And so, very soon now, we begin another year. Another cycle in the continuous circling of the Earth around the Sun. Another passage of the Body, Mind, and Soul through the Labyrinth of Life.

And as we end the latest of these rotations and begin again yet another, every thinking surely person must ask, “What is the point of this? Are we truly ‘just going round in circles,’ pretending that our elliptical course is a straight line actually getting us somewhere?”

I wrote the commentary below a few years ago, and I was re-reading it today as we celebrate in my house the passage and the experience of a wonderful Christmas, and as we await the New Year. In that previous commentary I asked:

Is there any kind of purpose or destination to this cycle that we call our life? Or are we lined up at the starting gate like horses at Churchill Downs, itching to race like mad to get to where we began—this time strangely and ironically calling that place the Finish Line?

Can I be the only one who will entertain such thoughts a few hours from now as I and a group of my friend and relatives stand holding our glasses, gaily—and with not a little bit of melancholy—counting down: “five…..four…..three…..two…..ONE!”, and then shouting “Happy New Year” as if seeking to convince each other that the endless passage of time is actually something to celebrate?

What will we be celebrating?, I’m asking myself today. Where are we going actually?, I wonder.

And then we will sing…

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and days of old lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

The sadness, the poignancy, of the song never fails to bring tears to my eyes—more so, I notice, with each passing year. I wondered this morning about the origin of this traditional New Year’s Eve song, and so I opened Wikipedia to find (and I knew this before, but had simply forgotten) that it is a Scots poem written by Robert Burns long ago (in 1788, to be specific) and set to the tune of a traditional folk song.

It’s well known in many countries, especially (but far from exclusively) in the English-speaking world; its traditional use being to celebrate the start of the New Year at the stroke of midnight. By extension, it is also sung at funerals, graduations and as a farewell or ending to other occasions.

The song’s Scots title may be translated into English literally as “old long since,” or more idiomatically, “long, long ago,””days gone by” or “old times.” Consequently “For auld lang syne,” as it appears in the first line of the chorus, is loosely translated as “for (the sake of) old times.”

For my own part, I’ve sung the song too many times, in the presence of too many dear, dear people, to be able to not cry…because too many of these dear, dear people have been forgot, in the sense that they are no longer a part of my present-moment life. And I wonder (my mind does these things to me), as I look into the faces of those who are here now, how long they will be part of my life, or if, on some future New Year’s Eve, I’ll be singing (and gently weeping) about them…

I don’t like it that so many present and pleasant experiences so fast turn into bitter-sweet memories…sweet because of their content, bitter because they are never to be visited again. I want no endings in this life! Really. Really. I want no endings. I’m tired of endings. Especially where people are concerned. I want people who have meant something to me to mean something to me always, and I want to be able to experience that meaning always—not as a memory, but as a here-and-now occurrence.

Perhaps that is the meaning of it all. Perhaps that is the purpose of this circular journey we are on. Perhaps it is all a journey to where we have already been, so that we may have, again and again and again, the experience that we are overjoyed to have: the experience of Who We Really Are—which is Love. Love Announced, Love Expressed, Love Sent and Received.

This thought fills me with a determination to make every moment that I now have with my Beloveds count.

I’ve made that resolution before, of course. And then I get right back into my Everyday, and somehow, someplace, somewhere, I lose touch with my determination to live life in such a way that Every. Single. Solitary. Moment. is filled with Love Announced, Love Expressed, Love Sent and Received.

But this morning (I wrote this part on a past New Year’s morning) I awoke with a startling idea. What if I sang Auld Lang Syne in my head every time I saw a person who is Now In My Life who is special to me? What if I started singing it quietly inside of myself every time I see them, every time I speak with them, every time I hug them or share space with them in any way?

What a marvelous idea!, I told myself. Yes, I will sing that song in my head, and pretend that it is some future New Year’s Eve and that the person in front of me is, for some reason, no longer there. Then I will blink back the soft and hopefully hidden misty eyes of my present moment melancholy and speak words to her, and use tones of voice with him, and share emotions with them that truly present, in the present, the fullness of my feelings for them.

And then I will smile and hold with deep inner joy and undisguised outward celebration the fact that this is not some sad future New Year’s Everything when they are gone, but that we are Right Here, Right Now.

And then I will smile a deeper smile, knowing that all those who have been in my Now Moment before will return to my present awareness and my present experience when I, myself, travel to The Other Side, celebrating my own Continuation Day, leaving my body and going Home.

There they will all be, waiting. There we will all hug and squeeze and touch and hold and smile and talk and dance with excitement and joy as we embrace, once again, the presence of each other (and the gift of each other, the presents of all those with whom we have intertwined our lives in Soul Love).

And to those with whom we have made mistakes, we will say, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” as those who have made mistakes with us will say the same. And we won’t even feel a need to forgive them, nor will they feel a need to forgive us, for it will not matter to either of us what has been done, as we will deeply understand what wounds in ourselves and the other could cause such experiences—and, filled with compassion, once again we will deeply love.

And to those with whom our only sadness has been their departure from our lives, we will say, “My God, how good…how very, very, very good…to see you again.”

And we will have spoken rightly. For it will be “God” that we are seeing again. The Divinity in everyone—including ourselves—will be apparent to us then as the miracle and the mystery of Life reveals itself to us once we are free of our limited human perspective.

And so today, knowing this, I actively and joyously choose to see God in everyone right now. Not just in some Future Now, but in this Now. And I’ll sing Auld Lang Syne not just this coming New Year’s Eve, but every New Eve and every New Morn that my present life on Earth still brings me. I will make this very minute New Year’s Eve all year long, in my heart and in my mind.

And I’ll drink from—and share—a cup of kindness now, knowing that these are the days of Auld Lang Syne.

Happy New Year everyone. Happy, happy life.

This is the time of year when many people around the world celebrate an experience in their lives that is important to them — and to celebrate it in a way that honors the message of that experience.

I am speaking, of course, of the experience we call “Christmas,” as it lives in our hearts.

For many of us that message is not limited to the essence of a specific religious doctrine — hallowed and holy as that is to billions — but transcends all religions, all believe systems, all spiritual paradigms . . . driving to the core of the human condition and the human experience, and hoping to heal both.

Both have needed healing — and are in need of healing now more than ever.

And amidst so much news that is not so wonderful this year, there is good news as well. While messages of anger and divisiveness and of righteousness generating terrorism are being sent to our world, the Christmas message of love also appears to be reaching people and working its magic. It seems in recent years to be having a real effect on our world.

People of high position are saying things which no one would have dreamt, ten years ago, that persons in those places would say:

A Pope boldly challenges an entire planet with a question: “How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?”

A black man is elected President of the United States…twice…and he boldly declares the combating of growing inequality and the lack of upward mobility to be the “defining challenge of our time.”

An ultra-conservative Republican former U.S. Vice President boldly defends gay marriage, saying “freedom means freedom for everyone. People ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want.”

In that same country, one state after the other moves to legalize same sex marriage . . . as people everywhere come to the conclusion — belatedly, but at last — that all human beings who love each other and choose to spend their lives together should be accorded the right to visit each other in the hospital, to pass their estate on to each other, and to claim other common and fair-minded legal protections and prerogatives of the married state, with their gender having no bearing whatsoever on that status.

Government, humans seem to be saying, should not be enforcing specific religious doctrine.

There are those who do not agree with these economic and social viewpoints and developments — indeed, some who disagree may be reading this now — but one thing seems apparent: we are searching, as a culture, more earnestly today than ever before to find a way to create a global community where our differences do not have to create divisions, our contrasts do not have to generate conflicts, and the variations in our beliefs do not have to produce violence in our lives.

Even as others are working against this goal, millions across the globe are beginning to earnestly seek to really create “peace on Earth, and goodwill to men, women, and children everywhere.”

The message at the heart of all the world’s great religions is beginning to be separated from each religion’s specific dogma, and is being reduced to its simplest form — inviting humanity to address at last the simplest question: Can we all just find a way to love each other?

The answer is, yes. We can find a way to love each other. We can find a way to live with each other that demonstrates love. And we can find a way to create fairness and equality with each other, regardless of the color of our skin, our gender, or our sexual orientation.

We can find a way to be kind to each other and tolerant of each other, regardless of differences in our political or spiritual beliefs.

We are capable — as a species, and as individuals — to love without condition. This is what the man whose birth we celebrate at this time of year showed us. That man was graced to live in such a way that the possibility of Divinity expressing through Humanity can never again be denied. Jesus did it, and we can, too. He encouraged us to. He invited us to. And he told us not to be afraid to, or to be wary of even trying. “Why are you so amazed?”, he asked. “These things are more shall you do also.”

The message of this season is that we are all given that grace. We are all imbued with the ability to demonstrate Divinity through our Humanity. Jesus devoted his life to showing us that possibility, but he is not the only one to have done so.

Others, both before and after him . . . others, both male and female . . . others, both dark skinned and light, Eastern and Western, known and unknown . . .have likewise used their lives to show us all our true identity . . .

. . . by demonstrating TO us all our highest possibility.

Nelson Mandela showed us such an aspect, forgiving those who jailed him for 27 years, stopping a nation from falling into tumult, and bringing the invitation of reconciliation to our wider wounded world.

Mother Teresa showed us such an aspect, creating with the power of her love a worldwide movement offering a multitude of free services to the poorest of the poor.

Yes, many — many, other than Jesus — have demonstrated Divinity through their Humanity. So let’s use this moment to renew our clarity: Divinity can be expressed by all of us — and it does not have to involve what we call world-impacting events.

Indeed, Divinity often is best expressed in the smallest of ways . . .

. . . in the thoughts we think, in the things we say, in the choices we make, in the actions we take every hour of every day.

Each of us brings Divinity to Humanity through the simple device of how we are being with each other. Our entire species evolves one kindness at a time. Thus, everything we DO is a “world-impacting event.”

The wonder of this time of year is that is “brings on” just such kindness — just such evidence of our ability to express Divinity as Humanity. That’s what makes the celebration at this time of year so magical!

Christmas seems to “bring on” a change in how people are with each other. A change in the energy of Life Itself. You can actually feel it in the air. It’s so common an experience that there are even song lyrics that describe it.

“City sidewalks, busy sidewalks, dressed in holiday style…in the air there’s a feeling of Christmas…”

That feeling is not something we’re making up. It’s not our imagination. You can feel Christmas in the air.

We call that feeling Love.

And it’s what makes this time of year not only “magical,” but important. Because at this time of year we are reminded of who we are at our basis . . . and that reminder returns us to ourselves.

To our TRUE selves.

Who we are at the core of ourselves is, of course, LOVE.

I know that may sound a bit simplistic . . . maybe even a little — what’s a word…? — “syrup-y” — but Love IS our basic component.

As wonderful Tomaseen Foley say in his Celtic Christmas program that he produces in various cities across the U.S. each December, “we are all indescribably and incomprehensively loved by God” — and that love is the stuff which fills our hearts and our souls, creating the foundation of our being.

Christmas reminds us of that, allowing us — giving us permission — to express the feeling easily. We say to everyone: “Merry Christmas!” We tell perfect strangers that we hope they “have a happy holiday.” We sit down with loved ones and break bread together — again — the way we used to.

Family again.

We share gifts with each other, and it doesn’t even matter what they are, for it is in the giving of them and in the receiving of them — whatever they are — that our love for each other is announced and declared, demonstrated and embraced, once more.

Now the trick after tomorrow is going to be to keep it flowing; to keep it “in the air.”

The question is: How can we do that? Is it even possible?

I’ve been told that, yes, it is. We simply have to decide to. M. Scott Peck wrote something remarkable in his book, The Road Less Traveled. He said, “Love is not a reaction, it’s a decision.”

Can that be true? What if love is not my response to something that YOU are doing, but my choice regarding what I MYSELF am doing?

What if true love is not “predicated” on how you are being with me, but on how I am being with you — regardless of how you are being with me?

Whoa. Wouldn’t THAT be a fascinating thing…

The question I’ve been looking really closely at this Christmas season is this: Is it possible for human beings to just BE loving?

Is it possible for people to simply decide to set aside their differences, get past their “bad” moments with one another, and just “BE” a certain way?

My memory tells me that yes, not only is it possible, it can happen with a simple decision.

Let me tell you a story from my childhood . . .

I lived in a home filled with raised voices and lots of bickering and arguing between my parents.

Now and then there were even down and dirty, drag out fights. I mean, words that hurt, doors that slammed, and even a not kind gesture or two.

Once, my mom plopped a pile of mashed potatoes on my Dad’s head at the dinner table. Once, my Dad tore up, in a fit of anger, a fancy dress that he had purchased for my Mom.

Mom and Dad loved each other fiercely. And I think that adjective is not misplaced.

So we learned to live — my brother and I — in a household that was forever on edge, always on the brink of some kind of explosion…

. . . except at Christmas time.

Every year, at Christmas, things seemed to inexplicably settle down.

Now, as an adult, I am sure that Mom and Dad just decided: “We’re not going to ruin Christmas by arguing and fighting and throwing things around the house. We’re just not.”

And you could see this decision work. To this day I can recall, as tensions would begin to mount, and just before you could expect my father to raise his voice, Mom would say . . . “Alex, it’s Christmas.”

And Dad would just blink, and — just like that — he’d shift his energy and say nothing.

It worked in reverse as well. If it looked as if Mom was just about ready to let someone have it — not just my Dad, but even one of us boys — my Dad would say, “Okay, Anne, okay….c’mon. It’s Christmas.” And the air would clear as if by magic.

This would go on from after Thanksgiving until just after New Year’s. Then, things would get back to normal. The household “truce” was over.

But I had actual proof in my own home that Peace on Earth, goodwill to men…and women…is a CHOICE.

That childhood experience left me with a burning question. I asked my Dad this question myself one year when I was around nine . . .

It was the day that the Christmas tree was taken down and dragged out of the house.

That was always a sad day for me, because, you see, I loved Christmas. I was a very sensitive child, and I loved everything about this time of year…the Christmas tree, the sparkling lights, and the wonderful feeling in the air. Even as I love it today.

But now it was that time again, that sad day when the tree was taken down, and Dad was carrying it through the house and out the back door to the yard, for its cold, cold wait to be taken away and forgotten.

And this particular year I was affected even more than usual. I don’t know why, I just was. And so I asked my Father on his way through the kitchen, tinsel falling off the tree behind him, a child’s innocent question:

“Daddy…how come, when the tree leaves the house, all the love goes with it?”

My Father stopped in his tracks, looked at me with an expression I’ll never forget, then said, as quietly as I ever heard him speak:

“I don’t know, son . . . I don’t know.”

I understand now that all my parents had to do to keep the love in the air was to make the same decision every day that they made when the Christmas tree went up.

So today I am inviting myself — and each of us — to embrace “the feeling of Christmas” . . . and then to decide inside that this Christmas is going to last all through next year.

And all through our lives.

There will be times, of course…there may be moments here and there…when this might not happen, I know. We’re all human, and we need to be careful not to hold ourselves to super-human standards. But we CAN make a decision at this time that all CAN be “calm,” and all CAN be “bright” . . . more of the time…much more of the time…if we make a decision to allow the feeling of Christmas to be “in the air”… Every. Single. Day.

And not leave the house when the tree leaves the house.

Merry Christmas my friends. God bless us, every one!

As regular visitors here know, I have been serializing here an updated version of a small booklet that I wrote a while ago addressing questions being asked by people all over the world. What is happening here? Why has the world gone insane?

I have added to my booklet a word-for-word copy of the statement I issued the day after the 9-11 attacks on the United States. I believe that many of the observations I made then remain meaningful and applicable today.

It is my desire that as many people as possible have an opportunity to absorb this material, so I will continue to excerpt it in this space until the entire document has been published here.

Those who do not wish to wait to finish the document as each new installment is posted here may access the document in full, downloading it at no cost here.

Here is the next installment:

A WORLD IN TURMOIL: How we can respond – Chapter Six

Now that we grasp at last why what is going on is going on, we are ready to pick up Tool #4: Changing Emotion.

Conversations with God tells us that emotions are things we are choosing. They are not foisted upon us, but rather, are selected by us. We can choose to experience whatever emotion we wish.

I know it doesn’t seem that way, but it is that way—and Masters know this.

Conversations with God says that everything begins with either Love or Fear. Every thought, every word, every action. Nothing opens us wider to the wonders of life than Love, and nothing paralyzes us faster than Fear.

Yet Fear is a fiction.

I want to say that again, because it is the basis of everything you need to understand as you move through your life, and everything you need to know as you seek to change Fear into Excitement.

Fear is a fiction.

It is not real. It is something you are making up in your Mind. It is a false emotion; a counterfeit feeling; a distortion, rooted in a deep misunderstanding. In truth, there is only one emotion, there is only one energy, there is only One Thing That Is.

“All things are One Thing,” says Conversations with God. “There is only One Thing, and all things are part of the One Thing That Is.”

Emotion is nothing more than energy in motion. Hence: E+motion. There is only one Energy, thus, there is only one Energy in Motion all the time.

The human word we have given for that one Emotion is Love. That is why Conversations with God says: “Love is all there is.”

If this is true (and it is), then Fear, as a separate emotion, does not exist. It may exist as an experience, but not as an emotion.

There is only one emotion
The experience of Fear is the emotion of Love, distorted. That is another important statement. It, too, deserves repeating.

The experience of Fear is the emotion of Love, distorted.

All Fear is an expression of Love.

Once you understand this, you will know how to deal with Fear—-because, ironically, you will no longer be afraid of it. It is your fear of Fear that gives Fear its power.

It is as U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt famously said: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

If you embrace Fear, if you welcome it and hold it close, it has no power. You literally love it to death.

This is, in short, how you are going to turn your Fear into Excitement. And this process is all a function of the Mind.

It is your Mind that turns Love into Fear, and it is your Mind that will turn Fear into Excitement. Your Mind can turn anything into anything! That is its magic. That is the Magic of the Mind.

Okay, let’s get to some clarifications; let’s move to some deeper understandings.

I have said, “All Fear is an expression of Love.” How can this be possible? you may ask. How can this be true?

Well, let’s look at that.

If you did not love yourself, would you be afraid of anything happening to you?

If you did not love life, would you be afraid of losing it? (People who hate life—people who, for instance, are in abject misery or unremitting pain—are not afraid of losing life at all. In fact, they welcome it.)

If you did not love others, would you be afraid that they might fall into danger?

No. You would not care, you would not worry. Only Love causes you to be afraid. Absent Love, Fear is not.

So you can know with great certainty that if you are in fear, you are in love.

The trick is to not let the love that you feel turn into the fear that you are very able to experience. You can turn this trick by using the Mechanics of the Mind.

That famous acronym
So we begin with this clarity: Fear is False Evidence Appearing Real. That is a famous acronym that everyone in the so-called New Age Community has heard over and over again. Yet my experience has been that very few spiritual teachers explain it fully.

Very few tell us what the false evidence is that is looking so real. This false evidence is so powerful that it produces a thought—a thought that is then made real.

I have said that your Mind can turn that which is not real into that which is real, and this is true.

Your Mind is able to do this because it does not deal with what is really real, it deals with what you think is real. Indeed, it tells you what to think. It does this all the time. It is supposed to do this. That is its function.

No one ever explained this to me in school. No one told me this in church. My parents never said anything about it to me at home. I never got this information anywhere.

Your Mind is telling you what to think, based on the evidence at hand.

I was raised knowing nothing of this not because the adults around me didn’t want to tell me about it, but because they didn’t know it themselves.

Unless you took a course in clinical psychology, you could spend an entire lifetime knowing nothing about the Mechanics of the Mind.

CWG has made it clear to me that we are all living in an Illusion. As I am fond of saying, we have fallen down the rabbit hole and the Mad Hatter is pouring tea into a cup with no bottom, all the while telling us that what is “so” is not so, and that what is “not so” is so.

And we believe him.

We believe him.

What we were not told by that rascal in the rabbit hole is that nothing we see is real. The “evidence” that is “false” is the appearance of things.

That’s it! That’s the false evidence that appears real.

When we look at something, we think we are seeing what we are looking at. Yet we are not seeing what we are looking at, we are seeing our interpretation of what we are looking at. This is why two people can look at the same thing and describe it in two entirely different ways.

(I’ll never forget how shocked I was when I read an article about myself in People magazine. In the story it said, “Walsch lives in a mansion on the outskirts of Ashland, in Southern Oregon.” I lived at the time in a three-bedroom home with a den on the lowest level and a two-car garage that I had converted into an office. The reporter and I were looking at the exact same house. I never thought of it as a “mansion.”)

We have been thrown into an environment (the Realm of the Physical) in which everything exists relationally. That is, things appear to be what they appear to be because of the relationship they hold to other things.

The only place where we can see things in their entirety, and thus Know Completely, is in the Realm of the Absolute. This realm can only be accessed by being there.

This is not as difficult as it sounds, for there is a part of us that IS there, all the time. We call that part of us The Soul.

Our job, then, is to access the Wisdom of the Soul. We can do this in any number of ways. Meditation is one of them. Prayer is another. Focus is a third. Stillness—that is, simply stopping what you are doing for only a moment and being quiet with yourself, is a fourth. And there are other ways, as well, to move into the awareness of the Soul.

That could be the subject of an entire booklet unto itself—or even a whole section of a major book. In fact, it is. The System of the Soul is described in considerable detail in When Everything Changes, Change Everything. So I am not going to go into that here, but rather, recommend that book to your reading.

I have been serializing here an updated version of a small booklet that I wrote a while ago addressing questions being asked by people all over the world. What is happening here? Why has the world gone insane?

I have added to my booklet a word-for-word copy of the statement I issued the day after the 9-11 attacks on the United States. I believe that many of the observations I made then remain meaningful and applicable today.

Now let me ask you a great question: Is it possible that what we are seeing on the Earth now is the rising up of elements within a Contextual Field that is presaging the coming of the Greatest Age of Man — an age when humans finally understand, embrace, adopt, and demonstrate their True Nature, their Real Identity, and their Actual Purpose?

Could it be that all that we have seen on our planet in the past 50 years is the out-picturing of a larger evolutionary patterning that evidences itself everywhere that Life Itself manifests?

If so, this would give us, at least, an understanding of why such things as we see and hear about on our computer screens every day are occurring. It would explain why so many citizens of one of the planet’s most powerful nations are seriously considering electing a leader who mirrors the lowest common denominators of human beings — fear and the anger that arises from it — rather than a leader who inspires the highest and the best within us.

Understanding all of this is not unimportant. It is the first step toward changing it. You cannot create anew if you don’t understand the old. You can only react. Right now, we are reacting to events on Earth. What we need to do is create them anew. And this can only happen by creating ourselves anew.

What we are talking about here is transformation — and transformation begins at the outer edge of understanding. It is not the other way around. One does not Understand when one is Transformed. One is Transformed when one Understands.

Do you Understand?

This is where the Mind comes in on our evolutionary journey. It is in the Mind of humans where evolution occurs. The Soul is already evolved. It is the part of us that is the source of evolution, not the part of us that yearns to be evolved. What the Soul desires is the experience of what It already knows. It is the Mind that yearns to be evolved, and thus provide the Body with the information that will allow the Soul to experience its highest desire: the expression of Divinity in physical form. It is in this way that the Body, Mind and Soul work together to serve the ultimate purpose of Life Itself.

I could be wrong about all of this. But it feels to me that the Conversations with God material, from which this all emerges, is at least worth more deeply exploring. It is for this reason that I feel now, more than ever, that the booklet this material articulates, and that I was inspired by my Soul to produce, would be very helpful to read, and to share with others. Powerfully helpful.

It is my desire that as many people as possible have an opportunity to absorb this material, so I will continue to excerpt it in this space until the entire document has been published here.

Those who do not wish to wait to finish the document as each new installment is posted here may access the document in full, downloading it here at no cost.

Here is the next installment:

A WORLD IN TURMOIL: How we can respond – Chapter Five
The process that generates Functionality, Adaptability, and Sustainablity is governed by laws of the universe, many of which are easily observable and therefore universally known—such as the Law of Gravity, for instance, or the Laws of Relativity.

One of the laws that is perhaps not so universally known is the Law of Opposites, Tool #3 as offered in this booklet.

Spoken of at length in the Conversations with God dialogues, I often call it The Law Unknown, because even now, most people are not aware of it, unless they have read the CWG dialogues.

There, in Book 1, God says…

“As I’ve already explained, knowing something, and experiencing it, are two different things. Spirit longed to know Itself experientially (just as I did!). Conceptual awareness was not enough for you. So I devised a plan. It is the most extraordinary idea in all the universe—and the most spectacular collaboration. I say collaboration because all of you are in it with Me.

“Under the plan, you as pure spirit would enter the physical universe just created. This is because physicality is the only way to know experientially what you know conceptually. It is, in fact, the reason I created the physical cosmos to begin with—and the system of relativity, which governs it and all creation.

“Once in the physical universe, you, My spirit children, could experience what you know of yourself—but first, you had to come to know the opposite. To explain this simplistically, you cannot know yourself as tall unless and until you become aware of short. You cannot experience the part of yourself that you call fat unless you also come to know thin.

“Taken to ultimate logic, you cannot experience yourself as what you are until you’ve encountered what you are not.

“This is the secret behind the Theory of Relativity, and of all physical life. It is by that which you are not that you yourself are defined.”

In the book Happier Than God this effect was further explained. I want to offer a passage right now from that later text because it is a perfectly wonderful resource for personal growth and spiritual development, and I strongly commend it to your reading. You’ll see why after you finish this direct lift from Happier Than God…

The Law of Opposites is part of a larger system of cause-and-effect in the Universe. This system includes…

1. The Energy of Attraction, which gives you power.
2. The Law of Opposites, which gives you opportunity.
3. The Gift of Wisdom, which gives you discernment.
4. The Joy of Wonder, which gives you imagination.
5. The Presence of Cycles, which gives you eternity.

How it all fits together
The Law of Opposites is the second of the five Great Principles of Life, which intersect and interact with the Basic Principles of Life. You might also call these the Foundational Principles and the Upper Principles.

The first set of principles applies to all forms of life everywhere, throughout the Universe, in all its manifestations, from so-called inanimate objects to those expressions of life that we call “sentient beings.”

The second set of principles applies to sentient beings only. That is, to life forms of elevated awareness, or what we might call self-consciousness.

Not all life forms, of course, are self-conscious. Not every manifestation of life is aware of itself. If a dog sees itself in a mirror, it does not know it is looking at itself, and so it may bark furiously. A kitten may paw at the glass.

A lion in the jungle does not self-analyze or self-reflect. It does not ask itself after it roars, “Gee, do you think I overacted there just a bit ? I wonder what the other lions will think…”

And what we refer to as inanimate objects (although this label is inaccurate, since everything, in fact, is moving) do not seem to possess a conscious awareness of themselves. Rocks don’t ponder their past. Trees are living things, but they don’t wonder what the future holds.

The second of the Great Principles of Life works in perfect harmony with the first principle, the Energy of Attraction. This second principle states that no sooner will you attract something into your reality than its exact opposite will also appear.

What is this now? What am I saying?

I am saying that the moment you choose anything—any outcome, object, or experience—its exact opposite will appear in some way.

It may show itself in some far distant quarter, or it may pop up right in front of your eyes, but it will be there, absolutely.

It is necessary for the “opposite” of whatever you are choosing to create with the Energy of Attraction to show up, for the reason that life cannot be experienced in a vacuum.

A context must be produced in which you may experience what you have chosen.

Because not many people know this, they can easily turn negative in their thinking just when the universe was preparing to place before them all that their hearts desired.

They do not see the appearance of the opposite as a sure and certain sign that they are on the right path, heading toward their chosen objective. Rather, they see it as an obstacle, a blockage.

They experience themselves to be up against the wall, when really they are standing in front of a doorway. Only discernment would allow them to know the difference. This is where the Gift of Wisdom comes in.

The Law of Opposites is based on the most important understanding in of all life:

“In the absence of that which you are not, that which you are is not.”

Fifteen words that will change your life
I know, I know, that’s not a very clear sentence. Yet those are 15 words that can wonderfully alter your entire day-to-day experience on this planet.

Let me clarify.

Let’s say, for the purposes of illustration, that you wish to experience yourself as “the light.” (Many people, by the way, have actually chosen this. They wish to be The Light—and thus to bring The Light—wherever they are, wherever they appear.)

Now let us imagine for the purposes of this illustration that there is nothing else around you but The Light—indeed, that there is nothing else in existence but The Light. This would make it impossible to experience yourself as The Light. You may “know” yourself as that, but you cannot “experience” yourself as that.

(There is a difference between knowing and experiencing, and it is experiencing what it knows itself to be for which the soul yearns.)

There is only one way to experience yourself as The Light, and that would be to find yourself in darkness. Yet remember, in this example there is no “darkness.” In this illustration, there is nothing but The Light. You, therefore, must create the darkness. You must call it forth. And you will.

This is the Law of Opposites, which gives you opportunity. Yet if you see the opposite not as opportunity but as opposition, you will see it not as something that empowers you, but as something that takes power away from you.

You will fall into negative thinking, not understanding that you, yourself, have used the Energy of Attraction to draw to you the darkness as well as the light (what you would call “negative,” as well as what you would call “positive,” outcomes) in order to fully experience the positive outcomes that you are creating.

There is power in opposites, and this is the intricate way in which attraction works with all the great principles of life. Those principles work in concert with each other; they function as a perfect mechanism—the Mechanism of Manifestation—like gears in a finely tuned watch.

What are we to do, then, when the Law of Opposites seems to be thwarting, rather than supporting, Personal Creation?

Understand exactly what is going on.

Endeavor to see the appearance of the “opposite” as your first indication that Personal Creation is working flawlessly. Remember that the first step in creating anything is creating a context within which it may be experienced. Do not resist the opposite of anything that you wish to experience. Instead, embrace it. Look right at it and see it for what it is.

What you resist, persists. That is because, by your continued attention to it in a negative way, you continue to place it there. You cannot resist something that is not there. When you resist something, you place it there. By focusing angry or frustrated energy on it, you actually give it more life.

This is why all great masters have urged us to “resist not evil.” Do not fight that which is opposite to your stated desire or your preferred outcome. Rather, relax into it.

I know that may sound strange, but I promise you, it works. Do not become rigid and tense, ready for a battle. Never oppose that which opposes you. Do not OPpose, COMpose.

Do you understand? Remember this little rule always: Do not oppose, compose.

Compose your original idea of how you want life to show up. And compose yourself while you’re at it. Come from a place of relaxed assurance that life is functioning perfectly. Yet do not confuse relaxation with acceptance.

“Resist not evil” does not mean that you should not try to change what it is that you do not choose. Changing something is not resisting something, it is merely choosing again. Change is not resistance, but alteration. To modify is not to resist, but rather, to continue Personal Creation.

Modification is creation. Resistance is the end of creation. It firmly holds the previous creation in place.

Do you see?

At every moment of difficulty and challenge in your life you have a choice: opposition or composition. To repeat: You can either oppose that which you are experiencing, or compose that which you chose.

Compose what you chose.

Now, thanks to the Law of Opposites, you have a context within which to experience it. And that is the greatest thing the universe could ever give you.

Since I began serializing here an updated version of a small booklet that I wrote a while ago addressing questions being asked by people all over the world, the mass killing in San Bernardino took place. And now we have, in the U.S., a presidential candidate calling for all Muslims to be barred from entering the United States until, to quote his statement, “our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.” I have added to my booklet a word-for-word copy of the statement I issued the day after the 9-11 attacks on the United States.

I feel that now, more than ever, this booklet would be very helpful to read and to share with others. It is my desire that as many people as possible have an opportunity to read this material, so I will continue to excerpt it in this space until the entire document has been published here.

Those who do not wish to wait to finish the document as each new installment is posted here may access the document in full, downloading it here at no cost.

Here is the next installment:

A WORLD IN TURMOIL: How we can respond – Chapter Four

I am going to assume now that you have made the choice to live your life as a Spiritual Being having a body, rather than a Bodily Being having no spirit. I am going to guess that you have picked up this first tool and used it to maximum effectiveness. I base this assumption on the fact that you have continued reading.

We can now pick and use the second tool, the Basic Principles of Life, allowing ourselves to understand the mechanics of the events of our times—the turmoil in the world today, as well as the events to follow in the months and years ahead.

We can now speak about the Process and its Product. The Process of life, I mean, and the Product of your life and mine.

As a spiritual being I have come to understand that there is, indeed, a process taking place on this planet which I inhabit. And it is not a random process, but an organized one, a methodical one, a logical, coherent, consistent, and efficient one.

Life on earth is not simply a series of unrelated, disconnected occurrences. It is a quite deliberate sequencing of events, having a Cause and Effect relationship, and characterized by Function and Purpose.

This is true of the events of 2011, and of all that has ever occurred, is occurring now, or ever will occur.

All of physical life follows a basic formula.

It is what Conversations with God calls The Basic Principles of Life: Functionality, Adaptability, Sustainability. All of Life exhibits these principles. All of life demonstrates them.

All of life, without exception.

Indeed, the ubiquitous nature of these principles is what renders Life Itself eternal. Life goes on and on, without end—as does everything in life—precisely because life is functional, adaptable, and sustainable.

Explaining the principles
Everything in Life is functional. That is, it works. It does something, and it does it efficiently. Life is continually doing something. It is energy in constant motion.

Everywhere you look—everywhere—you will see motion. The biggest elements of life and the tiniest particles are all in motion. Nothing stands still. Nothing.

Were something to stand still, life would end. Yet Life cannot end. It is incapable of doing this. For the doing of this would be the doing of nothing. It would be the absence of doing. And such an absence cannot and does not exist.

Think about this. Try it out for yourself. Try out the theory. Go ahead. Try to “do nothing.” You cannot. Even the doing of nothing is the doing of something. You can be perfectly still, and still, that is what you are doing. Nothing does nothing. Always remember that. It is a key and fundamental and foundational principle of Life…

Nothing Does Nothing

Are you clear? Is this understandable? I hope it is, because if you understand this, you understand the events occurring all around us, and those that will occur in our future, and what all of this means.

Life does what it does in reaction to what it just did. It is the Mother of all Chain Reactions.

What I am saying here is that Life has a built-in mechanism that keeps itself going.

Now…let me tell you how that mechanism operates.

Should the movement of life…or, more correctly, the ability of life to be moving…ever be threatened in any way, for any reason whatsoever, Life will immediately adapt. It will move in a different way. It will move in a different direction, or at a different speed, or with a different vibration, in order to maintain its equilibrium.

As a result of this adaptation Life renders itself sustainable. When Life “senses” that it is no longer sustainable functioning in a particular way, Life will stop functioning in that way and adapt its functioning to the condition that its previous functioning has created.

Think of a top. It keeps spinning, it maintains its balance, through the mechanism of its own motion. When it runs out of spin, it topples over.

Life is a top that never runs out of spin.

It is an energy that supplies energy to itself. It does this through the process of adaptation.

When Life begins to feel its own topple it changes its energy, alters its vibration, revamps its pattern of distribution, puts in some kind of adaptation that guarantees the continuity of Life Itself.

Death is a dramatic example of just such an adaptation.

Did you catch that? I just said a mouthful there. I said that death is an adaptation that guarantees the continuation of life.

Life guarantees its continuance by changing its form.

I need to repeat that. You need to really get it.

Life guarantees its continuance by changing its form

Now you understand the events in our world and why they have occurred. Now you understand the turmoil on this planet and what that is about. Now you understand future events that will occur, as well as the cycles in your own life, and what they have produced, and will continue to produce. Now you understand The Process and The Product.

I have been serializing here an updated version of a small booklet that I wrote a while ago addressing questions being asked by people all over the world in the aftermath of events in Beirut, Paris, Mali, and elsewhere across the globe, and I have added to that document a word-for-word copy of the statement I issued the day after the 9-11 attacks on the United States.

I feel during this period exactly the way I felt on Sept. 11, 2001. Sad. Determined. Re-committed. I knew then that people all over the world who have read Conversations with God would ask: How does this fit into the ideas in your books, Mr. Walsch? How does this fit into the CWG invitation to see the perfection, or its statement that there are no victims and no villains in the world, or its assertion that there is no such thing as Right and Wrong — to say nothing of all the other messages of these texts?

Those are fair questions. Very fair questions. I ask them myself when things such as this occur. And they are occurring now with more frequency than ever before, around the world. So I have updated a small booklet that I wrote a while ago addressing these questions, and I have added to that document a word-for-word copy of the statement I issued the day after the 9-11 attacks on the United States.

It is my desire that as many people as possible have an opportunity to read this material, so I will be excerpting it in a series of passages in this space over the days ahead. Those who do not wish to wait to finish the document as each new installment is posted here may access the document in full, downloading it here at no cost.

Here is the third installment:

A WORLD IN TURMOIL: How we can respond – Chapter Three

This then, is the first step in understanding the turmoil in our world. It is being created by humanity for humanity. Why? As I will explain in more detail later, we are creating a Contextual Field within which we may experience what we came to the earth to experience.

I know, I know, this may sound “way out” to you if you have not previously read the Conversations with God material. But for now, I invite you to consider, if only as an hypothesis, this idea: Human beings are more causal than we might imagine in the events of our world.

This cannot be understood or easily embraced if one is thinking in the short term. The human race did not collectively decide one morning to create simultaneous calamities “for its own good.” That is not how the system works.

How the system works is that all of life—including human life—creates together over an extended time span to jointly produce the right and perfect circumstance in every single moment allowing evolution to proceed to the next level.

Let me give you an example of long-time-span causal actions.

A man lights a cigarette and inhales it deeply—in 1968. It is the 20^th cigarette he has had that day, among the hundreds of packs he has smoked that year, during the 14 years he has indulged his smoking habit. Not a problem, He is perfectly healthy.

In 2011 he is diagnosed with emphysema. In 2012 he dies from this illness.

Was he at cause in the matter of his illness? Or did it “just happen” to him? Did he determine the manner of his own death, or was it just “fate”?

Okay, that one was easy to see. Let’s try another.

Human beings treat Earth and her environment in a particular way. They subject the planet to underground nuclear tests, widespread atmospheric contamination, pollution of its waters, etc., as already related. No problem, people say. Stop being an alarmist, people say. Everything is perfectly fine.

Fifty years later, everything is not fine.

Did we have anything to do with this? Because we did not cause it two days ago, or two years ago, does that mean that humanity has had no part—not any part whatsoever—in causing it at all?

Is humanity, at any level, at cause in the matter, or are we all at the effect of a life over which we have no control?

Which is it?

Is it possible—we must insist on continuing to ask—that we are at least partly responsible for producing outcomes, consciously or unconsciously?

I am here to suggest that the answer is yes, and that we are working together at all levels to collaboratively produce circumstances in which humanity might have the opportunity to evolve.

Present choices, future implications
We are involved in a process here. It is a process far more profound and far more complex—with present-moment choices and decisions having far more long-range implications—than most of us assume or seem to understand. When we do understand, we will alter our short-term behaviors urgently and immediately, I promise you.

The process through which we are moving is call Evolution, and the biggest mistake we humans make is imagining that we have nothing to do with it; that ours is to simply stand by and watch it occur, with little or no control over how it is occurring.

Yet just the opposite is true. We have total control over how we are evolving, and what we are evolving into, as a species.

Highly Evolved Beings (referred to in Book Three of the Conversations with God series as “HEBs”) understand this. The Highly Evolved Species in our Universe are clear that they became highly evolved when they took control over the way in which they evolved.

The human species is just now maturing to the point where we see this clearly as well. The events of our current days and times are forcing us to move to this clarity as a matter of survival. We cannot continue as we have been, this we know.

We cannot continue to live with anxiety about gathering in large groups anywhere for fear of being massacred by terrorists. We cannot continue to watch 653 of our children die every hour of starvation because we haven’t found a way or the will to share all of the world’s abundance with all of the world’s inhabitants. We cannot continue to ecologically despoil our planet through a hundred different choices every day and go on pretending that what we are doing to the environment is not in any way related to what the environment is doing to us, forcing us to watch it transmogrify from a place that was once a paradise to a place that is increasingly unwelcoming—and that may, sooner than we think, actually become uninhabitable.

No, we cannot continue on in this way. We’re becoming clear about that. Yet how to stop the train? That has become the question.

And here is the answer.

We must change the conversation
Each day, each moment, we are being invited by the process of Evolution to raise the level of humanity’s discourse, to elevate our concerns far above and beyond what we want or imagine ourselves to need in any given moment in order to be “happy,” and to respond to life’s far more important—indeed critical—questions.

There are only four questions in life, really. Everything else is our response to them. Sadly, we have been responding to them without even being aware that Life is asking them.

The Four Fundamental Questions of Life are:

1. Who am I?
2. Where am I?
3. Why am I where I am?
4. What am I doing about that?

The time has come now when each of us must look very closely at these questions, and answer them, if we are to find a roadmap out of the confusion that today’s events place before us regarding what is going on now in our world—to say nothing about how we might best respond.

In a bit I will offer my own answers to these questions, but let me make it clear that there are no “right” answers, only the answers that each of us give. Still, each of us must give some answer—and this we are not now doing consciously, although many of us are doing it unconsciously.

That, of course, is the problem.

We must now, each of us, consciously decide some things. Some basic, some very basic, things. And after we do so individually, we must invite our species to do so collectively. And here is the Great Formula for producing our collective transformation: Only in doing so individually can we and will we create the power and the momentum to instigate, ignite, inspire and incite a global movement to do so collectively, producing what history will call an Evolution Revolution.

Life is either a mish-mash of random happenings—a roll of the cosmic dice, if you please—or it is a sophisticated sequencing of events arising out of a Cause and Effect relationship, and having Function and Purpose that relates directly to the very reason for anything existing in the physical universe.

Likewise, we are either a mish-mash of random biological happenings, or we, too, are a far more sophisticated creature, resulting from an evolving and quite deliberate sequencing of events having Cause and Effect, Function and Purpose.

If you choose the mish-mash theory, there is really not much more purpose in your continuing your reading here. What I have to share will have little relation to your thought system, and little application to your day-to-day life.

If, on the other hand, you choose the Sophisticated Sequencing Theory, we have much to discuss. Stay with me here. You’re going to be glad you picked this up.

Our invitation
The narrative here, the philosophical basis of this booklet, is, as I am sure you must know, centered in the messages of Conversations with God, an extraordinary series of nine books covering 3,000 pages published over a dozen years beginning in 1995.

Those books boldly announce themselves to be a direct dialogue between Humanity and Divinity. Later in the document you are now reading you will be provided with a summary of all nine of those texts. For now, simply know that everything you find in this discoure is firmly grounded in the CWG cosmology.

It is Conversations with God that invited us to notice more clearly that “every act is an act of self definition.”

If this is true (and it is), then it is true of acts that we undertake consciously, as well as those in which we engage semi-consciously, or unconsciously.

(Like underground nuclear tests or upper atmosphere toxic overload, or the clear cutting of millions of trees—which would normally assist the oxygenation of our planet—in order to make way for open grazing land for the raising of cows for us to eat…the eating of which is doing nothing to improve our health, and is said by some nutritionists to be damaging it…and the methane gas from which is doing nothing to improve our atmosphere, and is said by some scientists to be damaging it.)

With every act being an act of self-definition, the invitation extended to the human race is to define itself consciously, rather than by default, to experience itself deliberately rather than accidentally, and, on an individual level, for each of us to show ourselves to be Who We Are as a result of powerful intention rather than dismaying inattention.

Once we firmly establish, in our own minds, our full and true identity, then we can explore and examine how to make life work within that context.

That is why Re-Identification is the first important and powerful tool in moving humanity to a place where it can respond with something other than utter impotence to the events of these days and times—both the “man-made” events, as well as what we have chosen to call “acts of God.”

Your identity choices
You have a couple of choices when it comes to establishing and embracing, with deliberateness and intention, your personal identity.

Choice #1: You can conceive of yourself as a Chemical Creature, a “Logical Biological Incident.” That is, the logical outcome of a biological process engaged in by two older biological processes called your mother and your father.

As a Chemical Creature you have no more connection to the Larger Processes of Life than any other chemical or biological life form. Like all the others, you are impacted BY life, but can have very little impact ON life.

You certainly can’t create events, except in the most remote, indirect sense. You can create more life (all chemical creatures carry the biological capacity to recreate more of themselves), but you cannot create what life does, or how it “shows up” in any given moment.

Further, as a Chemical Creature you have very limited ability to create an intentioned reaction to the events and conditions of life over which you have no control. Some of you might even say that you have no such ability at all. You are creatures of habit and instinct, largely, with only those resources that your biology brings you.

You have more resources than a turtle, because your biology has gifted you with more.

You have more resources than a butterfly, because your biology has gifted you with more.

You have more resources than an ape or a dolphin (but not all that many more), because your biology has gifted you with more.

Yet that is all you have in terms of resources. You are dealing with life day-by-day pretty much as it comes, with perhaps a tiny bit of what seems like “control” based on advance planning, etc., but at any minute anything could go wrong—and often does.

Choice #2: You can conceive of yourself as a Spiritual Being inhabiting a biological mass—what you call a “body.” You have powers and abilities far beyond those of a simple Chemical Creature; powers that transcend basic physicality and its laws.

These powers and abilities give you Cause-and-Effect control over certain aspects of the exterior elements of your individual and collective life, and complete control over the interior elements—which means that you have total ability to create your own reality, because your reality has nothing to do with producing the exterior elements of your life and everything to with how you experience the elements that have been produced.

As a Spiritual Being you are made up of three distinct parts: Body, Mind, and Soul. Each of these parts or aspects of you has a purpose and a function, and when they are engaged co-jointly in a collaborative effort, they can exert tremendous influence over the course of exterior events in your life—and they create completely your experience of every event.

Also, as a Spiritual Being, you are here (on the earth, that is) for a spiritual reason. This is a highly focused purpose and has little or nothing to do with your occupation or career, your family and friends, your income or possessions or achievements or place in society, or any of the exterior conditions or circumstances of your life.

Your purpose has to do with your interior life—yet how well you do in achieving your purpose may very often have an effect on your exterior life. For the interior life of each individual cumulatively produces the exterior life of the collective. That is, those people around you, and those people who are around those people who are around you.

Making your decision
Who are you, then? It is time to make your decision. Now is the Moment of Your Choice.

As you consider this, remember always: you are who you say you are, and your experience is what you say it is.

Your choosing is thus at hand. Who do you choose to be? How do you choose to live? As a Chemical Creature or as a Spiritual Being?

You may choose either, and live as either. No one will judge you for your choice, and no one will praise you. It is simply a matter of personal preference. But of this I can assure you: your life will be a demonstration of the choice you have made.

Now let me relate all that I have just said to the turmoil in our world.

The process called Life has produced, as it always does, the right and perfect circumstance allowing you to recreate yourself anew in the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever you held about who you are. This is true for every human being on the earth. The tumultuous events in our world today are the impetus. They are the motivators. They are the wake-up call to a sleeping species.

For it is clear that we need to be shaken from our slumber, and will not awaken through the quiet arrival of the morning alone.

What is coming
The dawn of a new day for all of humanity is just now peaking over the ridge of a distant horizon, and we are roused by the turn of events of our still-lived-in darkness reality to arise quickly, that we may ready ourselves for the brightness of the sun.

Throughout human history we have come to this precipice; across the span of time have we approached this border; and once again our choice is clear: Enlightenment and Paradise or Anarchy and Chaos.

Our options lay before us in sharp contrast: We can move creatively and joyously into the possibility of a brighter tomorrow, or we can huddle fearfully as we wallow in the expectation of inescapable misery.

We can press forward into the splendor of A Future More Wondrous, or we can fall backward into the wretchedness of A Past More Depraved.

We can elevate to our highest hopes or gravitate to our lowest expectations.

What we think and do and say in the days ahead will add to the rapid collection of energy that is producing our destiny.

This I tell you because it is true.

People the world over are upset, nervous, on edge, wondering: will there ever be safety on the globe again?

Mali declared a 10-day State of Emergency and three days of national mourning after gunmen rushed into a Malian hotel shouting “Allahu akbar” while spraying bullets on people gathered at the hotel restaurant for breakfast. The terrorists then roamed the rest of the hotel, shooting at others. Nineteen innocent people were killed.

Brussells — the entire city — is on lockdown as I write this. Police and soldiers, all heavily armed, now walk the streets, and all soccer games have been canceled. The Belgian government raised the capital’s terrorism alert level to its highest status, declaring “serious and immediate threat.”

Over 40 people lost their lives to a terrorist attack in Beirut, Lebanon days before 130 were killed by terrorists in Paris.

This litany could go on. Is this the New Normal? Shall humans never know peace and tranquility again, anywhere on the planet? Is there is be no refuge whatsoever?

As I wrote a week ago, I feel today exactly the way I felt on Sept. 11, 2001. Sad. Determined. Re-committed. I knew that people all over the world who have read Conversations with God would ask: How does this fit into the ideas in your books, Mr. Walsch? How does this fit into the CWG invitation to see the perfection, or its statement that there are no victims and no villains in the world, or its assertion that there is no such thing as Right and Wrong — to say nothing of all the other messages of these texts?

Those are fair questions. Very fair questions. I ask them myself when things such as this occur. And they are occurring now with more frequency than ever before, around the world. So I have updated a small booklet that I wrote a while ago addressing these questions, and I have added to that document a word-for-word copy of the statement I issued the day after the 9-11 attacks on the United States.

It is my desire that as many people as possible have an opportunity to read this material, so I will be excerpting it in a series of passages in this space over the days ahead. Those who do not wish to wait to finish the document as each new installment is posted here may access the document in full, downloading it here at no cost.

Here is the second installment:

A WORLD IN TURMOIL: How we can respond – Chapter Two

What I would like to offer here are five tools with which you will be able to both clearly understand and effectively deal with what is going on all around you on our planet today.

These tools are:

1. Re-identification
2. The Basic Principles of Life
3. The Law of Opposites
4. Changing Emotion
5. Gratitude as an Attitude

With these tools I am hoping that you will be able to:

* Assume a new, fuller, and more accurate personal identity—and thus, a deeper awareness of your role in the creation of things.

* Understand “why bad things happen,” and know better exactly how to carry them in consciousness even as you deal with them “on the ground.”

* Produce a new context within which to hold the events of our day and design the events of our tomorrow.

* Shift away from fear forever.

* Discover and use with enormous effectiveness The Greatest Tool Ever Devised for dealing with “unwanted events.”

Tool #1: Re-identification
We’ll begin by coming to a deeper understanding of who and what we really are, and the role that you and I play in the occurrences of our lives.

The first step in moving to this awareness is an understanding that…

Events on the earth are not created by Unseen Forces.

We are not here subject to the whims of the gods, or, as William Shakespeare put it, suffering “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”

Even in the case of geophysical events, we are not entirely at the mercy of the elements. It may seem as though we are, but we are not.

Take global warming, for instance. It is real, it is occurring, and it is something that we are at some level creating.

Take earthquakes, for instance. They are real, they are occurring, and they are something that we are at some level creating.

Take hurricanes and tornadoes and typhoons and tidal waves and tsunamis. They are all occurring, and they are all something that we are at some level creating.

Or, for that matter, take the incredible and rapid spread of bacterial diseases sweeping across the earth, to the point where medical scientists are now seriously worried about the possibility of certain bacteria becoming so immune to antibiotics that there is no way to stop the diseases they carry from spreading—creating a world ripe for cataclysmic spread of illness and death the likes of which we haven’t seen since before the creation of antibiotic drugs. This nightmare is now developing on the earth, and it is something that we are at some level creating.

The key words there, of course, are the words “at some level.” Are we creating these events consciously, intentionally? Of course not. No one sits around deciding to produce an earthquake that will kill thousands of people and impact millions.

Could we be creating these events unconsciously? Absolutely. Through our unconscious (that is to say, our unthinking or short-sighted) behaviors.

Acknowledging our role in
the scheme of things
It is important to understand that human beings are more than passive observers of the rollout of life.

For instance, how many underground nuclear weapons tests can we conduct before the massive explosions we induce dislodge the interconnecting plates that form the substructure of the planet’s undergirdment?

How many unclean particulates can we emit into the upper atmosphere before we block out enough of the rays of the sun to create significant warming of the planet, such that the rising temperatures of its massive waters produce geothermal conditions generating wind variations violent enough to call them hurricanes and tornadoes?

And listen to this, from the April 2011 issue of Scientific American:

“For more than 50 years microbiologists have warned against using antibiotics to fatten up farm animals. The practice, they argue, threatens human health by turning farms into breeding grounds of drug-resistant bacteria.

“Farmers responded that restricting antibiotics in livestock would devastate the industry and significantly raise costs to consumers.”

Who do you suppose won this debate?

“Although even the proper use of antibiotics can inadvertently lead to the spread of drug-resistant bacteria, the habit of using a low or subtherapeutic dose is a formula for disaster,” the magazine article goes on.

“The treatment provides just enough antibiotic to kill some but not all bacteria. The germs that survive are typically those that happen to bear genetic mutations for resisting the antibiotic. They then reproduce and exchange genes with other microbial resisters.

“Because bacteria are found literally everywhere, resistant strains produced in animals eventually find their way into people as well. You could not design a better system for guaranteeing the spread of antibiotic resistance.”

Hospitals around the world are now reporting the sudden appearance of severe, and in many cases fatal, illness caused by bacteria that no drug now on the market can stop or kill.

Now I am fully aware that there are those people who roundly reject the notion that human activity has anything whatsoever to do with any of this, but I am here to declare (along with the overwhelming majority of the world’s scientists, geophysicists, and medical researchers) that geophysical, environmental, and human activities are intertwined, and that we live in an interconnected world where one thing leads to another, and in which humanity is no more immune from causality than any other element of life itself.

To put this simply, we are at least part of the problem.

That is good news. Because if we are part of the problem, we can also be part of the solution.

If we are not part of the problem, then we have naught but to endure it. Yet if we are part of the problem, and can admit that we are, then we are not utterly at the mercy of Unseen Forces.

With regard to human affairs, this is also true—and perhaps more obviously so. Concerning the geopolitical upheavals of humanity, we are completely at cause in the matter—even though here, too, many people would like to relinquish responsibility, saying that while our global political turmoil is not caused by Nature, it is the result of human nature—which, some people claim, is equally uncontrollable.

Looking at the truth
Is this true? Are human beings “just the way they are,” with certain proclivities so “built in” that there is nothing they can do about their more violent, competitive, or survival-oriented nature?

That is something we are now about to decide. As a group, I mean. As a collective called Humanity, in the days and weeks, months and years, decades and century ahead.

We are about to decide who and how we are as a species—and to announce our decision through our thoughts, words, and actions. It is these choices that will be our declarations to the Universe; it is our demonstrations that will be our manifesto.

One thing is becoming clear: we can no longer move forward, advancing our own evolutionary process as a species, by demonstrating the behaviors of the past several centuries and all the previous millennia.

Something has got to change.

Yet if we hold that what has got to change is unchangeable—that the basic nature of our species is simply what it is, and there is no altering that—then we are surely doomed.

The doomsday predictors will be proven to be absolutely accurate and correct. There is nothing for us to do but to cut and run, hoard and hide, surviving as best we can while the world falls apart around us.

Yet for what? For the simple purpose of surviving? As a snake recoils in preparation for attack…simply to survive? As a lion roars and angrily claws the air…simply to survive? As living creatures of every kind gird their loins and bare their teeth and anxiously glance this way and that…simply to survive?

Is this the only course of action left? Is this our only path?

It is if we insist that what must be changed is unchangeable. It is if we believe that no behavioral shift is possible; that we are on a runaway stagecoach, with no driver and the horses’ reins flapping in the air, hopelessly and heartbreakingly unreachable.

Another option
On the other hand, if we renounce the Doctrine of Impossibility, if we reject the notion of our impotence, if we abandon the thought that we have no control over our collective behavior because of our nature, a New Future opens to us; a New Tomorrow beckons. It can be the Future of Our Preference, the Tomorrow of Our Chosen Creation.

This is the Future that it was intended for us to experience. This is the Tomorrow that we were all along designed to produce. But the first step in the manifestation of this Grander Eventuality is the embracing of a grander truth about Who We Are and Why We Are Here upon the earth.

We must decide if Life is something that is happening to us, or something that is happening through us.

Yes, even with regard to geophysical conditions and events on our planet, we must decide if we have a collaborative role to play in how those occur and affect us, or are simply helpless bystanders.

The Japanese earthquake and tsunami of 2011 is a remarkable example. Even if we accept that we as a species had no role whatsoever in this calamity (a position that I, personally, am not prepared to take), there is not a one of us who can deny that humanity definitely had a role in the nuclear disaster—the leaking of the nuclear power plant—that followed within hours. This is what I mean when I talk about how the planet’s geophysical conditions occur and affect us.

So that is the decision and the choice that is directly in front of us. The question is not, “Oh, my gosh, what are we going to do?”, but rather, “Oh, my goodness, when are we going to see that we are doing much of this to ourselves—and who are we going to be in response to it?”

In the face of our present condition, in the moment of these current events, in the time of our circumstance, who are we going to be?

This decision must be preceded by another choice, a far greater choice, a much deeper one. Who are we to begin with? What is our true identity?

Once we decide this, the question becomes: Shall we step into the full expression of that Here and Now?

It is, in the end and after all, exactly as William Shakespeare posed it:

“To be or not to be, that is the question.”

And so, again.

Paris again. Terrorists again. A world in turmoil again.

When I heard the news about the events in Paris on Nov. 13 I felt exactly the way I felt on Sept. 11, 2001. Sad. Determined. Re-committed. I knew that people all over the world who have read Conversations with God would ask: How does this fit into the ideas in your books, Mr. Walsch? How does this fit into see the perfection, and there are no victims and no villains in the world, and there is no such thing as Right and Wrong, and all the other messages of CWG?

Those are fair questions. Very fair questions. I ask them myself when things such as this occur. And they are occurring now with more frequency than ever before, around the world. So I have updated a small booklet that I wrote a while ago addressing these questions, and I have added to that document a word-for-word copy of the statement I issued the day after the 9-11 attacks on the United States.

It is my desire that as many people as possible have an opportunity to read this material, so I will be excerpting it in a series of passages in this space over the days ahead. Those who do not wish to wait to finish the document as each new installment is posted here may access the document in full, downloading it HERE at no cost.

Below is the first installment:

A WORLD IN TURMOIL: How we can respond – Chapter One

IT HAS BEEN A VERY LONG TIME since the world has been in the kind of turmoil that humanity is facing today at nearly every turn.

The document you are reading is being updated in the days following the horrific and highly coordinated multiple terrorist attacks on the city of Paris, France on November 13, 2015 in which scores of people were randomly killed in restaurants, at the city’s largest concert hall, and elsewhere.

This deeply saddening incident was just the latest in a string of events reflecting major geopolitical upheaval occurring simultaneously across the globe, coincident with deep social unrest, growing financial instability, and even near-epidemic threats to human health—all of this throwing the Earth’s inhabitants into a state of rapid sequential shocks and unremitting worry.

Even as the world’s governments and its non-governmental non-profit helping organizations scramble to collect their resources and respond to these occurrences, people everywhere are beginning to ask: “Is this the beginning of the end? Is this the start of the termination of life as we know it on this planet?”

As many people know, it has been predicted for a very long time that precisely during this period in humanity’s habitation of the Earth, simultaneous calamitous events would occur, both political and environmental, that would engulf the planet.

So…is this where we are?

Yes. I believe the answer is yes.

Is there nothing we can do but gird ourselves for ongoing and ever-increasing disaster?

I believe the answer is no.

I believe that what is happening right now is part of a Larger Process. It is a process by which humanity is being invited to re-define itself. Indeed, to recreate itself anew in the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever our species held about Who We Are.

I believe that futurist and visionary Barbara Marx Hubbard has said is right. What we are seeing on the earth is a birthing of our species into the cosmic community of sentient beings.

Metaphorically speaking, humanity has been in its gestation period for hundreds of thousands of years. That may seem like an unfathomably period of time, but measured against the age of the Universe it is less than the blink of an eye.

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

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

Knowing that we are among the infant species of the Universe renders our behaviors perhaps more understandable. It certainly renders our future more hopeful.

As in every birthing, there is the potential of both danger and joy in the process. Yet we can dissolve the danger, eliminating it from our experience, by simply understanding what’s going on here.

In our movement towards maturing we can create the best of times, not the worst of times. It may not look that way now, I know. Indeed, it may seem to some, on many levels, to be almost hopeless. Yet there is a way you can join in creating the best of times, advancing your own personal spiritual evolution and assisting in the same forward movement for all those you love, for all others whose lives you touch, and, by extension, for the whole human family.

I consider no message more important to the future of humanity, and therefore to the teaching of our children, than the four-word statement that the world was given in the first chapter of the first book in the 3,000+ page Conversations with God series…

We are all one.

But what does We Are All One mean?
To me the CWG message that We Are All One means exactly what it says. The conversation elaborates, telling us that “All Things are One Thing. There is only One Thing, and all things are part of the One Thing there is.”

This means that we are One with each other, One with all of Life, and One with God. There is no other way to interpret it, as I see it.

CWG is telling us that you are me and I am you; that we are part and parcel of Everything. We are intermingled as differing energy forms in a Larger Form that includes All That Is. And so, we are not only One with each other, but One with the Earth and every living thing upon it. One, as well, with the Universe. And, as I’ve already said, One with that Divine Essence that we call God.

The implications of this for the human race are staggering. If we believed this was true, everything in our lives would change. Everything in our religions, in our politics, in our economics, in our education, and in our social constructions. And everything in our personal lives as well.

In our religions we would see the end of their seemingly endless competitions for human souls. Religions would stop insisting on portraying themselves as the One and Only Path to God. They would assist us on our own personal path, but they would not claim to be The Path. And they would cease using Fear as the chief tool in their arsenal.

They would stop teaching that unless we follow their doctrines, we are going to spend eternity in the everlasting fires of hell. They would be a source of comfort and guidance, of ever-present help, and of strength in times of need. Thus, religion would serve its highest purpose and its grandest function.

In our politics we would see the end of hidden agendas, and of power plays, and of the demonization of those with opposing points of view. Political parties would stop claiming that their way was the only way. And they would work together to find solutions to the most pressing problems, and to move society forward by seeking common ground.

They would seek to blend the most workable of their ideas with the most workable of the ideas of their opponents. Thus, politics would serve its highest purpose and its grandest function.

In our economics we would see the end of Bigger-Better-More as the international yardstick of Success. We would create a New Bottom Line, in which “maximum productivity” was redefined, and in which our endless drive for profits-profits-profits was replaced with a sense of awe and wonder in the universe, a reverence for all of life, and a dedication to creating a world in which each person can live in dignity, with basic needs being met. Thus, economics would serve its highest purpose and its grandest function.

In our education we would see the end of propaganda substituting for history, and of subject-driven curricula, where emphasis is placed on memorization of facts, rather than on the fundamental concepts of life which we want our children to understand: awareness, honesty, responsibility.

We would see a democratic school in which children have as much to say about what they are to learn and how they will learn it as teachers, and in which we do not use the environment to pour knowledge into children, but to draw wisdom out of them. Thus, education would serve its highest purpose and its grandest function.

What “We Are All One” does not mean
We Are All One does not mean that what’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine. Not in the ordinarily understood human sense of those words. The concept of Oneness does not eliminate the possibility of personal possessions or individual expressions.

We may find ourselves experiencing a higher level of desire than ever before to share our personal possessions with others when we realize that there really are no “others,” only and merely Additional Versions of the Self—yet we are not required to give our possessions away, nor are we authorized to take another’s possessions from them.

Each human expression of the Divine may experience itself exactly the way it chooses—and what we gather and what we share becomes a striking aspect of that individual expression.

We Are All One also does not mean that we are all the same, or that we do not have a personal and singular and very specific identity. The Parable of the Snowflake, which first appeared in the book The Only Thing That Matters (Emnin Books, 2012, distributed by Hay House), explains this for children in a wonderful way.

I offer it for your reading here…

Once upon a time there was a snowflake. It’s name was Sara. Sara the Snowflake had a brother named Sam. Sam the Snowflake.

Sara and Sam both lived a good life—but they feared for the day that they would die, melting away into the nothingness. Then one day the Snow Angel appeared to both of them. “A snowflake is eternal. Did you know that?” the Angel said, and then the Angel explained:

“The very first snowflakes in the history of the world are the snowflakes that are falling today. They fall from the sky as highly individualized physicalizations. There are no two snowflakes alike. There never have been, in all the history of snowflakes.

“The flakes are awesomely beautiful in their individual design. No one who watches them falling from the heavens can fail to see their exquisite splendor. People run outside when snowflakes fall, beholding their breathtaking magnificence.

“As they land, they merge with one another. People call a huge collection of them on the ground simply ‘snow.’ They don’t say, ‘Look at that big pile of snowflakes.’ They say, ‘Look at that mountain of snow.’ They see all the individual snowflakes as One. And indeed, the snowflakes are One with One Another.”

The Angel went on…

“Soon the sun comes out and the snow melts, each flake disappearing, one by one. They don’t, of course, disappear at all. They simply change form. Now they are water, rippling together in a sparkling puddle or flowing together in a little stream.

“The sun continues to work its magic, and soon the water itself disappears. Or seems to. Actually, it, too, simply changes form. It evaporates, rising into the air as invisible vapors and gathering there in such concentration that they are visible again—as clouds.

“As more and more vapors gather, the clouds become heavy with their moisture. Soon, once again, the moisture falls, raining down upon the earth. And if the temperature is just right, the falling rain turns into snowflakes again—no two snowflakes alike. Ever. In the history of snowflakes.”

Sara and Sam were never so happy in their entire lives. Suddenly, everything was what you might call . . . crystal clear.

And so, in the snow we see the Cycle of Life and the Story of You.

The discussions here have become quite lively, and I have enjoyed them very much. Glad to have you all on board, and spending your time engaging your Mind, whatever you believe. I happen to believe that what I believe creates my reality. I could be wrong about that, but my experience over a lifetime has proven the opposite to me. So I’m going to stick with my current beliefs unless and until proven otherwise to me.

I believe in God, and what I believe about God has become the central focus of a life that without this belief would feel meaningless. I choose not to believe in a life of meaninglessness.

I was offered this observation by Conversations with God: “Nothing has any meaning, save the meaning you give it.” That has been my on-the-ground experience for sure. I hope that all of you are served mightily and lovingly by the meaning you have given to the experiences in your life. I hope you take care of yourself in this way.

Now with this entry I want to talk about beingism.

I am coining this term, I am using this made-up word, to describe a way of moving through the world. It is a giving up of how you think you should be, or would like to be, or imagine how others are expecting you to be, in any given situation. It is a surrendering to what I believe to be your True Nature, a giving in to what I believe to be your Highest Self. And it is something you do most often without thinking.

That is the whole point of it. The point is to stop Thinking and start Being.

When you are Thinking, you are caught in the Mind. When you are Being, you are freely expressing the Soul. When you are expressing your Soul you are experiencing Who You Really Are. When you are caught in your Mind you are experiencing who you imagine yourself to be — or to have to be in order to meet the expectations of others.

I was in a hospital years ago visiting my father. There was a guy in the next room. This man was calling out and moaning. He was obviously in pain. The nurse was not coming fast enough. He was in distress. He was moaning, “Oh God, oh, my God, I can’t take it.” My dad was nowhere near that. He was just laying there feeling perfectly fine.

I said “Hey, I have got to go over there. I have got to go see what’s going on next door.” He said no. He said, Son, leave it alone, leave it to the nurses. I said “No, I’ve got to go. I can’t let that guy just lie there.”

Instantly when I went in there, compassion was called forth. Now listen very carefully to what I just said. I didn’t say, “Compassion was called for.” I said, “Compassion was called forth.” This “calling forth” is a process in which the Mind, analyzing a situation, opens an immediate pathway to the Soul. The soul pours forth its Essence—the true Essence of its Being—and that Essence expresses through you, as you. This manifests without effort because it is, in fact, who you really are.

We have all been in situations similar to that, whatever the circumstance, where compassion is called forth. Or patience is called forth. Or kindness, or understanding, or immense generosity, or just plain love…is called forth. This particular version of our Essence just bubbles up. It just comes up in us. We do not think about it. We do not decide, I think I will be compassionate here. The highest callings are sent out automatically. It is merely a question of whether we will respond to them.

I went in and talked to the guy. I rubbed his forehead. I held his hand. He was an older man, about 80 or 85. He was having a terrible time. His meds had run out. His pain had come back. I do not know what was going on with him, but I just talked to him quietly. He did not even care who I was. He did not even care. I could have been a doctor. I could have been a nurse who hadn’t put his scrubs on yet. I could have been a psychiatrist who’d been called down from the seventh floor. He had no idea who I was and he did not care. Someone was a witness to his life. That made it all a little easier. Someone was bearing witness…

Years later I experienced myself feeling these words as my innermost reality: “Your victories are my victories, your travails are my travails. Your risings are my risings, your fallings are my fallings. You have not experienced a part of you that I have not experienced as a part of me. I stand as not only a witness to your life, but as a liver of it, through my Oneness with you. Inwardly I celebrate your joys, and inwardly I share your burdens. And I will have it no other way…because We Are All One, and I will not turn from you in this hour. For what I do for you, I do for me. And what I fail to do for you, I fail to do for me. I shall not separate myself from you when just the opposite is called for, if I am truly here to heal the world by healing my Self of any false thoughts I ever held about Who I Really Am. First I must see Who You Really Are — and this I choose to do now, in this self-same moment.”

I didn’t tell that story to make myself look good. I told it to illustrate something. As I said, we’ve all had moments like this. We’ve all experienced “showing up” in life in a very big way, in a very wonderful way. We may not even have seen it as that, but it was that, I can tell you, in the life of another.

This is what I mean when I talk about beingism as a tool for an individual. This is what I mean when I speak of beingism as an engine for an entire society. Imagine what a world we would have if we all simply decided to be “compassion.” Or to be “understanding.” Or—dare I suggest it?—to be “holy.”

To be “holy” is to be One With Another. It is to be One With ALL Others. To be “holy” is to be Whole.

Amen, and amen.