Would we be better off without CWG?
Well, the Civil Rights Movement for the Soul suggested on this Front Page a few days ago has already gotten underway. Many people who read about this spiritual project have already agreed to become part of the initiative. Those of you who have said “Yes!” to my invitation here will be hearing from me personally within the days ahead, with an invitation to become part of Humanity’s Team, the global spiritual activism organization that is sponsoring the project.
Many of you have joined the conversation about this initiative here, and the Comment String has been lively indeed. I should like to react to just a few of the posts that were made in that string now, and then, in future postings here, move into a description of what becoming involved in this outreach could entail for you.
First, let me interact with some of you, one Comment at a time…
Kristen wrote: “The thought of a worldwide change is great, but I feel it would be more successful without CWG attached to it to include Jews, Muslims, Christians, Athiests etc, and if there was a clear point to include stopping suffering….”
I agree with you Kristen, in part. I absolutely agree that the Civil Rights Movement for the Soul — may we use the acronym CRMS here? — I absolutely agree that the CRMS should “include Jews, Muslims, Christians, Atheists, etc.”, and I am not sure if anything I have written or said anywhere would suggest or indicate that I do not. Nothing inherent in the CRMS eliminates participation by, or inclusion of, persons belonging to specific religious or cultural groupings.
Quite to the contrary, the movement specifically invites members of all religious, spiritual, political, economic, and cultural groups to join together, to dialogue together, to explore together, and to examine together, with sincerity and honesty, the question: Are our present beliefs about God and about Life working? That is, are they producing the outcomes for which we had hoped — and for which they were intended?
I also agree, Kirsten, that within this global project there must be “a clear point to include stopping suffering….” That is why I wrote, and just released, The Only Thing That Matters, which offers a detailed description of how suffering can be vastly reduced, and ultimately removed, from one’s individual experience.
The passages and chapters in that new book about how to end one’s suffering as one moves through day-to-day encounters can change your life. They were intended to, so I hope that everyone here reads them. (The book, by the way, has been published, line by line, for free on my Facebook page, so that everyone can access it without needing to buy it. And Kirsten, if you want to avoid being “in debt” to me by reading it for free, you are welcome to “trade” me your dollars for my book, and then we will have what you feel is a fair exchange, with no subjugation intended or produced.)
Now…going forward…I do not agree, Kirsten, that the Civil Rights Movement for the Soul would be “more successful without CWG attached to it.” CWG is offering humanity a whole New Theology, based on new principles, new understandings, new beliefs, new choices, new ideas, new clarity, new definitions, and the new behaviors that would emerge from all of this. Chief among these new ideas, Kirsten, is the firm CWG statement that CWG, in itself, is not the answer.
Indeed, in Friendship with God the world was given A New Gospel. You have indicated that you have only looked at the CWG material in a cursory fashion. That could explain why you feel the CRMS would be better off without it. It is dangerous to criticize something of which we have deliberately caused ourselves to have limited knowledge. If one doesn’t choose to know about something in detail, that is one’s choice. But to then suggest that a spiritual/social movement would be better off without it seems ill-advised at best, since one admittedly doesn’t know what one is talking about.
In fact, in Friendship with God we are given a brand New Gospel to spread and share with the world. This gospel was referred to again in The New Revelations. Let me quote that second book from the CWG cosmology here, Kirsten, in case, in your cursory look at the CWG material, you missed it.
EXCERPT…
NEALE: It is possible that the Word of God as put down by humans in their holy books has some errors in it? Is it possible that there is something we don’t know about God and about Life, the knowing of which could change everything?
If only there could be a New Gospel.
GOD: There can be. It was proposed before, in the book Friendship with God. Fifteen words that could change the world. A two-sentence gospel that would turn your planet on its ear.
NEALE: Yes, I remember now. Two sentences that would alter everything.
GOD: They are sentences that could not be uttered from many pulpits or lecterns, by many religious or political leaders. You can dare them to say it, but they will not. You can beg them to repeat it, but they must not. You can cry out for them to declare it, but they cannot.
NEALE: Why? Why can’t they say it?
GOD: Because to utter this New Gospel would be to invalidate everything they have taught you, everything of which they have sought to convince you, everything on which they base their actions.
NEALE: You’re right. It’s a New Gospel that could save the world, but the world cannot preach these two sentences. The world cannot proclaim them. They are too powerful. They are too disruptive.
Still, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there are some brave religious and political leaders who might take up this proposed New Gospel and repeat it. Let’s proclaim it here!
“We Are All One.”
“Ours is not a better way, ours is merely another way.”
What a message that would be coming from the pulpits of the world! What a declaration that would be from the podiums of all nations!
How powerful those words would be uttered by the Pope, or the Archbishop of Canterbury, or the leading cleric in the Baptist Church, or the world’s Islamic voices, or the president of the Mormon Church, or the head of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod!
I invite them now—right here, right now—to say them, to declare this their truth, to include it in their next public sermon.
Imagine the Pope saying, “God loves all God’s children, and we are all one. There are many paths to God, and God denies no one who takes a path with humility and sincerity. Ours is not a better way, ours is merely another way.”
The world would shake. The foundations of all the world’s major religions—separation and betterness—would crumble!
I challenge every political party spokesman, every international chief of state, to place this in their party platforms and to announce this in their speeches.
Imagine the candidates in the next U.S. presidential election saying, “This is a complex time, and there are many approaches to the challenges we face us. I have my thoughts and my opponent has hers. My opponent is not a villain. She is not a bad person. She simply has ideas that are different from mine. Listen to our ideas carefully, and then see which one of us it is with whom you agree. But in the end, I want you all to know this: These are the United States, and we are all one. Ours is not a better way, ours is merely another way.”
The political process would never be the same. Gone would be the demonizing. Gone would be the character assassinations and the impugning of motives and the “make-wrongs” and the belittling. Standing in every election would be two candidates presumed to be good people whose aspirations are to serve the public interest, who admittedly are seeking power because there are things they would like to get done, and who simply disagree on how to do them.
GOD: That is a wonderful picture you paint. That is the picture of a transformed world.
NEALE: But no major political party leader could ever say that. No major religious leader could ever declare it. Their whole message, their very credibility, is based upon just the opposite premise. The whole structure of humanity is built upon the idea of separation and betterness.
GOD: That is the situation in your world, precisely. That is the point being made in this conversation.
There are many humans who cannot abide the thought of living with such new ideas, and so they die instead, clinging to the Fifth Fallacy About Life as their truth. They declare:
It is appropriate for human beings to resolve severe differences created by all their other fallacies by killing each other.
— END OF EXCERPT —
And so we see, Kirsten, that the very underpinning of the Conversations with God message is that the material itself is simply a starting point for larger discussion, for deeper exploration, for ongoing expansion of our ancient views about God, about Life, and about who we are in relationship to each other. And yes, CWG offers some ideas about that, some thoughts about that, some pretty firm recommendations about that. Yet it makes it clear that its ideas, thoughts, and recommendations are not to be embraced as “truth”…but merely as a beginning commentary, allowing each of us to find our own truth.
Throughout the CWG Commentaries the point is made that we should not, should never, allow CWG to become our “new bible,” our new inviolable dogma, but rather, should always and evermore self-reference, using our inner wisdom and inner guidance to lead us to our own inner truth. How can such a point of view be deleterious to a Civil Rights Movement for the Soul, Kirsten?
Your commentaries, ladies and gentlemen, are invited below…
