I was talking with a dear friend the other day and the subject of life’s travails came up. “I understand all about how God uses life to experience Itself,” she said, “but why does it have to be so hard on us?”

We talked then about the many things that people on Earth are going through — from, in recent days, the Boston bombing to the Cleveland kidnapping to the carnage in Syria, to say nothing about the individual trials and tribulations to which we are all subject in our daily lives.

“Is God just playing with us?” my friend wanted to know. She then said she knew better, but was still at loose ends trying to explain to herself why it was necessary for truly horrible things to occur in peoples’ lives.

This one is difficult to explain. I have asked myself this same question many times. From the Conversations with God dialogue we come to know that it is not “necessary” for such things to occur. Communion with God tells us about The Ten Illusions of Humans, of which #5 is: Requirement Exists. Nothing is required of God, ever. Who would do the requiring? And since God and we are One, nothing is ever required of us, either. Who would do the requiring?

Everything we do, we do out of choice. In our physical life this is true, and it is true in our metaphysical, or spiritual, life as well. We may think that we are “forced” to do certain things in our physical life, but upon closer examination we realize that every choice or decision we’ve ever made has been the result of an examination of our options and of a cost/benefit analysis that we have rapidly performed.

This does not mean that nothing can ever happen to us in our physical life that we have not consciously chosen (the proverbial piano falling from the apartment building). Plenty of things happen to us that we did not consciously choose. But it does mean that every act of Will on our part derives from our singular choice or decision about it.

Speaking metaphysically, the same thing is true. The Whole of Us (that is, the Totality of All Souls) works in a collaborative way to create the right and perfect circumstance in every moment of Now, allowing every Soul involved to announce and declare, create and become, fulfill and experience the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever we held about Who We Are.

We are doing this right now, collectively, on the Earth as a species of sentient beings.

CWG tells us that, both collectively and individually, every act is an act of Self-Definition. Example: on the day that I wrote this, the House in Minnesota voted to legalize gay marriage. The State Senate was expected to follow suit, making it the 17^th state in the U.S. to legalize gay marriage. This is one example of human beings collectively self-defining.  Another example in the U.S. might be the failure of its Congress in Washington to approve any kind — even the most limited kind — of gun control, such as background checks on gun buyers.

All over the world humanity observes itself defining itself. We are doing so in Syria, we are doing so in North Korea, we are doing so in Israel, we are doing so in the United States and in every nation on earth. We are also collectively creating the conditions in which individuals define themselves through their separate choices and decisions.

All of this is what I said to my friend in our discussion. Life on earth does not have to be so hard, I said, and it would not be nearly as challenging for nearly as many people if our species collectively began making other kinds of decisions.

Today even a casual observer can see that not one of the systems, institutions and devices that our species has put into place to create a better life for all is functioning in a way that generates this outcome.

Our political systems clearly are not working. Our economic systems clearly are not working.  Our ecological systems clearly are not working. Our health care systems clearly are not working. Our educational systems clearly are not working. Our social systems clearly are not working. Our spiritual systems clearly are not working.

Nothing that we have created is producing the outcomes that were intended.

It is worse than that. They are producing exactly the opposite.

Our political systems are producing too much disarray. Our economic systems are producing too much poverty. Our ecological systems are producing too much environmental degradation. Our health care systems are producing too much inequality of access to modern medicines and health care services. Our educational systems are producing too much incomprehension. Our social systems are producing too much disparity and injustice. And, perhaps saddest of all, our spiritual systems are producing far, far too much intolerance, anger, hatred, and violence.

And this article has only just begun to lay out the case. I will tell you this: We would eliminate 95% of the human-made problems facing people every day if the human race simply adopted and embraced the 15-word New Gospel offered to us in Friendship with God:

We are all one.
Ours is not a better way,
ours is merely another way.

Would that have stopped, specifically, the Boston bombing, the Cleveland kidnapping, or the carnage in Syria? Perhaps not. But would it make incidents such as these far, far less prevalent in the human experience? Absolutely. I am convinced it would, absolutely. Because a global mindset that embraced the truth and the concept of our Oneness with everyone else and with all of life could not result in anything but a reduction in the kinds of mental aberrations that produce such events. And the idea that our way is no better than any other way would virtually eliminate all the justification behind our wars and our terrorist bombings and many of the rest of the negative ways that human beings behave with each other.

I don’t know, maybe I’m just a dreamer. But I’m not the only one…

This is the second in a series of entries from a chapter that I was invited to contribute to the 2013 book titled The Light, compiled by Keidi Keating. The book seeks to empower readers to reawaken their Inner Light via a series of universal truths. Others contributed chapters as well, including Don Miguel Ruiz, Marci Shimoff, Barbara Marx Hubbard, John-Rogers, Terry Tillman, and John Perkins. All net profits from the book go to charity. My chapter in this book follows in the posts here.

PART TWO…
The sages and mystics have said they want to see the world full of saints. They want us all to shine. How can we help the world to shine and not hide our own Light?

By seeing the Light in others, even when they do not see it in themselves, by judging not and condemning not.

Judge not and neither condemn, but be a Light unto the darkness, so that everyone might know who they really are and that you might know who you really are as well.

The answer is to remove negative judgment from our experiences in all things and at all times. Simply see the perfection.

When we see the perfection in all things we immediately step outside of negative judgment. And when we step outside of negative judgment we bring ourselves the experience of the Divine. It is difficult for most human beings to see the world without judgment if they do not understand the true nature of unconditional love.
There is no action, activity, choice or decision made by anybody on the planet that does not spring from love. All actions are acts of love. When I make that statement the question I am immediately asked is: “Well, what about if somebody kills, robs or rapes someone? How can that be an act of love?” They do not understand that all acts spring from deep love.

A person who acts violently acts that way because they lack something they would love to have, or because something they love has been taken from them, or because something they love and wish they had is not available to them. And so they reach out in violence in order to obtain the things they wish they had.

All acts of violence are wailings of love.

All of the great masters have made this clear to us. There is no spiritual master, therefore, who judges anyone, not even the so-called worst among us, which is why Conversations with God made the statement that “Hitler went to heaven.” When you understand that, you grasp at the edges of Divinity.

(More information on the book titled The Light may be found by clicking this link.  The book may purchased here:)

This is the first in a series of entries from a chapter that I was invited to contribute to the 2013 book titled The Light, compiled by Keidi Keating. The book seeks to empower readers to reawaken their Inner Light via a series of universal truths. Others contributed chapters as well, including Don Miguel Ruiz, Marci Shimoff, Barbara Marx Hubbard, John-Rogers, Terry Tillman, and John Perkins. All net profits from the book go to charity. My chapter in this book follows in the posts here.

PART ONE…

You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men.
~ Matthew 5:14-16

People ask all the time, “Am I really the Light?” There is nothing in the universe that is not Divine. Everyone and everything is the Light. Divinity is expressed through life itself at every level and in every way.

The Light shines with increasing brightness from beings who have expanded their level of consciousness. People who know themselves as the Light will experience themselves as that, and others will experience them as that as well.

When I asked God what it would take for me to get to the place for which I so deeply yearned, He chuckled and said, “Neale, I get that you still think your life is about you, but your life has nothing to do with you. It doesn’t now, it never did and it never will.

“On the other hand, if you are clear that I sent you here in a state of utter perfection and it is only you who have imagined yourself not to be in that state, then you will move through the world no longer concerned about yourself at any level. In fact, your only concern will be for all those whose lives you touch. You will, therefore, give to another what you have sought to obtain for yourself.”

The fastest way to experience yourself as the Light is to cause another to experience themself as the Light, for what you give to another you give to yourself, and that will become eternally true in your experience.

Don’t  go  around  asking:  what  are  we  to  eat, what are we to drink, wherewithal  will we clothe ourselves?   Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  heaven and  all  these  things  will  be  added  unto  you.
~The Gospel According to Matthew Chapters 31-33

So yes, you are the Light, but the fastest way for you to experience that is to make sure that everyone whose life you touch sees themselves, knows themselves, and experiences themselves as the Light, And they will know themselves as that depending upon how you interact with them and how you see them.

As you give them their own sense of being the Light, so too will you grant that same sense to yourself. The masters have put this in one sentence: “Do unto others as you would have it done unto you.”

When people ask me, “Am I the Light?” I ask them, “Am I? How do you see me?” If they see me as the Light then I say, “Good, now see the next one hundred people you meet as the Light and you will begin seeing yourself as that. But so long as you have judgment about another and see them as less than the Light, you can never experience yourself as the Light. You will experience yourself as you experience the world around you, and it can be no other way.”

(More information on the book titled The Light may be found by clicking this link.  The book may purchased here:)

The is the sixth and final part of an extended series of explorations on “enlightenment” as a human experience. The first, second, third, fourth, and fifth entries in this series may be found in the archives or accessed by clicking on the corresponding links in this column.

At the conclusion of Part One I said that the danger of this business of enlightenment is two-fold.  The first danger is thinking that there is something specific that you have to do in order go get there.  And that if you don’t do that, you can’t get there.  The second danger is thinking that your way to get there is the fastest, the best way to do it.

In Part Two I wrote of the time when Paramahansa Yogananda, or “Master” as he was called, came to America bringing a technique for “self-realization” — which was his phrase meaning “enlightenment.”  Self-realization declares that when you realize who the Self is, you become enlightened. And Master described himself as having been enlightened.  And, by the way, he was enlightened. He was enlightened because he said that he was and, I hate to break the spell that someone may be under, but to be enlightened is to say that you are.  It is quite as simple as that.

In Part Three we looked at other “Masters” and other programs leading to “awakening” or “enlightenment,” not only Paramahansa Yogananda and the Self-Realization Fellowship, but also Maharishi and Transcendental Meditation,  and, more contemporarily, Werner Erhard and the est program.  There are many programs, many approaches, many paths developed by many masters. There is a book written called Many Lives, Many Masters written by my friend Brian Weiss, and he talks about the fact that there are many ways to reach the mountaintop. Which way, then, should we recommend?  Which way, then, should we encourage others to take? And the end of Part Three I indicated that we would look next at the path that the Buddha took.

In Part Four we did just that, and then we ended with a brief look at an out-of-body experience that I had many years ago. I emerged from that experience with a two-word message: “Nothing matters.” I said to myself, “Nothing matters?? How can that be?”

In Part Five we explored the “message behind the message, which is that if nothing matters intrinsically, then I am free to declare what I choose to have matter to me.  “So,” I said in Part 5, “this is the time of your liberation. And we’ll speak more about what that looks like in our next entry here.” Here, now, is that follow-up entry…

PART SIX
You can be liberated from your life long search for enlightenment.  You can be released from any thought that you may hold that, “No, no, it has to look like this,” or, “No, no, it has to look like that…no, you have to get to it by this path, by this program, by this activity…”

You may still do those things if you choose to, but if you feel stressed about them, if you feel pressured by them, then how could they be a path to enlightenment?  So set yourself free today.

And stop working so hard on yourself, and decide that the rest of your life — every day, every moment, every word — is something that you will share with everyone whose life you touch, that they might know there is nothing they have to do, no where they have to go, no one they have to be…that they are perfect (which is, after all, what enlightenment is) just as they sit there.

Spend the rest of your life giving people back to themselves, that they might love themselves, and know that there is nothing they are lacking, nothing they are missing, nothing they need, nothing they are not.

But how can people know that, when it seems so real that they are lacking, that they are missing something, that there is much they are not?  How can you help them to see the truth?

Well, let’s see what Conversations with God has said on this subject.

That which you choose to give to another will become real in your experience of self as well.  What you wish to experience, give away.  And so the fastest way for anyone to experience that they are enlightened is to cause another to know that they are.  That’s why Namaste’ has become such a powerful exchange of energy:  The God in me, sees and recognizes and honors the God in you.

There’s nothing more to be done, if I really mean that.  Of course, if I am making that up because it sounds good, then there is much more to be done.  But if I really mean that, then the struggle is finished.  The search is over and enlightenment is ours at last.

This is the message that I bring to the world. This is the message that has been given to me in my conversations with God, and I might add, in my conversations with every master I have ever met. They all say the same thing.  And this is the message of Humanity’s Team, a grass-roots movement that I have created, which we seek place into every town and village and city in the world, and which will create teachers and message-bringers and leaders who will share, with all those whose lives they touch, the wonderful freedom of knowing that God sees your perfection, and merely waits for you to do so.

And that you will do so — you will see your perfection in yourself — in the moment that you recognize it; that is re-cognize it. That is, know it again.

So Humanity’s Team is about bringing to the earth a New Spirituality and creating the space of possibility for a new spiritual experience to emerge upon the earth. It is about creating a Civil Rights Movement for the Soul, freeing humanity at last from the oppression of its beliefs in a violent, angry, and vindictive God. It is about producing an Evolution Revolution through initiating the Conversation of the Century in homes across the planet, then taking what is ultimately brought to deep understanding there into real life, on the street.

(This is the final installment of this series.)

The is the fifth part of an extended series of explorations on “enlightenment” as a human experience. The first, second, third and fourth entries in this series may be found in the archives.

At the conclusion of Part One I said that the danger of this business of enlightenment is two-fold.  The first danger is thinking that there is something specific that you have to do in order go get there.  And that if you don’t do that, you can’t get there.  The second danger is thinking that your way to get there is the fastest, the best way to do it.

In Part Two I wrote of the time when Paramahansa Yogananda, or “Master” as he was called, came to America bringing a technique for “self-realization” — which was his phrase meaning “enlightenment.”  Self-realization declares that when you realize who the Self is, you become enlightened. And Master described himself as having been enlightened.  And, by the way, he was enlightened. He was enlightened because he said that he was and, I hate to break the spell that someone may be under, but to be enlightened is to say that you are.  It is quite as simple as that.

In Part Three we looked at other “Masters” and other programs leading to “awakening” or “enlightenment,” not only Paramahansa Yogananda and the Self-Realization Fellowship, but also Maharishi and Transcendental Meditation,  and, more contemporarily, Werner Erhard and the est program.  There are many programs, many approaches, many paths developed by many masters. There is a book written called Many Lives, Many Masters written by my friend Brian Weiss, and he talks about the fact that there are many ways to reach the mountaintop. Which way, then, should we recommend?  Which way, then, should we encourage others to take? And the end of Part Three I indicated that we would look next at the path that the Buddha took.

In Part Four we did just that, and then we ended with a brief look at an out-of-body experience that I had many years ago. I emerged from that experience with a two-word message: “Nothing matters.” I said to myself, “Nothing matters?? How can that be?” And I promised at the end of Part 4 that we would explore the “message behind the message.

PART FIVE
The message behind the message is that if nothing matters intrinsically, then I am free to declare what I choose to have matter to me.  But if something matters intrinsically, that is to say, if something matters to someone other than me, to someone else—shall we say God—then I had darn well better figure out what that is–especially if it matters so much to God.  Because if I don’t figure out what it is, I will be the thing called “condemned”…or at the very least, “unenlightened.”

But God said to me, “Neale, nothing matters.”  Therefore you are free to make matter what you choose to make matter in your life.  And I mean that in two ways:  not only to “make matter,” but to make something INTO matter.   To cause a thing to become matter.  That is, to make it physical matter in your life.  In other words, to manifest in physical reality something that is pure matter out of invisible energy.  To turn it into, to turn energy into, matter.

I have become so enlightened that I can sometimes barely explain what it is I am trying to say!  You know you are enlightened when you can’t even articulate what your thoughts are.  Either that or you’re totally crazy, one or the other.  Wouldn’t it be funny if enlightenment and craziness were one and the same?

So if you think there is a path to enlightenment that is the only path, the best path, the fastest path, the one that everyone has to know about by 10 o’clock tomorrow morning, you will suddenly find yourself feeling pressure, stress, upset, and your ego will be deeply involved in convincing as many people as you can that that’s what’s so.  And suddenly you will start acting not like a master at all, but like someone who is under a terrific amount of pressure and stress, because it will suddenly matter to you whether I get what you are trying to tell me.

If you are not careful, you will even start having quotas or goals. This is what often happens inside of organizations that begin to think they have “the answer,” and now they have to share it with others as fast as you can. You’ll have to get a certain number of other people to agree with you every week, or every month, or every year.  And if you don’t meet those goals you will think that you have not done a good job.  And yet, you have done a good job if you simply loved without expectation, without requirement, without needing anything in return.

Enlightenment, when it is all said and done, has nothing to do with what you do with your body or your mind.  It has to do with what you do with your soul.  If you simply love everyone whose life you touch endlessly unconditionally, with nothing needed or wanted in return, you have become enlightened and you have shown everyone whose life you touch how they may be enlightened as well.  As fast as any other system that exists, like that.  As fast as transcendental meditation, like that.  As fast as joining the Self-Realization Fellowship, like that.  As fast as taking est, like that.  And if you learn to love yourself unconditionally, as well as everyone else, you heal your entire body without lifting a finger.

Now I want to discuss as well a thing called “health,” because many people believe that you are not enlightened unless you are in good health.  Is enlightenment being in good health?  And what is “good health” anyway?

Is good health having a body that has nothing wrong with it?  Is good health living until you are 90 or 100 or 200 or 500?  Is good health having no pain or nothing wrong with your physical form?  Is good health the absence of anything that is not perfect or good in your physical experience?  Or is good health being okay and in a place of joy and peace, no matter how things are?

What is “health”?  What is optimum health, if it is not happiness?

I know people who exercise every day, lifting weights and run and work out, and their bodies are in great health, but their minds and their hearts and their souls are desperately sad.  And I know people who are hardly able to lift up a toothpick, their bodies are in such bad health, but their hearts and their minds and their souls are so bright and they are so happy.

One such man is Ram Dass.  Do you know of whom I speak?  Ram Dass is a master, and I have met him personally.  And he taught many people for many years.  He wrote a book called…Be Here Now.   And several years ago Ram Dass had a stroke.  His body had a stroke and after that he couldn’t move his arm at all, I think it was his left arm that wouldn’t move.  He could barely barely talk.  And he was still a relatively young man; he was only 63 or something like that.

I met Ram Dass after his stroke, in a hotel room in Denver, and I’ll tell you something.  I’ve never met a healthier man.  I sat in that room with a real Master.  I said, “Ram Dass, how are you?”  And he sat there in his wheelchair and said, “I…am…won-der-ful.”  That’s health…that’s health.  That’s peace.  That’s joy.

And when you have so much happiness, peace and joy, that you spend your life sharing it with everyone else’s life you touch, that’s enlightenment.  You have become a master.   When your life is no longer about you, has nothing to do with you, but is about everyone whose life you touch, you have become a master.  For in the end, that is why you came here.  Not to somehow “get better,” not to work on yourself.  Consider the possibility that all the work you will ever need to is already done.  All you have to do is know that.  Remember the wonderful message from Conversations with God: “There is nothing you have to do, there is no where you have to go and there is no one you have to be, except exactly who you are being right now.”

So this is the time of your liberation. And we’ll speak more about what that looks like in our next entry here.

The is the fourth part of an extended series of explorations on “enlightenment” as a human experience. The first, second, and third entries in this series may be found in the archives.

At the conclusion of Part One I said that the danger of this business of enlightenment is two-fold.  The first danger is thinking that there is something specific that you have to do in order go get there.  And that if you don’t do that, you can’t get there.  The second danger is thinking that your way to get there is the fastest, the best way to do it.

In Part Two I wrote of the time when Paramahansa Yogananda, or “Master” as he was called, came to America bringing a technique for “self-realization” — which was his phrase meaning “enlightenment.”  Self-realization declares that when you realize who the Self is, you become enlightened. And Master described himself as having been enlightened.  And, by the way, he was enlightened. He was enlightened because he said that he was and, I hate to break the spell that someone may be under, but to be enlightened is to say that you are.  It is quite as simple as that.

In Part Three we looked at other “Masters” and other programs leading to “awakening” or “enlightenment,” not only Paramahansa Yogananda and the Self-Realization Fellowship, but also Maharishi and Transcendental Meditation,  and, more contemporarily, Werner Erhard and the est program.  There are many programs, many approaches, many paths developed by many masters. There is a book written called Many Lives, Many Masters written by my friend Brian Weiss, and he talks about the fact that there are many ways to reach the mountaintop. Which way, then, should we recommend?  Which way, then, should we encourage others to take? And the end of Part Three I indicated that we would look next at the path that the Buddha took. So, then…let’s do that now…

Wikipedia tells us that most scholars regard Kapilavastu, present-day Nepal, to be the birthplace of the Buddha. This public encyclopedia also says that according to the most traditional biography, Buddha was born in a royal Hindu family to King Suddhodana, the leader of Shakya clan. Before he became the Buddha, this man was known as Siddhartha Gautama. Gautama was the family name.

His father wanted to protect Siddhartha from any knowledge of the outside world, not wanting the young boy to be pained or stained by it. And so, Siddhartha was kept him within the compound, which was quite large, all of his life. But one day, when he was a young man already married, Siddhartha ventured outside the walls of the compound and learned of life as it existed in the rest of the world. He learned of poverty and of illness and of disease and of cruelty and of anger and of all the so-called negative experiences that no one ever allowed him to experience when he was inside the gates of his compound.

It was after this experience that he gave up all of his riches and all of his luxuries, his whole family, left his wife and everyone at home, and disappeared, embarking on a search for the meaning of it all. He desperately wanted enlightenment.  “What can I do?” he asked his own understanding of God, “What can I do?”  And he then underwent a series of very rigorous physical and mental disciplines, from fasting to daylong meditations to physical trainings, of every imaginable sort.  And this went on for quite awhile. Not a week or two, but for a long time.

Along the way he sought out other Masters and asked them how they had achieved or moved toward the experience of enlightenment, and he did as they told him, because he wanted to honor the masters that he met along his path.  Yet nothing brought him the experience of enlightenment.  It only brought him an emaciated body, and a life that was difficult, filled with physical and mental discipline and training. And, as I said, still didn’t feel enlightened.

And one day Siddhartha Gautama, frustrated with his utter lack of progress, said stubbornly, “I am going to sit beneath that tree over there and I’m not going to move until I am enlightened.  I’ve tried everything.  I’ve done all the physical disciplines, all the trainings, all the exercise, all the starvation, all the diets, all the fasting, and all the meditations.  Now I’m just going to sit there on the ground. I’m tired of all this stuff, and I’m not getting up until I’m enlightened!”

And there he sat, doing nothing. Doing no exercises, no meditations, no fasting, no nothing—just sitting there doing absolutely nothing. Now that is hard for us to do, because, like Siddhartha at the beginning, we think there is something we are supposed to be doing in order to be enlightened.

Siddhartha just sat there day after day staring into space, simply “being.” At night he slept right there on the ground. He took care of his basic needs, and some people from the town, seeing that he was clearly on some sort of inner quest, occasionally brought him a bowl of rice or a piece of fruit, and he subsisted without moving from that spot.

Then one morning he opened his eyes and realized that he felt different. He felt different inside, and he felt different about everything he was seeing outside of himself. He had changed at some fundamental and important level—and he knew it. And he said quietly, “I’m enlightened.” The townspeople approached him and said, “You look different, Serene. At peace. What happened?” And he simply repeated, quietly: “I’ve become enlightened.” It wasn’t a boast, it wasn’t a brag, he was simply and quietly offering a statement of fact.

And people came to him, more and more people, and they said, “What did you do? How did you get to this place? What did you do?” They saw that he was a changed man, and now quite different from them in his manner and his experience. “Teach us master?  You have become the Buddha. (the word was used to refer to an ‘awakened one’ or an ‘enlightened one.’)  What is the secret? What did you do?” And the Buddha said something quite extraordinary. “There is nothing that you have to do.”

“After all this time. After all this self-flagellation, and wearing a hair-shirt, and starving my body and doing my physical discipline. After all this time, I realize it’s not about saying the beads, or lighting the incense, or sitting in meditation for many hours a day. It’s not about any of that.  It can be if you want it to be. It can be if that is what suits you. It can be if that is your path. But it is not necessary to do anything.

“I’m enlightened because I realized that enlightenment is knowing that there is nothing you have to do to be enlightened. You simply had to be exactly what you are being right now, and then make  choice about that, deliberately and with intention.”

The Buddha had discovered that you can choose to be peaceful no matter what is going on. You can choose to be loving no matter what is going on. You can choose to be gentle no matter what is going on. You can choose to be forgiving and compassionate and totally okay, no matter what is going on. You can choose to be wise and very clear about all of this, no matter what is going on.

Isn’t that interesting?  Sad in a way, when you think of all the effort that people are putting in, with years-long approaches to enlightenment, only to find out it required nothing at all. Just a simple decision. A simple choice.

Now I have come here to this column in The Global Conversation online newspaper to give you the inside “scoop” on how you can seek and find enlightenment. And to let you know that if you have found peace and joy and love, you, too, like the Buddha, like Jesus the Christ, like Paramahansa Yogananda, like Maharishi, are already enlightened.

My own story is that, like all of those other masters, I tried everything. First I tried orthodox religion. I said my rosary faithfully everyday, because I was told there was a formula that you could use to have God answer your prayers. There was a litany, there was a process. If you said the rosary a certain number of times, you could depend upon a certain outcome.

I tried fasting. I tried meditation. I tried reading every book I could get my hands on. I took est. I learned transcendental meditation. I learned transactional analysis. I walked down many paths, many, many paths. And then one day I had an out-of-body experience. Now it was interesting, because I wasn’t trying to do this. This was not something I was trying to do. I was trying to produce outcomes with my fasting. I was trying to produce outcomes with my meditation.  I was trying to produce outcomes with my rosary and with my disciplines, but those were not bringing me where I wanted to go. But on this particular occasion I was just simply trying to get some sleep. I just fell asleep. But during that “sleep” I flew out of my body quite involuntarily. I just left. And I knew that I had left. It was a conscious awareness. I was not in my body and I knew I was not. I was having what one might call a lucid dream.

I won’t take time here now to explain to you or describe for you my experience, although I can tell you it was very real, and it is very real to me to this very day. I’ve had three such experiences in my life, two since the original one. And every one of those experiences brought me to the same place:  a space of absolute—capitol “A”—awareness. Kind of like an AA meeting:  Absolute Awareness.  And when I returned from that place (I have not yet found a way to stay in that place on an ongoing, non-interrupted basis) I was left with two words that stopped me in my tracks. Would you like to know what they were?

Nothing matters.

What an amazing message for my soul to receive from the One Soul that is All of Life. Nothing matters? How can that be? That moment changed my life.  And the message behind the message is what we’ll look at next. You are invited to join us.

The is the third part of an extended series of explorations on “enlightenment” as a human experience. The first and second entries in this series may be found in the archives.

At the conclusion of Part One I said that the danger of this business of enlightenment is two-fold.  The first danger is thinking that there is something specific that you have to do in order go get there.  And that if you don’t do that, you can’t get there.  The second danger is thinking that your way to get there is the fastest, the best way to do it.

At the conclusion of Part Two I wrote of when Paramahansa Yogananda, or Master, as he was called, came to America bringing a technique for “self-realization” — which was his phrase meaning “enlightenment.”  Self-realization declares that when you realize who the Self is, you become enlightened. And Master described himself as having been enlightened.  And, by the way, he was enlightened. He was enlightened because he said that he was and, I hate to break the spell that someone may be under, but to be enlightened is to say that you are.  It is quite as simple as that.

People heard Paramahansa Yogananda give his talks and explain his technique for enlightenment, which involved a process that included, among other things, deep meditation for many minutes and sometimes many hours, every day.  And the process was one that Paramahansa Yogananda taught to his students, and that his students taught to their students, and their students taught to their students, on and on, until a very large number of people all over the United States and around the world were involved in this Self-Realization Fellowship, which to this day continues to function and has now many, certainly hundreds of thousands of, followers.

And if you talk to some of the followers and some of the members of the Self-Realization Fellowship, they will tell you, “This is the way.  This is the path.  Master has shown us the path.   There are many other paths, this is not the only path, and this may not be the best path, but it is the fastest path that we know of, and so come and join the Self-Realization Fellowship.”

In even more contemporary times a wonderful man named Maharishi surfaced on the earth and Maharishi invented yet another path to enlightenment.  His path was called Transcendental Meditation — or, for short, “TM.”

Maharishi began teaching around the world and became very popular and began creating temples and meditation centers all over the place. He established huge universities. There is a university in Fairfield, Iowa right now, called the Maharishi International University. And there are other universities that he established around the world.  And many, many so-called TM centers.

Now, I learned Transcendental Meditation and I learned it from other students who learned it from other students who learned it from other students who learned it from other students, who learned it from the Master.  And there is a gentle sense of urgency on the part of some of the people who are in this movement, because they will tell you that Transcendental Meditation is a tool that can bring you to enlightenment in a very short period of time.

And they, like the students of Paramahansa Yogananda, like the participants in the est program, turn a large part of their lives over to this program. They see their job as enrolling as many people as they can in their  movement, because it changes peoples lives.  And when you have a life-changing technology you naturally want to  share it with as many people as you can.  And there is nothing wrong with that. That is very exciting and it is very wonderful. But it can be difficult if you are not careful, if you allow yourself to become so urgently wrapped up in it that nothing else matters to you in your life. Then it can become not enlightenment, but dis-empowering to you.

Now there are many other programs as well.  Like Maharishi and Transcendental Meditation, like Paramahansa Yogananda and the Self-Realization Fellowship, like Werner Erhard and the est program.  There are many programs.  Many approaches, many paths developed by many masters.  There was a book written called Many Lives, Many Masters, written by my friend Brian Weiss, and he talks about the fact that there are many ways to reach the mountaintop.

Which way, then, should we recommend?  Which way, then, should we encourage others to take?  Or should we simply encourage others to investigate for themselves the many paths that there are, and empower them to know that inside their heart and soul they will pick the right path if their intention is pure and if their desire is true.

God says, “No one calls to me without being answered.”  And each of us will be answered by that which we call divine, in the way which most effectively responds to the vibration that we hold and create from the center of our being.

That is, to put it another way, God or Divinity or Enlightenment, if you please, appears in a form in the lives of every person that is most appropriate to their background, their culture, their level of understanding, the level of their desire, and their willingness.  And there are many disciplines: physical disciplines, mental disciplines, spiritual disciplines, and some disciplines that involve all three—the body, the mind and the spirit.

In our next entry here, we’ll look at the path that was taken by the Buddha. In the meantime, what path are you taking? Have you found “enlightenment” yet?

The is the second part of an extended series of explorations on “enlightenment” as a human experience. The first entry in this series may be found in the archives.

At the conclusion of Part One I said that the danger of this business of enlightenment is two-fold.  The first danger is thinking that there is something specific that you have to do in order go get there.  And that if you don’t do that, you can’t get there.  The second danger is thinking that your way to get there is the fastest, the best way to do it.

Now if you think that your way to get there is the fastest and best way, you are going to spend the rest of your life trying to convince me of that, because you believe that and you want to share this wonderful gift that you have gotten.

Many years ago I was approached by people in the est movement.   How many of you know what the est movement is?  Most of you do.  “est” was an acronym for the Erhard Seminar Trainings.  The name was always presented in lower case letters, because “est” is also a German word meaning ‘to be’.  So it was a happy coincidence.  And Werner Erhard created the Erhard Seminar Trainings.

The est movement was huge in the New Thought community in this country and around the world around 25 years ago or so.  And the people who were involved in the est movement were absolutely convinced that this was the fastest way to enlightenment.  You needed to take est!  And so they began recruiting people to take est and they became very engaged in the process.

It was almost an urgent matter with them.  And they couldn’t understand why you didn’t get the urgency.  If you didn’t get it, they would look at you and say, “You just don’t get it, do you?  You just don’t get it.”  They had found something that changed their whole life virtually overnight, and they wanted to give that to you, and they knew that this was the way.

There were many ways, they said.  This wasn’t the only way, but this was probably the best way.  Or certainly, if not the best way, among the fastest ways.

And I enrolled in the est program and I took est and I, too, became enlightened.  In fact, I became so enlightened that I realized that I did not need est to be enlightened—which really upset some of the est people, because they wanted me to take the next level and the next level and the next level.

You see, est was a program that had multitudinous levels. You could take level one, level two, level three—they had very fancy names for them.  And once you got in the program you could virtually never get out of it. I mean, not with grace. Not with ease. You had to almost extract yourself out of it. And if you did get out of it, you were made to feel by many of those who were inside of it that you had done something desperately sad. Not wrong, but very sad. Because you just didn’t “get it.”

If you really got how powerful est was you would have stayed in it forever and gone all the way to the top and become an est trainer.  Then you could train other people in how to become trainers by enrolling them in the est program.

What I realized was that my whole life could be caught up in the est program very quickly and very easily, doing virtually nothing else.  I actually met people in the est training and in the est program who did virtually nothing else but that.  They had literally turned their lives over to this process called est.

Now I want you to know that the process called est was very powerful and I could understand how people could become so attached to it, because it did change people’s lives. In fact, it was so powerful in my life, as I said, that I realized that I didn’t need est anymore — and probably never needed it. AND, having said that, it was very helpful to me in leading me to an understanding that I did not need it, or anything else outside of myself, to be fully Who I Really Am.

I don’t think some of est trainers intended it to be quite that powerful, because if everyone, after taking the basic est training, realized that they didn’t need est, there would be no more est training!

Some religions have the very same problem. They convince you of the wonder of God, but then when you get in touch with the wonder of God, you realize you don’t need the religion anymore. So some religions do whatever they can to hold you within the confines of membership, by telling you that only through the ways that the particular religion has established can you remain in the good graces of God.

All of this is natural. It’s understandable. Who wants to start of movement that convinces people you don’t need the movement? Yet this is the ultimate purpose of all religions and of all movements—or should be. With 7 billion humans on the earth, there are enough people to continue introducing the highest truth to, and one doesn’t, or shouldn’t, need to hang onto all the old members in order to create a power structure that supports itself in continuing itself.

This is the problem with most organizations and movements. They tend to need to be self-perpetuating. Yet, I repeat: the true purpose of every religion and every movement that would bring you to “enlightenment” should be to render itself obsolete, should it not?

Many years ago Paramahansa Yogananda gave birth to the Self-Realization Fellowship.  This is now back in the late 30’s or early 40’s, I don’t know the exact time, but it was somewhere in there.  When Paramahansa Yogananda, or Master, as he was called, came to America he brought with him a technique for self-realization, which was his phrase meaning enlightenment.  It was called self-realization.

When you realize who the Self, is you become enlightened.  And Master described himself as being enlightened.  And, by the way, he was enlightened.  He was enlightened because he said he was. I hate to break the spell that someone may be under, but to be enlightened is to say that you are.  It is quite as simple as that. And we will talk more about that as we move forward with this series of entries.

Let’s talk now in this space about “Enlightenment”—this elusive magical mystical experience for which everyone seems to be reaching and for which everyone seems to have a yearning, and for which every one seems to be searching.  And I understand the reasons for the search, because if we all were enlightened one presumes that our lives would be better than they are now, when we are presumably unenlightened.

In addition, it occurs to me that if all of us were enlightened relatively quickly, the whole world would be different and we would experience life in another way.  Presumably with less turmoil, with less stress, with less conflict, for sure, I would imagine, with less sadness and anger and less violence and much less of all the things that make our lives sad and disjointed and unhappy in these days and times.

So humanity searches for Enlightenment and we have been searching for Enlightenment from the beginning of time, ever since we became consciously aware of the fact that it was possible to be Enlightened—whatever that is.

We have not only been searching for Enlightenment, we have been searching as well for a definition of Enlightenment, because we can’t get to that destination until we know where we are going.  And so the first step for most human beings has been to try to define what Enlightenment is, or what it looks like, or feels like, or tastes like, or what it is like to experience that.  And then, after we have that clear, after we know what our destination is, then we can try to figure out what would it take to get from where we are to where we want to be.

And there is this rush to Enlightenment that I observe that humanity, or a portion of humanity, is engaged in. And many say that they know how to get there and they know how to get you there. And so we see many, many “Paths to Enlightenment” that are suggested, recommended, created, expressed, experienced, shared, and put into the space of our collective lives. Masters of every shape and size and color have been creating a way to be enlightened for millennia.

Paramahansa Yogananda said that he knew a way to Enlightenment.  The Buddha said that he knew a way to Enlightenment.  Maharishi Mahesh Yogi says that he knows a way to Enlightenment.  Sai Baba says that he knows a way to Enlightenment.  In their own way, Jesus the Christ and Abu Al-Qasim Muhammad ibn Abd Allah ibn Abd Al-Muttalib ibn Hashim—Muhammad—said that they knew the way to Enlightenment.

Now the interesting thing here is that the followers of all of these Masters have insisted that their Master was right about that, that their way was the best way and the fastest way. Maybe not the only way, but the fastest way and, therefore, you needed to take that way. There was a great urgency. You needed to become Catholic or you needed to take Transcendental Meditation or you needed to learn Tai Chi, or you needed to raise your vibrational rate, or your needed to change your brain, or, for heaven sake, change something.  And not some time, but right now, immediately, this month.

You needed to join this group or do that process or read this book or be baptized or be un-baptized or do whatever it is that you have been told by your particular master or monk is the fastest, quickest way for you to get to where all of us want to go—which is the place called “enlightenment,” “awareness,” “higher consciousness,” or “vibrational harmony.”

The brain is now the latest path, the latest route, everyone is talking about. It is about moving your energy, your focus, your awareness, your presence, your essence, the vibration of Who You Are, from the brain stem to the frontal lobe. Many people are teaching this now. Many people are talking about actual science, physical science, brain chemistry, as a path to this thing we call Enlightenment.

All of that is wonderful. That is just terrific, and it gives me great hope for humanity. But there is something we have to look at here. There is a pitfall here, a detour, a time-waster.  And even a danger, if we choose to damage others with it. The danger of this business of Enlightenment is two-fold.  The first danger is thinking that there is something specific that you have to do in order to get there, and that if you don’t do that, you can’t get there.  The second danger is thinking that your way to get there is the fastest, best way to do it.

And I want to pick up on that in my next entry. For now, what is your path to Enlightenment? Have you tried any particular path? What has been your experience?

ADVANCE REVIEW: “This part of CwG…it’s beginning…these ‘Commitments’…made my Soul Sounds ring beyond my skin! In this very moment, they still do so. Verrry free-ing stuff, indeed! Thank you for this, btw.”
     — From the Comments Section below this article.

Of all the messages in Conversations with God, none stand out more than the statement that there’s no such thing as the Ten Commandments. How can that be?, people want to know. I still get letters and emails about that today, 18 years after publication of Book One in the 9-book CWG series. So I thought I would publish here exactly what God said to me about that, and then solicit your comments.

I was told that Moses went to God on the mountaintop and begged God to give him a sign…something, anything, that he could take back to his people that would allow them to know that they were taking the right path; the path back to God.

So God talked with Moses directly (yes, God does that with humans, have you heard?) and said, “You will know that you are on the path back to the experience of your own Divinity—which is the path back to God—because there are certain things that you will do and not do as a result of being on that path. So, God said, look for these signs that I promise I will give you. This is my covenant. This is my commitment.”

Here is exactly what God said, transcribed from the handwritten dictation I took in my very first conversation with God in the early 90s…

You shall know that you have taken the path to God, and you shall know that you have found God, for there will be these signs, these indications, these changes in you. I promise you, you will see these signs. These are my Ten Commitments…

1. You shall love God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul. And there shall be no other God set before Me. No longer will you worship human love, or success, money, or power, nor any symbol thereof. You will set aside these things as a child sets aside toys. Not because they are unworthy, but because you have outgrown them.

And, you shall know you have taken the path to God because:

2. You shall not use the name of God in vain. Nor will you call upon Me for frivolous things. You will understand the power of words, and of thoughts, and you would not think of invoking the name of God in an unGodly manner. You shall not use My name in vain because you cannot. For My name—the Great “I Am”—is never used in vain (that is, without result), nor can it ever be. And when you have found God, you shall know this.

And, I shall give you these other signs as well:

3. You shall remember to keep a day for Me, and you shall call it holy. This, so that you do not long stay in your illusion, but cause yourself to remember who and what you are. And then shall you soon call every day the Sabbath, and every moment holy.

4. You shall honor your mother and your father—and you will know you are the Son of God when you honor your Father/Mother God in all that you say or do or think. And even as you so honor the Mother/Father God, and your father and mother on Earth (for they have given you life), so, too, will you honor everyone.

5. You know you have found God when you observe that you will not murder (that is, willfully kill, without cause). For while you will understand that you cannot end another’s life in any event (all life is eternal), you will not choose to terminate any particular incarnation, nor change any life energy from one form to another, without the most sacred justification. Your new reverence for life will cause you to honor all life forms—including plants, trees and animals—and to impact them only when it is for the highest good.

And these other signs will I send you also, that you may know you are on the path:

6. You will not defile the purity of love with dishonesty or deceit, for this is adulterous. I promise you, when you have found God, you shall not commit this adultery.

7. You will not take a thing that is not your own, nor cheat, nor connive, nor harm another to have any thing, for this would be to steal. I promise you, when you have found God, you shall not steal.

Nor shall you. . .

8. Say a thing that is not true, and thus bear false witness.

Nor shall you. . .

9. Covet your neighbor’s spouse, for why would you want your neighbor’s spouse when you know all others are your spouse?

10. Covet your neighbor’s goods, for why would you want your neighbor’s goods when you know that all goods can be yours, and all your goods belong to the world?

Again, you will know that you have found the path to God when you see these signs. For I promise that no one who truly seeks God shall any longer do these things. It would be impossible to continue such behaviors.

These are your freedoms, not your restrictions. These are my commitments, not my commandments. For God does not order about what God has created—God merely tells God’s children: this is how you will know that you are coming home.

Moses asked in earnest—“How may I know? Give me a sign.” Moses asked the same question that you ask now. The same question all people everywhere have asked since time began. My answer is likewise eternal. But it has never been, and never will be, a commandment. For who shall I command? And who shall I punish should My commandments not be kept?

There is only Me.
====================================
Your comments and observations on this are invited. All of this is part of the rewriting of humanity’s cultural story, a story that has told of a violent, angry, and vindictive, needy and demanding and commanding God. What do you believe? Has God given us a list of commandments? If so, why? Why would She do this? And what do you believe is His intention if we fail to meet those demands?

I am anxious to hear what you have to say about this.

Blessings, Neale.