It feels good to me to believe in God. It feels good to me to believe that someone “has my back,” that someone is “there for me,” that someone is supporting me, empowering me, uplifting me, protecting me, and embracing me. It feels good to me to feel that I am not alone in this Universe and not without help in this life and not without a Home to which to return when my time here is over. It feels good to me to believe in a God who loves me unconditionally and empowers me unlimitedly and accepts me unreservedly. It feels good to me to believe in a God who gives me Free Will to express and experience myself in the way that feels most authentic to me and most loving to me and most wonderful to me. It feels good to me to believe in a Higher Power; that there exists in the Universe an Essential Essence, a Pure Energy, that I may use to impact in a positive way the expression and the experience of my life. It feels good for me to believe that there is no separation or difference between this Essential Essence and me, and that it is, in fact, that of which I am comprised.

It feels bad to me to believe in a God who is separate from me, who is made of something I am not, who is watching my every move, noticing my every mistake, judging my every choice, and holding me to account for my every misdeed. It feels especially bad to me to believe in a God who may be approached in only one way, accessed by only one path, found and rejoined by only one method — and who condemns and punishes with everlasting torture and unremitting anguish anyone who comes to God in another way, by another path, using another method — no matter how pure their love for God or how sincere their search for God or how deep their desire for God may be.

This does not mean that those who do believe in a God who is and does these things are “wrong” for doing so. My comments above are in no way meant to imply that my beliefs are in any way better or more accurate, more sensible or more reasonable than anyone else’s beliefs. I want to make it very clear that all beliefs about God (including the belief that there is no God) are honored by me (and, I hope, by everyone), and that no one is intended to be disrespected by my statement above. To disagree is not to disrespect, and to offer one point of view that diverges from another is not to scorn, but to invite greater understanding.

The only aspect of spiritual practice that I cannot personally condone is any attempt by a believer or organization of believers in a particular doctrine to forcibly impose on another that doctrine or dogma which the believer holds dear. I consider every individual’s spiritual experience and truth to be the most personal and sacred aspect of their life, and I do and will not support any attempt to compel or coerce by any means—emotional or physical—any person to embrace or adhere to a particular teaching, canon, or creed.
Our differences do not have to create divisions, our contrasts do not have to create conflicts, and the variations in our beliefs do not have to create violence in our lives.

There is another way. But we will not find that way by searching for it. We will only find it by creating it. Let us, therefore, go forth into our world in peace and in love, knowing that if there is a God, surely this is God’s desire—and that if there is not a Higher Power, there can be no better way to live in the absence of one.

A few days ago I placed a question in this space. I invited visitors here to respond to this query: “What does God want?” Then I asked some other questions in which I repeated some statements that I have heard from others.

I asked, “Is it true, for instance, that every Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Jew, and Baha’i’ is going straight to hell upon their death? Is it true that a 2-day-old baby will be denied entry into heaven and reunion with God if that baby is not baptized? Is it true that God says women should to be subservient to men, and that wives must obey their husbands? It is true that God wants people to love each other, but wants people of the same sex who love each other to never marry, or demonstrate their love for each other in a physical or sexual way, and that God will punish with everlasting damnation any person who does? It is true that God wants us to understand that God’s love can turn to wrath if we do not do what God wants?”

Nearly all of the people who people who commented below failed to address these specific questions. Many offered their conclusion, some in roundabout ways, that they did not think that God, as God really is, was accurately or widely understood by the majority of people. But I was intrigued by one response in particular, this from a reader posting as “Jethro”, who offered this: “When I was still a very young child, I heard that all religions other than the one I was in was doomed to hell. Other Christians were going to hell. So it applied to other denominations too, not just other religions. One of my first thoughts about people and God was believing that something must be misunderstood. I was a child and thought this. One thought that followed me into adulthood is, how can I be more compassionate than God? I don’t think I am, so there must be something wrong with the information I received.”

It will be a long time before I forget that question…if I ever do. I think Jethro drove right to the heart of the matter. As I look at some of the things that billions of people believe about what God wants, I now find myself asking this simple, pure question of a child: How can I be more compassionate than God?

Of course, there are billions of people who think that God does want every Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Jew, and Bahá’í to go straight to hell upon their death. There are billions of people who think that God does want a 2-day-old baby to be denied entry into heaven and reunion with God if that baby is not baptized. There are billions of people who think that God does want women to be subservient to men, and wives to obey their husbands. There are billions of people who think that God does want people of the same sex who love each other and marry, or demonstrate their love for each other in a physical or sexual way, to be punished with everlasting damnation. And there are billions of people who think that God does want us to understand that God’s love can turn to wrath if we do not do what God wants.

And so it would appear that there are billions of people who are not “more compassionate than God,” but every bit as lacking in compassion as they believe God is.

They would not say that God is lacking in compassion, however. They would say that it is a sign of God’s compassion to treat people in this way, allowing them to know the laws, and be subjected to the conditions, of Perfect Justice in Heaven.

Justice, they say, is being rewarded or punished based on one’s behaviors in Earthly life—as those behaviors relate to what it is that God commands, demands, and wants.

And there are those who believe that one’s behaviors in Earthly life don’t matter — that even the worst human behaviors will be forgiven and forgotten if one comes to God through the right doorway, and that even the best of one’s behaviors will be totally, completely, and utterly ignored, accounting for nothing and meaning nothing, if one does not come to God through the right doorway.

Is this how it is in the Kingdom of Heaven? That is the question that has been facing humankind for thousands of years.

What do you think? What do you believe? What do you know in your heart to be true?

Editor’s Note: For the next several months this space will be used to explore, one-by-one, the messages, metaphysical principles, and spiritual meaning of the material found in the nearly 3,000 pages of the Conversations with God dialogues. This series of observations and interpretations is offered with my continuing disclaimer: I could be wrong about all of this.

CWG Explored/Installment #13: What God wants.

The idea that there is something that God wants has permeated human religions since the first religion was created. Which means, historians and archeologists tell us, for just about as long as humans have existed. We’ve found evidence of religion in areas populated no less than 10,000 years before the Christian era (BCE). Ideas about a Higher Power (or Powers, in the plural) have been around for probably a great deal longer.

The earliest humans felt that there was something that had to be done to ameliorate the gods. They assumed there must have been gods of some sort (they could not have used the term “god,” but they certainly understood the concept of power greater than they were), because there was so much about their world (hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, shooting stars, droughts, etc., etc.) over which they realized they had no control.

Yet these primitive beings often assumed that if they could amuse or “bribe” these higher powers in the same way they amused or bribed the strongest and meanest among them to get them to not BE so mean, they might be able to at least influence those powerful entities to also not be so mean.

And metaphysics being the science that it is, their belief that bribery, inducement, and subornation could produce favors from the Higher Powers (such as the end of a drought, or a good harvest) in many cases produced such results. Thus, religion (the idea that if you do something for God, God will do something for you) was born.

Primitive as this “I’ll trade you” arrangement may seem, it continues to be the principle and primary doctrine underpinning most of the world’s religions to this very day. It may be a bit of an oversimplification, but at their basis many religions teach that to “earn” an eternal reward (as opposed to condemnation followed by eternal punishment), there are certain things that God wants (read that “demands”) human beings to do.

The question is: Is this true? Do religions have it right?

It is true, for instance, that every Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Jew, and Bahá’í is going straight to hell upon their death? Is this also true for every member of all the other faith communities in the world, except one? Is it true that God will trade your membership in this one religion for entry into Heaven, but if you don’t make the trade, you’re out — no matter how good or wonderful or caring or compassionate or generous or courageous you were in your life?

Is this what God wants?

Is it true that even if you gave up your life to save the life of another — and even if you suffered unbelievable torture in doing so (as a soldier who saved the rest of the members of his platoon by refusing to divulge to the enemy where they’re encamped) — you went straight to hell anyway after you died, so that you can suffer unending, unmitigated, and indescribable torture after death because you belonged to one of those other religions?

Is this what God wants?

Is it true that a 2-day-old baby will be denied entry into heaven and reunion with God if that baby is not baptized?

Is this what God wants?

Is it true that God says women should to be subservient to men, and that wives must obey their husbands?

Is this what God wants?

It is true that God wants people to love each other, but wants people of the same sex who love each other to never marry, or demonstrate their love for each other in a physical or sexual way, and that God will punish with everlasting damnation any person who does?

Is this what God wants?

It is true that God wants us to understand that God’s love can turn to wrath if we do not do what God wants?

Is this what God wants?

Is it possible that we could be wrong about all of this?

What do you think God wants?

Editor’s Note: For the next several months this space will be used to explore, one-by-one, the messages, metaphysical principles, and spiritual meaning of the material found in the nearly 3,000 pages of the Conversations with God dialogues. This series of observations and interpretations is offered with my continuing disclaimer: I could be wrong about all of this.

CWG Explored/Installment #12: Is God our strength in time of need?

Is our faith in a loving, caring, compassionate, and healing God misplaced?

No.

Does God worry about what happens in our individual lives, and quickly intervene to make them better when we ask Him to?

No.

Do miracles occur?

Yes.

Does God make them happen?

Yes and no.

Can all of this be very confusing?

Yes. That is why we have religion. Religion is the effort of humanity to eliminate its confusion about God. Sadly, it has often added to our bafflement and incertitude. That is not because religions have added nothing of value to our lives. They have, in fact, added hugely to the betterment of our experience. Yet religions seem to be incomplete in their data. They don’t seem to have the whole picture. And so, in this, we are like children who have learned to add and to subtract, and who imagine that this is all there is to mathematics.

There’s so much more to know, yet billions of people find it extremely challenging to even ask what I think is a fair question: Is it possible that there is something we don’t fully understand about God, the understanding of which would change everything?

In this, many humans have been as the blind leading the blind. But now, each day, more and more, we are opening to the possibility of a Larger Reality.

Ah, yes…once we were blind, but now we see.

It is, in fact, an amazing grace.

It is through the amazing grace of an amazing God that humanity’s amazement at God is being transformed into humanity’s understanding of God. I am told that this shift occurs in the life of all sentient species in the Universe as they mature.

As you know, humanity is a very young species. I have put this information in front of you before, but I will do so again for those who may have missed it.

In their book New World New Mind, Robert Ornstein and Paul Ehrlich placed this in perspective in one mind-boggling paragraph:

Suppose Earth’s history were charted on a single year’s calendar, with midnight January 1 representing the origin of the Earth and midnight December 31 the present. Then each day of Earth’s “year” would represent 12 million years of actual history. On that scale, the first form of life, a simple bacterium, would arise sometime in February. More complex life-forms, however, come much later; the first fishes appear around November 20. The dinosaurs arrive around December 10 and disappear on Christmas Day. The first of our ancestors recognizable as human would not show up until the afternoon of December 31. Homo sapiens—our species—would emerge at around 11:45 pm…and all that has happened in recorded history would occur in the final minute of the year.

We see, then, that humans are The Toddlers of the Cosmos. This explains why we are acting like children. Billions of us still believe it when we are told, “Mysterious are the ways of the Lord.”

Actually, they are not.

Here is how it all works:

God is the Primal Force, the Pure Energy, the Essential Essence of the Universe. Divinity is That Of Which Everything Is Comprised. If we were into employing acronyms (which could in this case be very useful, as it would instantly explain everything), another name for God could therefore be TOWEIC.

We can know with certainty that TOWEIC (That Of Which Everything Is Comprised) is the Giver Of Divinity (to use another acronym, GOD) to every living thing. In other words, It gives of Itself to life, through life.

We can know, as well, that every thing is living (there is nothing that is not living if we define “living” as “movement,” since all things—even rocks—are comprised of microscopic particles constantly in motion). Therefore, movement is Divinity Expressed.

Now here is where religion has confused The Toddlers of the Cosmos. We think that TOWEIC has an emotional investment in how It moves.

We think that if That Of Which Everything Is Comprised moves one way, it is “happy,” and that if It moves another way, it is “sad.”

We imagine that the Giver Of Divinity (GOD) has a particular way that He (yes, we even think that TOWEIC is male) wants every specific thing in the individual lives of the centillions of trillions of billions of millions of sentient beings in the Universe to turn out—and that the Giver Of Divinity will make it turn out that way if we ask Him to.

But the truth is that God doesn’t care how things turn out. And this is an idea that people who believe in God find difficult to embrace.

Yet God is not The Great Decider who says Yes to some requests and No to others, like some monarch sitting on a throne meting out favors to the Favored Few, while refusing the heartfelt and earnest requests of the rest of his majesty’s minions, because they did not ask in the “right way” or come to him by the “right path” or display to him the “right behavior.”

God is The Great Provider, not The Great Decider. God has provided us with the power to create our own reality. And God has given us the freedom to do that in any way we choose.

The tool with which God has made it possible for us to do this is TOWEIC Itself. This Primal Force, this Pure Energy, this Essential Essence is called, in human language, Thought when we refer to the First Level of Creation (the second and third being Word and Deed). Its power is manifest in direct proportion to how much of it is used (or, if you please, focused) in any particular way in any particular place at any particular time.

The rule of thumb is simple: The more of It there is, the more powerful is Its impact. This is why the collective Thoughts (Words and Deeds) of Humanity are far more powerful than the individual Thoughts (Words and Deeds) of a single member of that collective.

This is not to say that the individual use of TOWEIC will and can have no effect on the physical realm. On the contrary, just the opposite is true. This is simply to say that the more of this energy that’s in play, the greater will be its impact. (“Wherever two or more are gathered…”)

So now, let’s get back to the original questions. Is our faith in a caring, compassionate God misplaced? No. Do miracles happen? Yes. Does God make them happen? Yes and no.

“No” in the sense that God is not standing by making some miracles succeed and others fail, depending on His proclivities, propensities, and pomposities. God is not someone we have to please in order to get His favors, and God is not someone we have to properly beg in order to receive His miracles.

“Yes” in the sense that God (to repeat) is that which provides, not that which decides. God is That Of Which Everything Is Comprised, and TOWEIC is by definition therefore usable by and available to everything.

Wonderful as that may sound, it can create a bit of frustration. What good, then, is prayer? What point is there in believing in a personal God who cares about us, cares for us, and takes care of us?

The wonder of prayer, the wonder of knowing that God is “there” for us, and the wonder of calling out to God to take care of us, is that it focuses TOWEIC in a particular way in a particular place at a particular time.

CWG tells us that Divinity can and will take any form in which we think of it. It can be for us a gift-giving Father, a nurturing Mother, a simple but powerful energy, a raw source of creation—or all of the above simultaneously.

Affirmative Prayer, therefore, can be a powerful, joyful, and effective use of That Of Which Everything Is Comprised, in that it acknowledges the truth that God will always be there for you, because God has never not been there, since such a thing would be impossible. Only your awareness of God’s eternal Presence in you, as you, and through you can be lacking, not The Presence Itself.

Thus it has been said: Even before you ask, I will have answered.

TOWEIC is the Essential Essence that, in human language, we would also call Love. It is in the expression of this Love through which TOWEIC is the Giver Of Divinity to humanity, and that is what makes it possible for miracles to be produced. It turns out, then, that God is, in fact, our strength in time of need.

One final question then.

Why do some miracles that we so earnestly desire occur, while some do not? Have we somehow done something “wrong” in the way we used That Of Which Everything Is Comprised?

No. It is impossible for us to do anything “wrong.” Conversations with God tells us that we are incapable of making a “mistake,” and life is incapable of “doing us wrong”—not even when the change we wanted, the miracle for which we prayed, has not presented itself.

Everything that occurs in our life occurs in perfect order with perfect timing in the perfect way, allowing the Soul to address its lifetime-to-lifetime agenda. It is just the Mind that may not understand this. For the Mind of humans is limited in its comprehension, until it isn’t anymore—until it matures and grows in its Awareness, joining with the Soul in becoming the fullest expression of God on Earth for which every moment and situation has been designed.

Thus, every outcome is perfect, all of life is a miracle, and gratitude is our immediate and automatic response to every moment when we are demonstrating Divinity.

Therefore, raise not your fist to Heaven, and curse the darkness not, but be a light unto the darkness, that you might know Who You Really Are…and that all those whose lives you touch might know who they really are as well, by the light of your example.

(Have I not said ye are Gods?)

I believe this will be the New Spirituality of our future which, when coupled with our new understanding of the total lack of separation of anything from anything (CWG: “All things are One Thing. There is only One Thing, and all things are part of the One Thing there is.”), will produce the Heaven on Earth that our species has been promised by every sage and seer of every age.

The process of humanity’s transmogrification is beginning now. The conditions of this very day make this the Perfect Time for Advancement, providing an enormous opportunity for each of us to awaken the species.

(For more on this, I invite you to read Conversations with God-Book 4: Awaken the Species when it is published on March 27^th. You may pre-order it here:
https://www.amazon.com/Conversations-God-Book-Awaken-Species/dp/193790749X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1488129452&sr=8-1&keywords=conversations+with+god+book+4 )

Editor’s Note: For the next several months this space will be used to explore, one-by-one, the messages, metaphysical principles, and spiritual meaning of the material found in the nearly 3,000 pages of the Conversations with God dialogues. This series of observations and interpretations is offered with my continuing disclaimer: I could be wrong about all of this.

CWG Explored/Installment #11: The next step for humanity.

This is going to be the longest entry in this series, so if you do not have the time, or if you cannot muster the patience, to read through this very long entry, you may want to close down this page right here. I’m not going to cut short what I have come to say.

I have come to say that humanity has gone just about as far as it can go down the particular road on which it has so long been embarked, and on which it continues to blindly stumble.

Between all the latest saber-rattling of North Korea, China, Russia, and the United States, the activities of terrorists, the plight of millions of refugees, the social unrest across the globe, the political upheaval, the financial disparity, plus the natural disasters and environmental degradation visiting Mother Earth, our present lifestyle is not, in the long term, politically or economically desirable, nor ecologically sustainable.

We have to make some changes in the way we are creating our daily experience on this planet, or we may very soon simply do ourselves in.

The issue is not whether we have to make changes, but what those changes might most beneficially be.

Clearly, it would be beneficial for us to alter our behaviors. Yet that has been true for hundreds (actually, thousands) of years. Why haven’t we done so? And what could cause us to do so?

These are the questions now facing our species. Conversations with God offers us some answers, and it strikes me that it could be useful for us to at least explore them to see if even a few of them might be helpful in our present situation. (I, of course, think they would all be helpful, but then again, I’m biased…)

Some of the ideas emerging from the CWG cosmology have been included in the book titled The Storm Before the Calm, found elsewhere on this website. The entire text is there, and I believe it is well worth reading — as I said, if only for its value of placing some proposals before us that we might debate and consider…and maybe even (who knows?) embrace and act on.

But now, here, let me place before the house some things I have said many, many times in previous statements, speeches, workshops, books, magazine articles, TV interviews, and other articulations. I ask you to forgive the repetition here if you have heard all this from me before. There is a chance that someone here is encountering it for the first time. And if it is repetitious for you, I invite you to let yourself nevertheless consider it again, to see if you still agree or disagree with the point of view I offer, based on the messages of my dialogue with Deity. And there is this: If you agree with what you find here, and you’d like others to be able to consider it, you can copy and paste, from this point downward, the commentary I am offering.

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Let us begin by noticing something that is obvious to all of us, but that we do not seem to be able to do anything about: We do not have peace in our world.

Indeed, there has not been a single day for thousands of years when there has not been agitation, violence, and killing somewhere on this planet.

Is this because we are, by nature, a violent species? No. There are some who say so, but it is not true. Our basic nature is not violent. Our basic nature is peaceful and loving. We do not want war. We do not want violence. We do not want conflict and angry opposition and endless struggling.

Then why do we have it?

We have it because not one of the systems we have put into place to make life better on this planet is working.

Wait. It’s worse.

Not only have the systems we have put into place failed to produce the outcomes for which they were designed—they have actually produced exactly the opposite.

Our political systems – put into place to create safety and security for the world’s people – have produced exactly the opposite: continual disagreement and disarray.

Our economic systems — put into place to create opportunity and sufficiency for all — have produced exactly the opposite: increasing poverty and massive economic inequality, with 8 of the world’s richest people holding more wealth than 3.5 billion…that’s half the planet’s population…combined.

Our ecological systems — put into place to create a sustainable lifestyle — have been so abused that they are now generating exactly the opposite: environmental disasters right and left.

Our educational systems — put into place to create a lifting of the knowledge base of the planet’s population higher and higher — have produced exactly the opposite: a drop in global awareness and sensitivity that each year sinks our intellectual common denominator lower and lower. We can’t even remember telephone numbers anymore.

Our health care systems — put into place to create a good and long life for an increasingly higher percentage of people – have produced exactly the opposite, doing little to eliminate inequality of access to modern medicines and health care services, and providing the highest-level medical services each year to a lower and lower percentage of the world’s population.

Our social systems — put into place to create cooperative community and harmony among a divergent population – have produced exactly the opposite: discordance, disparity, prejudice, and despair . . . and, far too often, rampant injustice.

And, most sadly dysfunctional of all, our spiritual systems — put into place to create a greater closeness to God, and so, to each other — have produced exactly the opposite: bitter righteousness, shocking intolerance, widespread anger, deep-seated hatred, and self-justified violence.

If the betterment of human life upon the Earth were a laboratory experiment, it would have long ago been considered an abject failure.

Indeed, an appalling disaster.

Not everyone agrees. There are those who believe that humanity is evolving to higher and higher levels of sophistication and achievement, producing a better and better quality of life for the members of our species.

It is possible that these would not, however, be among the 842 million people who do not have enough to eat. (That’s one of every eight in the world.) It is certain that they would not be the parents of the over 650 children who die every hour of starvation.

They would presumably not be among the 20.9 million women and children who are bought and sold into commercial sexual servitude every year.

They would also, one imagines, not be among the over 3 billion people who live on less than $2.50 a day, or the billions who have no access to health care. (Some 19,000 children die each day from preventable health issues, such as malaria, diarrhea and pneumonia.)

They would probably also not be among the 1.7 billion people who lack clean water, or the 2.6 billion without basic sanitation, or the 1.6 billion people—a quarter of humanity—who live without electricity.

That’s right. In the first quarter of the 21^st Century, 2.6 billion people live without toilets, and 1.6 billion without electricity.

How is this possible?, you might ask. And that is a very good question.

It is an especially good question given that humanity imagines itself to be a “civilized” species. To the people in the above categories, the “civilization of Civilization” has not even begun.

A planet where 5% of the population owns or controls 95% of the wealth and resources—and where most of that 5% think this is perfectly okay, even as unconscionable numbers languish in lack and suffering—would not seem to be a planet on which a great deal of humanitarian advancement has been achieved.

Are any of these conditions in any way related to the continuing lack of peace on this planet?

What do you think?

Are these conditions the cause of our lack of peace? No. They are the effect of that which causes them. They are the outfall. They are the result, the product, the consequence of something much larger that is dysfunctional in our species. And the challenge facing the world today is that many of those who seek, with every good intention, to change global conditions for the better, continue to attempt to do so at the level of Effect, rather than at the level of Cause. That is, they seek and hope to change WHAT is occurring, rather than WHY it is occurring.

Or to put it another way, we are trying to solve our collective global problems at every level except the level at which those problems exist.

My own awareness is that unless and until we approach the question of why humanity’s collective behavior is utterly dysfunctional, we can only put a bandage on humanity’s wounds. We cannot and will not heal those wounds unless and until we heal what is causing them.

Yet my sad observation is that no one wants to put a “name” to the Cause. Everyone wants to talk about what we can do at the Level of Effect, but most (if not all) of the world’s Messengers of Peace are reluctant (if not loathe) to suggest or articulate what they see as the cause of our uncaring, of our lack of action, of our continuing downward spiral.

All of our contemporary Messengers want to turn our global situation around…but few seem willing to do it at the Level of Cause. Everyone wants to change the outcome of our collective dysfunction, but not the input that creates it. This limits both the individual and any combined efforts of those Messengers to attempts to alter only the second half of the Cause-and-Effect phenomenon that is creating global conditions and experiences.

Let’s be specific here, so that you may know exactly what it is I am talking about.

There is one thing that I see most human beings currently unwilling to do, even though the doing of it could bring an end to humanity’s collective suffering virtually overnight. What is fascinating about this is that humans actually have done this particular thing in every area of human endeavor save one.

We have been willing to do it in the area of science…and our willingness has produced breathtaking scientific advances. We have been willing to do it in the area of medicine…and our willingness has produced modern medical miracles. We have been willing to do it in the area of technology…and our willingness has produced dazzling life enhancements.

We have, in fact, been willing to do it in every area of human endeavor except, as I said, one. Regrettably, this is the most important area of all.

Our beliefs.

And just what is it that we have abjectly and stultifyingly refused to do in the area of human beliefs, even though we have been willing to do it in every other area of human life?

Question the prior assumption.

The first thing we do when we reach a scientific conclusion is to question it, put it to the test, assess it based on results.

The first thing we do when we create a medical miracle is to question it, put it to the test, assess it based on results.

The first thing we do when we produce a technological marvel is to question it, put it to the test, assess it based on results.

But the last thing we do when we embrace a core belief is to question it, put it to the test, assess it based on results. The last thing we want to do is question the prior assumption.

We’ve decided that we’re going to hang onto our core beliefs if it kills us. And it does. By the thousands. Every day.

So here is where the problem lies. And I’m not sure that even a coalition of global Messengers would be effective in helping to bring about world peace, because I have not seen that our teachers, authors, and messengers are willing to speak to the matter of Cause.

So the question is: What would be the coalition’s Core Message? I mean, other than that we all want PEACE (of course), and need to all work toward it (of course).

What is the main thrust of what the world’s New Thought teachers and authors jointly believe is the CAUSE of our current lack of peace on this planet? Or, in fact, IS there a joint understanding among them about this?

Do they hold a unified understanding of the reason behind humanity’s dysfunction?

If the observation is that they do not, is it sufficient for everyone to get together to work toward altering the outcome of humanity’s dysfunction without ever touching on, or even mentioning, its cause?

Let me now articulate what I am clear is the major, the primary, the predominant and principal cause of humanity’s present and long-standing dysfunction.

The most impacting of our vast collection of Don’t-Dare-Change-or-Challenge Beliefs is our belief in Separation.

It begins, as I have observed it, with our belief in Separation Theology.

A Separation Theology is a theology that says “I am ‘over here’ and God is ‘over there’, and never the ‘twain shall meet—until I die and God decides whether I have been good enough to go to Heaven or to deserve paradise, and to be back with God ‘over there’.”

The challenge here is that the highest percentage of the world’s people believe in a Higher Power. They may call it by different names, they may conceive of it in different ways, but they agree in largest number on one main postulate: This Higher Power is separate from Us.

The problem with a Separation Theology is that it produces a Separation Cosmology. That is, a cosmological way of looking at all of Life which holds that everything is separate from everything else. And a Separation Cosmology produces a Separation Psychology. That is, a personal thought about the human psyche that says everyone is alone, separate from everything and everyone else. And a Separation Psychology produces a Separation Sociology. That is, a way of creating entire societies that separates every person from every other person by declaring their individual interests to be separate. And a Separation Sociology produces a Separation Pathology. That is, pathological behaviors of self-destruction, engaged in individually and collectively and evidenced everywhere on our planet throughout human history.

What I am observing on our planet more and more these days is the atomization of society — which is precisely the effect I have described above.

Now the questions become: Is this view as to Condition and Cause shared by others? Need it be?

If we wish to approach, and seek to solve, the problems in our world at the level of Cause, the answer to the second question is yes. If we simply seek to approach and solve the problems at the level of Effect, that answer is no.

Humanity has for generations created coalition after coalition, group after group, organization after organization, effort after effort, seeking to solve the problem of the suffering of humanity that has resulted from our species’ dysfunction.

I am sorry to report that the efforts of such groups and NGOs have in large measure failed. And for good reason. Most humans (and the coalitions we have formed) have, as previously noted, insisted on seeking to solve the world’s problems at every level except the level at which the problems exist.

We first try to solve our problems as if they were political problems, because we are accustomed to using political pressure on this planet to get people to do what they seem unwilling to do without pressure.

We hold discussions, we write laws, we pass legislation and adopt resolutions in every local, national, regional, and global language and assembly we can think of to try to solve the problem with words—but it does not work. Whatever short-term solutions we may come up with evaporate very quickly, and the problems re-emerge. They will not go away.

So we say, “Okay, these must not be political problems, because they aren’t being solved with political means. We see now that they are economic problems.” And because we are accustomed to using economic power on this planet to get people to do what they don’t seem to want to do without pressure, we then try to solve the problems as if they were economic problems.

We throw money at them, or withhold money from them (as in the form of sanctions), seeking to solve the problems with cash. But it does not work. Whatever short-term solutions we may create evaporate very quickly, and the problems re-emerge. They will not go away.

And so we say, “Okay, these must not be economic problems, because they aren’t being solved by economic means. We see now that they are military problems.” And because we are accustomed to using military might on this planet to get people to do what they don’t seem to want to do unless pressured, we then try to solve the problems as if they were military problems.

We throw bullets at them and drop bombs on them, seeking to solve the problems with weapons. But it does not work. Whatever short-term solutions we may produce evaporate very quickly, and the problems re-emerge. They will not go away.

And so, having run out of solutions, we declare: “These are not easy problems. No one expected that they could be fixed overnight. This is going to be a long, hard slog. Many lives may be lost in trying to solve these problems. But we are not going to give up. We are going to solve these problems if it kills us.” And we don’t even see the irony in our own statements.

After a while, however, even primitive beings of very little consciousness become tired of the killing and the dying of their own sons and daughters in battle, and of their women and children and elderly caught in the line of fire. And so, after enough killing has been done with no solution in sight, we say it is time to call a truce and to hold peace talks. And the cycle begins anew…

We are back to the bargaining table, and back to politicking as a solution. And peace talks often include discussion of reparations and economic recovery. And so, we are back to money as a solution. And when these solutions fail to work in the long run, we are back to bombs again.

And on and on and on it goes, and on and on and on it has gone throughout human history. This is not a new cycle. This has been happening for millennia. Only the names of the participants have changed, not the process itself.

Only primitive cultures and primitive beings do this. I know that you have heard many times the definition of insanity. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting to get a different result.

We can’t seem to change our ways because we refuse to even look at whether the solution might be to change our beliefs. We continue to seek to create, promote, and generate peace at the Level of Effect — postponing indefinitely any serious look at, much less work on, the Level of Cause.

The great tragedy and the great sadness of humanity is that we have been willing to settle for postponements in place of solutions.

Of course, only primitive cultures and primitive beings do that. Highly evolved beings would never, ever settle for a ten-thousand-year postponement in solving their biggest problems. Here on this planet we’ve never really faced the largest challenge of humanity head on.

Why? Why are we acting this way? Why are we behaving like children? Because we are children. Ours is a very young species.

A lot of people like to think of humans as highly evolved. In fact, humanity has just emerged from its infancy on this planet. In their book New World New Mind, Robert Ornstein and Paul Ehrlich placed this in perspective in one mind-boggling paragraph:

“Suppose Earth’s history were charted on a single year’s calendar, with midnight January 1 representing the origin of the Earth and midnight December 31 the present. Then each day of Earth’s ‘year’ would represent 12 million years of actual history. On that scale, the first form of life, a simple bacterium, would arise sometime in February. More complex life-forms, however, come much later; the first fishes appear around November 20. The dinosaurs arrive around December 10 and disappear on Christmas Day. The first of our ancestors recognizable as human would not show up until the afternoon of December 31. Homo sapiens—our species—would emerge at around 11:45 pm…and all that has happened in recorded history would occur in the final minute of the year.”

We see, then, the reason for our immature behavior. I repeat for clarity and emphasis: we refuse to face the largest challenge of humanity head on. We pretend we don’t even know what it is. And so we do our endless dance all around it. And we continue, century after century, to try to solve the world’s problems at every level except the level at which the problems exist.

The problem facing humanity is not a political problem, it is not an economic problem, and it is certainly not a military problem. The problem facing humanity is a spiritual problem, and it can only be solved by spiritual means.

The problem is rooted in our most fundamental and sacred beliefs about life, about each other, and about the thing we call God. And because some of those beliefs are based on a never-questioned assumption—the assumption that we are separate from and other than each other, and separate from and other than God—humanity’s spiritual problem could be bigger than most people think.

There is a reason that humans abjectly refuse to question the Assumption of Separation that rules so much of their lives. They are afraid. They are afraid that if they embrace the notion of the Oneness of everyone and everything, they will “disappear” as a single entity; they will no longer retain their personal identity, and will lose everything that makes them individuals.

But oneness does not mean sameness, unity does not equal uniformity, and lack of separation does not require lack of individuation—even as the fingers of a hand are neither separate from, nor other than, the body.

Yet the refusal of humans to question the Assumption of Separation means we could be all wrong about the Primal Force, the Singular Energy, and the Essential Essence that many people call God. And let’s be clear. It’s not a small thing to be wrong about God. And if nearly everyone on the planet is wrong about God, it’s really not a small thing.

If nearly everyone on the planet has mistaken notions about God, then nearly everything that everyone on the planet is doing will not work the way it was intended. Which is exactly the point I made earlier. This is because the basis of so much of what humans are doing in the area of politics, economics, and other critical areas of our collective endeavors has as its foundation many of humanity’s beliefs about God.

Think not?

Think again.

Nearly all of civilization’s modern laws emerged from the early rules and laws of some faith tradition.

Nearly all of humanity’s moral codes derive from the mandates of a religion.

Nearly every political movement and economic theory is based on ideas of justice, right-and-wrong, and basic fairness first espoused by spiritual figures.

Even human beings who don’t believe in God are impacted and guided by many of the fundamental principles placed into the Cultural Story, and thus our society, in the past by those who did — and in our present day by those who do.

And a striking number of the personal decisions made by billions of individuals across the globe are made within the context of what they believe to be the purpose of life, what they believe happens when this life is over, what they believe about God, and about what God wants.

So it’s not a small thing to be wrong about God.

Our opportunity on the Earth today is for those who Self-Select to become models of a new kind of spirituality by living into, and demonstrating daily, a new idea about what it means to be human, about who we are and how it is with us. And most important, how it can be.

Conversations with God-Book 4: Awaken the Species offers this observation: “This moment, this period right now in human history, is the perfect time for humanity’s advancement as a species. And the next step in this process is for each of us to self-select (that is, to choose ourselves) to be among those who commit to moving forward our own individual and personal evolution by embracing and demonstrating behaviors that serve to awaken the species to who and what human beings really are (Individuations of Divinity), and how that may be made manifest in our experience.”

I believe that many humans will self-select to do this, and so I remain optimistic about our collaborative experience.

I am clear that if we all declare, at long last and with a single voice, the truth of our being: that we are all One; one with each other and one with our Creator, there is so much more that we can create for ourselves, as individuals and as a species.

I am also clear that only when our collective Separation Cosmology is replaced by a Unity Cosmology will our self-destructive pathology be healed.

We must come to understand that all of life is One; that, as Conversations with God – Book 1 announced: “All things are One Thing. There is only One Thing, and all things are part of the One Thing there is.”

In terms of the new beliefs that would create a whole new reality and experience of life on Earth, I see this as the jumping off point. It is the beginning of the end of how things are now. It is the start of a new creation, of a new tomorrow. It can be the life-altering centerpoint of humanity’s New Cultural Story.

If we all want to be effective in working for world peace, I think it is critical for us to agree on the essential message we choose to jointly send to the world.

Will it be THAT all humans everywhere are urged to work toward world peace, or HOW we are invited to work toward world peace? Will it be about the need to change our behaviors, or will it be about HOW to change our behaviors?

Will we dare to say that beliefs create behaviors, and that until beliefs change, behaviors will not?

Will we dare to suggest or explore which beliefs held by humanity are producing humanity’s dysfunctional behaviors?

And will we dare to propose a New Cultural Story that could bring peace at last to our world?

Those are the questions now facing those who Self-Select to assist in the global modeling of a new way to be human that can awaken the species.

Whether or not a person believes in this thing called “God,” can we find a way to believe in the Oneness of Life? Can we agree that we are all part of the same expression, simply in differing form? And can we agree that as part of that singular expression, we might do well to abandon some of our individual objectives in favor of singular outcomes? Outcomes that shower goodness not on the smallest number, but on the largest?

Is this too much to ask of our species?

You decide.

By your own behaviors, you decide. And model your decision for the rest of us.

In the end, that is the message of Conversations with God. Whether you hold the notion that a Deity exists and is real, or not — in the end, that is the message of Conversations with God.

The CWG dialogue even says, in direct terms, that it is not necessary to “believe in God” to change yourself and change your world. It is only necessary to change your beliefs about life, and about who you are in relationship to everything and everyone else in it.

Are you ready to do that? Let that be our question for the day.

Editor’s Note: For the next several months this space will be used to explore, one-by-one, the messages, metaphysical principles, and spiritual meaning of the material found in the nearly 3,000 pages of the Conversations with God dialogues. This series of observations and interpretations is offered with my continuing disclaimer: I could be wrong about all of this.

CWG Explored/Installment #10: What if we ARE Divine?

In my last entry here I offered my idea of who and what the Self is. I said that I believe the Self is an aspect of Divinity, and Individuation of God. I believe we are all One with The Divine, not separate from, or other than, God in any way or at any level.

In this series installment I should like to explore the implications of that last statement.

If it is true (not if it is true that I believe it, but if what I believe is true), then many questions are raised. Why, if we are one with God, would we collectively create a world of such cruelty, violence, suffering, and dysfunction?

As well, when “bad things happen to good people” (sudden illness, long-term or life-threatening disease, financial catastrophe, relationship disaster, or other of the most challenging events in the lives of individuals), why can we not “fix” them with a wave of the hand? Why are we required (or do we require ourselves) to move through them to the very end, however horrific that end may be?

What gods would do this to themselves? And for what reason or purpose?

I have read the pages of the CWG cosmology repeatedly, scanning for answers to such questions, and I keep coming up with the same thing. The All-in-All, or the Collective (which is The Totality of All Beings and All Things that humans call “God”) requires and wants nothing in particular (since any experience It could want, It IS). Yet wanting nothing does not mean it desires nothing.

Wanting and Desiring are two different things. Being in “want” of something means you are without it. God is without nothing, because God is everything that God could possible wish to have or experience. Yet God could desire to experience more of what God already is and has. That is, God’s desire could be to expand endlessly the experience of Itself.

Now I know from CWG that words are the least reliable form of communication, but this is as close as I can come, using the awful limitation of human words, to describing and explaining Divinity.

My understanding is that Divinity is not specifically and deliberately creating “life as we know it” on this planet, but rather, desires its Endless Sentient Expressions to have complete freedom to create anything and everything they collectively and individually choose, that they may consciously or subconsciously know would or could facilitate their experience of exactly Who and What They Are. God has thus empowered every sentient being, one and all, to do so.

It has also been made clear to me that only in the folds and molds of who they imagine themselves NOT to be can a sentient being experience themselves as who they are.

Put simply (and, admittedly, simplistically), one cannot experience oneself as The Light unless and until one places oneself in the awareness of The Darkness. Without the Darkness, the Light is not. That is, it is not experience-able.

Thus, all things exist in the Universe (or, if you will, in the Realm of the Physical) in shapes, forms, sizes, and expressions that become “real” only in relation to other things. Fast and slow, big and small, up and down, here and there, before and after, now and then, good and evil, and all other expressions in the Universe have no meaning in a sentient being’s reality except in relationship to each other. They are defined not by what they are, but by what they are not.

This is why the Realm of the Physical is also referred to in the CWG cosmology as the Realm of the Relative (as opposed to the Realm of the Absolute, which is also called the Realm of the Spiritual).

All of the above is why Conversations with God says: “In the absence of that which you are not, that which you are is not.” Meaning, it is not experience-able. You can know it, but you cannot experience it.

At the level of Soul, all sentient beings understand this. Thus, in order to experience Who and What They Are, all sentient beings will call forward and co-create in their reality some aspect of who and what They Are Not, thus to produce a context within which what they Know of themselves may be transmogrified into what they Experience of themselves. they have shifted from Concept to Experience in their reality.

In this way, Divinity may Express and Experience Itself, and not simply Know Itself conceptually.

As I moved into a deeper and deeper understanding of this, it all brought up another, and what I thought to be a very significant and relevant, question: Was the suffering of Its creations the only way God could figure out how to experience Itself? Is this the best ‘system’ that Divinity could come up with?

Frankly, it didn’t seem very “Divinely Inspired” to me.

The answer I received when I posed this question is that suffering is not a required part of the process. Suffering is not necessary, no matter what physical conditions are presenting themselves. Conditions are conditions. Situations are situations. Circumstances are circumstances. Events are events. All of these are exterior phenomena. None of them have anything to do with what’s going on inside of oneself.

It is our interior decision with regard to an exterior condition that determines whether we “suffer” or not. Even the condition of physical or emotional pain is simply that: pain. What we call “suffering” is the result of our decision about it.

Suffering occurs when we decide that something that is happening should not be happening, that there is something “wrong” with the Universe, that something has gone awry in the scheme of things.

If we understand that everything is happening exactly in alignment with our Soul’s intention to express and experience some aspect of Who We Really Are, “suffering” disappears. We may not find what is occurring to be pleasant, but we can eliminate the experience of suffering—even though the exterior situation or circumstance (including actual pain) may not have changed. Suffering is, in essence, what we experience when we resist any condition, situation, or circumstance.

A woman in childbirth can offer a vivid example. Many women experience childbirth as pain-filled, but nevertheless absent abject suffering. Indeed, for many women, suffering is superseded by joy.

Joy in the midst of so much pain? Is that possible?

Yes, because the person in pain knows and understands, and profoundly agrees with, the reason for the pain, and the product of it. There, resistance is ended.

All true spiritual masters understand the same thing, regardless of the cause of the physical or emotional pain. Spiritual masters understand that they are giving birth to themselves, in the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever they held about Who They Are, in every moment.

Life is a continuing series of re-births, or recreations of the Self, at higher and grander levels of expression. This clarifies that ending resistance does not mean abandoning any effort to change a condition, situation, or circumstance. “Change” is not “resistance,” but simply working with what is “so” in a way which modifies or alters it to better suit and more accurately reflect our decision about Who We Are.

Yes, but does the whole process have to be painful?

No. The answer is, no. Even pain can be transmogrified and found to be but a sensation, an aspect of our physicality that we may find agreeable or not agreeable, acceptable or unacceptable, as we choose. Herein lies what may be one of the greatest secrets of life.

Editor Note: For the next several months this space will be used to explore, one-by-one,  the messages, metaphysical principles, and spiritual meaning of the material found in the nearly 3,000 pages of the Conversations with God dialogues. This series of observations and interpretations is offered with my continuing disclaimer: I could be wrong about all of this.

CWG Explored/Installment #9: Where am I — and why?

In my last entry here I offered my idea of who and what the Self is. I said that I believe the Self is an aspect of Divinity, and Individuation of God. I believe we are all One with The Divine, not separate from, or other than, God in any way or at any level.

This is the very clear message of the Conversations with God series of books — and those are the messages I seek to live by. I believe that if people everywhere lived by those messages, individual lives the world over would improve immeasurably, and, as well, our entire planetary experience would change for the better.

So in my spiritual reality we are, each of us, what I have come to call Singularizations of The Singularity. In short, we are Divine.

For me, this answers one of what I have come to call the Four Fundamental Questions of Life: Who am I? Where am I? Why am I where I am? What do I intend to do about that?

I have observed that many people go through their entire lives and never ask themselves these questions. I have no intention of doing that. So here, as promised, is my response to Questions 2 and 3, offered to you as if you had asked me: Where am I, and why am I where I am?

You are in the Realm of the Physical, which is part of what you have called Heaven. The sadness is that you do not think that you are in heaven, and so your Imagined Reality is that you have to get there. In fact, there is nothing you have to do, nothing you have to be, and nowhere you have to go to experience paradise.

Merely look upward on a starry night, or outward over a foaming ocean, or toward the skyline at dusk or dawn, or, for that matter, into the eyes of your beloved. You are in heaven, and you are calling it something else, and you are acting as if it were something else, and so, of course, you have created it as something else.

The Realm of the Physical is one of three realms in the triune reality that you have called by various names, including heaven, paradise, nirvana, the afterlife, the Kingdom of God, etc. The other two realms are: The Realm of the Spiritual and the Realm of the Spirisical (which is the point between the two). Think of this as a figure 8 on its side.”

The Total Being That Is You is on an eternal journey from the Realm of the Spiritual to the Realm of the Physical and back again. The Realm of the Spirisical is at the cross point between the two.

(This illustration was given to me as a simple visualization to assist my mind in holding data that cannot actually be visualized, it being outside the human experience. A figure 8 on its side is— not by coincidence—the international symbol for infinity.)

In the Realm of the Spiritual everything exists in absolute form, whereas in the Realm of the Physical things exist in rel- ative form. In the Realm of the Spiritual all things are absolutely what they are. In the Realm of the Physical a thing is what it is relative to other things that are not what it is.

Big and Small, therefore, do not exist in the Realm of the Spiritual, but only in the Realm of the Physical. Here and There, likewise, do not exist in the Realm of the Spiritual, but only in the Realm of the Physical. As well, Now and Then, Fast and Slow, Male and Female, Up and Down, Light and Dark, Good and Evil, Love and Fear . . . none of these things exist in the Realm of the Spiritual, but only in the Realm of the Physical.

In the Realm of the Spiritual it is always Here and Now, and there is only Light and Love. Thus, we could rename these realms, calling them . . .the Realm of the Absolute and the Realm of the Relative.

In the Realm of the Absolute you know absolutely everything, and you know it absolutely. Yet you cannot experience what you know, because there is nothing else. For instance, you can know that are you Love, but you cannot experience yourself as Love, because there is nothing else but Love. There is nothing that is not Love.

You can know yourself as Light, but you cannot experience yourself as Light, because there is nothing else but the Light.

You can know yourself as Good, but you cannot experience yourself as Good, because evil does not exist.

The formula is this:

IN THE ABSENCE OF THAT WHICH YOU ARE NOT, THAT WHICH YOU ARE 
IS NOT.

That is, it cannot be made real in your experience. You can know yourself conceptually, but you cannot know yourself experientially. You can conceive of yourself in a particular way, but you cannot experience yourself being that way because there is nothing else but That Which You Are.

Here, then, is the Conundrum of God: How can God experience Itself? By not being God.

Unless It was not God (that is, not the Totality of Itself), God could understand Itself to be magnificent, but God could not experience Itself being that. Again . . . why? Because there was nothing else but “magnificence” in the Realm of the Absolute. God could understand Itself to be enormous, endless, and timeless, yet these concepts had no meaning since there was nothing that was not “enormous,” “endless,” and “timeless.” God could understand Itself to be All Powerful, yet power could not be experienced in an environment in which there was nothing but absolute power in equal measure.

Since God wished to Know Itself experientially as well as conceptually, God created a place in the Kingdom (or, if you will, in Ultimate Reality) where all that God Is could be experienced as well as known.

God did this by dividing Itself up into a million ka-jillion different parts, or Aspects of Itself, with each of the Parts created in different sizes and shapes, colors and textures, speeds and sounds, and levels of visibility and invisibility. Then any Part of The Whole (that is, any Individuated Aspect of Divinity) could look back on The Whole from which It emerged and say, “Oh, my God, how magnificent Thou art!” All it would take would be for that particular Aspect to have sufficient consciousness (self-awareness) to do so.

And so, after dividing Itself up into a million ka-jillion individual parts, God merely had to imbue some of those parts with sufficient consciousness to recognize (that is, re-cognize, or “know again”) Divinity when it was looking right at It. (Not all human beings have risen to that level of consciousness.) God put into place a system by which Individuations of Itself could rise to such a level, and that system was called evolution.

This is the System of the Soul.

A complete explanation of the System of the Soul, as well as a description of the Mechanics of the Mind, will be found in the book When Everything Changes, Change Everything.

We see, then, that the Realm of the Absolute (also known as the Realm of Spirituality) is where KNOWING everything takes place, and that the Realm of the Relative (also known as the Realm of the Physical) is where EXPERIENCING everything takes place. It might be said, then, that souls come to the earth in order to gain a world of experience.

This is where you are. This is where we all are, as I understand it. I could, as I have said, be wrong about all of this. Yet this understanding has served me wonderfully in helping me to negotiate my day-to-day encounters with life.

Editor’s Note: For the next several months this space will be used to explore — one-by-one — the messages, metaphysical principles, and spiritual meaning of the material found in the nearly 3,000 pages of the Conversations with God dialogues. This series ofobservations and interpretations is offered with my continuing disclaimer: I could be wrong about all of this.

CWG Explored/Installment #8: What is the Self?

In our last entry here I said that for me, “mastery” is defined as “the fullest expression of the fullness of my being.” That is, the total expression of the totality of my Self.

Yet in order for me to know and to recognize that I have had such an experience, I would have to know (and be able to explain to my Mind) what my “Self” is.

What is the Self that I am seeking to express in fullness? Let’s look at that now.

The thoughts that follow are not my own, but rather, the understandings that I was given in my Conversations with God. It is not necessary for anyone to believe that I have actually had conversations with God for us to discuss this.

While my own conversations with God made it clear to me that we are all having conversations with God all the time and simply calling them something else (we’re calling them moments of “inspiration.” Or “women’s intuition.” Or a “psyhic hit.” Or a “bright idea.” Or a “deep insight.” Or an “epiphany.” We call the results of such encounters “serendipity” or “coincidence” or “chance.”), we can deny them altogether and still look at some of the ideas in the CWG series of books. That’s what we’re doing here…so try not to get caught up in the question or the quarrel of whether I actually spoke with The Divine, and simply take a look at what I claim to have learned from my experience, whatever you think it was.

I understand myself to be an individuation of Divinity, an expression of God, a singularization of The Singularity. There is no separation between me and God, nor is there any difference, except as to proportion. Put simply, God and I are one.

This brings up an interesting question. Am I rightly accused of heresy? Are people who believe that they are divine nothing but raving lunatics? Are they, worse yet, apostates?

I wondered. So I did a little research. I wanted to find out what religious and spiritual sources had to say on the subject. Here’s some of what I found…

Isaiah 41:23—“Shew the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods: yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold together.”

Psalm 82:6—“I have said, ‘Gods ye are, And sons of the Most High—all of you’.”

John 10:34—“Jesus answered them, ‘Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods’?”

The Indian philosopher Adi Shankara (788 CE—820 CE), the one largely responsible for the initial expounding and consolidation of Advaita Vedanta, wrote in his famous work, Vivekachudamant: “Brahman is the only Truth, the spatio-temporal world is an illusion, and there is ultimately Brahman and individual self.”

Sri Swami Krishnananda Saraswati Maharaj (April 25, 1922—November 23, 2001), a contemporary Hindu saint: “God exists; there is only one God; the essence of man is God.”

According to Buddhism, there ultimately is no such thing as a “self” independent from the rest of the universe (the doctrine of anatta). Also, if I understand certain Buddhist schools of thought correctly, humans return to Earth in subsequent lifetimes in one of six forms, the last of which are called Devas…which is variously translated as Gods or Deities.

Meanwhile, the ancient Chinese discipline of Taoism speaks of embodiment and pragmatism, engaging practice to actualize the Natural Order within themselves. Taoists believe that man is a microcosm for the universe.

Hermeticism is a set of philosophical and religious beliefs or gnosis based primarily upon the Hellenistic Egyptian pseudepigraphical writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. Hermeticism teaches that there is a transcendent God, The All, or one “Cause,” of which we, and the entire universe, participate.

The concept was first laid out in the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus, in the famous words: “That which is Below corresponds to that which is Above, and that which is Above, corresponds to that which is Below, to accomplish the miracles of the One thing.”

And in Sufism, an esoteric form of Islam, the teaching “there is no God but God” was long ago changed to there is nothing but God. Which would make me…well…God.

So the idea that I am One with God is not new—and, of course, the CWG dialogue never said it was. But I wanted to check with other sources just to see if I was unknowingly “making stuff up.” It turns out that if I am, I’m in some pretty good company.

So for me, this answers one of what I have come to call the Four Fundamental Questions of Life: Who am I? Where am I? Why am I where I am? What do I intend to do about that?

I have observed that many people go through their entire lives and never ask themselves these questions. I did not intend to do that. For better or for worse, I did not intend to do that. So in our next installment here, I will share with you, from the For What It’s Worth Dept., my answer to the second question.