CwG Weekly Bulletin

Following is the sixth and final installment of an extended series of commentaries in which Neale Donald Walsch has offered insights on the nature of life and the reason it is the way it is. This week Neale’s topic is:

I said in this space last week that the Body, the Mind, and the Spirit all hold all the data of the universe. Indeed, they are all the data of the universe, compressed into one location.

That statement has profound implications. It means that there is nothing you have to know, nothing you have to do, and nothing you have to be except exactly what you are knowing, doing, and being Right Now.

It means that you are Perfect just the way you are in this instant. It means that your long journey to Perfection is over -- and that it was never even necessary.

The idea that you were somehow imperfect was a fiction, a conceit of your cultural story, a concoction of your religions, which would have you believe that you are the imperfect creation of a Perfect Creator.

This idea -- the thought of your own Perfection -- is theologically revolutionary. It eliminates the need to do anything at all to render yourself worthy of heaven, to prepare yourself to be reunited with God, or to elevate yourself to a place of higher consciousness wherein Nirvana and Bliss may be experienced.

This idea -- the thought of your own Perfection -- is startling in its implication and forms the basis and the foundation for a new kind of spirituality -- a spirituality born not in sin but in celebration, not in redemption but in recreation, not in the need for salvation, but in the invitation for the full expression and experience of Who You Really Are.

Life as we have been living it upon the earth has been, it turns out, a case of mistaken identity. We have been denying our True Selves in favor of a story about who we are that leaves out all the crucial data and replaces it with an utterly fictionalized account of our relationship with All That Is.

All of the world's great Masters have been trying to tell us this through all the Ages of Man. The Buddha said that all we had to do was drop our utterly fictionalized account of our relationship to All That Is. Moses invited us to live in a new way, to rise up above the lawlessness and the hedonism of our primitive human culture and to live as gods. Jesus showed us what that looked like, then opened the door for us to have the same experience. Just do as he did, he said. Just follow his example, he urged. He pointed out that it was in the books of the Old Testament in which it was written, "Ye are gods."

Indeed, every spiritual teacher from the beginning of time has issued us an open invitation to step away from our primitive behaviors and to move into the expression of our own divinity, proclaiming it to be our true identity and the manifestation of Ultimate Reality. This is the essential teaching of Mohammed, who proclaimed that jihad was the war within, the internal struggle, the raging battle inside all human beings who intuitively know at some very deep level that they are more than this, more than merely human, more than primitive barbarians, and capable of behavior elevated to the level of the Divine.

Yet we have determined and decided to become Children of a Lesser God. By twisting and turning and misunderstanding and distorting the messages of our holiest teachers, we have convinced ourselves that we are born in sin, and that it is our job to return to holiness, to work our way to worthiness, to seek the merciful and compassionate forgiveness of a loving father by doing His Will and sublimating our desires to His Purpose for us.

Now along comes a holy dialogue called Conversations with God that boldly declares: "God's will for you is your will for you." Now along comes a New Spirituality that gently but clearly announces the Divinity of Humanity and declares that the very purpose of life is for humanity to know this, and to experience its True Identity.

Can we believe such a claim? Can we embrace such a notion? Can we possibly move into the living of such an idea? These are the questions laid before us in the first quarter of the 21st Century. Once again it is time for us to be led from the desert to the Promised Land. Once again it is time for us to follow the example of the Son of God, who said, "I and the Father are one." Once again it is time for us to heed the call of Mohammed to join in jihad -- the holy war within, the internal struggle -- to find, to express, and to experience a Higher Self.

I have spoken at length these past twelve years of this extraordinary and challenging process. Engaging the process can change your life. It can utterly alter your day-to-day priorities and completely shift your moment-to-moment reality. Things that were important before are important no longer. Things that caused you upset in the past now bother you not at all. Things that captured your attention and demanded your energies suddenly feel inconsequential and absolutely unrelated to your reason for being and your purpose in living.

We are talking here about the difference between the Little Self and the Big Self. The Big Self holds all the data of the universe. Indeed, it is all the data of the universe, compressed into one location The Little Self is the self that emerges from the data of the brain. The Big Self is the self that emerges from the data of Consciousness.

The struggle, the jihad, is about growth. It is about expanding from the Little Self to the Big Self. Then it is about moving back and forth freely between the two. For the Little Self was never meant to be abandoned, but merely experienced at will rather than by compulsion. The Little Self has a purpose. That purpose is to contextualize the experience of the sacred being that you are, so that you might know your self in the fullness of your True Identity. Every Master who has ever walked the planet has moved between the experience of the Little Self and the experience of the Big Self, enjoying and celebrating both in the wondrous and joyous and glorious expression called Life.

Life in the Realm of the Physical is what makes the fullest experience of the Little Self possible. Life in the Realm of the Spiritual is what makes the fullest experience of the Big Self possible. The experience of the Total Self is possible always, and these two realms allow for its True Identity to be experienced more profoundly. We therefore move from one of these realms to the other in an endless cycle. This is called the Journey of the Soul. And in between these two realms lies the place where both are merged. This is the place where we both Know and Experience our Total Self. It is the place of pure bliss. It is the place of merging into oneness. It is Nirvana, Heaven, Paradise.

Yet even as we leave the arms of our lover, so, too, will we leave Paradise. We will emerge from the fullness of our Knowing and Experiencing so that we might Know and Experience our Total Self and our True Identity anew, and even re-create It. So that we might grow It and expand It.

It is growth and expansion of the Self that is the only desire of God.

It is the movement from Mergence to Emergence that produces the possibility of such growth. This is the breathing in and the breathing out of that which we would call Allah, Brahmin, Divinity, God, Lord, Jehovah, Yahweh, and by many other names. This is the respiration of Life.

Many people have asked me through the years why we cannot stay in the state of pure bliss which we experience at the time of our union with All That Is. Why do we have to keep on journeying from the spiritual to the physical and back again? Why do we have to keep on meeting up with All That Is only to have to let go of it?

Now let those who have ears to hear, listen. This is the reason: growth. This is the purpose: expansion. This is the experience: ecstasy. The happiness and the wonder and the glory of re-creation. The joy of giving birth. To Ourselves. Once Again. In the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever we held about Who We Are.

As Conversations with God explained to us in the very first dialogue, this is the purpose of all of life. Each time we merge with The All and emerge once again, we enlarge the Self. This is something that has not been widely explained by our world's religions or deeply comprehended by our world's people.

Yet now we are able to more fully understand the Eternal Journey of the Soul, the Endless Cycle of Life, and the Will of God.

Amen, and amen. ~ NDW

The Sustainability Series: a new group of workshops that address sustainable living.

To register for these events click here.

The Basic Principles of Life are: Functionality. Adaptability. Sustainability.
-from The New Revelations

Co-Creative Gardening: August 17, 18 , 19                      Instructor: Scott “Hawkeye” McGuire
This is not a typical gardening class full of tips and techniques. Our goal is to develop skills that will serve us in working in partnership with nature, moving away from manipulation into more conscious inter-action.
We will learn how to enter into a partnership with nature, specifically, in our gardens. We approach this with the understanding that plants are intelligent beings with an innate understanding of their needs. Our job as co-creative gardeners is to find out what they are, and learn how we can best meet them.
Join us as we tap into the tradition of Findhorn, Perelandra, Anastasia and others, and develop the skills and wisdom for recreating paradise on Earth.

Spirituality and Sustainable Living
Instructors: Joanna Gabriel and Scott “Hawkeye” McGuire

Part 1 – Sustainable Neighbor:
September 14, 15 and 16 and *October 19, 20, and 21
What are the most workable spiritual responses, attitudes and actions around effective sustainable living? This course includes a rigorous self-assessment of options, including community support potential, local resources, and personal skills and abilities.

Part 2 – Sustainable Leader:
September 21, 22 and 23 and *October 26, 27 and 28
Leader is not a class for students of sustainability. This is for the teachers of the emergent sustainability movement, the ones who will guide our communities into a very different tomorrow than any of us can imagine.
Our job is to imagine, to picture everything that might be needed for a sustainable life, and then acquire the skills, tools, and abilities necessary to achieve it. And then prepare ourselves to teach these things in the pre-serve-ation of our homes.
(*schedule note: the October classes may be combined into one 5-day workshop. Stay tuned!)

Power Places of the State of Jefferson: (S. Oregon + N. California) - Dates to be determined.
Spirit Guide: Scott “Hawkeye” McGuire
This journey will be a multi-layered and multi-dimensional experience. Not only will we spend a full day in each of five awesome power places, we’ll also be developing our innate abilities to attune to the “gifts of place”.

Events are in Ashland, Oregon - visit: http://www.cwg.org or call (541) 482-8806 to register

The moment has arrived for all of you to step into your own mastery. For I have placed you all on the earth to be good stewards, and the time for stewardship is at hand.

…the time has come for ordinary, everyday people to take things into their own hands and stop relying on others – much less authorizing others – to create humanity’s collective tomorrow.
-From Tomorrow’s God

SNS New Spirituality EVENTS!

August 4th "Taste of the New Spirituality" Adult and Children Events
With Neale Donald Walsch, Jean Houston, Matthew Fox, Jimmy Twyman and more!
Southern Oregon University Campus, Ashland, Oregon
and Ashland High School's Theatre. http://www.schoolofthenewspirituality.com/ns-u-new.cfm

SNS+Institute of Noetic Sciences Youth Retreat,
Aug. 9-12th concurrently with the 12th IONS Adult Conference,
Palm Springs, CA NOTE: SNS is the Youth Retreat co-sponsor (scroll to bottom of the page): http://www.noetic.org/events/2007Conf_PalmSprings/mainpage2.html

Things at the Foundation this week are just great and we actually have a new member of the family. Last week Kate, our fantastic LEP Administrator brought into this world her new daughter Miss Lily Rose. I think because the staff of the Foundation is so small and, over time, we’ve become a very tight group of extremely close friends who just happen to work together – Lily Rose was welcomed into this world not only by her real family but also her ReCreation Foundation family. To be very frank, I’ve never been bowled over by babies myself, but I think all the birth work and stuff I did last year – that I shared in this article – has really changed me inside, because the first time I laid eyes on this beautiful child I just fell in love. She’s beautiful and seems to be a very bright new light upon the earth. Kate is very lucky to have her and each of us at the Foundation is blessed with the opportunity to be a part of her life.

Last week, I spoke about the programs that we are launching and now you can go to the home page of the website and follow the links to register for the new Sustainability Weekends we’re running. Actually, the next few months are panning out to be very busy and full of a wide variety of new CwG/Neale Donald Walsch programs and events.

August 4, 2007
Ashland, Oregon
New Spirituality University Launch
Email: Angel@SchooloftheNewSpirituality.com

October 5, 6, 7
Portland, Oregon
Basic Teachings of Conversations with God
Instructor: Joanna Gabriel
email: marion@cwg.org
Information and online enrollment will be on our website next week.

October 12. 13, 14
Seattle, Washington
Basic Teachings of Conversations with God
Instructor: Joanna Gabriel
email: marion@cwg.org
Information and online enrollment will be on our website next week.

December 28th, 2007 - January 1, 2008
Ashland, Oregon
ReCreating Yourself: The Annual Holiday Retreat w/Neale & the Foundation Staff
Will: 352-442-2244
Email: will@cwg.org
www.cwg.org/main.php?p=Retreats?=RSchedule

I hope that you will join us for these programs. The idea of meeting more of you and sharing the amazing experiences of Conversations with God in a more interactive way is manna for us here at the Foundation. It’s so exciting to participate in these events, because before our eyes in the course of just a few hours or days, we see life after life changed and revived through the messages of CwG. These programs offer amazing opportunities to become more of Who You Really Are through the concepts of CwG when they are brought to life.

It’s been a very interesting week with Kate out on maternity leave and Will away with Neale on the Alaskan cruise, I’ve gotten the opportunity to answer all of the Foundation’s incoming calls. Some of these calls are about our programs or business matters, but the majority are from individuals who have been exploring the messages of CwG, some for the very first time. I’ve found much delight in getting to know these individuals and to answer their questions and explore their personal understandings of the material.

Commonly I’ve found callers are looking to the material or to other works or other people in their lives for the “answers”. Many of us have been conditioned to believe that authority resides outside of ourselves. However, the CwG material reminds us that the answers lie within.

I’ve come to understand that the CwG material seems to attract those of high intellect. Often those that are new to the material, like I was in the beginning, have the information in their head and desire to implement the messages into their lives from a cerebral place. I’ve come to both deeply appreciate and also struggle with getting out of my head and into my emotions and my heart while doing this work.

For most of my life, even for a long time after I encountered the CwG material in 1996, it was an intellectual process. In truth, I navigated every aspect of my life primarily from my head and I had great difficulty living life from my heart and my emotions. Then when I came to Ashland and went through the ReCreation Foundation’s Life Education Program (LEP), I began the journey of living the messages from my heart and feelings.

I must admit I’ve done this kicking and screaming every inch of the way, because when I’m in my body, my emotions, and my heart, I am out of the place where I am most comfortable and where I feel safe, which is in my mind and my intellect. I guess that’s where I imagine I can’t be hurt and I’m not vulnerable and I don’t feel exposed. Yet, what I’ve found through this arduous experience of learning to live from the heart and the emotions is that there is where the true authentic experience of who I really am is found.

CwG points me to these aspects of myself as the compass from which to best navigate this human experience. The answers that I sought for so long outside of myself are truly found within – it’s how I feel about something that is my personal answer to whatever question confounds me.

Repeatedly, in the phone conversations I’ve had this week I’ve found myself stopping the callers – who are going on and on with their questions and their intellectual understandings of CwG and other metaphysical or universal principals – and I’ve said, “the material says all the answers are inside of you. What is that answer for you?” It’s so interesting, because it seems that question stops them in their tracks and it is there they begin to find the answer. Even if the next question is, “how do I determine that?”

“It’s all very simple,” I explain. “You get into a quiet place, while holding the question in your mind. Then you gently walk yourself through the possible answers and see how they feel to you in your body or your heart. The one that feels the best to you is the answer that is yours. If you practice this little exercise long enough and you play with both the answers that feel the best and the answers you “think” are the best – a practice that often doesn’t produce the most joyful outcome – what you come to quickly understand is that it works! The answers that feel the best to you inside are the answers that are right for you.”

I have no idea what the right or wrong answers are about anything for anyone, but I do know what’s right for me by what feels good inside of me. By using this simple little tool, over time I’ve learned to use it in a split second with very little thought, and the outcome has been a more authentic and simpler experience of life for me.

Oh, I’d love to tell you that I’m a pro at this, or that my internal answer is always the answer I intellectually or humanly want, but that is not the truth. Often the “right” answer to a question is to do nothing, or to be patient, and those aren’t necessarily answers I like or want to hear, no matter how perfect they are for the question I’m asking. But I’ve learned over time to quell my “little” Marion side and try to stay with this highest answer and the result is always what was best. When I fail to do so – and yes that still happens, too – eventually I come to understand that the first answer – the one I didn’t want to listen to and so didn’t – was in fact the right answer and is still the answer.

For instance, I ask inside myself, “shall I do this or that or just wait?” and clearly the internal answer that feels the best is to just wait. Ugh I hate that! So I decide – well I don’t want to! And I go about doing what it is I THINK I should do. Eventually I’m brought right back to the place I started, usually with a wake of madness behind me, and again I’m given the same opportunity – to just wait – and of course, with the least amount of struggle and strife I find I’ve arrived at the experience I sought in the first place. Finally, a deep understanding sets in that the period of madness was useless and unnecessary. If only I’d listened to my internal answer and waited to begin with, the result would have been what I wanted and the madness would never have showed up.

I know this stuff in my sleep, but I’m telling you – to know it and to live it are two very different things, and to live it consistently in every instance isn’t a place I’ve come close to getting to yet. I can’t imagine why that is except that we’re so conditioned to operate from what we think instead of what we feel, that the actuality of switching it around all the time is just a big nut to crack.

Hope you have a great week of living from your heart and find the answers that work for you.

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

Dear Neale,

Would you please clarify something I am confused about? Tithing. I tithed for years when I was in a fundamentalist church, so I know what it means. For the past year I have been giving away at least ten percent of my gross income, most of it to sources of spiritual growth. So many different things I’ve read have been consistent about the importance of putting back at least ten percent into the Universe, but there seems to be no consensus about where to give it.

You have also talked about being the source of what we choose to experience more of. So, if I desire more money in my life, I need to give to those who have less. Does this come out of my tithe, or is it extra? I am willing to contribute to Habitat for Humanity, because I wish to own a house. Again, should this be out of my tithe, or above it?

Also, if I wish to own a house, and give thanks that a house is coming into my life, how specific must I be about what I would like? Do specifications limit God? Do I assume God knows what is best for me? Is vagueness usable by God/the Universe? Again, I get different messages from different places.

God bless you, Neale!
Brenda, CA

My Dear Brenda,

God bless you, too! You know, you ask some of the most important questions dealing with the practical application in day-to-day life of the highest spiritual laws.

First, about tithing. The reason we tithe is as a demonstration. By tithing we systematically demonstrate the truth which we hold about money, just as our whole life is a demonstration of our truths about everything. The only people who tithe, who routinely give money away to others, are people who are very clear that there is more where that came from. Out of this clarity arises the demonstration, and out of this demonstration arises the precise experience of that about which one is clear.

Of course, we are right back to that age old question: which comes first, the chicken or the egg? In the case of the universal laws, or what I call the metaphysical principles, the question in answerable. Demonstration always precedes experience. That is, you will experience what you demonstrate.

This is why I say, “That which you wish for yourself, give away to another.” But there is a trap here. If you are doing something in order to produce a result (for instance, tithing in order to bring more money into your life), then you will not produce the result, and you may as well give it up before you start.

The reason this is so is that your very reason for undertaking the demonstration says a lie about you: namely, that you do not have all that you wish right now, and need or want more. That underlying truth, what CwG, Book 1 calls your “sponsoring thought,” is what produces your reality. So no matter how much you give, you will experience not having “enough” and “wanting more.”

On the other hand, If you are doing something as a demonstration that the result has already been produced (for instance, tithing ten percent of your income each week out of your deep sense of knowing that there is always enough for you to share, that there is “more where that came from”), then you will have larger and larger experiences of this truth.

Remember, you are not producing the truth, you are recognizing it. Do you see? Do you get It?

There is no “rule” in the Universe about the level at which one must demonstrate in order to experience a universal truth. So your question about the amount of your financial contributions back to the Universe has no answer. In my own life, I just give wherever and whenever it feels comfortable and true to myself to do so. I do not give in order to produce “plenty.” I give out of simply noticing that plenty has already been produced.

Rules, such as the strict injunctive to give away ten percent of your worldly goods, are for those who need rules in order to implement basic truths and to live within the paradigm of basic understandings, such as the understanding of plenty. They provide a discipline. They offer a guideline. Masters are their own discipline. Masters create their own guidelines.

So, what that means, Brenda, is that you can give what you choose to give of your abundance. If you want to stay with a strict hard and fast ten percent, I would include everything you give to support the good of another in that figure, including the contribution to Habitat for Humanity. Here’s how I did it some years ago. I set up a rough “division of the goodies.” To my home church: three percent of my income each week; to the Children’s Miracle Network (which I want to support), two percent each week; to the local medical assistance program for the indigent, two percent each week; to a special fund for family and friends when they need help, two percent each week; to set-aside for last minute choices and decisions (like Habitat for Humanity). One percent each week. Voila! There’s your ten percent!

The answer to the second part of your question (where you ask about “vagueness”) is again just about the same. Some teachers say, “don’t limit God by being too specific.” Some teachers say, “Be specific about what you choose!” I understand your frustration. So what I say here will be a great relief. It doesn’t matter.

Look, Brenda, it’s not as if God will accept your request only if it is made under certain guidelines, you know? That gets right back to ancient religions which teach that there is only one way to God, and all the rest of us are going to hell. Not so. Big lie. Same with this.

Even before you ask, God knows what you desire. You want to visualize something general, like “the right and perfect car?” Go ahead. You want to get specific? That’s okay, too. Visualize a big red car with black interior. See the dashboard design in your mind’s eye. Call out the model number, if you choose. Yet here’s the trick: here’s the secret. As soon as you “put it out there” in the Universe, let it go. That is to say, detach yourself from results. CwG, Book 1 teaches that enlightenment is not about dropping all desires, escaping all passion, eschewing all choices. It is about retaining your passion for the thing. It actually encourages you to do so, for passion, the book says, is the beginning of creation; but it also instructs us to avoid being addicted to any particular outcome. Call forth what you choose, CwG says, and then accept what the Universe supplies, with gratitude and with love, knowing that it is all perfect.

And try to get clear on this, too, Brenda: there is nothing that is best for you. “Best for you” is a relative term, dependent on a great many factors, not all of which may be consciously known to you. Therefore, a master never tries to figure out what is “best” for her. A master simply knows that what is “best” is that which now is.

If you would like to send a comment or a question to Neale here at the Weekly Bulletin, you may do so by addressing an email to: weeklybulletinresponse@CwG.org

Please note that because of the volume of mail that we receive, it is possible your letter will not get printed here. However, we do our best to see that all letters get a response, if not directly from Neale, then from a CwG Foundation staff person, or LEP participant.