Finally…All of it Explained in Simple Terms

Read this and you will understand everything you’ve ever needed to know.

The Divine Purpose is for Life to be used by Divinity to express Divinity in order that Divinity may experience Divinity is all of its aspects.

In short, God is using Life in order to experience Itself.

Divinity can be experienced only through the expression of it. Divinity can be imagined, it can be thought about, and it can be held in Awareness by the Soul, but until it is expressed, it is merely a concept; unless it is expressed, it cannot be experienced.

Here, then, is the Soul’s Knowing:
Until you express Divinity you cannot experience Divinity.

You can talk about Love, you can imagine Love, you can think about Love, you can hold Love as an idea conceptually, but until you express it, you cannot experience it.

You can talk about Compassion, you can imagine Compassion, you can think about Compassion, you can hold Compassion as an idea conceptually, but until you express it, you cannot experience it.

You can talk about Understanding, you can imagine Understanding, you can think about Understanding, you can hold Understanding as an idea conceptually, but until you express it, you cannot experience it.

You can talk about Forgiveness, you can imagine Forgiveness, you can think about Forgiveness, you can hold Forgiveness as an idea conceptually, but until you express it, you cannot experience it.

Divinity is all of these things, and much more. It is Patience and Kindness, Goodness and Mercy, Acceptance and Forbearance, Wisdom and Clarity, Gentleness and Beauty, Selflessness and Nobility, Benevolence and Generosity. And yes, much, much more.

You can imagine all of these things, you can think about all of these things, you can hold all of these things as ideas conceptually, but until you express all of these things in you, through you, as you, you have not experienced Divinity.

And you will never have an opportunity to experience these things unless Life provides you with such an opportunity. This is what Life is doing every day. Indeed, this is the purpose of Life Itself.

Therefore, when Life brings you challenges, difficulties, and unique conditions, situations, and circumstances that are ideally suited to bring out the best in you, “judge not, and neither condemn,” but be a Light unto the darkness, that you might know Who You Really Are—and that all those whose lives you touch might know who they are as well, by the light of your example.

While the idea that “God uses Life to know Godself” is surely not new, why God works this way may very well be something you’d like to know more about. So here is the explanation.

God cannot experience all that God is within the Spiritual Realm alone, because in that realm there is nothing that God is not.

The Realm of the Spiritual is the place where God is all there is, where Love is all there is, where Perfection is all there is. It’s a wonderful place, because there is nothing but Divinity. It is, in short, what you would call heaven. There is, however, this particular reality: There is nothing that God is not. And in the absence of what God is not, what God is . . . is not experienceable.

The same is true about you. You cannot experience what you are except in the presence of What You Are Not. Nor is anything able to be experienced unless it is in a Contextual Field that includes its opposite.

The light cannot be experienced without the darkness. “Up” has no meaning in experience without “down.” “Fast” is simply a term, a word having no meaning whatsoever without “slow.”

Only in the presence of the thing called “small” can the thing called “big” be experienced. We can say that something is “big,” we can imagine that something is “big,” we can conceptualize something as being “big,” but in the absence of something that is “small,” “big” cannot be experienced.

Likewise, in the absence of something “finite,” “infinity” cannot be experienced. Put into theological terms, we can know “Divinity” conceptually, but we cannot know it experientially.

Therefore, all the people and events of your life—now or in the past—which seem to be “at odds” with who you are and what you choose to experience, are simply gifts from the highest source, created for you and brought to you through the collaborative process of co-creating souls, allowing you to find yourself in a Contextual Field within which the fullest experience of Who You Really Are becomes possible.

Or, as it was so wonderfully stated by The Divine in Conversations with God . . .

I have sent you nothing but angels.

Now there’s a statement to remember. It was said here that your eternal Sacred Journey has a purpose, and it does indeed. It is a purpose established by Divinity Itself.

The Divine Purpose is to expand the Reality of God.

In simple terms (and these are simple terms), God is growing—becoming more of Itself—through the process called Life. God IS this process.

God is both the Process of Life Itself . . . and the result of it. Thus, God is The Creator and The Created. The Alpha and the Omega. The Beginning and The End. The Unmoved Mover. The Unwatched Watcher.

In not so simple terms, God cannot “grow” because everything that God ever was, is now, or ever will be, Is Now. There is no Time and there is no Space. Therefore, there is no time in which to grow, and no space into which to grow. The Cycle of Life is occurring simultaneously everywhere.

What the human Mind wants to call God’s “growth” is merely God experiencing more and more of  Itself as the Individuations of God experience more and more of themselves. This is called Evolution.

This was accomplished by The Whole dividing Itself (not to be confused with separating Itself) from Itself, re-creating Itself in smaller and finite form.

No finite form, by the very reason of its being finite, could hold the infinite consciousness, awareness, and experience of The Whole, yet each individuated form was designed uniquely to reflect a particular aspect of Divinity Itself.

Putting all these aspects together again, as one puts the pieces of a puzzle together, produces a picture of what all the pieces create. Namely: God.

All the pieces are part of the picture, and no piece is less a part of the picture than any other.

Now some forms of Life have been endowed with a level of Essential Essence (the raw energy from which everything springs) sufficient to produce the possibility of that Essence knowing Itself. This is the quality in certain living things that is called Self-Consciousness.

Human Life (and, we suspect with good reason, Life elsewhere in the Universe) was designed in such a way that what we call “expansion” of Consciousness and Experience is possible.

In fact, human Consciousness can expand even to a point where it once again knows itself as part of The Whole. Jesus, for instance, said: “I and the Father are one.” He understood his relationship to God perfectly. He
understood that the picture which the puzzle created was not Complete without him. He was The Completion. As are we all.

A Soul Knowing:
God is both the Process of Life Itself
and the Result of that Process.
As are we all.

Take one piece of the puzzle away and the picture is not Complete. The experience of becoming fully Self Consciousness occurs through a process by which the Individuated Aspect does not grow, actually, but simply becomes more and more aware that it does not have to grow, but truly is, in its individuated form, Divinity Itself. The individual piece recognizes itself as The Puzzle Itself, simply divided.

The spectacular physiological, psychological, and theological transition into that higher level of Self-Awareness occurs only once in the epochal history of every sentient species in the cosmos—and this is precisely what is happening within the human race right now.
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END NOTE:

THE 25 CORE MESSAGES of Conversations with God are newly and fully explored, explained, and expanded under one cover in the 2013 text What God Said, from Berkley Books. You can explore it here.

The statement above is taken directly from The Only Thing That Matters, from Emnin Books, distributed by Hay House.

These two books are highly recommended reading for anyone wishing to delve deeply into a new theology for humanity.

It is important to understand that a “theology” is not a religion. No one is suggesting that Conversations with God become a new religion. The word theology is defined as “the study of the nature of God.” That is precisely what the dialogue in CWG is.

I was once asked on a national television program if I could articulate God’s message to the world in simple terms. I replied, “Yes. I can give it to you in five words.” The host blinked twice, then said, “Okay then. Ladies and gentlemen, God’s message to the world, in five words, from Neale Donald Walsch…”

And I said…
You’ve got me all wrong.

If you have a deep yearning to stop getting God all wrong, I urge you to explore the concepts and principles in Conversations with God—not the least important of which is the New Gospel: We Are All One. Ours is not a better way, ours is merely another way.
— Neale Donald Walsch

For the past 18 years, wherever I have gone, I have been besieged with questions about God and Life and the purpose and function of our existence on Earth. This has been understandable, of course, and not unexpected in the aftermath of the worldwide publication of Conversations with God, which attracted millions of readers in more than 35 languages.

Also understandably, I hear the same questions over and over again from different people in different places and times. So repetitive have been my exchanges that I realized recently that I can now recite them from memory. And that gave me an idea. Why not do exactly that? Why not produce a written summary of the questions I usually receive and the answers I have given, post it on the Internet, and then refer people to this resource if they wish to have a lasting record of the answers for future reference?

So here you are. I invite you to visit this corner of our global Internet newspaper’s front page often. I will post new material in this ongoing “Dialogue from Memory” on a regular basis here. And, of course, you will always be able to check into the Archive should you miss a particular posting. When we are finished here, I hope you will know a great deal more about what I have called The New Spirituality, based on the messages in Conversations with God. Welcome to…

CONVERSATIONS WITH HUMANITY

Installment #1

Q. Is there a God?
A.  Yes. The New Spirituality holds that there is a Central Essence, a Creative Force, a Dynamic Energy within the Universe that fills the role of what has been called by many names, including Adonai, Akshar, Allah, Brahman, Brahma, Deus, Divinity, Divine Mother, Ekankar, Elohim, God, Hari, Indra, Jehovah, Krishna, Lord, Mahesh, Manitou, Ormuzd, Parameshwar, Purush, Purushottam, Radha Soami, Ram, Rama, Theos, Thor, Varuna, Vishnu, Yahweh, among others.

Q. What is God? A “person”…a single, grander-than-grand Being? An “energy”? What, precisely, is God?
A. The more productive question is, “What is God not?” The answer to the first question is so sweeping, it would take all the pages of all the encyclopedias on the Internet to offer just a beginning description. Yet the answer to the second question can be given in one word: Nothing. There is nothing that God is not. For God is the Essential Essence that comprises everything—both seen and unseen—in existence.

This means that God is the All-In-All, the Alpha & the Omega, the Beginning & the End; the Up & the Down of it, the Big & the Small of It, the Fast and the Slow of It, the Here & the There of It, the Now & the Then of It. It means that nothing stands outside of God. That Which IS is God…and God is That Which IS.

Q. I find that sad, because if that’s true, then we no longer have a personal God…someone we can pray to, someone we can ask favors of, someone we can go to for help.
A. It would be sad if that were true, but Conversations with God tells us that the Sum Total of Everything has—as might be expected—unlimited intelligence and unlimited creative capacity. The Essential Essence may, therefore, form and shape Itself in an endless number of configurations. Indeed, physical life itself is nothing more than a collection of those configurations.

This means that God can—and will—reconfigure Itself in any form or shape that suits the believer. Divinity can therefore be thought of as your Spiritual Father, as a Sacred Mother, as a Best Friendship with God, or in any guise or image that best helps us to relate and communicate with it.

IN OUR NEXT INSTALLMENT: Since you say there is a God, what is God’s “job”? What is its function? What does God do and what does God not do?   

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Installment #2
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Q. Since you say there is a God, what is God’s “job”?
A. I can tell you what it is not. It is not to “grant us wishes.” Nor is it to watch us from afar, judge us by our actions, and reward or punish us after “death.”

Q. Okay, so what is God’s job?
God’s “job” (I prefer to refer to this as the basic function of the Essential Energy) is to empower Life in all of its physical forms and manifestations with the ability to create, impact, and direct their experience at a level commensurate with the Self Consciousness with which each of those manifestations has been imbued.

As it relates to humans, God’s “job” is to provide us with the ability to create our own reality. This includes our collective Exterior Events and our individual Inner Experience. To do this, we have been given the Tools of Creation. Specifically: Thought, Word, and Deed.

Q. So we get to experience whatever we want to experience?
The Collective known as Humanity does, yes — and our world as it now presents itself is evidence of that. It is the Cultural Story of humanity that produces the Exterior Events of humanity’s history and present adventure. If we want to change our collective Exteior Events, all we have to do is change our Cultural Story. That is, what we think of ourselves; what we tell ourselves about ourselves.

The Individuation of Divinity known as a single human being also gets to experience what it wishes to experience. Everything is what we say it is. There is no direct connection between the Exterior Events of Life being co-created by the lot of us and the Interior Experience of those events, which is individually created by every human being.

The process by which Exterior Events are transformed and translated into Interior Experience is explained in wonderful detail in the book When Everything Changes Change Everything. It involves the Mechanics of the Mind and the System of the Soul, and the ideal is to use both, in perfect balance. That is what spiritual masters do, and have always done.

The trick is to know what Life itself is all about. Then we know what it is that we are trying to do!

Q. What does that mean? What are you saying here?
I am saying that most people do not understand exactly what it is they are seeking to do. That is, they are not keenly aware of the purpose of their lives—or of Life Itself. They do not understand why we are even here upon the Earth. They do not know who they are, where they are, or why they are where they are. So most people are simply wading through the ocean of life, trying to make the best of it, trying to keep their head above water, trying with all their might to simply stay afloat. But they have no idea how they got in this situation, what the situation actually is, where they are trying to go, much less how to really get into the swim of things. So they experience themselves swimming upstream, as it were. Yet it doesn’t have to be this way.

Q. Oh, really? Then what way can it be?
Ah, yes. That will be our next installment.

WRITTEN and PUBLISHED September 12, 2001…
re-published the day after the Boston Bombings of April 15, 2013…
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The events of September 11, 2001 cause every thinking person to stop their daily lives, whatever is going on in them, and to ponder deeply the larger questions of life.

We search again for not only the meaning of life, but the purpose of our individual and collective experience as we have created it—and we look earnestly for ways in which we might recreate ourselves anew as a human species, so that we may end at last the cycle of violence which has marred our history.

The hour has brought us much sorrow, yet behind the sorrow, if we look closely and long, we will see opportunity.  It is the opportunity for us to take a new path, to show the world a new way, to demonstrate at the highest level our most extraordinary thought about Who We Really Are—as a people, as a nation, and as a human family.

The whole human race is invited now is look to see what it is we truly wish to experience on this planet. Then we are invited to be the source of that for each other.

If we wish to experience peace, we are invited to provide peace for each other.

If we wish to know that we are safe, we are invited to create safety for each other.

If we wish to better understand seemingly incomprehensible things, we are invited to help each other to better understand.

If we wish to heal our own sadness or anger, we are invited to heal the sadness or anger in each other.

If we wish to have justice done, we are invited to act justly with each other.

The world is waiting now. It is anxiously awaiting the morrow, not knowing what may come. Its people are looking for guidance, for help, for courage, for strength, for understanding, and for assurance at this hour. Most of all, they are looking for love.

The words to that familiar song were never, ever more meaningful than they are today:

What the world needs now is love, sweet love. That’s the only thing that there’s just too little of. What the world needs now is love, sweet love. No, not just for some, but for everyone.

This is the moment of your ministry. This could be the time of your greatest teaching. What you teach at this time, through your every word and action, will remain as indelible lessons in the hearts and minds of those whose lives you touch, both now, and for years to come.

We will set the course for tomorrow, today. At this hour. In this moment.

There is much we can do, but there is one thing we cannot do. We cannot continue to co-create our lives together on this planet as we have in the past. Yet we will continue to do so if we focus our energy on pinpointing where blame falls, rather than where cause lies, in the unhappiest of our experiences.

Unless we take this time to look at the cause of our wounds, we will never heal. Instead, we will forever live in fear of retribution from those within the human family who feel aggrieved—and, likewise, we will forever seek retribution for them.

To me the cause is clear. The majority of the world’s people have not learned the most basic human lessons. They have not remembered the most basic human truths. They have not understood the most basic spiritual wisdom. In short, most people have not been listening to God, and because they have not, they do ungodly things.

The message of God is clear. No matter what the religion, no matter what the culture, no matter what the spiritual or indigenous tradition, the bottom line is identical: we are all one.

The Bible, which is only one of humanity’s many sources of spiritual teaching, carries this message throughout, in both the Old Testament and the New.

(Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers? Malachi 2:10… so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Romans 12:5…Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body…1 Corinthians 10:17)

This is a message the human race has largely ignored.

Our religion, our politics, our economics, our education, our whole way of life is based on the idea that we are not one, but that we are separate from each other.  We are thus willing to inflict all manner of injury upon each other. We would never do this if we thought that we were actually inflicting injury upon ourselves, yet this injury inevitably does fall upon ourselves—for like begets like, and negativity only breeds negativity.

Our history has proven this. Still, there seems to be one thing for which many human beings will give up anything. They will give up peace, love, happiness, joy, prosperity, romance, excitement, serenity, everything—even their own heath—for this one thing:

Being right.

But even if we are right, what is spirituality’s recommended course of action? What do the greatest spiritual teachers of all time, each in their own way, tell us at times such as these? It is something that many of us cannot (or do not wish to) hear.

…I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you, (Matthew 5:44)

Can this be sound advice?

If we could love even those who have attacked us, and seek to understand why they have done so, what would be the final result?  Yet if we meet negativity with negativity, rage with rage, attack with attack, what then will be the outcome?

It is easy at times like this to fall into rage—and even to mistake it for justice. Yet rage never produces authentic justice. Indeed, it inevitably creates injustice—for someone. That is because rage is anger that has been repressed, and, when released, it is always misdirected. This is exactly what happened on September 11, 2001.

Anger itself is not inappropriate. Anger is a natural human response, and can even be a blessing, if it leads to change.  Yet as we feel our anger and express, there is one thing about which we should make no mistake.  The human race has the power to annihilate itself.  We can end life as we know it on this planet in one afternoon.

In the early days of our civilization, we were able to inflict hurt upon each other using sticks and rocks and primitive weapons. Then, as our technology grew, we could destroy a village, or a town, or a major city, or even an entire nation. Yet now it is possible for us to destroy our whole world, and do it so fast that nothing can stop the process once it has begun.

Is that the process we wish to begin?  This is the question we must answer.

In searching for our answer, I hope that each of us will have our own conversation with God, for only the grandest wisdom and the grandest truth can address the greatest problems, and we are now facing the greatest problems and the greatest challenges in the history of our species.

It should be no surprise that we are doing so. It is not as if we have not seen this coming. Spiritual, political, and philosophical writers for the past 50 years have predicted it. So long as we continue to treat each other as we have in the past, they have said, the circumstance we face in the present will continue to present itself in the future.

We must change ourselves. We must change the beliefs upon which our behaviors are based. We must create a different reality, build a new society. And we must do so not with political truths or with economic truths, and not with cultural truths or even the remembered truths of our ancestors—for the sins of the fathers are being visited upon the sons. We must do so with new spiritual truths. We must preach a new gospel, its healing message summarized in two sentences:

We are all one.

Ours is not a better way, ours is merely another way.

This 15-word message, delivered from every lectern and pulpit, from every rostrum and platform, could change everything overnight. I challenge every priest, every minister, every rabbi and religious cleric to preach this. I challenge every political party spokesperson and the head of every national government to declare it.

And I challenge all of us, right now, to become spiritual activists. If we want the beauty of the world and not its ugliness to be experienced by our children and our children’s children, we must choose to be at cause in the matter.

— Neale Donald Walsch

Has your life been changed by the message of Conversations With God?  Do you wish there was some way you could share how the message worked, and helped you in your life, with others?

There is a way.

Neale Donald Walsch has written a remarkable book that takes the messages of CWG and overlays it on everyday situations and circumstances in life. The book — titled When Everything Changes, Change Everything — provides a complete technology for addressing life challenges with a remarkable combination of modern day psychology and contemporary spirituality.

This deeply insightful text is supported by a website staffed exclusively by volunteers. The website is called The Changing Change Network, because it has created a network of people around the world who are dedicated to being there for others in a spiritually supportive way. The site can be found at www.changingchange.net

The purpose of this helping outreach is to “change the way change changes you” when a person is experiencing a negative response to a major, unexpected, unwanted change in their life. The website fulfills a promise that Neale made in his book: You never have to go through traumatic change in your life alone.

He promised to create a site that would be staffed with volunteers who would answer, within 24 hours, any person posting a call for help regarding a sudden change in their life.  (Go to www.changingchange.net to see what I’m talking about.)

The Spiritual Helper volunteers assist people in finding practical spiritual tools to use in times of extreme change. These volunteers know the material in Conversations with God and When Everything Changes, Change Everything intimately, and commit two days a month to being the first responder when a person posts a question about how to go through their dramatic change. The Helper also commits to being the “back up” for another Helper for two other days per month.

This is a wonderful opportunity to enter into a true spiritual ministry. And you don’t have to worry about “not knowing how to do this.” Once a month Neale holds a training call to answer questions you may have about CWG in general, about how its messages apply to the problems and challenges which people discuss on the site, and about ways that you might best respond and interact on the site. In addition, once a year Neale offers the Spiritual Helpers free on-site participation as a back-of-the-room observer at one of his spiritual renewal retreats, and works with the Spiritual Helpers in private sessions during the retreat, exploring in highly personal discussions everything he knows about the CWG messages and how to apply themto people in the group who are seeking spiritual growth.

So, I ask you:  Do you feel called to help others, but just don’t know how?  Do you know the Conversations with God material, realize its power, and wish to share it?  Do you have a little extra time?

Perhaps you were attracted to CWG for a reason. Perhaps you are being given the opportunity to be a Spiritual Helper.

Interested? Go to www.changingchange.net and see if you can imagine yourself there as one of our Spiritual Helpers. You can even begin to offer gentle spiritual counsel before becoming an “official” member of the Spiritual Helper team. (Members of the general public often do.) Then, if you feel the impulse to offer your help more often, and on a regular basis that can be counted on, write to: spiritualhelpers@changingchange.net and offer your commitment to check into the site two days a month to see if anybody new has posted, and to respond within 24 hours if someone has.

It’s as simple — and as wonderful — as that. The Changing Change Network is a global network of people “being there” for other people. If you have been feeling the impulse to look for your spiritual ministry in the world, you may have just found it.

Let us know. And thanks for reading this.

Therese Wilson
Global Director
The Changing Change Network

We conclude, with this entry, our extended series of articles in response to an entry many weeks ago by a reader named Carol, who wrote: Where does it all end? What do we use for our barometer for right and wrong? If you have not read the previous posts in this series, I invite you to check the Archives on the site to do so.

This article is Part VIII, and the end, of an ongoing series: LAYING THE GROUNDWORK FOR TOMORROW

Moving to the conclusion of this dialogue, I want to focus on Carol’s wonderful statement: “I will obey the commandments, I will live a honest God fearing life, and I will not tolerate deceit, lies, injustice, and behavior that is hateful without saying something to stop it.”

You know, Carol, when I was a child, I was taught the Ten Commandments. I was told by the nuns in my school to memorize them, and then by my parish priest, at Sunday morning Mass, to live by them.

I had no problem with any of this. I had reached what my church called the age of reason (I was 7), and that there would be a list of “rules” made sense to me, even if I didn’t get the full meaning of all them (like “coveting” a neighbor’s wife, which I could get no nun to explain to me—to say nothing about the “adultery” one.)

As I grew into a young adult, the commandments made even more sense. Good rules to live by, I thought. Can’t go wrong with these.

And they are wonderful guidelines for living, there’s no question about that. That’s no doubt why they have been around for so long. You can imagine my shock and surprise, then, when I was told in Book 1 of the Conversations with God series, “There’s no such thing as the Ten Commandments.”

How could that be? I wondered. Had God himself not given us these laws and ordinances? And where would humanity be without a set of sacred rules upon which to base all other human laws by which it governs itself?

Of course, I asked God these questions, and the answers I received made it apparent that God had no problem with the content of the Ten Commandments either. It was the concept that was faulty.

It had already been made clear to me that God and we are One. This was the very first announcement in the dialogue, appearing on pg. 5 of 3,000 pages of interaction. So I had already been given the groundwork for what God had to say about those ten statements he gave to Moses, and I suppose I should have guessed exactly what that might be.

“Who would I command? Myself?”, God asked. “And why would such commandments be required? Whatever I want, is. N’est ce pas? How is it therefore necessary to command anyone?

“And, if I did issue commandments, would they not be automatically kept? How could I wish something to be ‘so’ so badly that I would command it—and then sit by and watch it not be so? What kind of a king would do that? What kind of a ruler?”

God explained that he was neither a king nor a ruler, but The Creator.

“I have created you—blessed you—in the image and likeness of Me,” she said. “And I have made certain promises and commitments to you.”

It was explained that Moses went to the mountaintop with an urgent plea. He begged God to give him something he could tell his people that would assure them they were on the right path.

God must have felt, “Fair enough. Good question,” because he essentially said to Moses, “I will tell you, in plain language, how it will be with you when you become as one with Me.” Here are, God explained, some Divine Covenants: “You shall know that you have taken the path to God, and you shall know that you have found God, for there will be these signs, these indications, these changes in you.” And then he listed them.

(This entire exchange may be found on pg. 37 of CWG-Book 1.)

You shall know that you’re on a good path, God said, because when you are walking a path to God there are things that you shall and shall not do automatically. But this list, God said in CWG, were never meant to be commandments.

“For who shall I command? And who shall I punish should My commandments not be kept? There is only Me.”

I understood the logic of this completely, but I have to say that I felt that the bulk of humanity might feel little lost without those guidelines—call them commandments, call them commitments, call them whatever you wish.

I wondered if the new theology of Conversations with God would give us anything to replace them, any kind of touchstones or guidelines, criteria or even suggestions that might help us find our way through the thicket of Life on Earth. And it has. It has given us the Ten Illusions of Humans — and the explanation of those illusions, with instructions on how to use them for the Divine Purpose for which they were intended. Please look these up in the book Communion with God. Those explanations take up ten chapters in that book, and reading this can change one’s life.

Then God gave us a clear statement of our pathway here on Earth. You can find that in the book The Only Thing That Matters. It is now being serialized and may be read for free on Facebook (www.Facebook.com/nealedonaldwalsch), or you may purchase the book if you’d like you own private copy to study whenever you wish. It’s available at this link…

The Only Thing That Matters

And so, Carol, we are left with the greatest gift. Not commandments from God, but covenants. God has given his promises. Please read those promises starting on page 37 of Conversations with God-Book One.

You may also find it wonderfully valuable and deeply rewarding to read What God Wants, which answers the biggest question of all time: What does God demand of us?

I wish you well, Carol — and all of you — on your travels. May you find God again along the way, through knowing that God never left you…and could never, because God is you, in Singularized Form. You are united with and part of The One, both now and even forevermore.

Wishing you God’s peace deep within…Neale Donald Walsch

We continue here a series of articles arising out of an entry made on this page some weeks ago by a reader named Carol Bass. I found her entry wonderfully illustrative of the thoughts and feelings I hear expressed by many people during these days and times. I would like to re-print her entire Comment here, to catch you up on this exchange if you are just jumping in…

ON JAN. 3 CAROL BASS WROTE…

I don’t think I have ever had such a unsettled feeling about the future of humanity. At my age to feel so much fear and uncertainty is not a good place to be.  It seems that so many have turned their back on what is right and what is wrong.  The ten commandments according to the bible has become just another thing to cast off as just someone’s religious beliefs but not necessarily truth.

I am not a young person anymore and have lived allot of life but yet I seem more confused today about life, religion, morals, truth, than any other time in my life. I think it is perhaps that I try to be open minded and listen to all points of view and am always searching desparately for the truth and why we are here in the first place. It is so easy for anyone with talent for stating their views with eloquence, and the right choice of words to make a case for just about anything…But where does it all end? What do we use for our borometer for right and wrong?

I was taught as a Christian that it all goes back to the bible and the ten commandments. But not all of us are Christians. We live in such a diverse world with so many belief systems. But don’t all religions believe that good, love, peace should always prevail?  It just seems to me that evil would be despised by all people. We can not keep going on killing, hating, raping, abusing, ignoring the needs the weak without our spirits being broken. We must find a way to do better.

We only have control of ourselves but we can sure start there. We can and do have a influence on the people we love and the contacts we have in our lives. People do pay attention to how we live our lives.  I have started in my life by standing firm in my beliefs as a person of God. I will obey the commandments, I will live a honest God fearing life, and I will not tolerate deceit, lies, injustice, and behavior that is hateful without saying something to stop it. I will love my fellow man and be helpful when there is a need. I will encourage anyone that I may come in contact with that appears to be in some kind of struggle to turn to their God for guidance.  I will continue to pray for guidance myself and for the betterment of our humanity. I will always ask God to turn our heats back to Him where the truth is and always will be. That is my daily prayer.
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In past columns here I have offered my reflections on the matter of “right” and “wrong,” and also to Carol’s question: Where does it all end? What do we use for our barometer for right and wrong? If you have not read those responses, I invite you to check in on the Archives on the site to do so.

This article is Part VII of an ongoing series:
LAYING THE GROUNDWORK FOR TOMORROW

Moving to the conclusion of this dialogue, I want to focus on Carol’s wonderful statement: “I will obey the commandments, I will live a honest God fearing life, and I will not tolerate deceit, lies, injustice, and behavior that is hateful without saying something to stop it.”

That is so inspiring, Carol, and I am genuinely uplifted by the spirit behind your commitment. And…having said that…I find, on my own personal spiritual journey, some differences with you.  Unlike you, Carol, I will not lead a “God fearing life.” The God of my understanding has made it clear to me that there is no reason to “fear God,” and I am sad to observe that so many millions of people feel that just the opposite is true.

I believe that the notion that God is to be “feared” has done more harm, caused more hurt and damage, to life on Earth than any other single notion, concept, or religious belief that I can think of, Carol. The idea of a judging, condemning, punishing God has given humanity its moral authority to likewise judge, condemn, and punish others.

A careful reading of the Bible, with calculator in hand, will reveal that, according to this scripture, over one million people were killed at the hand or the command of God. Yet my experience is that such a vengeful, retributive God does not exist. When I was asked by Matt Lauer on NBC’s Today show what God’s message to the world was, I had just moments to reply. “Could you put it in a paragraph or two?” Matt asked. “We have about 30-seconds.”

In that moment I flashed an emergency message to God. “Okay, my friend, you’ve put me in front of an audience of millions here. What would you have me say?” And I was given my answer. In five words. “Tell them,” God said, “that my message is: ‘You’ve got me all wrong’.” When I said that to Matt, his eyebrows went up, but time had run out on the interview, and he had nothing more to say.

I believe the message is true. I believe we do have God all wrong. That is, billions of people do. And that is why I have sought to create what I have called “a Civil Rights Movement for the Soul, freeing humanity at last from the oppression of its belief in a violent, angry and vindictive God, and releasing our species from a spiritual doctrine that has created nothing but separation, fear, and dysfunction around the world.”

I invite us to replace this dogma, finally, with an ethos of unity and cooperation, understanding and compassion, generosity and love.

I want to talk more about that, Carol, but in my next post I would like to first question whether the Ten Commandments even exist. As you may (or may not) know, Conversations with God-Book One says “there’s no such thing as the Ten Commandments.” And we shall explore that spiritually revolutionary idea next. You are all invited to join us. And to join in this conversation in the Comments Section below.

We continue here a series of articles arising out of an entry made on this page on January 3rd by a reader named Carol Bass. I found her entry wonderfully illustrative of the thoughts and feelings I hear expressed by many people during these days and times. I would like to re-print her entire Comment here, to catch you up on this exchange if you are just jumping in…

ON JAN. 3 CAROL BASS WROTE…

I don’t think I have ever had such a unsettled feeling about the future of humanity. At my age to feel so much fear and uncertainty is not a good place to be.  It seems that so many have turned their back on what is right and what is wrong.  The ten commandments according to the bible has become just another thing to cast off as just someone’s religious beliefs but not necessarily truth.

I am not a young person anymore and have lived allot of life but yet I seem more confused today about life, religion, morals, truth, than any other time in my life. I think it is perhaps that I try to be open minded and listen to all points of view and am always searching desparately for the truth and why we are here in the first place. It is so easy for anyone with talent for stating their views with eloquence, and the right choice of words to make a case for just about anything…But where does it all end? What do we use for our borometer for right and wrong?

I was taught as a Christian that it all goes back to the bible and the ten commandments. But not all of us are Christians. We live in such a diverse world with so many belief systems. But don’t all religions believe that good, love, peace should always prevail?  It just seems to me that evil would be despised by all people. We can not keep going on killing, hating, raping, abusing, ignoring the needs the weak without our spirits being broken. We must find a way to do better.

We only have control of ourselves but we can sure start there. We can and do have a influence on the people we love and the contacts we have in our lives. People do pay attention to how we live our lives.  I have started in my life by standing firm in my beliefs as a person of God. I will obey the commandments, I will live a honest God fearing life, and I will not tolerate deceit, lies, injustice, and behavior that is hateful without saying something to stop it. I will love my fellow man and be helpful when there is a need. I will encourage anyone that I may come in contact with that appears to be in some kind of struggle to turn to their God for guidance.  I will continue to pray for guidance myself and for the betterment of our humanity. I will always ask God to turn our heats back to Him where the truth is and always will be. That is my daily prayer.
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Now, from me in response…

AS YOU KNOW if you read our last entry here, I have done my best to address the question of “right” and “wrong”.  And there is more on this topic right now just above, in the copy element on this page labeled Excerpt from Conversations with God.  I do hope you read it, Carol…and I hope that the rest of you take a moment to read it, too. I found this exchange in the dialogue with God to be remarkably opening and helpful in allowing me to re-contextualize my understanding of “right” and “wrong.”

This article is Part VI of an ongoing series:
LAYING THE GROUNDWORK FOR TOMORROW

Now, I would like to move to this Comment by Carol: It is so easy for anyone with talent for stating their views with eloquence, and the right choice of words to make a case for just about anything…But where does it all end? What do we use for our borometer for right and wrong?

That, it seems to me, is a very fair question. I, too, spent 50 years looking for that barometer, Carol. And I found it in Conversations with God. Does that mean that I had decided that CWG is “the truth”? No. Actually, just the opposite.

Listen to this dialogue that I had with God about just this topic, Carol. This is a direct lift, a word-for-word transcript, of a passage from the Conversations with God books…

GOD: Religion is also a manifestation of humankind’s instinctive awareness that rituals, traditions, ceremonies and customs have enormous value as markers that assert a peoples’ presence in the world, and as the adhesive that secures that presence by holding a peoples’ culture together.

Each culture has its beautiful and singular tradition honoring a beautiful and central truth: that there is something larger and more important in life than one’s own desires, or even one’s own needs; that life itself is a much more profound and far more meaningful experience than many people at first imagine; and that it is in love and mutual concern and forgiveness and creativity and playfulness and the joining of hands in a united effort to achieve a common goal wherein which will be found the deepest satisfactions and the most wondrous joys of the human encounter.

Take then, each of you, your own path to Me. Undertake your own journey home. Do not worry or render judgments about how others are taking theirs. You cannot fail to reach Me, and neither can they. Indeed, you will all meet again when you are together at Home, and you will wonder why you quibbled so.

NEALE: Oh, and we have argued, haven’t we? We have argued endlessly. We have quarreled and we have fought and we have killed and we have died because we have insisted that ours is the right way—in fact, that ours is the only way—to heaven.

GOD: Yes, you have.

NEALE: Yet now here you come to tell us that “no path is better than any other path.” And I must gently ask, how can I believe this? How can I know what to believe?

GOD: Whatever you do, do not believe what is said here.

NEALE: I’m sorry?

GOD: Do not believe a single thing I say. Listen to what I say, then believe what your heart tells you is true.

I ask only one thing.

NEALE: What is that?

GOD: Do not tell others that unless THEY believe what is in YOUR heart, I am going to condemn them. And whatever you do, do not condemn them yourself, on my behalf.

NEALE: We keep doing that. We don’t seem to know how to stop. And we’re putting ourselves through sheer hell.

GOD: Yet now here is the Good News: Humanity need not go through hell to get to heaven.

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So there you have it, Carol: the answer to your question. Your barometer for what is “right” and “wrong” is found in your own heart. Your heart is the bridge between your mind and your soul. Listen to what your heart tells you is “right” and “wrong” and live by that — just as your statement above indicates, Carol, that you have done. This is precisely what you have done, and God bless you for it. You need no other barometer than that. For it is as Shakespeare wrote:

This above all: to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Carol Bass Dialogue continues in this space in entries ahead. You are invited to check back for the newest entry.

(Editor’s note: This series of articles has moved from the top of page headline position to this space, providing this important dialogue its own unique location as the headline position is used for topical stories in the news.)
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Has humanity lost True North on its moral compass?

The whole idea of  “wrong doing” is part of humanity’s cosmology of life. We really do think that there is such a thing as Right and Wrong. After all, God has told us so. Our religions have told us so. Our parents have told us so. Our culture has told us so. Our societies around the world have made it clear that some things are Right and some things are Wrong.

Yet now here comes a new theology arising out of the Conversations with God series of books which tells us, in one of its most provocative statements, that “there is no such thing as Right and Wrong.” And the Mind begs to know, how can this be true? Are we to simply abandon all of the understandings that all of humanity holds all of the time?

No, my own Mind said, when I first heard this: Surely Right and Wrong must exist at some level. Surely there must be some guidepost, some yardstick, some standard or criterion with which we can measure or determine whether particular choices and behaviors are appropriate or inappropriate, are good or bad, are best taken or best ignored.

A remarkable post here a while ago from a reader named Carol Bass has ignited this series of articles about the state of humanity’s spirituality today.

In this series, I am attempting to respond directly to what Carol had to say in a striking entry that, to me, seemed to perfectly frame the way so many people are holding their reality today. I believe that Carol’s comments deserve serious and complete responses. So Carol, here we go again…as we continue to look deeply at the observations you offered.

In my last entry here in reply to you, I quoted your comment that…

“It seems that so many have turned their back on what is right and what is wrong. The ten commandments according to the bible have become just another thing to cast off as just someone’s religious beliefs but not necessarily truth.”

The human race seems to agree, Carol. People have stuck to their guns about this—and I mean that quite literally—for many, many years. We are absolutely certain that there is such a thing as Right and Wrong, and we are absolutely sure that we are right about that.

The difficulty and the problem has been that our ideas of Right and Wrong change from time to time, from place to place, and from culture to culture. The result: what one person or culture says is Right, another person or culture says is Wrong. And this is the source of more than a small or trivial amount of the conflict and violence, killing and war that we have seen on the planet—much of it, ironically, in God’s name.

This article is Part V of an ongoing series:
LAYING THE GROUNDWORK FOR TOMORROW

Not only can we not seem to be able to agree on what is Right and Wrong, we can’t even agree to disagree about this. We don’t seem capable of observing our differences and calling them simply that. We apparently feel the need to make each other wrong for holding views different from ours.

We can’t even agree to openly explore the topics on which our beliefs diverge, with all possibilities on the table, with compromises at least considered. No, there can be no compromises when we are right. One does not compromise one’s principles, one does not bargain with the devil—and we have already demonized each other, not just each other’s views, so there you have it. We are left with our disagreements and our absolute inability to overcome them.

Worse yet, we are left with our righteousness about them. We imagine we are so right about what is Right and Wrong that we are willing to belittle others, to criticize others, to persecute others, to judge and punish others, to attack others and even to kill others—all of which we would consider Wrong if others did it to us. The interesting thing about Right is that it is always on our side.

The problem here, of course, is with the model of the world. CWG famously made the statement that “no one does anything inappropriate, given their model of the world.” It is this model that tells us that things are morally right and morally wrong—and, billions believe, that it is God who has said so. If God says that something is Right or Wrong, who are we to contradict that, or even to question it?

So our model of the world leaves no room for discussion, no room for debate, no room for exploration of any possibility other than what we have been told and commanded by the God of our understanding.

There would be no problem with this if we could be certain that our understanding of what God has said is Right and Wrong is “right.” But what if it’s “wrong”? Or, at least, incomplete?

Even casual observation informs us, Carol, that,with regard to What God Said about what’s Right and what’s Wrong, we can’t get things straight on this planet from one culture to the next, or even from one moment in history to the next. What, then, to do? How to resolve this problem?

The answer is to build a new model of the world, based on a new understanding, brought to us by Tomorrow’s God. And that new understanding is that there is no such thing as Right and Wrong, there is only What Works and What Does Not Work, given what it is we are trying to do.

Dare we? Dare we use this New Model as a universal device for determining our actions, for making our choices, for taking particular decisions?

I want to explore more of what Carol Bass had to say in her post, and will do so in our next entry here, as The Carol Bass Dialogue continues…

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Much of the commentary in the column above comes from What God Said, the latest book from Neale Donald Walsch, to be published by Penguin Putnam in October.)

ON THE FACEBOOK PLATFORM of Neale Donald Walsch there is an excerpt-by-excerpt posting of The Only Thing That Matters, the newest book in the Conversations with God cosmology. Here is one of those entries…
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An Enormous Power Has Been Placed in Your Hands

Now you have one missing piece of the puzzle. Now you have one transformative tool. (You will be given others here as well.) It is a device with immense power—a simple device that can transform almost any moment, almost miraculously, almost immediately.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s understand exactly what this tool is.

Gratitude is not merely an emotion, it is a decision.

So powerful is this decision that it becomes a definition and a declaration. It defines and declares your experience of Here and Now. And hence, your reality. Gratitude can be a simple emotional reaction, or it can be a magnificent spiritual creation. It is a simple reaction when your Mind is on Automatic. It is a magnificent creation when your Mind has merged with your Soul in making a combined choice about any Present Moment.

In every Moment of your life your choice is always the same: to move into Reaction or Creation.

(You might have a little fun noticing that “reaction” and “creation” are very close to being the same word. Only the C and the R need to be reversed. When you C what you have always been meant to C, then you R what you always R—and the course of your life is reversed.)
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Visit this site: http://goo.gl/gFAsm to find out more.

(NOTE from NDW SUPPORT: Neale considers THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS (released from Hay House) to be his most important book to emerge from God’s inspiration since “Conversations with God.” Neale’s dream is that everyone could read every word that’s in this text. He is therefore posting the entire book, line-by-line, here on Facebook, in daily excerpts. He hopes that you will find the book as beneficial as he has.)

ON THE FACEBOOK PLATFORM there is an excerpt-by-excerpt posting of The Only Thing That Matters, the newest book in the Conversations with God cosmology. Here is the latest of those entries…

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It is time now to enter into deep, honest, self-examination…I need to ask myself some questions. Some important, even pointed, questions: