Making sense of it all
In This Issue...
Notes from Neale
The CwG Reader
The Calendar
Notes from Neale...
My dear friends...
We begin today a three-part series:
Making sense of it all
Last week, in previewing this series, I offered the observation that there are people who believe that certain other people "deserve" to have pain and suffering in their life. A few years ago there were those who even said that AIDS was "God's punishment" for lives in ways that were not in accordance with God's Will. Others have made the same argument about different forms of pain and suffering. It's God's Will. It's God's punishment.
Is that how it works? People do "bad" things and God punishes them? He gives them pain and suffering here on earth, then sends them to hell after they die?
What about the pain and suffering of wonderful people, like my grandmother, who suffered a stroke and lived the last years of her life in much suffering and debilitation? What was God's purpose there?
The earthquake in Chile three weeks ago is what brought this all up for me again---and the tsunami in Hawaii that "never was," even though for a while there we all thought (my wife and I were on the Big Island at the time) that we were in major trouble...
Why were some people in harm's way, and others not? How does Fate decide these things? Is there some rhyme or reason? Is there some point or purpose?
No. There is not, and we must become clear that there is not. Not in the sense that most people mean when they think of there being some "point" to it all.
For there to be some "point," there would have to be a person, a being, who would GIVE it all a "point." There is no such person or being. Some people disagree with me on this. They say that the Person or Being is God. I am saying that God is not a "person" or "being," with likes and dislikes, frustrations and resentments, a need to judge and a need to punish, and an agenda for humankind and for each person on the earth.
I am suggesting to you that "God" is an ineffable Essence-what the Upanishads call Brahman-that permeates the Universe; that IS the Universe, and all things, seen and unseen. I am suggesting that Brahman is Pure Intelligence, and that Brahman is a Process. I am suggesting that it is the Process called Life.
Life does not have a preference about how Life expresses Itself. Life always was, is now, and always will be---therefore Life is not worried about the thing we call "death," and demonstrates no concern about it. If you die, you die. If you live, you live. In both cases you continue to Be.
You cannot NOT Be, and therefore Life (God) has no concern, worry, or agitation about whether you are going to Be or not. Nor does Life have a preference in the matter of how your Being is expressed. Only you do. Because you think that you Are, and the truth is, you Are Not.
That is, you think that you are "you," and the truth is you are not who you think you are, you are not "you," but rather, that which comprises you. The "you" that you think you are is merely a conglomeration of that which comprises you, globbed together in a particular form. Put in CwG terms: You are an Individuation of Divinity, a Singularization of The Singularity. You are a Process, not a Person. And that Process will continue forever. It is called Life. In this case, Life manifesting in the form that you call "you."
Even that form is not a form for more than one millionth of a nano-second. That's why I have said "you are a Process, not a Person." The "you" that You Are is constantly changing form. Like a flame burning atop a candle. Is the flame the same flame in Hour 2 as it was in Hour 1? It is the same flame even from moment to moment? No. It cannot be. By the very nature of what the flame IS, the flame is not. For the flame burns itself out even as it is being what it is. It is thus ending its Present Form in every Present Moment.
A flame is the outward manifestation of the using up of fuel. When the fuel is gone, the flame disappears. In the case of Who You Are, the fuel is never gone, so the flame that is You never disappears. Yet it equally never stays the same. In this sense, "you" are not. You are only what you are Right Now. And then, Right Now. And then, Right Now. You can't stay the same for even one one-millionth of a nano-second. So who are you, anyway...?
There is a continuity to "you," even though "you" are different and changing in every moment. What is this Continuity? Is it Atman (the Soul)? If so, does Atman have a role to play in determining whether you die in an earthquake or are one of those spared in the "tsunami that never was"? What determines who lives and who dies?
I am going to give you a startling answer to that question. There is no such thing as `living' and `dying.' One might as well ask, "What determines who is `being' and who is not `being.'?" Yet nothing is not Being, therefore there is nothing and no one `determining' who is being and who is not.
Okay, you might say. But certainly there is such a thing as changing form. We may all live forever, we may all Always Be, but who or what determines the Form that we take from time to time? Those who died in the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile lived on, but changed Forms. Those who lived through the "tsunami that never was" in Hawaii lived on in the same Form. Who or what decides which Form the Beingness takes from time to time?
I am going to give you a startling answer to that question. There is no such thing as `time,' therefore the Being that You Are takes All Forms At Once. It is merely a question of which Form you are paying attention to, which Form you are choosing to experience, in that part of Always that you call Now.
The Formulation of Brahman that called itself the people in Haiti and Chile who "died" in the earthquakes focused its attention on physicalization and de-physicalization (that is, "living" and "dying") in the way that it did during those earthquakes in order that Brahman Itself might Know Itself in Its Own Experience AS THAT.
This is all part of a holy process that CwG calls "God godding", or, if you please, Brahman Being. Being what? Being everything. All at once. Being life. Being death. Being good. Being bad. Being fast, being slow; being up, being down; being big, being small; being male, being female; being all of It. Being, literally, All Of ItSelf All At Once.
Phew. Okaaaay...
So what does that mean about how we, here and now, are experiencing life? You tell me.
No, I mean that literally. You tell me. By your thoughts, your words, and your actions, you tell me, every day of your life, what that means. You are also telling yourself. You are literally telling your own mind what to think about all this. You're doing it right now. Watch yourself. You are reading this, and you are telling your own Mind what to think about what you're reading. Or, you are saying to yourself, "I just don't know what to think."
Translation: Nothing has any meaning save the meaning you give it.
Now, let me say here that I embrace the Upanishadic tradition and teaching of Atman---the Soul; a part of us that lives forever, retaining its Essence and dropping its Individual Expression of that Essence during Samadhi (Oneness with the All), then picking up its Individual Expression again, then dropping it again, over and over through all Eternity in a Divine Rhythm that perpetuates Perpetuity Itself.
I embrace the notion that the purpose of it all is to allow God to know Itself in its own experience, as I have said before. This is done through the process of Individual Souls evolving and experiencing more and more of what they Always Are. I believe that Souls pick and create the Right and Perfect circumstances allowing them to do this.
To put all this simply, some Souls "die" and some Souls "live" because it is perfect for them to do that in that portion of All Time that they call Right Here, Right Now. When they "die" they realize that they have not "died" at all, but continue living forever. Then they decide (after reemerging from the moment of Samadhi) what aspect of Who They Are they wish next to experience---either as their "old self" (the person they were before they "died") or as a new and other self (the concept known as reincarnation as another individual being).
Explaining this further, I understand that souls have the ability to return to the Timeline of Forever Always at any point, in any Form they wish---including the Form they just left behind. Put simply, you can live as the "you" that you imagine your Self to be again and again, experiencing Life in a hundred thousand different moments in a hundred thousand different ways, until you have experienced and expressed the Self in this particular Form at the level of absolute Divinity. And even then you can keep coming back to experience that as long as you wish.
Or...you can come back in another Form (i.e., as another person) and experience Life in that Form as many times as you wish. You ultimately realize that you are Life in All Forms All The Time. You are Always All, and you are All All Ways.
In other words, you are God, godding.
Okay, that's a lot of esoterics for one week. But how to make any of that work for us in any practical way during This Life, Here and Now? That is the question. And that's what we'll look at in Part II of this series, next week.
In the meantime, suggested reading: HOME WITH GOD IN A LIFE THAT NEVER ENDS.
Love and Hugs,
Neale.
A MARVELOUS OPPORTUNITY
I believe that the Conversations with God material can change people's lives and change the world. Many people who have read the material agree with me, and yearn to know how they can more effectively share this information with others. They want to become teachers and messengers of The New Spirituality. But how do you effectively and clearly share these remarkable messages in a way that helps other people to "get" them?That's what the Conversations with God Foundation's CwG DEEP STUDY PROGRAM is all about. For three highly concentrated days a tiny handful of participants (never more than 30, usually less than 20) sit down together with CwG author Neale Donald Walsch and question the heck out of him, exploring and discussing every major message in CwG, and hearing directly from Neale how to most effectively teach it.
This remarkable event is clearly not for everyone. It is for those very few who feel so moved by this material that they wish to share it with others. Perhaps in a a study group as its facilitator, perhaps in a workshop as its presenter, perhaps in a lecture or informal talk as its source. Maybe just in a private conversation with family and friends.
If you feel called to bring the CwG message forward in your sphere of influence, and want to make sure you know what you're talking about, and make sure you know how to most effectively present what you are talking about, this unique program is for you.
The next CwG Deep Study session will be May 10, 11, 12. Neale offers this program only once or twice a year, so if this feels like something you would like to do, it would be good to call now to get more information about it or to register for one of the few places left.
Call Will Richardson, educational programs registrar, at 352-442-2244. He'll have all the information you need.
You can also go to www.cwg.org and click on the blue button for Deep Study and read about it in more depth. Whichever you choose, don't miss this opportunity.
The CwG Reader
Further explorations of the Conversations with God material from the author
Neale Donald Walsch through the years has given hundreds of talks and written scores of articles revolving around the messages he received in his Conversations with God. Now, every seven days, we will present in this space a transcript or reprint of those presentations. We invite you to Copy and Save each one of them, creating a personal a collection of contemporary and uplifting spiritual thought which you may reference at any time. We hope you will find this a constant source of insight and inspiration.
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This week's offering: Through the years Neale has received many comments and questions regarding the message in CwG that tells us, "Hitler went to heaven." Below is Part III of a tele-class discussion of this topic offered by Neale on January 5, 2005
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In January 2005 I presented a telephone class, the purpose of which was to help those who would seek to become messengers of the New Spirituality to learn how to effectively share CwG's extraordinary message with others.
HITLER WENT TO HEAVEN
Sharing this message
A TELE-CLASS BY NEALE DONALD WALSCH
January 2005
(with later edits in November, 2006)
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A major shift in the discussion
So, we begin the discussion by recreating the context within which we consider the word "Heaven" itself, and we challenge the audience and invite the audience to consider the possibility that there is no place other than "Heaven."
Now, that suggests that there is no... how to put it, that there is no negative outcome, that there is no bad fallout, from the things that we do. When you start talking about "Hell" and its existence or non-existence, this in itself becomes a controversial topic. But notice that we have shifted the discussion away from the statement "Hitler went to Heaven" to the question of whether Hell exists-and that shift is not incidental, but rather, quite intentional.
By making that shift we take the audience through a corridor that allows them to relieve themselves of the need to consider the possibility that someone like Hitler went to Heaven and to address an entirely different question: What is this Heaven we are talking about-and, was there any place else for Hitler to go?
While this is not a non-controversial subject either, it is not as personal. We take the discussion away from the personal, where it most decidedly is in the case of Hitler-a human being who is detested by almost all people at some level...or his behaviors were detested, that's for sure, by all good-thinking people. We take the attention off the person of Hitler and move it to the larger question of humanity's relationship with God, and how humanity as a whole "pays for its sins."
I mean, if there is no Hell, then are we saying there is no punishment for anything at all? That there is no, there's no outcome to the things that we do?
We should explain to our audience at this point that the statement "Hitler went to Heaven" does not mean that Hitler did not experience the consequences of his actions. Now that's going to be a great relief to your audience. So you've given them two levels of relief within the first five minutes of your talk.
First, you've taken the subject of Hitler himself personally and moved it out of the way, shifting it into a larger discussion of the existence of Heaven and Hell and what Hell really is.
Second, you've made it clear that Hitler did not escape the consequences of his actions.
The fact that a place of everlasting and eternal torture does not exist and that a system whereby we experience the consequences of our actions does exist are not mutually exclusive.
Hope you are all following this!
It is possible for a system to be in place whereby we experience the consequences of our actions without there being a place called Hell. And, in truth, that is the case.
We tell our audience at this point that...
The system in place in the Universe whereby each of us experience the consequences of our actions is called "Cause and Effect."
That which we cause, we feel the effect of-inevitably and in every case. Or, to put it in simpler terms, "What goes around comes around." Conversations with God makes that clear in every one of its messages and teachings, from the first to the last.
There is not a statement anywhere in Conversations with God that says, or could be misinterpreted as saying, that people do not experience the consequences of their actions. In fact, just the opposite is true. Conversations with God argues over and over again, makes the statement repeatedly, that not only do we experience the consequences of our actions, we are the cause of those consequences, and, indeed, of all the experiences of our lives.
We are, in fact, the creator of our own total experience, ultimately responsible for everything, including the fallout or the outcome of everything we think, say and do.
So, we relieve our audience's tension by saying: "I can assure you that the soul of that being calling itself Adolf Hitler on earth experienced the consequences of every thought, word, and action emanating from that being while in physical from."
What are `consequences'?
We now move to a third level of discussion. How do we define consequences? And what is the difference between a consequence and a punishment?
I am, by this time, about 10 or 15 minutes into my lecture. Somewhere 10 or 15 minutes, or at the most 20 minutes, into it I start getting into a deep discussion of the difference between a consequence and a punishment, and that's something I would like you to do as well. We are not going to do that here in great detail, but my assignment to you (if you already have not done so) is to take an in-depth look at what the CwG material has to say about the difference between consequence and punishment.
I'm sure you already know those differences, but locate those articulations inside the texts anyway. Re-familiarize yourself with them. They will serve you immensely as you look at the overall rollout of the "Hitler went to Heaven" message.
Very briefly, a punishment is an experience that is imposed, usually by an exterior source whereas a consequence is an experience that is not imposed, but befalls us as the natural outcome of a prior thought, word, or action.
If you make a misstep, you fall down the stairs. You don't fall down the stairs as a punishment for making the misstep, but simply as a natural outcome of a prior action. It's simply what happens. If you do THIS, THAT is what happens. When you do THAT, THIS is what happens. You create the outcome yourself when you create the thought, word, or deed. No one exterior to you creates the outcome, and it is not imposed upon you, but simply moved through by you.
Each moment of our lives is what Conversations with God calls a Choice Point, and we make our decisions and we make our choices and then we produce instantly-although the effect may not be felt for days, weeks, months, or years-we produce instantly in the cosmic field the outcome that results quite naturally (and, I might add, predictably) from that choice, action, or decision.
That outcome can be shifted or changed as we continue to co-create in the space of the aftermath of that choice or decision. It is not a case of, "Okay, you've made your bed, now you have to lie in it." You can get up and start over again instantly. We are continuously creating and recreating the outcomes and the consequences of our lives from moment to moment, and we are never, ever tied to our past or to any previous choice or decision.
So there is no such thing as punishment. And there is no such thing as punishment because there is no such thing as judgment and there is no such thing as judgment because there is no such thing as "Wrong Doing." And there is no such thing as "wrong doing" because God doesn't want or need us to be doing anything in particular. That is, there is no such thing as "right doing," so how can "wrong doing" exist?
This is difficult for many people to understand, to embrace and to accept. We desperately want to call some things "right" and some things "wrong." Yet within the cosmology of the Conversations with God material we can't do that. Not if we demonstrate true integrity to the material. For CwG says quite clearly, "there is no such thing as right or wrong."
So now you can see we have gone deeply into the fourth level of this discussion!
And the audiences, from my experience, love it!
They Love to travel down that intellectual and spiritual exploration, that exploratory road to infinite understanding. Because now we are discussing a deeper, deeper, and even deeper subject: "There is no such thing as right and wrong!"
And if there is no such thing as right and wrong, then what is there?!
Well, as you know, Conversations with God says there is only "that which works" and "that which does not work," given what it is we are trying to do, given what it is what we are trying to create.
Which takes us to the fifth level of the discussion: Who are we anyway, and what are we trying to create?
We are The Creator (capital T, capital C)...we are The Creator! We are the creator of our own experience individually and collectively as well.
NEXT WEEK: Who and What is God?
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The Calendar
A look at events at which Neale Donald Walsch will share the message of Conversations with God in the weeks ahead. You can learn more about the work of the ReCreation Foundation at these events...and on its official website, www.cwg.org, as well.
NOTE: Not all events are sponsored by the ReCreation Foundation, but because all of the events move forward the message of Conversations with God, which is the mission of the Foundation, the Foundation is pleased to inform you of them.
Click on each event for more information:
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A 3 Day Intensive Medford, Oregon Contact: 352-442-2244 - ndwsupport@gmail.com |
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Three days of intense study of the major points of CwG Ashland Oregon Contact: Will at 352-442-2244 - will@cwg.org |
Foundation |
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Tokyo, Japan Contact: +81 3 5272 3113 - naoki@sunmark.co.jp |
Publishers |
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Post-Conference Workshop Chicago, IL |
Productions |
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3 Day Intensive - July 29th -Aug 1st 2010 Southern Oregon Contact: 352-442-2244 - support@nealedonaldwalsch.com |
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London, England |
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Amsterdam, The Netherlands Contact: +31 653 294 701 - Thom.Schouten@heartmedia.nl |
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Scottsdale, AZ Contact: 877-300-7352 |
Productions |
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