The Global Conversation

Author: Neale Donald Walsch

  • God will never forgive you for anything

    (Part 3 of a 5-part series)

    This is important. Please read…

    If you think that you are going to be forgiven by God for anything you may have done “wrong,” you are mistaken. Conversations with God tells us that God will never forgive you.

    Read that, never. As in, never ever. For anything.

    It won’t matter how much you beg, it won’t matter how much you plead, it won’t matter how many times you fall on your knees begging for mercy. God will never forgive you for anything, ever.

    If you are looking for forgiveness from God, you are looking in the wrong place.

    Now there is a very good reason that God will never forgive you. God has nothing to forgive you for. You have never done anything in the entirety of your life that could displease God. You have never done anything that could anger God. You have never done anything that could damage or hurt God.

    Do you believe in a Deity that would or could have any reason to be unhappy? Do you believe in a Deity that would or could have any reason to be angry? Do you truly imagine that the God of this Universe (which today’s science is now telling us is actually a universe of Universes…a Multiverse!) could actually be hurt or damaged in any way…much less by something that Little Old You have done?

    Well, no, you might say, God doesn’t “punish” human beings because they have offended Him. God sits in judgment and punishes human beings because Perfect Justice demands it.

    In some minds that makes sense, and helps people to reconcile a Totally Loving God with a Fearful Deity who would nevertheless condemn His children to eternal and unspeakable agony for their “offenses.” Yet Have you ever heard the phrase, “There ain’t no justice…”? Well, that’s how it is in Heaven. There’s just ain’t no justice. And the reason there is no “justice” is that the whole concept of Justice depends upon the existence of Right & Wrong. And there’s no such thing as Right and Wrong. That’s an abstraction, an hypothesis, constructed totally in the mind of Man. And it’s been twisted beyond recognition even in its imaginary form.

    The reason there is no “justice” in Heaven is that in Heaven, everything is Perfect. As well, everything is Perfect “on Earth, as it is in Heaven.” For Earth is part of Heaven…and we just don’t know it.

    You have never done anything that could cause God to punish you in the name of seeking “justice.” Do you seek “justice” in the case of an 18-month old baby who knocks over the 200-year-old vase that was the irreplaceable Family Heirloom? Do you punish her with everlasting separation from her Source of Life and Love?

    Do you imagine that human beings are much more than 18-month-old babies in the Life of the Cosmos, and in the Mind of God? Is it your thought that God sees us as fully conscious, totally aware, completely knowledgeable, unlimitedly wise beings who are absolutely responsible for their every thought, word, and action in a Reality about which they know and understand Everything?

    Do you conceive of human beings as being at the top of the Evolutionary Process that produces Sentient Beings in the Universe? Or is it possible that we have no idea what’s going on here, not the slightest conception of the Reality in which we find ourselves, and are just now truly birthing ourselves into the Cosmic Community of Sentient Beings?

    If the second were true, is it your thought that a righteous and virtuous God would punish us with Everlasting Damnation and Eternal Torment in the Fires of Hell for having made what even we would call a simple childhood mistake if we were witness to a toddler “misbehaving”?

    What kind of a “God” do you think we have, anyway…? Do you imagine that we truly are Children of a Lesser God?

    (Neale Donald Walsch is the publisher of The Global Conversation internet newspaper and the author of the Conversations with God series of books. His latest book, The Only Thing That Matters,  distributed by Hay House, is now available in print or audio form from Amazon.com by clicking here.)

     

  • GLOBAL NEWS MADE BY MAJOR
    REVOLUTIONARY DEVELOPMENT

    The High Court of Botswana has this Friday ruled, in a revolutionary decision, that women have the right to inherit property. The decision overturned an earlier verdict that had gone against three sisters who were living in their father’s home during the years between the father’s death and the time that the property was inherited by the sister’s nephew.

    The story is complicated, but deserves telling, because it marks another long overdue, major movement on this planet on behalf of female equality.

    It is difficult to believe that it has taken this long for something like this to happen. Yet is the clear that even now, in the second decade of the first quarter of the Twenty-first Century, there are cultures in place where human beings are still considered second-class citizens because they have a vagina and not a penis.

    What occurred Friday began in 2007, when the three sisters—all over the age of 65—sued their nephew for attempting to evict them from the home in which they had lived from the time of their father’s death.

    At that time, the house was willed to the father’s son, brother of the three sisters, who allowed the ladies to continue to live there. When the brother died, he could not will the home to his sisters, because the local laws did not allow females to inherit property. The brother’s will thus called for the home to be passed on to an older half-brother, who he knew would also allow the women to remain there.

    But when the half-brother died, leaving the home to his son—the sisters’ nephew—the younger man sought to evict the trio of aging ladies. In this case, instead of bowing to local custom, the ladies fought back, contesting the eviction in local court, claiming that they had paid for the home’s upkeep through the years they had lived there following their father’s death, and had also paid for an expansion project at the residence.

    The local court ruled against the women. In Botswana there is a dual legal system. There are civil courts run by the government, and so-called “customary courts,” functioning mostly in very rural outlying areas. Those courts have traditionally upheld the principle of “assumed male inheritance,” according to a story on this case authored on Wikipedia. That story can be found here.

    The women appealed the decision, but lost their appeal as well—also handled by a local court. Supported in their case by the Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC), the sisters took their case to the regular government civil courts, and it eventually reached Botswana’s High Court, the article written for Wikipedia said.

    “The sisters were opposed by Attorney General Athalis Molokomme. Representing the government of Botswana, Molokomme argued that though the inheritance law was discriminatory, the ‘public mood’ did not yet support its repeal,” the Wikipedia article went on.

    The judge in the case, Key Dingake, ruled for the High Court that the local customary laws prioritizing male inheritance were not in keeping with the promise of gender equality in the Constitution of Botswana, and awarded the home to the sisters, the article said.

    According to further reporting in the Wikipedia article, Dingake stated in his decision: “It seems to me that the time has now arisen for the justices of this court to assume the role of the judicial midwife and assist in the birth of a new world struggling to be born. Discrimination against gender has no place in our modern day society.”

    The nephew who lost the case is reported to have called it “a sad day,” stating that “people should learn to respect our culture.” The Wikipedia story said, “Regional human rights campaigners expressed hope that the case would not only be a landmark in Botswana, but also set a precedent for surrounding countries grappling with similar issues,” and the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa described the decision as “a huge boost to the struggle for gender equality,” while SALC’s deputy director said that the ruling “sends a very strong signal that women in Botswana cannot be discriminated against and that the days of women suffering from secondary status under the law in Botswana are drawing to an end.”

    Drawing to an end? That’s what the person said.

    All of which leads to the matter raised by the women’s nephew: Should people respect a culture’s values, no matter how patently unfair and discriminatory those values may be? And if the answer is no, on what basis can proposed laws permitting gay marriage be opposed in the United States?

    It seems to many people incomprehensible that in 2012 anybody at all on this earth could still be earnestly debating such issues. Yet the politically divisive and combative discussions go on. As an overall global culture, we just can’t seem to “get it.” So many members of the human race are still elementary in their understandings.

    What will it take for our species to “grow up?” To mature? To evolve to the point where, thousands of years after the birth of Christ, it still makes headline news when an entire culture is rattled to its bones by a simple decision to make it legal for a woman to inherit her father’s property?

    Or, for that matter, for a girl to receive an education—or to advocate for it without being shot in the head by males who would seek to preserve the backwards status quo, as was 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai in Pakistan the day before the court decision in Botswana.

    The Taliban publicly took “credit” for the shooting, announcing on Saturday that if the girl—whose “crime” was to write a blog calling for support of the right of girls to go to school—survives her wounds (she is in serious but stable condition in hospital), she would be attacked again, and this time, they would make sure that she was killed. And neither the government nor the people of Pakistan have sufficient will to stop the Taliban, and to say, “No more. Finally, at last, no more of this primitive, barbaric behavior masquerading as religious teachings and cultural ‘honor’.”

    When, oh human race, when will it be declared that enough is enough?

  • MUST YOU LOSE YOUR JOB
    IF OBAMA IS RE-ELECTED?

    Mr. David Siegel has made a billion dollars. You may remember him as the man who came to national attention this year when he announced he wanted to build the biggest house in America—a 90,000-square-foot home inspired by Versailles. Follow this link if you think I just made that up.

    Now he will be remembered also as the man who sought to persuade his employees to vote against Barack Obama by telling them that some of them would have to be let go if the President is re-elected and raises taxes on the super-rich, as Mr. Obama has said he wants to do to return the U.S. economy to a sound footing.

    Mr. Siegel is the founder/owner of a company that leases high-end time-share homes to persons looking to vacation in luxurious surroundings. His company, Westgate Resorts, is based on Florida and is one of the largest, if not the largest, firms of its kind in the world.

    A few days ago Mr. Siegel, who employs something like 7,000 people, sent a memo to those who work for them, saying that “If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, as our current President plans, I will have no choice but to reduce the size of this company. Rather than grow this company I will be forced to cut back.”

    Mr. Siegel presumably feels that an increase in the amount of taxes he pays will affect his overall wealth and his company’s health in such a way that he will have to fire people to maintain things at their present level.

    This is a fascinating point of view for a man who was worth, a few years ago, a billion dollars. Perhaps he might choose to not seek to complete the building of the Biggest House in America (did you follow the link and look at the picture of what he wants to create?) and take some of that money and make it available to his employees, so that he doesn’t have to fire them because he is paying more taxes.

    Mr. Siegel, in his memo, asked his employees how they would like it if they had to pay 50% of what they earned in taxes. Wouldn’t that be a disincentive? Wouldn’t that take the wind out of their sails, and the oomph out of their desire to work as hard as they are now?

    Well, it might if their annual income was $50,000 or $75,000 or $100,000. It might even if their income was $200,000. But would it if their annual income was 50 or 75 or 100 million? I mean, how much is enough? If you were earning $50,000,000 a year and you thought that using half of it to help those who are less fortunate, by funding through your taxes government programs designed for that purpose, was being asked of you, would you say, “No! I have to earn as much of that $50-million as I can! You don’t understand! I’ve got a 90,000-square foot house to finish building!”

    Indeed, the central question before humanity at this point in our history is: How much is enough? Before I start giving back…yes, even if I have to give back half…how much do I need to make just to keep for myself? Five Million? Ten? Fifty? A hundred million?

    Now you might argue, “But I shouldn’t have to give any of it back. It’s mine. I earned it, with the sweat of my own brow. And I did it all by myself. Nobody else helped me. None of my employees helped me.  None of my customers helped me. I got no help or incentives or tax write-offs in any form from my government. I did it all alone, all by myself. This country was built on freedom. I should not have to give half of it back to the government to help the Have-Not’s. They can go out and make their own hundred million, just like I did!”

    You might argue that. In fact, that is essentially what Mr. Siegel was arguing when he sent his memo to his employees a few days ago. In that memo, he gave a name to those who his tax dollars would be helping. He called them: “the unproductive.”  (Check the last paragraph of his memo.)

    Here is the full text of that memo, as posted at Gawker.com. Give it a read, then leave any comment you may have below.

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

    Subject: Message from David Siegel
    Date:Mon, 08 Oct 2012 13:58:05 -0400 (EDT)
    From: [David Siegel]
    To: [All employees]

    To All My Valued Employees,

    As most of you know our company, Westgate Resorts, has continued to succeed in spite of a very dismal economy. There is no question that the economy has changed for the worse and we have not seen any improvement over the past four years. In spite of all of the challenges we have faced, the good news is this: The economy doesn’t currently pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is another 4 years of the same Presidential administration. Of course, as your employer, I can’t tell you whom to vote for, and I certainly wouldn’t interfere with your right to vote for whomever you choose. In fact, I encourage you to vote for whomever you think will serve your interests the best.

    However, let me share a few facts that might help you decide what is in your best interest.The current administration and members of the press have perpetuated an environment that casts employers against employees. They want you to believe that we live in a class system where the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. They label us the “1%” and imply that we are somehow immune to the challenges that face our country. This could not be further from the truth. Sure, you may have heard about the big home that I’m building. I’m sure many people think that I live a privileged life. However, what you don’t see or hear is the true story behind any success that I have achieved.

    I started this company over 42 years ago. At that time, I lived in a very modest home. I converted my garage into an office so I could put forth 100% effort into building a company, which by the way, would eventually employ you. We didn’t eat in fancy restaurants or take expensive vacations because every dollar I made went back into this company. I drove an old used car, and often times, I stayed home on weekends, while my friends went out drinking and partying. In fact, I was married to my business — hard work, discipline, and sacrifice. Meanwhile, many of my friends got regular jobs. They worked 40 hours a week and made a nice income, and they spent every dime they earned. They drove flashy cars and lived in expensive homes and wore fancy designer clothes. My friends refinanced their mortgages and lived a life of luxury. I, however, did not. I put my time, my money, and my life into this business —-with a vision that eventually, some day, I too, will be able to afford to buy whatever I wanted. Even to this day, every dime I earn goes back into this company. Over the past four years I have had to stop building my dream house, cut back on all of my expenses, and take my kids out of private schools simply to keep this company strong and to keep you employed.

    Just think about this – most of you arrive at work in the morning and leave that afternoon and the rest of your time is yours to do as you please. But not me- there is no “off” button for me. When you leave the office, you are done and you have a weekend all to yourself. I unfortunately do not have that freedom. I eat, live, and breathe this company every minute of the day, every day of the week. There is no rest. There is no weekend. There is no happy hour. I know many of you work hard and do a great job, but I’m the one who has to sign every check, pay every expense, and make sure that this company continues to succeed. Unfortunately, what most people see is the nice house and the lavish lifestyle. What the press certainly does not want you to see, is the true story of the hard work and sacrifices I’ve made.

    Now, the economy is falling apart and people like me who made all the right decisions and invested in themselves are being forced to bail out all the people who didn’t. The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed 42 years of my life for. Yes, business ownership has its benefits, but the price I’ve paid is steep and not without wounds. Unfortunately, the costs of running a business have gotten out of control, and let me tell you why: We are being taxed to death and the government thinks we don’t pay enough. We pay state taxes, federal taxes, property taxes, sales and use taxes, payroll taxes, workers compensation taxes and unemployment taxes. I even have to hire an entire department to manage all these taxes. The question I have is this: Who is really stimulating the economy? Is it the Government that wants to take money from those who have earned it and give it to those who have not, or is it people like me who built a company out of his garage and directly employs over 7000 people and hosts over 3 million people per year with a great vacation?

    Obviously, our present government believes that taking my money is the right economic stimulus for this country. The fact is, if I deducted 50% of your paycheck you’d quit and you wouldn’t work here. I mean, why should you? Who wants to get rewarded only 50% of their hard work? Well, that’s what happens to me.

    Here is what most people don’t understand and the press and our Government has chosen to ignore – to stimulate the economy you need to stimulate what runs the economy. Instead of raising my taxes and depositing that money into the Washington black-hole, let me spend it on growing the company, hire more employees, and generate substantial economic growth. My employees will enjoy the wealth of that tax cut in the form of promotions and better salaries. But that is not what our current Government wants you to believe. They want you to believe that it somehow makes sense to take more from those who create wealth and give it to those who do not, and somehow our economy will improve. They don’t want you to know that the “1%”, as they like to label us, pay more than 31% of all the taxes in this country. Thomas Jefferson, the author of our great Constitution, once said, “democracy” will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”

    Business is at the heart of America and always has been. To restart it, you must stimulate business, not kill it. However, the power brokers in Washington believe redistributing wealth is the essential driver of the American economic engine. Nothing could be further from the truth and this is the type of change they want.

    So where am I going with all this? It’s quite simple. If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, as our current President plans, I will have no choice but to reduce the size of this company. Rather than grow this company I will be forced to cut back. This means fewer jobs, less benefits and certainly less opportunity for everyone.

    So, when you make your decision to vote, ask yourself, which candidate understands the economics of business ownership and who doesn’t? Whose policies will endanger your job? Answer those questions and you should know who might be the one capable of protecting and saving your job. While the media wants to tell you to believe the “1 percenters” are bad, I’m telling you they are not. They create most of the jobs. If you lose your job, it won’t be at the hands of the “1%”; it will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this country.

    You see, I can no longer support a system that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, so will your opportunities. If that happens, you can find me in the Caribbean sitting on the beach, under a palm tree, retired, and with no employees to worry about.

    Signed, your boss,

    David Siegel

    ===========================================
    I can totally understand how Mr. Siegel’s “motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed” if his only motivation has to do with his income. But what if his motivation has to do with making the lives of others better? What if that was, in fact, his prime motivation…not merely a secondary outcome? And that, my dears, is the difference between a person who is motivated by humanity’s Old Cultural Story and a person who is motivated by our New Cultural Story.

    A person whose prime motivation is generated by The New Spirituality could probably find a way to keep his plant or his office open, and everyone there fully employed, and somehow get by on half of his multi-million-dollar-a-year income.

    You think?

  • Hey, wait a minute! No place called Hell??

    (Part 2 of a 5-part series)

    Conversations with God famously said that there is no such place as Hell. Could such a thing be true? According to the late Pope John Paul II, it is. His Holiness John Paul II told a papal audience on July 28, 1999 that there is no such place as Hell.

    The pope said people must be very careful in interpreting the biblical descriptions of hell, which he said are symbolic and metaphorical. The “inextinguishable fire” and “the burning oven” which the Bible speaks of “indicate the complete frustration and vacuity of a life without God,” he said. In other words, Hell is a state of mind, or a state of being, not a physical or even metaphysical “place” to which people who are “bad” are sent by God.

    And when this state of being is not something to which God sends souls, the Pope declared. Such a state is “self imposed,” the pontiff said. Surprising a worldwide audience, he announced that “Damnation cannot be attributed to an initiative of God, because in his merciful love he cannot want anything but the salvation of the beings he created.”

    Eternal damnation “is not a punishment inflicted by God from outside,” the pope went on. “But man, called to respond freely to God, unfortunately can choose to refuse his love and pardon definitively, removing himself forever from joyful communion with God,” the pope said.

    Then what is this doctrine of Hell, or Hades, or Damnation that so many religions on earth speak of? Is it real?  To what does it refer? For it is not only Roman Catholics who speak of eternal damnation. This teaching, I want to repeat, is meant to “indicate the complete frustration and vacuity of a life without God,”John Paul declared. I agree with the holy man’s assessment that a life without God can sure seem like hell.

    “More than a place, hell is the situation in which one finds himself after freely and definitively withdrawing from God, the source of life and joy,” the pope said.

    Interestingly, in none of his remarks did this pontiff assert that any person who did not accept Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior would be seen by our Deity as “freely and definitively withdrawing from God.” This seemed to leave open the question of whether Muslims or Jews or Buddhists or members of any other religion or belief system can “get into Heaven.” The Pope also said nothing about a person’s behavior while on earth as prohibiting that person from not refusing God’s “love and pardon definitively,” and therefore not “removing himself forever from joyful communion with God.”

    In other words, presumably a person could be “bad” while here on Earth and still “get into Heaven” by simply accepting “God’s love and pardon.”

    The Pope also strayed from standard Christian theology (and several other major theologies as well) in another shocking way. If you ask any minister, any ulama, any priest whether there is any question that horribly bad people who are not contrite, never ask forgiveness, and remain ugly and cruel to the end, go to hell, they would say, “Well, of course they do! What do you think we’ve been trying to tell you???” But the Pope had a remarkably different response. Said he: Whether or not any human beings are in hell “remains a real possibility, but is not something we can know.”

    Not something we can know??? Wow, what a major concession from the spiritual leader of a worldwide church with billions of members that has been teaching just the opposite–that we can be sure of this–for centuries.

    In sharing his thoughts about all this in July, 1999, Pope John Paul II—then in failing health—seemed to be having final reflections on the matter of hell and damnation in the final months before his death. In those remarks to a weekly papal audience, his comments came remarkably close to mirroring some of the messages in Conversations with God, which also teaches that there is no such place as hell…and that deep unhappiness can result from a life (on Earth or in the hereafter) without God, but that a life lived within the embrace of God and inside the acceptance of God as a real and authentic Presence in the Universe and in one’s own experience can never produce unhappiness—no matter what such a life holds.

    Yet there is one message from Conversations with God that the Pope did not mirror. The Pope did not say what CWG says unequivocally: God will never forgive anyone for anything.

    And we will discuss that teaching in our next entry here.

    (Neale Donald Walsch is the publisher of The Global Conversation internet newspaper and the author of the Conversations with God series of books. His latest book, The Only Thing That Matters, releases this week from Hay House and is now available in print or audio form from Amazon.com at this link:

    http://astore.amazon.com/wwwnealedonal-20)

     

  • WHY BOTHER WITH THE DEBATES?

    U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and GOP Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan meet this Thursday at 9 pm Eastern/6 pm Pacific time for a 90-minute debate. Should anyone bother watching? If so, why?

    Many people within the so-called New Thought Community appear to be scoffing at politics this election year in the United States, expressing little or no interest in hearing what the candidates for the highest offices in their country have to say about the issues of the day.

    “They’re all just lying anyway,” one such observer was recently heard to say. “Nobody can actually tell the truth, and the whole game is rigged, so what’s the point of giving it any energy?” Of course, if you think that life is rigged against you, it is. And if you think that life is rigged in your favor, your experience will reflect that.

    This is because like is rigged. It will show up for you pretty much as you expect it to. And when those expectations are held by, and spread across, an entire group, they have even more power in the lives of humans. As someone once said, “Wherever two or more are gathered…”

    I do not hold the thought that everything that is happening in life on earth is the working of some system or cartel that is plotting against us. Do I think that too many vested interests control too much of the political and economic power on our planet? Yes. Do I think that there is nothing—absolutely nothing—that anyone can do about it? No.

    The people of Egypt have proven that. The people of Libya have proven that. In 1776 the people of the United States proved that. Can they prove that again? This remains to be seen. But part of the process is to take part in the process—however imperfect it may be.

    Vernon Howard, the American spiritual teacher, author, and philosopher whose work created the New Life Foundation and who celebrated his Continuation Day 20 years ago, said, “You are slaves to whatever you don’t understand.” There is no question about the truth of that. And that is the best reason to have an interest in the debate between Paul Ryan and Joe Biden if you are a citizen of the United States.

    Even if both men wind up skirting the truth, the Fact Checkers who have proliferated in abundance since the advent of the Internet will let us know this very quickly, and that alone will tell us something about them, about their positions—and about ours.

    We can’t understand that to which we pay no attention at all, deciding in advance that we already know all there is to know. And we cannot change what we refuse to take part in.

    Yes? Make sense?

  • Is life truly ‘perfect’?

    Is everything truly perfect? Can we trust life to puts us under oportunities that we desire when we dont trust ourselves? For example my dream is to become a spiritual teacher just like you, and with it a doctorate in psychology. Yet, Im not a High school graduate im strugling to get my GED im 23. And ive been procrastinating a whole lot. I feel tied up. Can I or should I trust life to give me the way? Joy Truth and Love to you. Thank you…Ovi

    Dear Ovi…Life will “give you the way” if you will TAKE the way. Life can’t give you what you will not take. If you are procrastinating (thank you, by the way, for telling the truth about that; that was very honest of you), then you are not taking what Life is giving you. Study for your GED, take the test, and pass it. In fact, decide you are going to pass it with flying colors; with the highest grade!

    Then, go on to become in life what you wish to become. You do not have to hold a doctorate in psychology to become a “spiritual teacher.” I do not have such a degree. In fact, I have no college degree at all. I graduated from High School, and that was as far as I got. I did not have the personal discipline or the patience to finish college. I wanted to get on with my life.

    I am not saying that you should not seek a degree in psychology, if that is what you want. I am simply saying, it is not required for you to become a spiritual teacher. In fact, you can become a spiritual teacher right now. In fact, you already ARE one. All people are. Every person is teaching every other person who meets them and encounters them. We are all teaching each other! And the most effective “teachers” among us are the ones who live what we choose to teach.

    What are the spiritual “lessons” that you wish to teach, Ovi? Decide that, then look to your daily life to see if, and how, you are a living, breathing example of those lessons. Make every day a teaching for others. Show others what you want them to learn, by showing them what you have learned…about God, about Life, and about your Self.

    Begin your ministry of teaching right now, Ovi. That is my invitation to you!

    (Neale Donald Walsch is the publisher of The Global Conversation internet newspaper and the author of the Conversations with God series of books. Questions in the ADVICE column are answered by a team of life coaches who write for this online publication. Address questions to: Advice@TheGlobalConversation.com)

  • Are you ready to join God in speaking with One Voice?

    God has spoken to you many times in many ways over many years, but seldom as directly as this.

    This time I speak to you as You, and that has occurred on only a handful of occasions in the whole of your history.

    Few humans have had the courage to hear Me in this way—as themselves—and fewer, still, have shared with others what they have heard. Those few who have listened, and shared, have changed the world.

    Aesop, Confucius, Lao-tzu, Buddha, Mohammed, Moses, and Jesus were among them.

    So, too, Chuang Tzu, Aristotle, Huang-po, Sahara, Mahavira, Krishnamurti…

    Also, Paramahansa Yogananda, Ramana Maharshi, Kabir, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thich Nhat Hanh, the Dali Lama, Elizabeth Clinton.

    As well, Sri Aurobindo, Mother Teresa, Meher Baba, Mahatma Gandhi, Kahlil Gibran, Bahá’u’lláh, Ernest Holmes, Sai Baba.

    Including Joan of Arc, Francis of Assisi, Joseph Smith…and more. Others, not mentioned here. For this list could go on. Yet, relative to the total number of humans who have inhabited your planet, the number has been minuscule.

    These few have been My messengers—for all have brought forward the truth within their heart, as best as they have understood it, as purely as they knew how. And while they have each done so through imperfect filters, they have nonetheless placed into your awareness extraordinary wisdom, from which the whole human race has benefited.

    What is amazing is how similar their insights have been. Offered at vastly different times and places, separated by legions and centuries, they might just as well have been speaking all at the same time, so tiny have been the variances between them, and so huge the commonalities.

    Now it is time to expand this list to include others, living today, as My latest Messengers.

    We will speak with One Voice.

    Unless we do not.

    You will make that choice, even as you have always done. For in each Moment of Now have you made your decision, and announced it in Action.

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

    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: Tomorrow’s 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 NEALE    …

    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 CWG4Kids program to bring parents the tools to share new spirituality principles of a loving, non-condemning God with their children, and Humanity’s Team, with branches in over 30 countries, promoting the concept of the Oneness of all people and of all of life.

    What Neale calls his “final creation” is The Global Conversation, put in place as a means of generating a worldwide conversation about the old cultural beliefs of humanity that have resulted in many of the most desperate problems faced by our species today.

    Termed “The Conversation of the Century,” the conversation’s focus is a person-by-person discussion to introduce the possibility that if we co-author a New Cultural Story on our planet, we could easily produce paradise on earth.

    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).

  • ARE WE DISCOVERING GOD?

    Some people around the world have had their fears raised even further Monday with the announcement in Stockholm of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
    The prize has been awarded to John B. Gurdon of the University of Cambridge in England and Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University in Japan for their years of work and ultimate discoveries leading to advances in cloning and stem cell manipulation.

    In a news report of the story for the New York Times, Nicholas Wade, the paper’s science writer and editor, wrote that the techniques of both researchers “reach to the beginnings of life, and have generated objections from people who fear, on ethical or religious grounds, that scientists are pressing too far into nature’s mysteries and the ability to create life artificially”

    This raises the question: Is there such a thing as “artificial life”? Because we simply define “artificial life” as Life which is created in a way that does not involve intercourse, does that make it really “artificial?” Or are we actually, as a species, finally learning about the true nature of Life, and is it our definitions, our beliefs, and our religions that are creating “understandings of life” that are artificial?

    Dr. Gurdon, who is 79, and Dr. Yamanaka, who is 50, share the Nobel Prize in their field this year for pioneering work that they conducted 40 years apart. Their separate research led to “the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent,” according to the Nobel committee.

    The term “pluripotent” refers to the ability of a living human body cell to differentiate into another type of living body cell. The work of the two researchers has shown that completely mature cells can be induced to turn back the clock of their own maturation process, returning to their original state as immature cells—meaning that they become cells that are once again undifferentiated, and can differentiate in any way. The discovery that living cells of the human organism are both reversible and reprogrammable is monumental.

    The ability to reverse and reprogram cells in a laboratory suggests that cells of any human being can be extracted from the body, induced to reverse their life cycle, turned back into undifferentiated cells, then reprogrammed to differentiate, or form themselves, into healthy cells that could replace injured, diseased or dying cells in that person’s body.

    In other words, illness—and even deathly illness—might well be able to be reversed, by using the body’s own cells, simply regenerated.

    This implies that ultimately—when continuing research moves to the next step forward—a person could live forever, simply by replacing degenerating body cells with regenerated ones. This approach, already being seriously explored as a means of abating disease, is called Regenerative Medicine.

    Now might be a good time to point out that Conversations with God made it clear, in a statement that drew scoffs and skepticism years ago, that life in the physical was meant to be eternal, lasting as long as any individual wished to inhabit a particular body, and that it has been the Free Will decisions and choices made by our species that has created behavioral (smoking, no exercise, etc.) and environmental (pollution, global warming, etc.) factors leading to our own short live spans.

    In other words, says the New Spirituality, it doesn’t have to be this way. And now Science is proving it—and giving us the means to actually reverse our own previous bad decisions. Could it be that there is no such thing as “artificial” life, and that there is only Life? Could it be that how it forms itself out of Itself is the mystery that creates Eternal Life? Could it be that this mystery is now being solved? And should humanity fear this knowledge, or celebrate it?

    When we know more and more about How God Works, is this a cause for sadness?

  • God and ‘Justice’ and ‘Pay Back’ time

    (Part 1 of a 5-part series)

    Because Conversations with God says that “there’s no such thing as Right and Wrong,” people often ask me: “Is there no ‘justice’ in God’s Kingdom?” As I have understood the messages of CWG, the answer is “no.” Not the way we understand it.

    Yet to fully answer this question we have to, first of all, define what we mean by “God’s Kingdom.” In the truest sense (which is the only sense in which I prefer to speak), everything in existence is God’s Kingdom—and that includes, of course, life on Earth. Which would mean that there is “no justice” on Earth.

    There are many people who would agree with that. They would say that the “justice” we see meted out on Earth is all too often not real “justice” at all, but the result of a process that can be influenced (if not manipulated) by The System. No one would seriously argue, for instance, that on this planet the fabulously wealthy experience, on balance, a difference kind of justice than the terribly poor—to offer but one obvious example. And there are more.

    Yet it is precisely those who yearn for justice on Earth, and cannot find it, who experience at least some small solace through knowing or thinking that there will be Justice in Heaven. It is very difficult to me to explain to them that there will be none. Not in the way that “justice” is understood on Earth. Not in any way, actually.

    For “justice” to be part of the “system” of things in Heaven there would have to be some “laws” to be broken—and someone to be injured by the breaking of them. Neither exists in Paradise. Now there are those who say, “Yes, but both exist on Earth! The System of Justice in Heaven relates to the system of life on Earth, not life in Heaven. Life is Heaven is the reward for living righteously on Earth. And life in Hell is the punishment for not doing so. It’s the ‘payback’ for those who have caused others pain and suffering.”

    But what, I would ask, of the person who has caused pain and suffering to no one at all? Will the person who was kind, caring, compassionate, understanding, generous, forgiving, and loving unfailingly with everyone automatically receive the reward of Heaven?

    Not necessarily, some would say. Not unless that person believed in God in the “right” way. If he or she did not, then no amount of kindness or goodness, compassion or love that they displayed while here on Earth will matter one way or the other. They are still going to Hell, because they have offended God.

    And so, some say, there is a System of Justice in Heaven that has nothing to do with whether one hurts or injures another on Earth. It has to do with whether one hurts or injures God, who lives in Heaven, but keeps tabs on what is happening on Earth and makes sure that “justice is served” one way or the other, now or after death.

    Some say the amount of “punishment” that is meted out by God in Heaven depends on the severity of the “sins” one has committed on Earth. Small sins—something like spiritual misdemeanors—are punishable by a limited amount of suffering imposed by God, in a place that some call Purgatory. But Really Big Sins are punishable by everlasting damnation in Hell.

    And some say that not believing in God in the Right Way is one of the Really Big Sins. In fact, some say, it is the Biggest.

    One can commit no greater offense against God. Even a repentant murderer can get into heaven, clerics routinely tell prisoners on Death Row. But a repentant murderer who does not believe in God in the Right Way has no chance whatsoever. So this is the biggest offense.

    This is how some religions have it structured; this is the doctrine some have taught. And we will talk more about all of this in Part 2 of this series, in the next entry here.

  • PARENTS ASK COURT TO NOT ALLOW
    DAUGHTER TO CHOOSE DEATH

    Of course, her name would be “Grace.”

    She has had the grace to place before the human race, once again, the question of What God Wants.

    SungEun Grace Lee, who is known by everyone as Grace, is 28 years old. She cannot move from the neck down, the result of an incurable tumor in her brain stem. She cannot even breathe on her own, and is hooked up to a machine to receive oxygen. She cannot eat on her own and is on a feeding tube.

    In other words, Grace Lee, 28, is lying in a bed at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y., fully conscious and completely alert, with all of her cognitive skills, but with none of her bodily functions under her control. She is not even able to speak clearly. This, for a person who was a financial manager for Bank of America, and was in training for the New York City Marathon last year.

    Grace Lee does not choose to live this way. And she knows, she has been told, that the tumor destroying her brain is going to kill her. There’s nothing anyone can do to stop it.

    Should Grace be able to ask that all life support systems be turned off, so that she might end, if and when she wishes to, what she feels is a living hell?

    Her parents feel that the answer should be no.

    Grace asked the doctors at the hospital to turn off her life support. After determining that the woman was completely mentally competent, the medical staff prepared to do so.

    They were stopped last week.

    Her father, whose name is Man Ho Lee, is pastor of Antioch Missionary Church in Flushing, N.Y.  He and his wife, Jin Ah Lee, are devastated by Grace’s decision. And not just on a personal level, which would be understandable enough, but on a spiritual level as well—which to them may be equally, if not more, important.

    The Lee’s believe that if their daughter ends her own life at will, she will be condemned by God to everlasting torture in hell.

    They raced to court to halt the doctors at the hospital from removing Grace from life support. They begged the court to declare Grace incompetent and to appoint Rev. Lee as her guardian—with the authority to make all medical decisions for her. The court declined to do so. The Lee’s then rushed to an appeals court to ask for a reversal.

    The story about all of this, first reported this week in the New York Daily News, then repeated on Internet blogs around the world, has captured the attention of thousands, many of whom grapple with the question: What does God want in cases such as this?

    As a legal matter, the case has now been closed. The Daily News reported that a state appeals court ruled on Friday, Oct 6 that Grace’s parents cannot stop her from making her own decision about her life and death.

    (To read more of the news report, click on these words: New York Daily News.)

    The key theological point in this situation was clearly laid out in the court documents filed by Grace’s parents. “The removal of the respirator and/or the feeding tube is considered suicide,” the New York Daily News reported that their motion said. “A person who commits suicide is condemned in the next life to burn in Hell forever. Obviously, this could not be (Lee’s) intention.”

    Yet while the legal matter has now apparently been settled, the theological question remains in the minds and hearts of many. The Lees are not the only ones who feel that suicide is against the will of God, punishable by unmitigated torment, agony, and suffering inflicted by Divine Mandate and administered in hell by Satan. But is this true?

    Conversations with God says no. Its message is, in fact, just the opposite. It says that nothing could be further from the truth. God is, CWG says, the ultimate in Understanding, Compassion, and Love, and would never condemn or punish anyone—for anything.

    First, God has no need to, because God cannot be hurt or damaged, angered or injured, in any way. Second, there is no such place as hell, so there is no “location” in the Afterlife where endless sadistic persecution and torture takes place. Third, God’s understanding of how and why a person would chose to terminate their own life is far too vast, too comprehensive, too completely “aware,” to allow God to determine that somehow a soul deserves an eternity of suffering in response to its simple wish to have interminable suffering end.

    God has given every sentient being in the Multiverse (science is now telling us that there is more than one universe) the gift of Free Will. This is not the freedom to do what God says “or else” (which would, obviously, not be Free Will at all)—but is, in fact, a true Free Will…to do whatever one chooses—for whatever reasons one uses to justify one’s choice.

    CWG offers the observation that “nobody does anything inappropriate, given their model of the world.” Even those people who have been judged to be mentally unstable (perhaps especially those human beings) fall within this parameter.

    It is completely and compassionately understandable that Mr. and Mrs. Lee would or could feel their own fear that God will punish Grace mercilessly, ruthlessly, pitilessly, heartlessly, brutally, and unendingly if she tells her doctors to turn off life support and allow her to die naturally, the result of her own physical illness. This is, after all, what they have been taught. It is what they believe deep within their hearts. But God will not do this.

    I would give anything to help Mr. and Mrs. Lee know that God will not do this.

    When I appeared on The Today Show a number of years ago, Matt Lauer asked me, if I truly feel that I’ve talked to God, what God’s Message to the World is. He asked me if I could put it in one paragraph. “We’ve got just 30 seconds left” in the interview, he explained.

    I told him that I didn’t need even one paragraph, that I could put it in five words. He blinked and said, “Okay, ladies and gentlemen, from Neale Donald Walsch…God’s message to the world in five words.” The red light on the camera trained on me lit. And I delivered that message…

    You’ve got me all wrong.