CwG Weekly Bulletin #218

Neale Talks About the Illusions of Life...

When I was in the midst of the worse period of my life, I asked myself over and over again, "Why is this happening to me?"

I did not understand then what I understand now. My awareness had not expanded. I was feeling frustrated. I was feeling angry. I was feeling betrayed by life itself. Fortunately, I listened to these feelings. I did not ignore them. Feelings are the language of the soul. They tell us what the soul wants us to look at now. They lead us to greater and deeper understandings. They are the doorway to wisdom. They are wisdom itself, cloaked in the garment of our illusion. As we remove illusion from life expressed, the garment falls away, revealing the naked truth. We see this naked truth as the most beautiful aspect of life itself. This same experience occurs in physical life when we see the naked body of humans. We continue to try to enhance our body by cloaking it with all manner of garments. And yet, in the end, all these garments do is cover the beauty of who we are, and not enhance it. We think we are covering that of which we ought to be ashamed. But we cover, in fact, that of which we ought to be fully celebrating.

We judge ourselves for being too fat or too thin, for being too this or too that. And yet, through the eyes of God, we are stunningly beautiful exactly the way we appear. When we stand in our nakedness, we reveal our true beauty to the world. That is why lovers are never more excited about life than when they stand naked before each other.

It is the same way with wisdom. It is most exciting when it is revealed as the naked truth. And that occurs when we drop away the garments of our illusion. I have learned in my life that I live in a world filled with illusion. This was never made more clear to me than in the extraordinary book, Communion with God . I want to tell you right now that if you've not read that book you are missing something extremely important in terms of your overall understanding of the Conversations with God cosmology. Communion with God is the single most informative book in the With God series of books with regard to the illusion of humans. Never has a text given us more insight into how to recognize the illusion and how to step aside from it. Never has a book told us more about how to live with the illusion and not within it. Never has any data been given us which more clearly reveals how to use the illusion of life rather than be abused by it.

So, by all means, if you have not read Communion with God , thinking that you have already read all you need to read in the With God series, or out of some mistaken thought that the later books simply repeat what the earlier books have already said, go find a copy and read it. You will find it to contain rich and new explanations of life's deepest mysteries.

On my own journey, I have found that once I understood the illusions of life, the Ten Illusions of Humans as described in Communion with God , everything changed. How I felt about life itself changed as my awareness expanded. I could then go back to Conversations with God and more richly understand its teaching that thought, word and deed are the three levels of creation. I could see how, in my own life, so many of the outer effects were created by things that I thought. I then understood that what I was saying also arose out of my thoughts, and that what I was doing arose out of what I was both saying and thinking. First came the thought, then came my expression of it through words, and then came my experience of it through deeds.

Often my thoughts, words and deeds are not in alignment. This is something I have observed in my own life more than once. That is, I may think one thing, and say another, or I may say something, and do something else quite the opposite. Only when my thoughts, my words and my deeds are in alignment, all expressing the same understanding, do they produce in the most powerful way manifestations in my physical life. In the instance when these three aspects of divine creation are not in alignment, I find that I create in fits and starts. The manifestations of my life are incomplete, or temporary at best. This is because I am thinking one thing and saying another, or saying one thing and doing another, or thinking one thing and not doing what I'm thinking, or saying something and not thinking about what I am saying, or in some way or another am disconnected from my Self.

I therefore learned in my life to examine all three of these tools of creation because they are very powerful. I have learned to look closely at what it is that I am thinking, to do as some philosophers would call it, think about what I am thinking. I've learned to talk about what I am talking about. When I talk about what I'm talking about, which is something that I am doing right here in writing, then I more clearly see what I am talking about. And when I think about what I am thinking about, I more clearly see what I am thinking about. And when I do something about what I'm doing something about, I more clearly see what I am doing something about. So I use the tools of creation to turn back on creation itself and to create what I'm creating.

When I begin to create what I am creating, rather than create unconsciously, I have moved into life with what I call New Consciousness. This is what is referred to in contemporary society as the consciousness movement. It is about expanded consciousness. It is about expanded awareness. When I move to the second level of awareness, I become aware of what I am aware of.

So the most powerful tool I could give anyone and the most important thing I could say to anyone in my commentary on this statement of truth from Conversations with God is this: Think about what you are thinking about, talk about what you are talking about, do something about what you are doing something about. That is, reflect upon yourself. Be a mirror. Show yourself to yourself. Reveal yourself to yourself. Take off the garment of your illusion by removing yourself from the illusory experience and placing yourself into the space of Ultimate Reality. Come from the place in which God resides.

And this can be done by meditating, or praying, or whatever other means that you find is effective in achieving communion with God. Chanting is another way. The whirling dervishes do this by dancing. Music is still another path to God and the place in which God resides. So too, poetry. Some people can achieve this wondrous state of communion with God through a simple walk in the woods. However you achieve it, you will know when you have experienced it. And you do not need to experience it as a constant state of being, but only once or twice in your life. Once you experience God in you, and come from the place in which God resides, you need no further explanation concerning the truth that thought, word and deed are the three levels of creation - or any other truth, for that matter.

Communion with God eliminates the need for life to be explained. Life becomes the explanation itself.

- NDW

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Two weeks ago I sat amidst over 100 people in Black Mountain, North Carolina and watched people heal themselves of the wounds of terrible loss in 20 minutes.

Years of private agonizing and attempting to release the pain had not done it, session after session of private therapy hadn't done it, and yet, in 20 or 30 minutes, the arrival at New Understanding has done it.

This New Understanding is the outgrowth of the New Spirituality that is articulated in Conversations with God and in many other books, audio cassettes, video programs, lectures and workshops and classes offered by a marvelous array of wonderful teachers and messengers, both contemporary and ancient.

Among the contemporary ones are extraordinary people such as Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, Jerry and Esther Hicks, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Eckhard Tolle, Marianne Williamson, Gary Zukav, and others. (I just had the wonderful pleasure of reconnecting with Wayne and Marianne at the Celebrate Your Life conference in Scottsdale, Arizona. It was good to see both of them again, and to spend some time just chatting and hanging out together.)

Those messages tell us that there is a process occurring here in the space of our daily lives that is perfect and wonderful, bringing us the precise people and conditions necessary for us to express and experience in every Next Moment the grandest version of our divine selves that we ever experienced. Put another way, there is no such thing as loss, only gain.

Each moment of life is created and designed to bring us the next most wondrous opportunity to create and experience the next most wondrous inner experience and outward expression of Who We Really Are. And we are doing the creating and designing. Nothing is happening TO us, and everything is happening THROUGH us. When we understand this, everything changes, most important, our perspective.

Perspective creates perception, perception creates belief, belief creates behavior, behavior creates experience, experience creates reality -- and our reality creates our perspective. It is a Circle -- the Circle of Life -- and everything in the circle changes when anything in the circle changes.

Boy, I said a mouthful there, and it is important to understand what I just said. Please read that last paragraph again, and reach inside of it for its powerful message. That last paragraph -- that one paragraph alone -- can change your life.

Well the Fall is at its zenith here in Ashland. The leaves are just riotous with color and now gray days have come with rain and cold. Being from South Texas where there are only about two seasons, blazing summer and about a month of winter - the seasons here are just wondrous to me and I especially love the wet somber days. There's just something about being in my cozy home with my children drinking hot tea and making homemade chicken soup that makes me brim with a sense of peace and contentment.

Things at the Foundation are going well too. The FasTrak started last week and we're really excited about the amazing group of students we've been blessed with this year.

Joanna got back this week from spending time with her family on the East coast after the Living Your Purpose Retreat and it's really great to have her back in town. We sure miss her when she's gone, but I heard she did a magnificent job in Black Mountain.

Rachael's here but really having a hard time with her back injury; so Joanna and Phillip (a recent graduate of he FasTrak program) have been kind enough to help out with the LEP calls as this year's FasTrak program gets under way.

Will's still away visiting family until after Thanksgiving, and Kate and I are here supporting everything we do in the world.

Things in my life have been pretty wonderful for several weeks now. It's not that my life has been perfect or even all that great - what I'm noticing is that wonderful seems to mean something very different that it did in my past.

What I mean is that in my relationship with Darrin all sorts of my own issues have bubbled to the surface and the same has been true for him as well. I know these issues of mine that seem to be surfacing are the things I never could have dealt with alone because they will only come up within the context of an intimate relationship with a partner. Some of these things have been really big for me.

I'm getting a deep understanding that he's my mirror. If I'm reacting to him in any significantly loaded way--whether it be anger, hurt or even attraction--it's because I'm seeing parts of myself in him. Now, instead of just reacting, I am seeing myself reflected back to me and in understanding it for what it is, I bless it and honor the insight it gives me into who I really am.

Oh, I'd love to tell you that I've gotten to the place that I do this with as much grace as it sounds like I do, but it's not nearly that graceful yet. It often takes me quite sometime to change my focus from him to the truth about myself and doing it is really hard, because they're truths about myself that often I don't like and more than that - I sure don't want to deal with.

Yet, my highest truth is that I want to fully know who I really am. I want to do my own work to get to the highest vision I've ever held about who I can be, with the absolute conviction and commitment that I stay willing to do my own work no matter how difficult it may seem to be. The reward is huge and of that I am clear!

The very coolest part of doing this work and having a partner that is as committed as I am, is that as we clear more and more away and as we each do our own work, we move closer and closer to one another - the "us" gets cleaner and brighter and the sweetness of it deepens.

These months since Darrin returned to my life have been amazing for me. I've experienced a much broader contextual field of who I am, and I am very clear that what is said in CwG -Book 1 Chapter 8 ... "Relationships are constantly challenging, constantly calling you to create, express, and experience higher visions of yourself, ever more magnificent versions of yourself. Nowhere can you do this more immediately, impactfully, and immaculately than in relationships." ... is absolute irrefutable truth.

And another CwG concept of which I am certain is that .... "Let each person in relationship worry about Self - what Self is being, doing, and having; what Self is wanting, asking, giving; what Self is seeking, creating, experiencing, and all relationships would magnificently serve their purpose - and their participants." This is so tough sometimes because the stuff that shows up has every appearance of having to do with the other. Furthermore, I believe we are conditioned and socialized, at least to some degree, to not believe and act in authentic ways that serve ourselves first and foremost. We see it everywhere and we're taught that selfishness and self-centeredness are to be frowned upon and avoided.

To really step into the truth of what serves me and to only concern myself with myself is difficult and it takes a huge amount of self-discipline and work to get to a place where I feel good live comfortably with it. When I am able to do those things completely I feel great and very much in alignment with myself and the world around me.

I'm learning and experiencing all of this and it is absolutely magnificent and incredible and the opportunity to share it with all of you brings it even more into focus.

Thank all of you, my special readers, for sharing this journey, for all the emails that shower me with love and support. I appreciate all of you so much.

Hope you all have another week of wonder and amazement as we walk through this life together.

Marion Black, CEO
ReCreation Foundation, Inc.
dba Conversations with God Foundation

Dear Neale...

I am 52 years old and still surprise myself on how easy it is for my lower self to take the lead in my life. For example a couple of months ago I was in a bad mood one morning, that led into me foolishly backing into another car in a car park. That made me think " Oh no, I don't have time for this" and so I drove off all the time thinking that this is wrong and I will somehow suffer the consequences, but the "naughty me" had to give it a go.

Another thing is, why do I find it so enlivening to surf soft porn sites? I can feel myself getting sleepy, but I just have to look at some beautiful naked women and before I realize it I have spent hours into the night without so much as a yawn.

Then there's my love affair with Mary Jane that I can feel is becoming detrimental to my health but still I carry on.

Then, finally, I have a beautiful wife and four beautiful children, but I find it very easy to have extramarital affairs. I have spoken to her about this in the past but she took the stand of preferring not to know about it.

I feel I am on the lookout for some spiritual inspiration but I can't get my teeth into anything. I've become such an old cynic that everything seems so ho-hum these days.

(Name withheld by Neale)

My dear friend...

Thank you for your brutal honesty about what is going on in your life. You have moved through three of the Five Levels of Truth Telling described in Conversations with God: (1) Tell the truth to yourself about yourself; (2) Tell the truth about another to yourself; (3) tell the truth about yourself to another. This is not easy to do, and only someone on a path to mastery would even attempt them. I am inspired by you.

All of us "give in" to our "lower selves" as we move through our lives. It is very common, and it is all part of the process of evolution. CwG tells us that the moment we decide anything about ourselves, everything unlike it comes into the space . I have found this to be very true.

This is the Law of Opposites, and it is particularly vexing to persons who have embarked on a path of self creation. It is clear to me that you have embarked on such a path or you would not be familiar with the CwG material and you certainly would not be writing me this letter. So get ready for the "opposite" of what you are wishing to call forth in your life to show itself hugely in your space.

For instance, you have made a deep internal decision to place personal integrity in your life -- and so you create situation after situation allowing you to decide that about yourself anew every day. The incident in the car park is but one example. I'm sure you will create many.

You have also obviously made an unconscious decision (or perhaps a very conscious one) to get your sexual energies in order, to begin moving your Life Force from your lower chakras to the higher centers within you, in order to begin experiencing yourself moving through life with different motivations, operating from different levels of consciousness, and focusing entirely different energies in entirely different directions than you did in your youth and in the previous years of your life, when you did not understand what was really going on here.

Having made that decision, you are called by your ego to turn to soft porn. Your ego, you must remember, is the part of you that wants to "hang on" to things just as they are, and that holds a very limited view of you. This is ironic, when you consider it, because most people think that it is the ego's tendency to inflate you...but it is exactly the opposite. It is the ego's job to DEflate you, reducing you to a Singular Self once again, not connected at all with a higher reality or a unified life expression.

Sex is a particularly vulnerable area for persons on a spiritual path for many reasons. First, because sexual energy and spiritual energy are very closely related. In fact, they are the same thing , simply expressed in different ways. (This is explained in Conversations with God in some detail.) Second, we humans live in a society in which we have, by and large, inhibited our sexual expression, shamed our natural sexual curiosities, and "made wrong" virtually all of our basic drives and instincts. It is mildly pleasurable for you to watch soft porn and see naked ladies because it is humanly natural to experience pleasure and joy and wonder and fun and excitement and enticement in the opposite sex. If it were not, the human race would no longer exist.

It is not "wrong" to look at pictures of people engaged in sexual activity (human beings have been doing so since humans learned they could draw). The question is not, why does it bring you pleasure? The question is, why does it bother you that it does?

The answer, no doubt, lies in the sexual repression of human society, which has told itself that its most natural instinct is its most shameful.

It is regrettable that this idea is lived out by so many, for it is the repression of this natural instinct that causes sexual dysfunction, and, ultimately, sexual crime. People who watch soft porn watch soft porn because the people in the pictures are doing things that the people watching rarely, if ever, do. Viewers thus experience the energy vicariously -- which is in most cases the only way they think they are allowed to do so.

We get to be "naughty" by watching other people being "naughty." It is as simple -- and as innocent -- as that. Now if this activity becomes an addiction, that is another matter, and may signal an out-of-balance energy around sexuality, rather than a natural scintillation and curiosity. If this is your concern, you are right to look at it and question your motives and seek to make a change in your behavior. Yet you must know this: You will never become your whole self by disowning a part of your self.

Assuming you choose to stop this activity because you perceive that it threatens to become an actual addiction, and if the solution were up to me, I would simply have you watch soft porn many hours a day, every day, without exception, for six weeks. You would probably never want to watch it again.

With soft porn as with anything else, when you're done with it, you'll be done with it. Until you are, you won't be. So long as it does not harm others or yourself (does it? You will know the answer to this question as soon as you ask it), there is no reason to call yourself "bad" or make yourself "wrong" about this. I suspect that one day you will say, "this is no longer who I am. This is no longer who I choose to be. I will always be interested in sex, and I will always feel scintillated by sexuality and always welcome my own sexual energy, but I no longer feel a need to watch other human beings in sexual situations in order to feel or express that." And that will be that.

CwG says, "Every act is an act of self definition." Each time you think about watching, or actually watch, pornographic material ask yourself, "Is this who I am? Is this who I choose to be?" Watch the answer that emerges and simply act on it. This powerful formula can be used with any behavior or addiction. I stopped smoking in 24 hours and never picked up another cigarette again, using this two-question process. It's absolutely and utterly amazing. I am strongly considering having these two questions tattooed on my left wrist!

Ask yourself the same questions with regard to Mary Jane. Ask yourself the same question with regard to your wife and children. When you are with them, when you are enjoying the life you have created with them, ask yourself, Is this who I am? Is this who I choose to be? If the answer comes up Yes! , take the actions that are necessary to hold that reality in place.

Do the same on your job. Do the same in every area of your life, every day. Just watch yourself. Simply watch yourself move through your day, and ask yourself at every Choice Point: Is this who I am? Is this who I choose to be? If the answer comes up y es , keep doing what you are doing, and do whatever you need to do to hold that reality in place. If the answer comes up no , stop doing what you are doing, and release that reality.

Do this whether we are talking about a piece of lemon meringue pie, a fender-bender in a car park, or an hour with Mary Jane.

Finally, if you are "on the lookout for some spiritual inspiration," why not provide it for yourself by providing it to others...through your example? Conversations with God says, whatever you wish to experience, cause another to experience. BE THE SOURCE of that in the life of another.

I wish you well on your journey, my friend. I am walking it with you, every step of the way. I send you my love.

The CwG Weekly Bulletin is written by Neale Donald Walsch. It is produced by Joanna Gabriel and edited by Rose Wolfenbarger with technical contributions from Marion K. Black and Roger Mellon.