March 2008 Archives

Everyone wants to be happier, right? Of course. Even the happiest among us cannot get too much happiness. And those who are not so happy could really use a boost...

Over the next several months I'll be sharing with you here 17 Steps to Being Happier Than God. These come right out of the book Happier Than God, and we'll consider them one at a time here.

Step #1 may be the most important step of all -- and, indeed, may be the most important step you ever took in your life.

Step 1. Bring an end to Separation Theology

Work in your own life and your personal belief system to eliminate any thought of separation from God. Just get rid of that theology.

Separation Theology is a theology that insists that we are “over here” and God is “over there.” Its doctrine tells us that God separated us from God as punishment for our sins, and that our job now is to get back to God, which is possibly only if God will allow it, which God will do only if we obey God’s commands, follow God’s laws, and submit to God’s will. In short, we must do What God Wants. (For my separate exploration of this subject, see What God Wants, from Atria Books, 2006.)

This Separation Theology has produced a Separation Cosmology (that is, a way of looking at all of life on this planet that includes separation as its basic principle), which, in turn, has produced a Separation Sociology (that is, a way of socializing our species that requires us to act as separate beings serving our own best and separate interests), which has produced a Separation Pathology (that is, pathological behavior producing suffering, conflict, violence, and death by our own hands).

Only when our Separation Theology is replaced by a Unity Theology will our Separation Pathology be healed. We must come to understand that all of life is One. This is your first step and it is mine. It is the jumping off point. It is the beginning of the end of how things now are. It is the start of a new creation, of the placing into reality of the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever you held about who you are.

The Unspoken Truth reveals to us that Oneness is not a characteristic of life…life is a characteristic of Oneness.

Life is the expression of Oneness Itself. God is the expression of Oneness Itself. Life and God are One. Oneness is God and life. It is a circle.

When we understand this, we see God in everyone and in everything. Including our divine selves. We see clearly that we are God Godding. That is, God in the act of recreating Godself. God, and life, evolves. God never stays the same, but becomes bigger and more of what God is, in every moment.

God is more of everything now than God was a nanosecond ago. When we solve our own case of “mistaken identity,” when we identify ourselves as That Which God Is, we will be as happy as God.

But now follow this: If we use the term “God” to indicate the Collective Divinity and the term “you” to indicate the Individuation of Divinity, and if the day comes when you have raised your consciousness to a level where you are happier than many other Individuations…well, then, you will be happier than “God.”

The Individuation that is “You” will be of higher consciousness than the largest number of other individuations of Divinity that we call “God,” just as previous messengers and avatars and masters (Buddha, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, and more) have experienced their Individuated Consciousness to be raised above the level of the Collective Consciousness. It then became their mission to raise the Collective Consciousness of humanity so that the Entirety Which Is God could evolve even further, continuing to expand in consciousness and total self-awareness.

This is what they were doing here.

All of life is Divine, and when we treat all of life as Divine we will change everything. For how can one aspect, how can a single Individuation of Divinity, ever be totally happy so long as any other Individuation is totally unhappy? The answer is, it cannot. And so, we will raise each other up, that we might all experience ourselves, one by one, being “happier than God.”

“I am come that you may have life, and have it more abundantly,” saith the Master. And the Master-in-You will one day say the same thing. When the earth is thus transformed, person by person, no more will children die of starvation. No more will millions suffer from oppression. No more will nation battle nation. When we treat everyone as Divine, there will be war no more.

Next Week: a look at Step 2: Stay in touch with who you are.

P.S.....i will be presenting a Happier Than God One Day Workshop in Phoenix, Arizona next month.

This is a Masters Class in Spiritual Awakening, sharing How to End Your Story and Begin Your Life. The details:

Saturday April 19th, 200b

9am to 10pm
Phoenix, AZ
For more Workshop information contact:
Will : 1-352-442-2244

OR...follow the link here: http://www.nealedonaldwalsch.com/retreatphoenix.cfm

If you believe that life has anything to do -- anything at all -- with the needs or goals or accomplishments of your body, then you haven't understood anything at all about the purpose of your existence, about the reason you, a spiritual being, chose to travel through time and space with your body and dwell in the realm of physicality.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Sunday is Message Day on the blog. Monday through Friday we look at contemporary events and day-to-day occurrences at the intersection of Life and the New Spirituality…but on Sunday, we reserve this space for a specific teaching derived from the material in Conversations with God

Through the years I have given hundreds of talks and written scores of articles revolving around this material. Every seven days we will present in this space a transcript or reprint of one of those presentations. We invite you to Copy and Save each one of them, creating a personal 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.

This week’s offering: Finding Joy In Life: It's not about meeting the needs of your body
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

You must understand who you really are before you can begin to understand life -- or even tolerate it. Only when you know your true identity, and your true purpose for being here, can anything that's happening around you even begin to make sense. In the absence of this clarity, life as it is lived on the planet Earth will become totally unacceptable to do. It will make no sense at all. And you will want to reject it, to run from it, to hide from it, to pretend you have nothing to do with it, and ultimately, to abandon it.

It will all seem so pointless to you. It will all seem to have no reason or purpose whatsoever, but to simply be a tangled mess of no-fun alternatives and joyless experiences and frustrating choices and impossible challenges, and you will say to yourself more than once...

What is God's job? That's a question humanity has been asking for a very long time. Now comes an interesting response...

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
NOTE: Saturday is Prose & Poetry Day here on the blog, a time to take a moment once a week to relax the mind, open the heart, and access the soul through the gift of prose from one of the many books of The New Spirituality, and through the poetry of m. Claire, author of the forthcoming volume, Silent Sacred Holy Deeply: Heart.

For this week's prose we offer...the third in a series of excerpts from Tomorrow's God...
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

so, to get back to where we were…

…It is the perception of many people on this earth that your job—God’s job—is to tell human beings what is best for them. You tell us what is best for us, and then it is up to us to do it, or else. This is a simplified restating of one of humanity’s sacred beliefs.

That belief is a fallacy. That is not God’s job and that is not God’s purpose and that is not God’s function.
It is the job and purpose of the God that many of you have created in your imaginations, but not of the God Who Really Is. It is the function of Yesterday’s God, but not of Tomorrow’s God.

That’s the second time you’ve used that phrase. What do you mean by “Tomorrow’s God?”

The God in whom you will believe on some future tomorrow. The God in whom you will have faith in your future.

So we are going to get a new God!

Not a “new God,” but a new understanding of the present God. An expanded concept, a deeper awarness.

But you agreed with me when we started this conversation that we needed a new God.

I was going with the words you were using, not wanting to get into semantics in our first brief exchange. I knew all along what I meant, and I knew all along that I would have a chance to explain it to you further.

So, what did you mean?

As I’ve just said, I meant not a “new” God, strictly speaking, but a new version of God. A larger version of God. This is the Same God Who Always Was, Is Now, and Always Will Be—it is simply not the God of your present understanding.
Your understanding has been incomplete. I am inviting you now to expand your awareness and come to a more complete understanding of who and want God is, and of what is true about Life. I am inviting you to create Tomorrow's God.

What if I don’t want to let go of Yesterday’s God? What if I’m really attached to those ideas and, by the way, happen to think they are the Right and True ideas about God?

Then you will continue to create your life as you now know it on your planet.

So? What’s so bad about that?

Look around you. You like what you see? Then go ahead, continue to believe what you believe. But don’t think things aren’t going to change. It’s not a question of “if,” but “how.” Everything is going to change. And, sooner or later, so will humanity's beliefs about God. That is when you will say goodbye to Yesterday’s God.

When is this going to happen?

Actually, it’s beginning to happen right now.

Really? Well, so much for that being what saves the world, because it’s not changing much of anything.

Yes, it is. You’re just not seeing the change. You’re not aware of it. But as the changes increase, as they spread, you’ll become more and more aware of them. Indeed, you’ll become part of them.

When will this process be complete?

Never. The process of seeing and experiencing more and more of God is never-ending. That’s the joy of it.

Well, when will it be complete enough for things to get start getting better around here?

Soon. Very soon. If humanity is willing.

What does that mean?

It means that if humanity makes this choice, a movement, a radical shift, in humanity’s understandings about God could occur rapidly. Easily within your lifetime. Within three decades. Perhaps even faster than that, once the first domino falls.
It is simply a question of reaching critical mass.

What will that take?

Not nearly what you might think. Some people assume that critical mass is one more than half, but it is not. Nor is it 25% of the whole, nor even 10% of the whole, nor even 5% of the whole. Critical mass is reached when 2-4% of the whole is affected.
Watch the surface of water as its brought to a boil. The boiling point is not reached when over half of the surface is bubbling. The effect of critical mass is exponential. That’s what makes it so powerful. A few bubbles break the surface of the water…then, in a sudden rush, all of the water is boiling.

So, a relatively small number of us must make the choice to create that shift in our understandings about God. What could make humanity willing to make that choice?

One of two things. More hatred or more hope. Another world-shaking disaster born of rage and wrapped in violence and killing, or a global awakening produced in another way.

In what other way? Other than disaster and calamity, there doesn’t seem to be a way for human beings to wake up.

Oh, but there is. There could be a worldwide movement to spread, not terror, but peace, joy, and love. There could be a massive grass-roots undertaking, with people all across the globe mobilized at the community level to change the way things are. Just as there are now terrorist cells, there could be spiritual activist teams all over the earth.

This would require leadership, of course. And it would require great commitment on the part of those who follow these leaders. But it is possible. It can be done.

And the first step lies at the level of thought. Humanity’s future depends on what humanity thinks about itself. It depends on what humanity thinks about God, and about Life.

From your thought springs your reality. From your ideas does your future emerge. Thus, your beliefs create your behaviors, and your behaviors create your experience.

What you believe, therefore, becomes a most important thing.

What creates beliefs? Can anything in the exterior world of physicality create beliefs?

Yes.

What?

People.
People can.
People in your exterior world can create interior spiritual events. First in themselves and then in others.
Many have done this. This is what you are doing now. That is what all of humanity can do.

But how? How can we do this? That is the golden question!

There are many ways in which one may begin.

Name one.

You are holding it in your hand.

(Next Saturday, installment #4 from Tomorrow's God.)

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
This week's gift of poetry
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

I am My Own Home, now.
*
Wherever I move,
The Light -
It comes with me.
I open all of the
doors and the windows
so that God
can come and go
easily.
*
Sometimes I don't know why
God takes such delight
in This House
I call Me.
This place where
Hearts
come,
to be Broken.
*
At the end of The Long Day
I always ask,
"God? Why, Hearts to be Broken?”
And God always replies,

“Never Broken, dear Lover -

only Opened.”

(Never Broken - m. claire - copyright 2007 - all rights reserved)

For more of the work of this new poetic voice you are invited to visit www.mclairepoet.com.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
If you liked Conversations with God you are going to love Happier Than God, the newest book from Neale Donald Walsch. Described as "a Master's Guide to Spiritual Awakening," this extraordinary new work has just been released and is available now. Click on the Happier Than God icon at the right of this blog page for more info, and enjoy the most empowering book you have read since CWG-Book 1!
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Getting older isn't easy. And living with the after effects of a stroke can obviously make it even harder. Faith in God, and in the Divine Order of things, is often the first thing to go

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Friday is Book & Movie Day on the blog, when we take a look at texts and films – old and new -- that I highly recommend you not miss. This week’s recommendation: Fierce Grace: The Story of Ram Dass
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The other night I rented and watched for the first time a remarkable film about the spiritual visionary known as Ram Dass. This biographical documentary was made in 2001.

Get the movie. It will speak to you in wonderful ways.

First, a word about the man around whom the film swirls. From Wikipedia comes this about Ram Dass...

Dr. Richard Alpert (born April 6, 1931), also known as Baba Ram Dass, is a contemporary spiritual teacher, well-known for his association with Timothy Leary at Harvard University in the early 1960s, both having been dismissed from their professorships for experiments on the effects of psychedelic drugs on human subjects.

In 1967 Alpert traveled to India, where he eventually met the Hindu guru Neem Karoli Baba, better known in the West as Maharaj-ji, who soon became Alpert's guru and gave him the name "Ram Dass", which means "servant of God". It was his life-changing experiences in India that inspired Ram Dass to write the contemporary spiritual classic, Be Here Now, in which he teaches the harmony of all people and religions.

In February 1997, he suffered a stroke which left him with expressive aphasia, however, he understands his stroke as an act of grace and continues to travel giving lectures, as his health permits. When asked if he could sum up his life's message Ram Dass replied, "I help people as a way to work on myself, and I work on myself to help people... To me, that's what the emerging game is all about."

The film Fierce Grace chronicles Ram Dass' experience of the stroke, and the personal growth work he has done around that experience. It is a remarkable movie for what it moves us as viewers to understand about life itself, and the journey upon which we are all embarked. In the film, Ram Dass acknowledges that "being stroked," as he repeatedly calls it, created the most difficult test of his life. His faith in the God of his understanding, and in what he assumed to be his larger awarenesses about life, was severely tested. Actually, he says, it was lost. And then, re-found again.

This is a film that every person would benefit from seeing, but it would be especially beneficial to anyone who is now undergoing some sort of major challenge in their life -- a health challenge of any other kind of challenge.

In the film Ram Dass says something about healing that I will always remember -- and that I will use for the rest of my life when people ask me about the power of God (and the process of personal creation; i.e, we create our own reality) to bring about healing of any condition.

"Healing is not, after all, the same as 'curing'," Ram Dass observes. "Healing does not mean going back to the way things were before, but rather, allowing what 'is' now to move us closer to God."

Yes, yes. Amen, and amen.

Rent the movie. Get the movie. Watch the movie.

There are many people who have been saying for years that global warming is a hoax, that nothing bad will come of it even if it is partially true that the world is gaining a few degrees, and that the entire "scare" is an invention and a contrivance of the environmentalist movement.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
(NOTE: This weblog creates, for us all, a chance to meet at the intersection of Life and the New Spirituality. It is written by the author of Conversations with God, the worldwide best-selling series of books. The “New Spirituality” is defined by the author as “a new way to experience and express our natural impulse toward the Divine without making others wrong for the way in which they are doing it.” The author’s latest book is Happier Than God, published in February by Emnin Books and distributed by Hampton Roads.)
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

A number of years ago now I acted as co-host on a nationally syndicated radio talk show on the Talk Radio Network with a man named David Masters. David is a very nice person who I enjoyed working with immensely. He is a man of great integrity whose word is his bond; the kind of person with whom a handshake is sufficient to close a million dollar deal.

Having said that, I have to tell you that David also holds some of the most far-right-of-center political views of any person I have ever met. (Or, at least he did when he was on the air with me. I haven't spoken with him lately...but I somehow doubt that his deepest views have shifted.)

The reason I bring this up now is that David's perspective on some things echoed and mirrored some of the ideas I have heard from the Far Right for many years -- and I think those views are worth exploring here, so that we can hold them up to some small scrutiny.

For instance, David held that the entire "global warming scare," as he would call it, was more a "hoax" than anything else, perpetrated on the American people and the world in order to serve the agenda of the "ecology freaks," as others have called those in the environmentalist movement (such as Al Gore) who would seek to wake people up to the dangers our planetary system is facing today.

David sincerely did not believe that there was any such thing as real global warming -- not to the degree that there was any real danger -- and he held that even if there was a rise in planetary temperature of a few degrees over the next several decades, so what? Nothing really bad was going to happen. He often chided me for my views on the subject, and said that I was like Chicken Little running around proclaiming that the sky was falling.

Well, folks, the sky is falling.

In case you missed it, the Associated Press reported the day before yesterday that a chunk of Antarctic ice about seven times the size of Manhattan suddenly collapsed. The AP report added that this event put "an even greater portion of glacial ice at risk," according to global scientists.

I am wondering today whether it is better to be run around saying that the sky is falling, or to be an ostrich with your head in the sand. Perhaps a cry of emergency might be better than a simple looking away. The worst we can do is overreact, which has got to be better than not acting at all, wouldn't you say?

"Satellite images show the runaway disintegration of a 160-square-mile chunk in western Antarctica, which started Feb. 28. It was the edge of the Wilkins ice shelf and has been there for hundreds, maybe 1,500 years," the Associated Press reported.

This is scary, folks. Or, at least, a cause for concern. Scientists had predicted the collapse of the Wilkins Shelf -- but not for 15 years. Its pulling apart on Tuesday means that our computer models may be way, way off -- and that the worst impacts of global warming may be upon us long before anyone could have imagined and would dared to have predicted.

The portion of the ice shelf that broke away Tuesday makes up about 4% of the whole, scientists said (a fact sure to be pointed to by naysayers of global warming as evidence that there is "nothing going on" for us to be upset about), but those same scientists indicate that this 4% is an important part of the shelf and its separation could trigger further and more widespread collapse.

Said the AP report: "Such occurrences are 'more indicative of a tipping point or trigger in the climate system,' said Sarah Das, a scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. 'These are things that are not re-forming,' Das said. 'So once they're gone, they're gone'."

Indeed. And once all that ice has melted, it will, indeed, fill up our global oceans, causing a rise in sea levels worldwide.

One thing I would do now: Discontinue all -- and I mean all -- ocean shore development, and begin slowing dismantling seaside population centers, moving them inland over the next 10 to 20 years.

Sound drastic?

I guarantee you that this will be done. I guarantee it. It is not a question of whether, it is a question of when. We can either do it now, at our leisure, or later, in a hurry -- or later, still...after, for many, it's too late...

I have always felt that spiritual awareness and social consciousness go hand in hand. I also believe that human beings are creating their own reality. That would seem to argue that we can avoid all this by simply choosing to. Yet what I know is that some of the processes of collective creation take decades and even centuries to instigate -- and could take longer than a moment to "undo."

Part of the process of creating our collective future and the future of our children is acting now on behalf of our species. Part of that process might be that we at last take global warming seriously.

What about it, David? Are you ready to give in and admit that the "environmentalists" may have been right?

Do we need anything to be happy in life? What can we live without? What can we not? And what is true happiness, anyway? Ah, yes...some of life's most interesting questions... = = = = = = = = =...

You gotta love Jay Leno. Get this one: "To give you an idea how bad the Democrats are doing, in a stunning reversal, John McCain now 10% ahead of Hillary Clinton and 7% ahead of Barack Obama. And this is...

You know that the world is living on the edge of its chair religiously when the conversion of a Muslim to Christianity makes headlines. Of course, the way it was done was designed to create headlines, but still…should this...

Can you believe in your own perfection? Or do you believe that there is something you have to do in order to be perfect in the eyes of God? = = = = = = = = = = =...

Most of humanity believes that God decides which humans are included in the word “us.” We then form groups or clusters around what God has decided, and we call them religions or faiths. God then assure “us” that God will...

I have a request to make today. I hope that you will all do whatever you can to read up on the next President of the United States. We know right now who that person is going to be. We...

Barack Obama had some explaining to do. There were some troubling spiritual questions that have been raised. Very legitimate, very fair questions. And I think Mr. Obama has answered those questions. And now, maybe -- just maybe -- we can...

Some people believe that human beings are individuated aspects of The Divine. Others believe that we were created by God, but we are not Divinity Itself. The question makes for some interesting theological discussion. = = = = = =...

One reader of this blog says that none of the current candidates for president are worth voting for, and that we should "make America Strong again" and "let the rest of the world kill them selves." What do you think?...

Nothing is accidental in our universe. Nothing is a mistake or an unfortunate condition. This is what is meant by Intelligent Design. Everything that exists has emerged from Divine Intelligence. = = = = = = = = = =...

Is the "God of our fathers" -- that is, the God in which our ancestors believed -- able and equipped to serve humanity in the 21st Century...or do we need a "new God"? That is the question that events of...

I asked here yesterday, what is going on in the mind of a person who utilizes the services of high-priced call girls and risks utterly destroying an extraordinary career and a lovely family in doing so? The answer is: lust....

Is Illinois Sen. Barack Obama really "lucky" to be the front-running Democratic candidate for president? And is he in that position only because he's black? That's what former vice-presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro thinks, and until yesterday she was on the...

The Bible is, of course, one of the most extraordinary books of all time. Yet does that mean that every word in it is the literal truth? If not, what is "true" and what is not? And how can we...

Southern Baptists are finally getting it! Hallelujah! Southern Baptists are finally getting it! Well, some of them are, anyway. And that’s a start. = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =...

How low will the Clinton campaign go to stop Barack Obama from gaining the Democratic nomination for president of the United States? Well, let's see... Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn reports in his blog, Change of Subject, that Hillary Clinton...

Must we forget who we are in order to remember who we are? I believe the answer is yes...and for a most fascinating reason... = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =...

If you want to head off the collapse of the entire system that has produced such inequities in your world you will explore the possibility of bringing a New Spirituality to the planet sooner, rather than later. Because the problem...

"No" is today's biggest challenge, says William Ury, world renowned negotiator, mediator, and best-selling author. "At the heart of the difficulty in saying No is the tension between exercising your power and tending to your relationship," Mr Ury adds --...

It takes an enormous amount of courage to get through life. I never realized that it did, but it does. I mean, when I was young, it didn't seem to me that life required bravery, in particular. Determination, perhaps. Stick-to-it-iveness,...

It's only a shame she had to go negative to eek out a win in Texas. Everyone knew she had Ohio locked down, but it's a shame she had to resort to negative campaign tactics in order to pick up...

Is it possible that in this United States of American, in the Year of Our Lord 2008, after twice botching it so badly in the past, that the election officials in this country could botch it yet one more time?...

So this is it, then, yes? Tomorrow is the day. Or, it could be, anyway... Tomorrow's the day of the next primary contests in Ohio and Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont. And by the end of the day the Democrats...

It is very okay to seek after pleasures of the body. It is an extremely important part of the Journey of the Soul. = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =...

Did you know that God has never stopped talking with us? It's true! And God continues to talk with us -- every one of us -- every day. You cannot miss this conversation that is ongoing if you are willing...