September, 2013
If there was one word in our language that I wish we could eliminate, or at least redefine, it would be the word “perfect.” Actually, not the word itself, but rather the idea that we are somehow inherently less than or in need of being improved upon, and that the only way to experience a life of happiness, joy, and freedom is to be, do, or have something different than we are already being, doing, or having.
The irony is that in our quest for perfection, as we have largely come to understand it, we are blocking our own ability to see ourselves as who and what we truly are, which is – ironically — perfect. The expectation bar has been set mighty high by many of us. And buried deep beneath its many complicated layers of judgment and insufficiency lies the opportunity for each and every one of us to experience our natural state of wholeness and completeness.
For many, life has become a distorted sort of treasure hunt, a mission, a goal-oriented conditional experience:
If only I had more money, then I would be able to buy the big house on the hill and have designer clothes and even that bright red sports car…because that would bring me happiness.
If only I had thinner thighs or larger breasts, then I would attract a partner who would desire me and finally have the relationship of my dreams…because that would bring me love.
If only my house was always clean and organized, then I could finally relax and read those books which are collecting dust on my bookshelf or have the time to take that yoga class…because that would bring me peace.
If only I had a better job, then I would make more money so I would be able to buy the big house on the hill and have the designer clothes and even that bright red sports car…
If I had all these things, finally my life would be perfect.
And the cycle is perpetuated – want, strive, push, want, strive, push, want, strive, push – which still does not produce the outcome we think we are supposed to have, which causes us to push harder and strive more, leaving us utterly exhausted and mentally drained and completely detached from any notion or concept about who we really are.
Does a state of “perfection” exist?
What would it actually look like if it did?
Why do we yearn to be more? To be better? And why are we willing to trade in our happiness in exchange for a concept that demonstrates itself over and over and over again to be unrealized?
Is “perfection” something that we are capable of experiencing beyond perhaps the exact moment we are born into this world? There are some who would say even a newborn baby is not perfect, that they, too, come into this world flawed, in need of fixing or improving upon, to the degree that they are actually in need of forgiveness. Is that conceivable or even possible?
I sense that there is some level of perfection woven into the universal tapestry within which we find ourselves a part of, some purposeful fluidity that encompasses each and every one of us, even though the collective cognitive grasp of what that might be seems to lies just beyond the boundaries of our understanding. But I also believe that we are provided momentary glimpses into this realm of deeper understanding, demonstrated by numerous occurrences in my own life where an experience of overwhelming sensation of goodness and joy fills me and reminds me that there is a harmonious energy at play here in the seemingly random happenings in my life.
So today I will celebrate my imperfections, I will laugh at the choices that feel like mistakes, and I will be grateful for all the “wrong” turns I make and awkward or embarrassing things I might say. I will stop wishing I was that and feel appreciative because I am this. I will open my heart to extend the same appreciation and kindness to all those who share this life journey with me, knowing that these are the moments that I believe are best described as, well, perfect.
“If a snowflake is utterly perfect in its design, do you not think the same could be said about something as magnificent as your life?”
~ “Conversations with God”
(Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor & Administrator of The Global Conversation. She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team at www.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support. To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.)
Is humanity creating it own reality?
Yes, say most of the spiritual teachers on the planet. Yes, they have been saying for a very long time. (“As you believe, so will it be done unto you.”) Thinking is the tool given to us to deal with events and circumstances, and thinking is the creative force that generates them.
Life will be experienced by each of us in the way that we think about its events—and the way that we think about its events collectively creates those events themselves.
The collaborative creation of our exterior reality on the Earth and the individual creation of our interior reality is a two-fold expression of Life’s Essential Energy that packs more wallop than I observe that most people understand. Because we do not understand this, humanity thinks that what is happening through us is actually happening to us. That is, we think we are the victims of some “other-than-us” — and thus uncontrollable — force.
Most humans have not yet learned the most fundamental aspects of life on Earth. Most people do not understand, for instance, that an event and one’s reality about that event are not the same thing.
Yet Conversations with God tells us an an event is one thing; your reality of it is another. Events are created by conditions and occurrences outside of you. Reality is created by conditions and occurrences inside of you—in your mind.
It is here that events are turned into data, which are turned into truths, which are turned into thoughts, which are turned into emotions, which are turned into experiences, which form your reality.
And the reality that you form within your Self can and does play its effect on all of the outside, or exterior, surfaces of your life. This is because energy affects energy — so how you think about a thing impacts the thing itself. Or as quantum physicists have said: Nothing that is observed is unaffected by the observer.
Now let me put those elements I just mentioned above in a straight line, with plus and equal signs placed strategically between them, so that you can have a way to visualize this. This allows us to focus in on the process of reality-creation a little more sharply.
As I observe it, that process works like this…
event+data+truth+thought+emotion=experience=reality
I call this the Line of Causality. This is the path the Mind travels on its way to producing your reality.
You’ll notice that on this line, Emotion comes before Experience, and produces it. Thought, likewise, comes before Emotion, and gives birth to it. Truth comes before Thought, and gives birth to that. And our prior Data about any event forms the foundation of our Truth.
FOCUS: The Nature of God and Life/an exploration of critical importance in our time
PART VI of an ONGOING SERIES
What the line does not show is that there are three kinds of truth. This is more than a little important to know, because it is the existence of these three kinds of truth that lead to the possibility of more than one Reality being created by you regarding any particular event. Those three Realities include the Distorted Reality, the Observed Reality, and the Ultimate Reality.
Put another way, if there was only one kind of truth, there would be but a single reality.
The three kinds of truth are…
- The Actual Truth
- The Apparent Truth
- The Imagined Truth
These are what I have called the Mechanics of the Mind. For right now, know that it’s really as simple as A-B-C. Each step away from “A” in the Truth Table above takes you farther from peace.
If peace is what you are searching for during this moment of change and turmoil in your life, if peace is that for which you yearn, you will want to journey upward from Imagined Truth to Apparent Truth to Actual Truth, so that you may shift your basis from Distorted Reality to Observed Reality to Ultimate Reality.
This is what personal and global transformation is all about. This is what every human who we have honored with the name of Master has done. And this is what you can do right here, right now, on this day.
In your life, has everything changed? Then change everything. Start rearranging your thinking about “reality.” Your reality is not static, it is fluid. And in our next installment in this series we will look at that more closely.
(Portions of the above are taken from the book When Everything Changes Change Everything, an important text in the CWG corpus. If you have not read this book, you are invited and encouraged to do so. It can change your entire experience of life for the better. The book may be obtained here.
Here are five categories to play ANYWAY- triple dog dare ya.
1. Money– you have none. You are always broke. You live paycheck by paycheck. You want to buy things but cant. You just don’t make enough. What is free? What do you have? Good friends? Your health? Amazing laugh? Do you have moments where you can giggle with your kid(s) instead of buy them something? Do you know that we always remember moments where no money was needed? Remember that.
2. Mistakes– guess what? We all mess up. My little kid likes to call these moments “oops a note to self” and she has got a point. So what. You messed up. For goodness sakes celebrate it. Now you know what wont work. Get up, get on with it and find a place in you that can actually celebrate it. Every thing is a gift.
3. Loss– I lost my dad. I lost my job. I lost time with kid. How can I Play anyway? I can allow my feelings of grief to come over for a tea party. I can let myself out to play. ALL parts of me. I can allow myself to be held and rocked like a baby. Play with the idea that there is no thing I need to do to “get through it”- then to just hug it. Hug your grief.
4. Body and Health– Play with the idea that most diet fads and workouts are designed to not FEEL good but WORK YOU HARD. Play is the opposite. I am a recovering bulimic and was addicted to working out HARD. It sucked. It never worked. Find something that you enjoy. Walking to music. Five minutes of dance party. Whatever it is – play. Your body will help you. Play with the idea that food is not really the enemy- how you eat it perhaps may be. Lighten up. Enjoying life looks better then counting calories.
5. Parenting– See your kid as your mirror. Let them orchestrate the next way to play. Be curious. Mess up. Laugh at yourself. Provide space for them to BE WHO THEY ARE. Don’t overschedule. Be bored with one another. You will never get it perfect so enjoy each little nook and cranny. Hug longer.
(Renowned speaker and author Jenny Ward has been seen across the country bringing play, work/life balance and parent workshops to Visa, You Tube, Merrill Lynch, Girl Scouts, YMCA, Stanford and numerous other corporations and non profits. Her individual clients have enjoyed working with Jenny on single parenting, play, stress eradication and play based parenting for over 8 years. Jenny’s work can be seen on DOVE, San Francisco Times, Today’s MAMA, Nick for Kids, and numerous other publications.)
(If you would like to contribute an article you have authored to the Guest Column, please submit it to our Managing Editor, Lisa McCormack, for possible publication in this space. Not all submissions can be published, due to the number of submissions and sometimes because of other content considerations, but all are encouraged. Send submissions to Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com. Please label the topic: “Guest Column.)
How do you forgive yourself for an accident in which you killed someone?
The following letter was received by me in my email box on Sept 24, 2013. I have changed the name of the writer to “friend” in order to preserve the author’s privacy.
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Dear Neale…I would like to ask you a question that I would like your help with. I almost do not have the courage to ask, but I will not let the opportunity pass. I am going to ask you now, and God help me, I will truly be whole when I can forgive myself.
I understand the Spiritual truth of the events that have happened in my life, and have been able to forgive others for their part, sometimes I still feel the hurt of being abandoned and abused, and am working on the emotional pain as it presents itself.
Here is the BIG one: I feel so terrible and unworthy as a human, for the tragic accident that took a man’s life. I sill hear the little girl’s voice saying, “Mommy, is that the lady who killed my Daddy?”
I feel horrible, Neale. Can you please teach me forgiving myself, so I can be in both worlds whole, fully connected, mind, body, and soul? I just bought your book Home with God so I won’t feel so afraid. My mind likes to scare me sometimes.
Sincerely, Your Friend.
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NOTE: I am sharing my reply because I believe that Self Forgiveness is one of the most critical issues facing many, many human beings, and I hope that the understandings here will be shared with people everywhere…
My dear Friend…I have received your heartfelt note, and I am pleased that you have written to me, because reaching out is the best thing we can do when we are besieged by negative thoughts from within — as you are by this idea that you have done something unforgivable.
I should like to begin my response to you by quoting you something that humanity was given in the text, HOME WITH GOD in a Life That Never Ends. In that book we are told that “no one dies at a time or in a way that is not of their choosing.” Such a thing would be impossible, given Who and What We Are.
You should know, then, that the Soul of the gentleman who died in the incident that you have confessed was not somehow the “victim” of you, but rather, the “co-creator” with you of the perfect circumstances of his own departure from his then-current physical manifestation. CWG-Book One made something very clear: “There are no victims and no villains in the world.”
What reason this gentleman had, in his own personal experience, to choose the moment of this accident for his transformation we cannot know — but this we can know: It was not something that occurred against his will. That is impossible because of who he is.
This brings us, my dear friend, to a much larger question: Who and What are we?
SOONER OR LATER IN our lives we have to make a major decision about the most important question in life: What is our actual identity? Are we the physical manifestation of a biological incident, or are we something greater, something more, something other than a mere mammal?
As I observe it, I have a couple of choices when it comes to how I think of myself. I also observe that there is no “right way” to answer this question.
Choice #1: I could conceive of myself 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 my mother and my father.
If I see myself as a Chemical Creature, I would see myself as having no more connection to the Larger Processes of Life than any other chemical or biological life form.
Like all the others, I would be impacted by life, but could have very little impact on life. I certainly couldn’t create events, except in the most remote, indirect sense. I could create more life (all chemical creatures carry the biological capacity to re-create more of themselves), but I could not create what life does, or how it “shows up” in any given moment.
Further, as a Chemical Creature I would see myself as having a very limited ability to create an intentioned response to the events and conditions of life. I would see myself as a creature of habit and instinct, with only those resources that my biology brings me.
I would see myself as having more resources than a turtle, because my biology has gifted me with more. I would see myself as having more resources than a butterfly, because my biology has gifted me with more.
I would see myself as having more resources than an ape or a dolphin (but, in those cases, perhaps not all that many more), because my biology has gifted me with more. Yet that is all I would see myself as having in terms of resources.
I would see myself as having to deal 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 I would know that at any minute anything could go wrong—and often would.
Choice #2: I could conceive of myself as a Spiritual Being inhabiting a biological mass—what I call a “body.”
If I saw myself as a Spiritual Being, I would see myself as having powers and abilities far beyond those of a simple Chemical Creature—powers that transcend basic physicality and its laws.
I would understand that these powers and abilities give me collaborative control over the exterior elements of my Individual and Collective Life and complete control over the interior elements—which means that I have total ability to create my own reality, because my reality has nothing to do with producing the exterior elements of my life and everything to do with how I respond to the elements that have been produced.
Also, as a Spiritual Being, I would know that I am here (on the earth, that is) for a spiritual reason. This is a highly focused purpose and has little to do directly with my occupation or career, my income or possessions or achievements or place in society, or any of the exterior conditions or circumstances of my life.
I would know that my purpose has to do with my interior life—and that how well I do in achieving my purpose may very often have an effect on my 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. It is in this way that you, as a Spiritual Being, participate in the evolution of your species.)
My answer to the question: I’ve decided that I am a Spiritual Being, a three-part being made up of Body, Mind, and Soul. Each part of my tri-part being has a function and a purpose. As I come to understand each of those functions, each aspect of me begins to more efficiently serve its purpose in my life.
I am an individuation of Divinity, an expression of God, a singularization of The Singularity. There is no separation between me and God, nor is there any difference, except as to proportion. Put simply, God and I are one.
This brings up an interesting question. Am I rightly accused of heresy? Are people who believe that they are divine nothing but raving lunatics? Are they, worse yet, apostates?
I wondered. So I did a little research. I wanted to find out what religious and spiritual sources had to say on the subject. Here’s some of what I found…
Isaiah 41:23—Shew the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods: yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold together.
Psalm 82:6—I have said, ‘Gods ye are, And sons of the Most High—all of you.’
John 10:34—Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?
The Indian philosopher Adi Shankara (788 CE—820 CE), the one largely responsible for the initial expounding and consolidation of Advaita Vedanta, wrote in his famous work, Vivekachudamant: “Brahman is the only Truth, the spatio-temporal world is an illusion, and there is ultimately Brahman and individual self.”
Sri Swami Krishnananda Saraswati Maharaj (April 25, 1922—November 23, 2001), a Hindu saint: “God exists; there is only one God; the essence of man is God.”
According to Buddhism, there ultimately is no such thing as a self independent from the rest of the universe (the doctrine of anatta). Also, if I understand certain Buddhist schools of thought correctly, humans return to Earth in subsequent lifetimes in one of six forms, the last of which are called Devas…which is variously translated as Gods or Deities.
Meanwhile, the ancient Chinese discipline of Taoism speaks of embodiment and pragmatism, engaging practice to actualize the Natural Order within themselves. Taoists believe that man is a microcosm for the universe.
Hermeticism is a set of philosophical and religious beliefs or gnosis based primarily upon the Hellenistic Egyptian pseudepigraphical writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. Hermeticism teaches that there is a transcendent God, !e All, or one “Cause,” of which we, and the entire universe, participate.
The concept was first laid out in the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus, in the famous words: “That which is Below corresponds to that which is Above, and that which is Above, corresponds to that which is Below, to accomplish the miracles of the One thing.”
And in Sufism, an esoteric form of Islam, the teaching “there is no God but God” was long ago changed to there is nothing but God. Which would make me…well…God.
Enough? Do you wish or need more? You might find it instructive and fascinating to go to Wikipedia, the source to which I owe my appreciation for much of the above information.
As well, read the remarkable books of Huston Smith, 91 years of age at this writing and a globally honored professor of religion. Among titles of his that I most often recommend: The World’s Religions: Our Great Wisdom Traditions, 1958, rev. ed. 1991, HarperOne; and Forgotten Truth: The Common Vision of the World’s Religions, 1976, reprint ed. 1992, HarperOne
So…that is my answer to Life’s Most Important Question: Who Am I? I am an out-picturing of the Divine. I am God in human form. So, too, of course, are we all.
MY POINT IN TELLING YOU ALL THIS: The gentleman in the incident you describe was not a mere biological expression of life, like an ant or a bee or a tree. He was a spiritual entity, having a Soul, a Mind, and a Body—and having, most of all, total and complete Free Will and Co-Creative Power. He was not the victim of the circumstance you describe, he was the co-creator of it, the active and willing participant in it.
Now, my dear friend, your purpose in life is to recreate yourself anew, in the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever you held about Who You Are. You do this by creating, in very powerful ways, your interior experience of the exterior events that are collaboratively created by all the Souls affected by them. Nobody is the victim of anything, and nobody is the perpetrator. We are all simply co-creators of a Collective Reality, from which each of us are invited to draw our individual experience of Self, through which we produce our present expression of Divinity.
You, my wonderful friend, have chosen to produce, from your experience of the accident, a portrait of yourself as a person who deserves to feel unending shame and guilt. Yet it is as God has told us through the words of His messenger Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross: “Guilt and Shame are the only enemies of man.”
I come now to tell you that forgiveness is not necessary. Neither is guilt or shame. God never forgives anyone for anything. God never has, and God never will.
Conversations with God makes this bold statement, and does it so unequivocally that even those who agree with CWG’s other spiritually revolutionary revelations find themselves raising their eyebrows—until they look behind the statement to the explanation that is given.
God does not and will not offer forgiveness to anyone for anything because forgiveness is not necessary. It is replaced in the process of Divine Balance with a more searingly powerful energy: Understanding.
First, Divinity understands Who and What It Is, and so It is Aware that It cannot possibly be hurt or damaged, injured or diminished in any way. This means that Divinity would not be disappointed or frustrated or annoyed or angry or vengeful for any reason. It simply has no reason. “Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord” is the biggest spiritual untruth of all time.
Second, God understands that humans do not understand who and what they are, and so imagine that they, or others, can be hurt and damaged, injured and diminished—and that it is from this experience, or fear, of being hurt that all thoughts, words, and actions seemingly requiring Forgiveness flow.
Knowing this, God has no need to forgive you (even if God could somehow be “hurt”), any more than you have a need to “forgive” a two-year-old child for saying or doing something that doesn’t make sense, or for something that happened by accident, like spilling a glass of milk at the dinner table.
The idea that you need to forgive yourself for something you have done is clearly based on the fact that you feel that another Soul, at the level of Soul, has been offended, damaged, or hurt by you. Such a thought denies the reality of their own sovereignty; of who they really are. I do not mean here to diminish or dismiss the impact in our present physical reality of what has occurred. A man has died, and in our present physical reality and limited understanding, that is surely viewed as a tragedy. Only from the standpoint of a larger spiritual awareness can this incident be held in Consciousness any other way.
From a spiritual perspective, however, we see very differently, with no place for “fault” or “guilt,” for we know that all that has happened is the playing out of the evolutionary process of all the Souls involved — a process that is mysterious and seldom fully grasped within the limited perspective of the human mind.
Yet even the mind understands the innocence of a child whose presumed immaturity and confusion led to his actions. And so, too, will we eventually see, when we come from the place of Deepest Understanding, that the exact same thing is true of the adults who behave in ways that some might call hurtful or damaging.
It is also important to understand this complexity: There is no such thing, in Ultimate Reality, as an “accident.” Even the apparent “accident” of the child spilling milk is not, ultimately, an “accident” at all, but an action that appears to emerge from the mind’s immaturity and confusion, but which is actually the perfect playing out of what is in that moment ideally suited to move forward the agenda of all the Souls involved in and witnessing the event.
In short, nothing happens “by chance” in the Mind of God.
And you are an expression of the Mind of God. That is, you are God, individuated in physicality, for the purpose of experiencing your own Divinity. This is what Jesus Christ was. This is what Lao Tzu was. This is what Muhammad was. This is what Buddha was. This is what Abraham was. This is what Bahá’u’lláh was. This is what everyone is.
This is why Moses was able to part the Red Sea. This is why Jesus was able to heal the sick. This is why Muhammad was able to recite the Quran. And, as Jesus said: “Why are you so amazed? These things, and more, shall you do also.”
Understanding thus replaces Forgiveness in the Mind of those who have expanded their Consciousness to include the Awareness of the Soul. The Soul knows its True Identity.
A wonderful effort of your Mind, then, each time you begin to feel that another person has been hurt or damaged in any way by you, would be to open itself to the wisdom of Heaven.
Stop. Breathe. And then listen.
Listen to the insight and the understanding and the compassion and the wisdom of the Soul. You will know, then, that self-forgiveness is not necessary, but that what serves the Mind is simple and real and pure and compassionate understanding of what occurred, why it occurred, and how its having happened has moved forward the larger evolutionary agenda of all the Souls involved in, and affected by, the occurrence itself.
Go, then, and bless all the world that you touch with all the love that you have, and do not weep because you cannot “forgive” yourself for the incident in which a man’s life was ended, but embrace your own Soul’s understanding — and God’s awareness — that you did nothing “wrong,” that such a thing is impossible given Who You Are, that the highest agenda of every person who has been touched by the experience you describe has been served, that imperfection is impossible in the Kingdom of God, and that you are absolved of any “guilt” or “shame” for an event which was collaboratively created by all the Souls involved, each to serve their own sacred and holy agenda.
Use every moment of the remainder of your life to bless the world, my dear friend, for that is what you came here to do. Indeed, that is Who You Are: a blessing in our world. Bring understanding to those who weep for themselves in their own misunderstanding of their own lives and the experiences within them. Heal others, my friend, of any sadness they may have, and you shall heal your own.
I send you love and blessings, my friend, now and even all the days of your life.
Yours in humble service,
Neale.
I am so angry. I have been in a marriage for 32 years. I have been faithful. I have given him children. AND I have had a full time job. Now I find he wants a divorce, and wants to be free to be with other women. Now I am all alone, he wants to leave me with the kids, the stress is making my job performance suffer and I am at risk for losing my job, and he is off having his fun. I need him! Is this God being fair??
Rhea
Dear Rhea,
I am so sorry you are going through this right now. I get that it doesn’t seem fair.
Since I don’t have the luxury of an ongoing dialog, like I do over at The CWG Helping Outreach, I am going to be quite direct.
You talk about your relationship in terms of him getting what he wants, and you not being treated fairly…you do not speak of losing your soulmate, or the love of your life or any other endearing term. Which leads me to ask what you expected of marriage…why were you in the marriage? I often ask, and I will ask you: What is your definition of Love?
I think that what “Conversations With God” has to say about this subject is particularly pertinent right now. In chapter 8 of book 1, it talks about how we define Love. In this chapter God says:
“For most people, love is a response to need fulfillment.
Everyone has needs. You need this, another needs that. You both see in each other a chance for need fulfillment. So you agree—tacitly—to a trade. I’ll trade you what I’ve got if you’ll give me what you’ve got.
It’s a transaction. But you don’t tell the truth about it. You don’t say, “I trade you very much.” You say, “I love you very much,” and then the disappointment begins.”
A relationship that is healthy, even if it does not last forever, begins with knowing that we are complete with or without that other person in our lives, and having a desire to share that completeness with another, hoping to enhance their lives and yours in the process of sharing. We all need help along the way, and none of us live in this perfect little love zone all of the time, but it is what healthy relationships are based on, and what they return to when the dramas in life end. In fact, getting back to that space is what causes the drama to end.
Further, Rhea, we most often think of “relationships” as having to do with romance. In reality, we are having a relationship with everything in our world all the time. We know who we are relative to all that is around us, and how we act on those relationships depends on our thoughts about those things, including our thoughts about who we are. Our thoughts create our experience. Hard to believe, I know, when we are in the middle of traumatic changes in our lives, like the ones you are going through right now. Our thoughts do create our experiences, (not to be confused with events) and you can change your experience right now by changing your thoughts about why this is happening. One very good tool, among many good tools out there, to help you change your thoughts, is the book, “When Everything Changes, Change Everything” that Neale wrote. (Information about the website is below, and the book can be read for free on the website!)
I am a person who always looks for the “silver lining” in things. Even when things that appear awful are happening, my mind goes back to the times when things looked hopeless, yet they ultimately proved to be things that opened up doors for me. (For instance, the hopeless co-worker relationship actually had to happen to me, so that I wouldn’t be attached to that job, and I was open to the next.) When I do simply accept that there is more, my mind relaxes and gives me a break. I calm down and am able to let my mind filter what my soul is saying. Can you see even a tiny bit of silver? Can you look back at anything in your life and see the silver lining now, that you couldn’t see then?
Rhea, “justice”, by the way, presumes that something is “wrong”. There is nothing wrong. Each person simply has their own soul path.
I am going to write a little story around what you say about your ex…I might look at him and think that he is a very insecure person. Why? Because he is looking for love and acceptance outside of himself. He seems to need validating by temporary things. Who he is, doesn’t seem to be enough for him. Which leads to many questions as to why…
What I have done, by doing this, Rhea, is write a story that moves me from pure judging, to looking for understanding of his actions. Not necessarily because I think that those actions are working for him in any way, but because I wish to understand that HE thinks that they are working…otherwise he wouldn’t be doing them.
We don’t have to stay with those people, Rhea, we don’t even have to fall out of love with those people, but when we move to understanding, we stop doing one very important thing:
We stop hurting ourselves.
And when we do that, we stop hurting those around us, even if we were hurting them unconsciously. (Maybe that’s what people are reacting to at work?)
And when we stop the hurting, things seem to fall into place…because we believe that they will.
Ask yourself, Rhea, what might be needing to be looked at within yourself that is causing you to feel that you need someone in your life who has said he doesn’t want to remain in yours. Is it because you are being treated unfairly in your “trade” agreement, or is it because you are not defining love in a way that includes yourself.
Therese
(Therese Wilson is a published poet, and is the administrator of the global website at www.cwghelpingoutreach.com She may be contacted at: Therese@TheGlobalConversation.com.)
(If you would like a question considered for publication, please submit your request to Advice@TheGlobalConversation.com, where our team is waiting to hear from you.)
An additional resource: The CWG Helping Outreach offers spiritual assistance from a team of non-professional/volunteer Spiritual Helpers responding to every post from readers within 24 hours or less. Nothing on the CCN site should be construed or is intended to take the place of or be in any way similar to professional therapeutic or counseling services. The site functions with the gracious willing assistance of lay persons without credentials or experience in the helping professions. What these volunteers possess is an awareness of the theology of Conversations with God. It is from this context that they offer insight, suggestions, and spiritual support during moments of unbidden, unexpected, or unwelcome change on the journey of life.
Thank you, God, for the moments when I do not know who I am, because they are the times in my life which allow me to re-experience that remembrance over and over and over again, each time in a new and profound way.
Thank you, God, for the people who challenge and push me, the individuals whose presence in my life feels abrasive or antagonistic. These are the relationships which provide me the opportunity to choose from and then experience the broad spectrum of thoughts, feelings, and emotions which are available to me and which have been created for me.
Thank you, God, for that space between what once was and what is yet to be, the pause between my choices, the interlude between the scenes of my life. I have come to know that what sometimes appears to be a lull, a barren space of nothingness , is actually the sweetest and most bountiful place to be, a space which quietly presents to me the infinite number of possibilities.
Thank you, God, for the children in my life who invite me to sit on the floor, barefoot, and just play from the center of my heart, offering me a gentle reprieve from the less flexible rules of my mind. I feel especially grateful for the souls who dance in the bodies of children, those who remind me to sing, to laugh, and to stop taking everything so gosh darn serious all the time.
I am sharing my own personal daily gratitudes with you today because I believe that if we can begin to acknowledge the gifts offered to us in all the happenings of our lives, those we judge as “good” and those we judge as “bad,” then we will have truly begun to live.
Aren’t all aspects of life living?
Aren’t all moments momentous?
Aren’t all events eventful?
Doesn’t each moment of our life serve to define our purpose? While we search and seek for the all-encompassing purpose in our life, that grand realization of who we truly are, could it be possible that we have infinite purposes and that we are experiencing our purpose over and over and over again as we move through the events and relationships we encounter in life?
What are you feeling especially grateful for today? Is there something taking place in your life right now which is creating some very real challenges for you? Is there a piece of your past that continues to write itself into the scenes of your play, something that if you were able to recognize and honor even one tiny gift that has been bestowed upon you through that experience may have the potential to change everything?
Will you join me in thanking God for the moments when we do not know who we are because they are the times in our lives which allow us to re-experience that remembrance over and over and over again, each time in a new and profound way?
(Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor & Administrator of The Global Conversation. She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team at www.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support. To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.)
Before World Peace, World Prosperity, World Harmony, Health, Happiness, etc. & all that other good stuff can be achieved, we will see it first modeled in miniature.
That is, in certain areas, people of like-minded mentality will start flocking or congregating towards it.
Before the proverbial World Peace, we may first have it in certain areas ~ perhaps first in small islands, villages or towns, or larger cities or countries. An example might be when a small country models this, and larger countries eventually follow suit.
It may happen spontaneously, or organizationally, or both.
What this does, is to give us a taste, or a contextual field of comparison to experience it in miniature, and this can help us decide what we may prefer to experience as a larger collective.
I’ve not heard of such a place or places yet, but maybe you have? I do believe there are individuals who do this within their own lives. This seems more so now, than at any other time in earth’s history/herstory.
Now, if the world truly desired World Peace at this time, we’d put way more education, effort, energy, research & resources toward creating that. So, on some unconscious, or maybe even conscious level, we simply are not ready or willing for it, and couldn’t even handle it if it did suddenly happen. Let me give you an example:
Years back, I heard a public radio program where nice,
middle-class couples would take in foster kids, to give them the loving homes they always wanted. Yet what happened, was that the kids would eventually do things like start fires & create havoc.
I was personally astounded at this! I thought that kids from a chaotic, dysfunctional environment would love to be in a more financially & emotionally prosperous, peaceful and loving environment.
Yet, what the program reported was that the kids where so used to the negative drama in their lives, that to be moved out of it was kind of a shock, and so they re-created this chaos because that’s what they were used to. They just weren’t ready or acclimated enough for such a huge change.
I think this can apply to World Peace too. If we had World Peace tomorrow, we might think it to be absolutely grand; however, we’d be so unfamiliar with it, that we’d go back to creating negative drama again, simply since that’s what we’re used to.
Another example:
Often (not always) people who are too quickly put in certain situations, even desirable ones, are simply not prepared for them. … People who gain fame, wealth, or both, too fast, can have great difficulty adjusting to the suddenness of it all. People often fair better when it’s more gradual over time.
What do you think?
This is something I think about. I think about it also in relation to people like many of us, advancing on the spiritual path, who feel our evolution, as a world, is just too slow.
I get that – I feel it too! The antidote, is to have compassion & love on our unhealed parts or those aspects that are not fully healed.
That does not mean that we can’t be the influencers, instigators, leaders, movers & role models to move this forward. We can, and this can bring it in more smoothly.
How many people feel deep inner peace? Or, how many even feel inner peace as a majority of their experience? If we don’t have our own individual inner peace, how can we expect the rest of the world to?
Many people think there is a point of critical mass, when a certain amount of individuals have inner peace, and it then will spread more quickly, both globally & collectively.
An example of quick, but also gradual movement, is how smart phones spread worldwide. The first iPhones came out June 29, 2007. That’s only 6 years ago! People adapted quickly, at least those who could afford them. Even many homeless people now have cell phones.
I think that as more of us work & play to have inner peace & harmony, and emotional & financial prosperity, this will attract more of that to us. This will also influence others to find out how we achieved it, and are able to sustain it.
Is this a viable way to look at World Peace? Will we ever achieve it? Do we need to? Is it inevitable, given our evolution? What do you think?
(Marko Damkoehler is an artist/writer/musician and creator of markoworld.com, as well as an avid student of CwG. He is also one of the Spiritual Helper Moderators on the changingchange.net website.)
(If you would like to contribute an article you have authored to the Guest Column, please submit it to our Managing Editor, Lisa McCormack, for possible publication in this space. Not all submissions can be published, due to the number of submissions and sometimes because of other content considerations, but all are encouraged. Send submissions to Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com. Please label the topic: “Guest Column.)
In the world today a remarkable number of people believe that there is a place called Hell, and a great many of those people use the Bible as their authority in this matter.
Typical of this approach is that used by a person who posted an entry in the Comment section beneath another article on this front page, the article headlined “1,000 Words That Will Change the World.” (Found lower, in the right-hand column.)
I have chosen to lift this Comment, and my response, to the top of the page, because I believe it deserves to be a Headline Story in our world. Perhaps the Headline Story. Here is this particular comment, posted by a very sincere reader named Kim who simply wanted her confusion on one question addressed — followed by my reply.
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I have been enjoying reading Neale Walsch’s messages from God for several months now… There is one message from Neale that has brought on some question in my mind if anyone can explain this (respectfully)…
Neale’s quote here, “(9) There is no such place as hell, and eternal damnation does not exist.” I would like to know more what Neale was trying to say here because as Christians, we know there is a heaven and there is a place called hell, there is eternal damnation?? I would like to explain my thoughts using these quotes from the Bible…. my question is my confusion to Neale’s statement that there is no hell or eternal damnation… and if there were true, what is the 2nd coming of Christ about?
Are we not called to fear God? … Why would we fear Him if there wasn’t an eternal punishment for our lack of repentance for sin, if there wasn’t consequences to our lack of remorse for sin?
Jer 5:22 (NIV) “Should you not fear me?” declares the Lord. “Should you not tremble in my presence?” Psalm 111:10 “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom…” Proverbs 1:7 “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”
There are also many verses in the Bible which describe a place of fire…. (hell)…
Matthew 10:28 – And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Revelation 20:14 – And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
Revelation 20:15 – And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
Matthew 25:46 – And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
Romans 6:23 – For the wages of sin [is] death; but the gift of God [is] eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
James 4:12 – There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?
Mark 9:43-48 – And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched:
Revelation 20:10 – And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet [are], and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
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My Dear Kim…Yours is a very fair — and a very often asked — question. May I say in reply that I see that you are using, as the basis of your understandings about hell and damnation, passage from The Holy Bible. Yet these passages from the Bible would have no weight unless the words of the Bible were considered to be infallible and inerrant. That is, they are Absolutely True, to the letter. Do you believe this, Kim?
The difficulty the world has, Kim — and I say this with total respect for your view — is that people tend to quote the Bible selectively. I call this Bible Cherry Picking. They pick out the chapters and verses that support their point of view, but totally ignore, or “write off”, verses with which even THEY disagree.
For instance, Kim, do you agree with the verses in the Book of Deuteronomy, where it says that if a man marries a woman and finds that she is not a virgin, and if her family cannot prove that she was a virgin before her marriage, “she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death” — ?
Now you might say, “Wait a minute. This is God’s Law?” And the answer is, as it is found in the Bible, yes. The Bible also says that, if found to be in an adulterous relationship, both the man and the woman are to be taken to the city gates and also stoned to death.
And God is concerned about other real life matters as well. Apparel, for instance. A woman “must not wear men’s clothing…for the Lord your God detests anyone who does this,” the Bible says. It also says: “Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together.”
Then, too, only certain people are welcome in God’s house of worship. If you happen to be a child born out of wedlock, you cannot go to there. Did you know that Kim? The Bible makes this very clear. It says that no illegitimate child, “nor any of his descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord, even down to the tenth generation.”
And, did you know this, Kim…?…If a certain part of a man’s body happens to be injured in an accident or as a result of war, he may join with other worshippers of God in a House of the Lord.
The Bible says:
“If a man’s testicles are crushed or his penis is cut off, he may not be included in the assembly of the Lord.”
Yes, these are words right out of the Bible. Do they upset or embarrass you? Turn to Deuteronomy 23:1-2, New Living Translation. “Oh,” you might say, “one of those modern Bibles.” Yes. The King James Version has it this way:
“He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord,” but it means the same thing.
And the Bible has some startling news for women who take some of those
self-defense classes that are offered these days. They can find themselves in a
lot of trouble with some of what they learn in those classes.
The Bible says:
“If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity.”
The writers of the Bible had a real thing going on about male genitals, didn’t they? Of course, who do you suppose was doing the writing?
Oh, and they also had some thoughts about children who don’t obey their parents. These are probably not thoughts that many mothers would have. Kim, do you know what the Holy Bible has to say about children who don’t obey? Kill them.
What? you might say. But according to the Bible, God says to kill them. Now you might not believe that, but it’s right there, plain as day:
“If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town.
“They shall say to the elders, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you.”
I guess that would do it, all right…
So, Kim, you will excuse me if I am not quite totally convinced that all of our answers will be found in the Bible…or that everything we find in the Bible should be considered the absolute and total Truth, and The Way It Is.
We cannot “select” only what we want to accept from the Bible, and toss out the rest. This is called Bible Belief Cafeteria Style. Either the Bible is the Absolutely Correct and Inerrant Word of God, or it is not. Maybe it was written by well meaning, but very fallible, human beings. Do you think?
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So, does ‘hell’ exist? Is it a place to which God condemns us if we act, or do not act, in certain ways? That is the main topic this month at…
— which is intended to be one of the most intriguing new websites on the Internet.
If you are already familiar with the “Conversations with God” material, more than likely you have one or two insights or messages contained within the Cosmology that are especially meaningful to you, something that, when you first heard it, resonated with such clarity and fullness that it caused a noticeable and significant shift in your life.
For me, one of the most profound concepts to flow out of the “Conversations with God” messages is the following:
Your life is not about you. Rather, your life is about those whose lives you touch.
I remember the exact moment these words came into my life. I recall the precise instant when everything I thought to be true until that point was turned upside down. I was attending a “When Everything Changes, Change Everything” retreat in 2007, sitting in a dimly lit room along with 75 other people from around the world, when I first heard these exact words: Your life is not about you.
Well, if my life was not about me, then what IS it about?
If my life was, rather, about those whose lives I touch, then what does that mean for me? There has got to be something in it for me in the whole and sometimes messy scheme of things, right? After all, aren’t I the one doing the heavy lifting in my life here? Again, still having a hard time completely accepting the “not about me” aspect in all of this.
But while my mind was twisting itself into pretzels, trying to make sense of this completely new ideology that was just introduced to me, the next words flowed into my life:
You see, there is only one of us in the room. So what you do for another, you do for yourself. What you do for yourself, you do for another. And that is because we are all One.
And there it was, placed gently before me, the message which redefined the purpose of my life, the spiritual wisdom which altered the way I interact and enter into relationships with others. I had always proclaimed to embrace the concept of “we are all one,” at least on an intellectual or cognitive level. But my skewed vantage point thus far hadn’t allowed me to know this experientially nearly as often or completely as I would have liked.
Life feels harder and more external to us when we are simply each out to get our own, when we place expectations upon what we think we deserve. On the other hand, haven’t we all experienced the perfection of a truly selfless gesture towards another? The pure joy and quiet bliss of being of service to someone in need, without expectation of anything in return? Aren’t these instances of “not about me-ness” the ones that propel us into our own greatness, demonstrating to us all that there is no faster way to have something in your life than just simply going out and choosing to be it?
Oh, boy, do I still have days where I think life is all about me. I have plenty of them. I have moments when I question everything I believe to be true. There are times when I cross paths with people who I am convinced are not only separate from me but I am quite certain they are working in direct contradiction to me, motivated by an entirely different energy source than the one I am fueled by, even though at the highest level of awareness I know that is simply not true.
But these are the gifts that life is consistently presenting to me, the golden nuggets of opportunity that surround me, even though I may not be able to readily see them and might even find myself resisting them. These are the moments when I get to decide who I really am. These are the times when I get to ask and answer some important questions: Why am I here, right here, right now, at this exact moment in time? Who is it I am here with and for? Who might life be calling upon me to be?
These are the instances when I remember…my life is not about me.
(Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor & Administrator of The Global Conversation. She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team at www.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support. To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.)
