What is true for you?
My Dear Friends...
"God says, 'You may not have what you want'."
When I first encountered those words in Conversations with God-Book 1, I remember thinking, "Wait
a minute! That's exactly the opposite of what all religions teach. Religions teach that even before you ask, you will be answered. They teach that God is ready, willing, and able to fulfill all of
our desires, if we will but ask. And they teach that if God does not grant us our wishes and answer our prayers, it is because of some higher good or reason, and that we must have faith in God to
know what that is."
"These are the things that religions teach, and now here comes CwG saying "you may not
have what you want."
Can this be true?
Yes. And it is.
As CwG explains, "wanting" something is an admission that it is not now there. And this admission is what makes that true for us. For Life is exactly what we say it is. It is exactly what we think
it is. It is exactly how we act that it is. Our thoughts, words and actions not only describe life, but create it.
If we are saying, "I want more money," for instance, we are actually making a declaration to the Universe.
This is an announcement of what is true for you.
Think of it this way: imagine that the word "I" is the magic word that let's the genie out of the bottle. Whatever you say after the word "I" is an announcement. It is a declaration. It is you, saying
what is true for you. And in God's Universe, your word is law.
So if you think that you want more money, that is the result you will produce. You will want more money.
If you say "I want more money in my life," the Universe will merely echo, "Yes." The Universe will merely declare, "because you have said it, so be it."
That is what the Universe declares after everything you say. If you say, "I'm sick and tired of this or that," the Universe will say, "That's true. And so it will be."
If you say, "I want more sex and more companionship in my life!" the Universe will declare, "That is true. You DO!"
The Universe never disagrees with you!
That is why to "want" something is to push it away from you.
The point here is that I have discovered that the Universe takes me literally. In fact, the Universe has no
other way to get its clues as to what to create in my reality except from the things I think, say, and do. What other way is there?
God is not the creator of our reality, God is the observer. And God provides the tools with which we are given
the power to create our own reality. These tools are three: thought, word, and deed.
In my own life, I have experienced these words to be true. They are not just some fancy metaphysical talking points that are my truth. Oh, and by the way, because I say that they work, they do work.
This is what I call Divine Logic. It circles in on itself.
Everything is a circle, everything is a Closed System, and logic is not an exception. In fact, logic is the ultimate closed system.
In my own life, I have given up "wanting" things. I can have "desires," but I have no "wants."
What is the difference, you ask?
You can always tell the difference between a desire and a want by the degree to which you become upset if it is not fulfilled. A desire is a preference. A want is often
experienced as something larger than that. Perhaps it is even seen as a necessity.
In truth, I have found that there are very few—actually, remarkably few—necessities (that is, things I cannot do without) in life. I can do without almost anything and be happy. And not just a little
bit happy, a lot happy.
I have experienced that Communion
with God is right when it says that it is an illusion that Need Exists.
I have learned to change my wants to preferences. A book that has helped me a lot in this regard is a wonderful volume written over 25 years ago by Ken Keyes, Jr. called The Handbook to Higher Consciousness.
It can be found in most libraries and in many Used Book Stores. I highly recommend it.
~ Neale Donald Walsch
Are you feeling stuck?
Here we go rushing into the last quarter of the year…where has the year gone? It seems like just a few weeks ago, we were in July and here we are quickly approaching the holidays!
Has this year been one of big changes for you? Have you accomplished your intentions for the year? Or does just bringing up this subject feel rude and uncomfortable?
Feeling stuck can be a difficult challenge or an interesting opportunity, depending on how we choose to look at it. CwG reminds us that if we are not comfortable or happy with what is showing up in
this life, the place to look to change, or recreate it, is within. This sounds good, but what does it really mean?
CwG also tells us that nothing has any meaning or purpose except what we decide that it does. We give it meaning and purpose.
Sometimes what can be really useful when we are feeling stuck and not sure what to do to become unstuck…getting caught up in the doingness without deciding what we want our beingness to be…is to create
an experience that blasts us out of our comfort zone and out of predictability and out of the old patterns.
This is why Neale and the Foundation staff have created an experiential training aptly named: Life Change
LIFE
CHANGE is
a high-impact, substantial 10-day program consisting of 14-hour days of intensive personal and spiritual growth work, including 42 hours of highly focused interactions facilitated by Conversations with
God author Neale Donald Walsch and soundly based in the messages of CwG. Additional content includes two days of intensive life coaching processing, a full day of body-mind-spirit integration work,
a "Cave Experience" covering three days, and a final day of Finishing Unfinished Business and Integration Work.
The program is designed for those who wish to move to the next level in their spiritual growth, and who seek to not only thoroughly understand and articulate the messages of Conversations with God,
but to use the spiritual insights and the profound truths of CwG as tools in dramatically changing their lives.
What an amazing gift to give one's self in support of beginning the New Year!
Life
Change can be a vehicle to help you go within to make important changes that will alter your experience in 2008 and for the rest of your life. Are you ready for that?
We have created a dynamic and affordable program with payment options to make it accessible for you.
You don't have to be a CwG scholar, or have any desire to be a facilitator. This experience is for finding your own truth and learning to live from that place within you.
To find out more, click on: Life
Change
"The support and love I received from the Foundation and faculty members along with my fellow classmates
was instrumental in my evolvement. No one judged, condemned or shamed me; I felt completely safe as I faced ' the man in the mirror.' If only the world could go through such an experience, how different
life would be."
~ Michael Kendall
What's Happening
We have graduates of our Life Education Program who are out in the world committed to giving people back to themselves through the New Spirituality and the messages of CwG. We want to let you know about these opportunities around the world that are available to you.
Karolina Kempe is a graduate of the Life
Education Program hosted by Neale and his staff at the ReCreation Foundation in Ashland, Oregon."
"A sincere welcome to a full day experiential workshop
Saturday 13th of October 2007, Lund, Sweden inspired by Conversations with God! On this day, we'll explore questions like: How can I go where
I want to go? Where do I find the courage to follow my heart? What do I want and how can I find out which my intentions are? How
do I create balance and connection with myself?
Come and experience the getting together with like-minded people, find a deeper connection with yourself and explore the power of thought
and your own intentions in life. The workshop will be held in Swedish. For more information, please visit www.karolina.am.
Message from Marion
Hello my dear friends:
These are interesting times around the Foundation these days. We ended up having to cancel our Seattle and Portland
3-day workshops on the Basic Messages of CwG. We really thought those programs would go over in major metropolitan areas and we were surprised to find that wasn't the case. So much of what we do is
hit or miss - trying to find the vehicles that can bring the messages of CwG to the world in new and creative ways is quite the challenge. For example, when we attempted to launch programs on sustainability,
there was not much interest.
Please if you have ideas or thoughts about the ways you'd like to see us bring these messages to you, email or call me. My direct contact information is always at the bottom of my article and I read
every email. So let me know how the Foundation can better serve you.
Things around me and the relationships I have with special people in my life seem to be in great flux, too, recently. It's amazing sometimes to get to be the observer and to see the bigger picture.
With old issues coming up, my friendships seem to be in transition.
It's interesting to watch when my biggest dreams and wildest imaginings are laid at my feet. I'd always thought it would be a "yes, let's rock and roll" response - but what I'm observing in myself
- is yes, there is excitement - no question, but then there is fear - almost a paralyzing fear. And there's this tangible level of disbelief. I've also experienced huge resistance that shows up in the
form of confused thinking and/or major procrastination.
In a conversation recently, I wondered, "What is this? We spend our lives teaching people about abundance and the laws of attraction, manifestation and creation; yet, when it shows up for us individually,
we sit there and we have doubts or we're just absolutely stunned that what we're teaching really comes true. That yes, the Universe will show up in ways that are bigger than your wildest dreams!" I
don't know that we teach the part about when it happens to you, expect to be scared to death, overwhelmed, and/or overcome with moments—or even days—of sheer panic, and other times of absolute disbelief
and a sense that all of a sudden your very creation has this surreal feel to it.
What I'm finding in my experiences with all this new exciting stuff is that if I can stay in the moment, do what's in front of me, keep my life and my space in some sort of order and regimen, I've
been able to channel the excitement and the energy of it into a focused force which ultimately turns into a dynamic and highly efficient energy.
Oh, I've in no way got the handle on this all the way. I do find days where I'm just stuck. Days, or more often nights, when I step out of the moment and drop deeply into "my stuff"—the fear and the
panic that come from the thoughts of the bigness of it all, or the attachment to it, and the never-ending "what if's" that can run ceaselessly through my head with no useful purpose except to freak
me out.
Of course, this discussion would be incomplete if I were not to mention the law of opposites and how that plays
into it. Certainly the negative emotions I've mentioned here are the naturally anticipated opposites of the great emotions of joy, excitement, bliss, etc.
But there are also the people and events that show up - of course! They offer us the experience of everything unlike our biggest dreams coming true. For me it's often been in the form of previously
intimate partners coming back into my space again in the form of relationships with which I felt complete and finished, being placed squarely in front of me yet again, - It's almost as if the Universe
is saying, "Ok, Marion - choose who you want to be and here's the most emotionally charged situation you can imagine in which to choose who you are now and which way you want to go to be the next re-creation
of who you really are. What do you want now, Marion? Ugh! I can almost see the Universe just laughing at the absurdity of the things I bring into my world so that I can better experience more of myself!
The secret I've found to this conundrum is to laugh right along with it and to understand that I'm making it all up in every moment as I go along and to try and "grok" that in the whole scheme of things.
none of it really matters. Life is eternal - there are times when it's magnificent and there are times when it's tough, and that is just what it is. I'm coming to deeply appreciate and embrace the truth
that the agony and the frustration and the "bad" icky stuff is often just as valuable as the incredible wonderful "joy, joy, bliss, bliss" stuff.
I never thought I'd understand or be able to get my head around the idea that I could embrace every experience,
including the hardships and hurts, with acceptance and appreciation. Recently I noticed that even though a situation had showed up in my life that was sure to cause me some drama - I was good with it,
and I found myself feeling gratitude for yet another opportunity to walk through a bit of fear and hurt. When did that happen?? When had I gotten to this new place which before had seemed an unreachable
place on the path?
My truth is - I don't have a clue! How it works - where the place when a cognitive understanding of a part
of CwG which by all appearances seems to be lovely and yet completely unattainable, morphs and becomes a working internalized experience of myself - I don't know. I do know it happens - and for me,
it's always a big WOW moment.
I find today that even the not knowing - the not understanding all of it - is okay.
Until next time, my friends, may your days be filled with love and light.
Sincerely,
Marion Black, CEO
ReCreation Foundation, Inc.
dba Conversations with God Foundation
PS: My email is marion@CwG.org or my cell number is (541) 301-0365
Question & Comments from CwG Readers
Dear Mr. Walsch,
"Thank you for your wonderful books. I have one question. It concerns the story in
the Bible where Jesus curses the fig tree because it doesn't bear fruit. I don't understand why he would do this, because it also says that it wasn't the season for the tree to bear figs.
The fig tree example must be there for a reason, but what?
For a long time this story has seemed to represent to me what seems a certain capriciousness on the part of Jesus/God, which perhaps refers to how man feels. Often it seems as if we've been
beset with bad fortune, even though it wasn't our season to bear fruit, if you understand what I mean. In other words, it wasn't our fault, but we've been cursed anyway. Of course, I realize
after reading your book that we are doing it to ourselves, but the story still seems very inconsistent with Jesus' character. This probably doesn't make any sense.
I find it's very difficult for me to talk about anything spiritual and make sense. But your book
really does make sense, and for that, again, I thank you. (I realize you cannot answer this letter, and I don't expect you to, but I just wanted to get the question asked.
~Sincerely, Susan,
IL"
Dear Susan,
The story to which you refer appears in Matthew, chapter 21, beginning at verse 18. It
says:
"Now in the morning as he returned into the city, he hungered. And when he saw a
fig tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away.
And when the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, How soon is the fig tree withered away! Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye
shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done. And all things, whatsoever
ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive."
The story also appears in Mark, chapter 11, beginning at verse 12:
"And on the morrow, when
they were come from Bethany, he was hungry: And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but
leaves; for the time of figs was not yet. And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it...And in the morning, as they passed
by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. And Peter calling to remembrance saith unto him, Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away."
"And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, That
whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to
pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them."
I understand your confusion, Susan, because one wonders why Jesus would cause the tree to dry up when it wasn't even its time to bear fruit. The answer is that Jesus did not shrivel the
tree because it bore no fruit, but rather, used the tree as a teaching tool in a larger lesson he was attempting to teach. The story is clearly an account of Jesus seeking to illustrate the
power of thought (prayer) in the removal from your life of anything which does not bear fruit. Jesus was not demonstrating anger with the tree, he was demonstrating the power of prayer. He
simply used the tree as a tool, as a metaphor.
I can imagine just how this might have happened. A bunch of guys were trekking down the road one day, listening to the great teacher as he spoke of the power of prayer. "You mean, prayer
can do anything?" someone might have asked. "Of course," Jesus no doubt replied, and then thought to himself, "Let's see, how can I get Jimmy here to understand?" Just then, they found themselves
approaching a grove of trees. Jesus knew it was not their time, and that he would find them bare. Ah, he might have said to himself, the perfect opportunity! "Boy, I'm hungry!" he said aloud.
"Let's go see if those trees have any fruit!"
Now he gets to the tree in question and finds no fruit. Bah! He knew all along what he'd find, and decided to use it as a tool. So he tells his disciples, this tree has seen its last day.
And the next morning, it's dried up. "Wow!" said the disciples, "there's a great lesson here. You'd better bear fruit, even if you're out of season!"
"No, No!" said Jesus, "That's not what I was trying to teach. I was trying to show you that whatever bears no fruit in your life, you can get rid of! And so, too, will it be with anything
which stands in the way of your happiness."
"Really?" said his disciples. "You mean that?"
"Hey, would I kid you?" Jesus replied. "I'm telling you right now, whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart,
but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that
ye receive them, and ye shall have them."
I'm sure it's easy for you to see, Susan, how when one uses metaphors and parables the way Jesus did, there is ample opportunity for widespread misunderstanding or misinterpretation. Still,
if you listen to the larger message, stay focused on the biggest truth, you'll more often than not come to what the message really was.
If there is any doubt about my interpretation of the fig tree story from the Bible, it will be erased by reading the very next verse from Mark's version of the story. Clearly, Jesus did
not cause the tree to shrivel and die because he was angry with it, or because the tree somehow did something "wrong." We know this, we can infer this, from his very next comment: "And when
ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses."
So there is no doubt here that Jesus was not "punishing" the tree, or why would he teach forgiveness in the very next sentence? He was simply using the tree as a tool to demonstrate a larger
truth.
Now, it might be said that if this was Jesus' true intent, it was "cruel," because he killed a tree which did not deserve to "die." But a true metaphysician would observe several things:
first, that nothing and no one ever "dies," and therefore Jesus did no harm to the tree; second, that, being a master, Jesus no doubt knew that the tree was there—that it was placed there—by
Providence itself (all things are in their right place at their right time; there is no such thing as "coincidence," and "accidents" do not happen) in order that he might demonstrate what
he chose to demonstrate.
Now, Susan, a question for you. When you pick a flower to give to your loved one, has the flower been misused? Does the flower mind ending its "life" in a demonstration of love?
~Love, Neale. |
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