form, gender, or substance in the way that we know it.  God is, rather, that of which all things are made.  The Essential Essence of which everything in existence is comprised.  That essence contains Supreme Intelligence.  And Total Awareness.  And Absolute Power.

    It is omnipresent and omniscient.  It is everywhere because it is everything that exists in any place at all.  It knows everything because without that which it knows, nothing that exists could come into being.  It is the Source and the Substance at once; it is the Creator and Created.

    It always was, is now, and always will be.  It knows no beginning and no end.  There is nothing that exists outside of it and there is nothing that exists inside of it without it.  That is, simply put, there is nothing that is not God.

    This Essential Essence uses Itself to recreate Itself, and calls upon Itself to empower Itself, to be Itself, all by Itself.

    It needs nothing, requires nothing, demands nothing, punishes nothing.  For what could It possibly need?  What could It in any case require?  Why would It demand anything?  And who—pray tell, who in the world—would it command or punish?

    That which has everything and is everything and wants and needs nothing holds only one desire: to express and to know Itself through the glorious experiencing of Itself…and to create this possibility.

    That is the reason that life as we know it was created.

    Every human being who has stepped into the living of this possibility has achieved all the things we as a sentient species say we want to achieve.  And they have done so without hurting, without damaging, without killing.  We say they have lived the lives of “saints.”  Yet they have merely lived life as it was intended to be lived ‑‑ a way in which most human beings have adamantly refused to live, for the most ironic reason of all:  We think it is too good to be true.

  • SANDY IS PART OF GOD
    ‘SYSTEMATICALLY DESTROYING AMERICA’

    God is punishing America “right before our eyes,” according to a Christian preacher, and Hurricane Sandy is part of God’s judgmental backlash.

    Author and chaplain John McTernan has declared that Hurricane Sandy is part of God’s plan of “systematically destroying America” as punishment for its wicked ways—part of which is exemplified, he said, by the fact that both U.S. presidential candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney “are pro-homosexual and are behind the homosexual agenda.”

    McTernan has posted a statement on his website saying that Sandy is ravaging the U.S. East Coast “21 years to the day” in October 1991 when “President George Bush Sr. initiated the Madrid Peace Process to divide the land of Israel, including Jerusalem. America has been under God’s judgment since this event.”

    Twenty-one years “breaks down to 7 x 3, which is a significant number with God,” the Christian preacher said, adding that “three is perfection as the Godhead is three in one, while seven is perfection.” Carrying his God-Is-Destroying-America theme forward, he said that “just last August, Hurricane Isaac hit New Orleans seven years later, on the exact day of Hurricane Katrina. Both hit during the week of the homosexual event called Southern Decadence in New Orleans!”

    McTernan’s website statement also said, “It appears that God gave America 21 years to repent of interfering with His prophetic plan for Israel; however, it has gotten worse under all the presidents and especially Obama. Obama is 100 percent behind the Muslim Brotherhood, which has vowed to destroy Israel and take Jerusalem.”

    In addition to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Sandy, “there was an incredible heatwave and drought that destroyed massive amounts of the crops” in America, McTernan’s statement notes. “This drought has not let up and now covers about 65 percent of the country.”

    The drought, he said, “triggered record forest fires in the West. If you add the area of the drought and now the hurricane together, it would be about 80 percent of the country! As I said, the Holy God of Israel is systematically destroying America right before our eyes.”

    The Christian preacher’s statement ends with a lament: “With all of this, there is almost zero repentance by the church: zero! The fear of God has disappeared from His people. The church in America is now EXACTLY like ancient Israel before the Babylonians destroyed them. Both ancient Israel and the modern American church completely lost the fear of God.”

    Can all of this be true? It probably is true that many millions of people have “lost the fear of God” — but is this bad? And can it be true that God is punishing human beings, systematically destroying an entire nation, for committing offenses against the Lord?

    This is exactly the opposite of what The New Spirituality, as represented in the message of the 9 texts in the Conversations with God cosmology, tells us. It is why I launched, with the creation of Humanity’s Team, a “civil rights movement for the Soul, freeing humanity at last from the oppression of its beliefs in a violent, angry, and vindictive God.”

    The challenge now facing humanity: thought is creative…and collective thought, all pointing in the same direction, is highly creative…leading to the intriguing question: What is creating the disasters befalling not just America, but the whole human race in these days and times? Is it a violent, angry, and vindictive God, or our belief in a violent, angry, and vindictive God?

    Are the billions of people who continue to persistently believe in a God of retribution producing a force field — a vortex, if you will — that is generating exactly the kind of negative and destructive energy that could create a self-fulfilling prophecy?

    If positive thinking is powerful and produces results, is negative thinking just as powerful?

    If Collective Consciousness produces Collective Experience, might it be time to change our Collective Consciousness?

  • DID GEN. POWELL ENDORSE OBAMA
    BECAUSE BOTH MEN ARE BLACK?

    Did former U.S. Secretary of State and retired four star Army general Colin L. Powell, a prominent Republican, just endorse Barack Obama for president of the United States because both men are black?

    A top surrogate for the campaign of Republican Mitt Romney said so Thursday, bringing race into the presidential contest just days before ballots are cast in America on Nov. 6.

    Former New Hampshire Governor John Sununu, who has spoken in support of the Romney campaign for over a year, suggested on CNN Thursday night that Mr. Powell’s announced objections to Mr. Romney’s proposals and policies were not the real reason that Mr. Powell has broken with his own party to openly endorse and support President Obama.

    “Frankly, when you take a look at Colin Powell, you have to wonder whether that’s an endorsement based on issues, or whether he’s got a slightly different reason for preferring President Obama,” Mr. Sununu told CNN’s Piers Morgan on Morgan’s nationally telecast interview program. Asked by Mr. Morgan what that “different reason” might be, the Romney campaign surrogate said:

    “Well, I think when you have somebody of your own race that you’re proud of being president of the United States, I applaud Colin for standing with him.”

    Facing an immediate backlash for calling Colin Powell’s endorsement essentially disingenuous, Mr. Sununu backtracked a few hours after the Morgan interview, releasing a statement directly contradicting his own earlier pronouncement. “Colin Powell,” Mr. Sununu said, “is a friend and I respect the endorsement decision he made, and I do not doubt that it was based on anything but his support of the president’s policies.”

    For his part, the Republican Powell made it crystal clear why he was not supporting Mitt Romney, his own party’s nominee. Appearing on the a.m. news program CBS This Morning, Mr. Powell said he had the “utmost respect” for Mitt Romney, but was concerned about what he termed Mr. Romney’s shifting foreign policies. “The governor who was speaking on Monday night at the debate was saying things that were quite different from what he’s said earlier, so I’m not quite sure what Governor Romney we would be getting with respect to foreign policy,” Mr. Powell said.

    Mr. Powell was Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005 during the administration of President George W. Bush, yet had no problem praising President Obama for his handling of the U.S. economy. “When he took over, the country was in very, very difficult straits, we were in one of the worst recessions we had seen in recent times, close to a depression,” Mr. Powell said. “We were in real trouble. I saw over the next several years stabilization come back in the financial community, housing is now starting to pick up after four years, it’s starting to pick up. Consumer confidence is rising. So I think generally we’ve come out of the dive and we’re starting to gain altitude.”

    The retired four-star general went on to call Obama’s actions to protect the U.S. from terrorist threats “very, very solid.”

    Was former Gov. Sununu’s remark on a widely televised interview concerning Mr. Powell’s endorsement of President Obama a last-minute attempt to “play the race card” a little over a week before a national election?

    Only Mr. Sununu knows the answer to that inquiry, but there is little question that the endorsement of Mr. Obama by a Republican as prominent as the former secretary of state (Mr. Powell was only a few years ago being encouraged by his party to run for President himself) had to have stung the Romney campaign, which would no doubt have preferred Mr. Powell to simply keep silent if he did not feel he could openly endorse Mr. Romney.

    Perhaps Romney supporters felt that the only way to mute the Powell endorsement of President Obama was to marginalize it as simply one black man assisting another. In the world of a New Spirituality, where fairness and transparency would be the hallmark, Mr. Sununu would return to the Piers Morgan program and make an apology to the same nationwide audience for his remark, and then say on national television what he put into a written statement released hours after the CNN program aired: “I respect the endorsement decision he (Colin Powell) made, and I do not doubt that it was based on anything but his support of the President’s policies.”

    Wouldn’t that have been refreshing? It would have been far better than saying something blatantly racist on nationwide TV, then issuing a corrective statement hours later–a statement that everyone knows is far less likely to be seen in print by as many millions as watch CNN.

    In some circles this is called Get-Away-With-It Politics, in which you do something outrageous Big, apologize for it Small, then say you did your best to correct yourself, while really doing very little to alter the original impression that you so powerfully created.

    This kind of political handiwork is usually done by political hacks known as “hatchet men.” Generally these are well known former political figures, now cronies who hang around on the edges of campaigns issuing supportive statements on behalf of the candidate, but without official portfolio, so they can get away with saying what the campaign itself cannot.

    In other words, people like former governor John Sununu. And if the Romney Campaign wanted to do something showing real class, it, too, would disavow Mr. Sununu’s racist remark about the Powell endorsement of President Obama.

    Don’t count on it.

     

    (Have a comment? Submit it below. Your opinion matters. — Editor)


  • Should women who find themselves pregnant as a result of a rape be told that they must give birth because it is God’s intention that the pregnancy occur? And what if the rape is by your father, or your brother? Should you have your father’s child, or your brother’s child, because it is God’s intention that you got pregnant from their sexual attack?