April 2008 Archives

I don’t agree with Jeramiah Wright’s choice of words when expressing the outrage of blacks at life in post-modern America, but I must admit that I was impressed with his defense of the overall incident that has made him a household name.

The minister from Chicago has been making the media rounds the past several days in an effort to explain himself and his views—views that seems to be causing, for reasons that I wish were not very clear to me, but are—a small complication in the campaign of Barack Obama.

Yesterday the Rev. Mr. Wright made an appearance at the National Press Club in Washington and delivered what I thought was a reasoned response to all the upheaval. The most significant thing, the most important thing, he said (in my opinion) about the infamous sermon in question was this:

“I offered words of hope. I offered reconciliation. I offered restoration in that sermon. But nobody heard the sermon. They just heard this little sound bite of a sermon."

The second most important thing he said was that the U.S. Government was “a government whose policies grind under people." There are many Americans—both black and white—who would agree with that.

There are also quite a few Americans who said after 9/11 just what Rev. Wright said. "America's chickens are coming home to roost," he declared to his congregation then. "The stuff we have done overseas is brought right back into our homes."

These are not ideas that Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright introduced for the first time into the public discourse. They were ideas being articulated by many U.S. citizens. Unfortunately, Rev. Wright then went into areas in his sermons that I would call ill-advised. Most of us would call them ill-advised. But isn’t it the job of a minister to shake things up a little?

And so we know that Rev. Wright once charged in a sermon that the U.S. government "lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color." Yet is this any more radical than the idea, spoken and promoted by many, many whites as well as blacks, that 9/11 was itself a conspiracy, co-created, if not entirely instigated, by dark forces within this very country and perhaps even its government?

I don’t believe the second statement above any more than I believe the first, but I do believe in the right of free speech that allows all Americans to say what they think and to express how they feel.

Of course, Rev. Wright’s most famous and now most quoted utterance from the pulpit was his tirade against a government that he said discriminates against blacks "and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America'.” He unwisely added: "No, no, no, God damn America. . . . God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human."

Understandably, those words do not play well with most Americans. Whatever we think of our country and its actions, we certainly don't want God to damn our country, and we would not call upon God to do that. (Or to damn anyone, for that matter.)

But we should, if we want to be even-handed, listen as Rev. Wright yesterday explained how he could say such a thing. He was saying it within a theological framework in which he asserts that God damns everything that is evil, even as God blesses all that is good.

Most of middle America would agree with that. I venture to say that most of the writers on faith whose words grace this very Beliefnet website would agree with that. God does and will condemn (damn) evil, and God does and will reward good, I think they would agree. Indeed, isn't that the basis of most of the faith traditions represented here? (I don’t happen to embrace this idea of a judging, condemning, damning God, but I do understand that many, many people do—not only Jeremiah Wright.)

So the only disagreement now is whether America, or certain of its actions, could be called evil. Rev. Wright inserted his political opinion that God should condemn America “for treating our citizens as less than human.” He referred, of course, to black citizens. He was speaking to a black church. He was addressing black anger. And—it is once again important to note—he asserts that he offered words of reconciliation and healing in that same sermon.

Rev. Wright suggested at the Press Club yesterday that Senator Obama had no choice but to repudiate the sound bite that he heard. "He had to distance himself, because he's a politician, from what the media was saying I had said, which was anti-American. He said I didn't offer any words of hope. How would he know? He never heard the rest of the sermon. You never heard it.”

And now I repeat, for emphasis, what Rev. Wright told the audience at the Press Club yesterday:

“I offered words of hope. I offered reconciliation. I offered restoration in that sermon. But nobody heard the sermon. They just heard this little sound bite of a sermon."

Okay. Fair enough. I wouldn’t have spoken Rev. Wright’s ill-advised, anger-sponsored words from a pulpit, but I understand—not condone, but understand—how he could have done so, especially in an emotion driven declaration of intense and immense frustration.

I think what we are seeing here in this episode is the very basis of why we don’t seem to be able to get along in this world. Gosh darn it, we don’t even want to hear each other out. We just, ourselves, want to judge, condemn, and damn.

I think there is considerable merit to Rev.Wright’s argument now that to take a sound bite out of a much longer sermon from years ago and use it as a wedge to make political points in the campaign for the presidency of the United States years later is not merely and obviously disingenuous, it is just as obviously unfair. Yet we don’t seem to care much about fairness in American politics anymore.

Unless we do...

...in which case we will place the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s sermonizing into context, stop trying to spray it all over Barack Obama, and get on with this campaign, focusing on the issues that really matter.

Every day I receive questions in my email and my snail mail from readers of Conversations with God asking me for clarification on some point, or for some response to something that they are asking about in their lives. I enjoy these interactions with readers immensely, and I have a thought that you might find them interesting as well. And so from time to time I'll be placing some of these interactions here.

Such as this one...

Dear Neale: Would you please clarify some thing 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 giv¬ing away at least ten per cent 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 Hu¬manity, 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 vague ness us able by God/the Uni verse? Again, I get dif fer ent mes sages from different places. God bless you, Neale! Brenda, Vancouver, B.C.

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 demonstra¬tion. By tithing we systematically demonstrate the truth which we hold about money, just as our whole life is a demonstration of our truths about every thing. The only people who tithe, who rou¬tinely 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 pre¬cise 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 your self, give away to another.” But there is a trap here. If you are doing some¬thing in order to produce a result (for in stance, 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 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 some thing as a demonstration that the result has already been produced (for instance, tithing ten per cent 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 in junction to give away ten per cent 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 guide line. Masters are their own disci¬pline. 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 per cent, 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 per cent of my income each week; to the Children’s Miracle Network (which I want to support), two per cent each week; to the local medical assistance program for the indigent, two per cent each week; to a special fund for family and friends when they need help, two per cent each week; to set-aside for last minute choices and decisions (like Habitat for Humanity, one per cent each week. Voila! There’s your ten per cent!

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 guide lines, 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 some thing 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 dash board 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 your self from results. CWG 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.

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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: As above, so below

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This week, an Internet Radio Interview with Neale Donald Walsch by SpiritualGrowthMonthly.com

Matt: Welcome, everyone.
This is Matt Clarkson of SpiritualGrowthMonthly.com. With me today is someone we might call a modern-day prophet. He’s a best-selling author; in fact, his books have been translated into many languages and sold all over the world.

They’re actually about to bring out an up-and coming film, which we’re all really looking forward to. He’s literally helping to redefine the world’s understanding of God and spirituality. So without any more mystery, let me introduce our guest today, Neale Donald Walsch, author of Conversations with God. Welcome, Neale.

Neale: Thank you, Matt, and let me correct you right at the top of the show. I would not be called a “modern-day spiritual prophet,” and I hope that no one ever, ever, ever uses that label.

I think I would be called a modern-day spiritual messenger, and I think that there’s a huge nuance of difference between the word “messenger” and the word “prophet.”

The word “prophet” is largely understood to be applied to people who somehow know about the future or have some kind of insight, awareness or wisdom that is greater than anyone else. That would be the opposite of who I am.

On the other hand, a messenger is simply someone who walks into the room and hands you a telegram. Often, the message is not even written by him, but he carries a message from someone else.

That far more aptly and accurately describes who I am in the world, so let’s not say “Neale Donald Walsch, the prophet,” but I’m really fine with saying “Neale Donald Walsch, the messenger.”

Matt: Okay, “the messenger” you are. How did you end up having a conversation with God and writing a book about it? Can you tell that story, for anyone who hasn’t heard it?

Neale: Well, I ran into a period of time in my life when nothing was going well. My life was falling apart at every level—my health was going rapidly downhill, I had lost my employment and all hope for immediate employment.

I had lost my relationship with my significant other. Nothing was working in my life, so I
turned to God, as often we do in moments of sheer desperation. I called out, in the middle of the night, one day when I was awake at four o’clock in the morning.

I was walking around, pacing really, in the larger part of my house, in the darkness, and I
called out in my mind, “What does it take to make life work? What have I done to deserve a life of such continuing struggle?

Somebody, help me! Give me some rules—tell me the rules of the game here. I’ll play; I just need to have the rulebook.” It was at that point that I found a yellow legal pad on the coffee table in front of me.

I sat down on the couch, and by the moonlight, just picked up the yellow legal pad and began writing a very angry letter to God. Then I heard a voice—it was as simple as that—over my right shoulder, that said, “Neale, do you really want answers to all of these questions or are you just venting?”

With that, I began what has resulted in a 14-year conversation with God. That’s what I’ve chosen to call it. It’s an experience of communion, I think, with the place of higher wisdom that lies within all of us, and it is accessible by and available to all of us.

I have simply written down what I’ve experienced in my mind as a result of those connections and conversations, and put them in what has turned out to be a series of books that have caught the attention of apparently a large number of people in the world.

Over seven million people have read the Conversations with God books. They’ve been
translated into 34 languages.

Matt: So when you were going through this process, how did God communicate with you?

Neale: As I indicated, it was a voice that I heard, first in the room, and then in my mind. It comes to me as the voice of my own thoughts, if you please, and that’s really how that communication takes place. I will simply have a thought of my own, I’ll ask a question or look deeply into a topic, and suddenly, thoughts and words will come to me, and if I get them down on paper fast enough, they begin to make sense and have some consistency.

Now there have been 10 books produced by that method, which have an amazing continuity and consistency from the first book to the last. The most recent, and final, of those books is Home with God: In a Life That Never Ends.

Matt: I noticed in your second book you were talking about the process of engaging with God, and how sometimes, it can take quite a long time for the answers to come. Is this something where you sat at your desk and communicated with God, or is it something that comes to you all the time? I’m just curious to learn more about how that process of
communication works.

Neale: The process, for me, does not take a long time, although there may be gaps or pauses in the process. If I ask a question and I really feel deeply connected with eternal wisdom, the answer comes immediately, like lightning. So it does not take a long time for the answer to come, but I have experienced that there have been, in my life, huge gaps in the process itself. That is, there may be times when I simply do not feel connected with eternal wisdom, with the Divine, if you will, and when I’m lacking that connection, then the process simply does not work. I have done two things in my life. One, I’ve done
whatever I can to stay connected with that source of divine wisdom. Number two, I’ve used that connection to continue to ask the kinds of questions that I think would most benefit the largest number of people.

Matt: Obviously, there are a lot of people in the world who claim to be in communication with God, and they’ve put forth various systems and theologies. It seems like there’s this view and that view of God. How do we actually discern what is really God’s communication from communication that comes from some other source?

Neale: By going within. The ultimate truth lies within, and all great spiritual teachers will tell us that. Only lesser spiritual teachers, including false teachers, will tell us that the truth lies outside of ourselves. Only false teachers will say, “Ultimately, listen to what I’m saying.” The true teachers will say, “Listen to what your Self – capital ‘S’ -- is saying to the self. You may want to consider some of the words I have said, but ultimately, look inside and see if they ring true for you. If they don’t, then reject them.”

I tell everyone that, both in my books, and when I’m speaking about my books. If anything I’ve written does not feel true to you, then reject it quickly and out of hand.
On the other hand, if something I’ve said rings true to you and feels that it is in harmony with your own, deepest, inner truth, then embrace it at the next level; that is, fully embrace it and allow yourself to live it as fully as well.

Matt: Does that imply that we experience God in a relativistic kind of way, and that God doesn’t have any kind of objective reality, that there is no right and wrong?

Neale: There is no such thing as objective reality. Everything is subjective; that is, everything is experienced through you and nothing is experienced objectively, outside of you. Quantum physics is now making that very clear and has been making that clear for the past 25 or 30 years.

It is quantum physics, not new spirituality, that says, “Nothing that is observed is unaffected by the observer.” That is, everything that exists is affected and impacted by the person who is looking at it, depending on the way they’re looking at it, the angle from which they’re viewing it, the perspective they hold.

That is profoundly true and it is true in this case as well, but it’s not a spiritual truth
solely or exclusively; it’s a scientific truth as well.

Matt: One of the big questions you talk about in your book is: “If I am really talking to God, why don’t you prove yourself in some irrefutable way”…

Neale: Well, you see, there are no irrefutable ways. That’s the whole point of what I’ve just said. There are no irrefutable ways because there is no such thing as objectivity; that is, complete objectivity. Once again, everything that’s experienced is experienced by you, and you may experience it any way you wish because it is experienced through the filter that is you. You may experience it differently from the way I’m experiencing it, therefore,
everything I say is refutable by someone else.

Even if God came down, God would ask the question, “What way would you find irrefutable? I’ve already come down, I’ve already made my presence known, I’ve already made my reality (the reality of God) known in a million ways,” but there are a million people who would disagree with each of those ways and claim that it is not the truth.

So it looks as if you have to find your own way, which is, of course, what I’ve been telling you from the beginning!

Matt: You’re saying that God is constantly speaking to us, but we don’t listen.

Neale: Unless we do.

Matt: Unless we do!

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NOTE: Saturday is Prose 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, For this week's prose we offer...the first in a series of excerpts from The New Revelations...
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Let me see if I understand. You’re saying that this book is on a par with the Torah, the whole Bible, the Bhagavad-Gita?

I did not say that. But, for the sake of discussion, were not those books written by mortals, guided by Divine revelation?

Again I say…these were mere human beings, were they not?

Human beings who understood enormous truths. Human beings who were deeply inspired.
You, too, can understand enormous truths. You, too, can be deeply inspired. Do you think these experiences are reserved for the very few?
I tell you, they are meant for the very many.
Divine inspiration is the birthright of every human being.
You are all very special. You simply do not know that. You do not believe it.

Because your religions have told you that you are not. They have told you that you are sinners, that you are unworthy, that only a very few among you have achieved a level of worthiness to be inspired directly by God – and that all of those people are dead.
They have convinced you that no one living today could possibly achieve that level of worthiness, and, hence, no book written today could possibly contain sacred truths or the Word of God.

Because to tell you otherwise would be to leave open the possibility that another master, another prophet, another messenger of God could come along, bringing new revelations and opening you to new understandings—and that is something which already established organized religions could not abide.
And so, while your world’s religions may not be able to agree on which book contains the highest truth and the deepest wisdom and the True Word of God, there is one thing on which they are able to agree.

Whatever book it is, it’s an old one.
Definitely.
It’s an old book.
It could not be a new book. It could not be a book written today.
God’s direct revelations ended long ago, your religions agree. Only old sacred books can contain divine revelation.
Most people can accept that God’s great truths have come to humans through humans. They simply cannot accept that this could be true of humans living today.
This is how you think. This is how you have it constructed.
If it’s old, it’s worthy, if it’s new, it’s unworthy.
If it’s old, it’s true, if it’s new, it’s false.
If it’s old, it’s right, if it’s new, it’s wrong.
If it’s old, it’s good, if it’s new, it’s bad.
This peculiar mindset is what makes progress on your planet so difficult, and evolution so time consuming.
What complicates all this is that, as you have constructed it, this mindset applies only to things—that is, inanimate objects—and to ideas. Ironically, when it comes to people you have it constructed the other way around.
If it’s new, it’s worthy, if it’s old, it’s unworthy.
Thus, your society dismisses out of hand some of the brightest new ideas and some of the wisest older people.
Ask Hermann Kümmell.

A medical doctor in Hamburg in the late 1800s who had a terrible time convincing other physicians that it was a good idea to wash their hands before surgery.
The idea of “scrubbing up” was summarily dismissed by “those who knew better,” with Kümmell turned into a laughing stock and practically driven out of his beloved medical profession for even suggesting that such a practice could save lives.
This stubborn tendency of human beings to cling to their past, to refuse innovation or new thinking until they are forced to do so by an ultimately embarrassing weight of evidence, has been slowing your evolutionary process for millennia.

Does the so-called "Law of Attraction" really work? If so, how does it happen that sometimes it produces the results we seek and sometimes it doesn't?

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Wednesday is usually Question and Answer Day on the blog, but because of the Pennsylvania primary this week, I wanted to use the space here on Wednesday and Thursday to comment on that political event...so I've moved Q&A Day to today. Our Question ad Answer Day is a time for exploring another of the questions that people have recently asked about the nine Conversations with God books and the New Spirituality.
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Question: I've read your explanation about why one does not get what one asks for-and correct me if i am wrong-because the universe creates for you the situation of wanting and not having.There have been times in my life where I have visualized myself having a desired outcome, and GETTING it. But then there have also been times in my life when I did NOT GET what I have asked for. Can you clear up my confusion around this. James

Neale's Response:James...I do not believe that there is a guarantee in the universe that says that whatever you choose, you get. I believe that it would be naive to think so -- and maybe even dangerous. Here's what I imagine myself to know about all this: MORE OFTEN THEN NOT, what we believe, we create; what we think, we experience; what we say, we produce. But NOT ALWAYS. This is because there are, from my observation, far too many factors at play in the delicate Process of Personal Creation -- not the least of which is the Law of Opposites.

This law states that the moment you declare anything, everything unlike it will come into the room. This is necessary in order to create a context within which what you choose to experience becomes possible. That is the only way it can work in the Realm of the Relative, where on thing exists relative to another.

(For a deep and rich explanation of this, please read Chapter 12 of Happier Than God, the latest book in the CwG cosmology, now available from Amazon.com and other online and onstreet bookstores.)

Because of the many factors playing their effect on the Process of Creation, one would have to be a Perfect Master to...well, to master all of these effects and factors, lining up every single one of the multitudinous energies swirling about the central movements of Life and creating both our individual and collective realities.

One of the most impacting of those factors is the fact that we are all creating simultaneously on this planet. We are co-creating our collective reality. This means that, as individuals, we are constantly working with not only our own energies (created by our Thought, Word, and Deed -- the three Tools of Creation), but also with the energies of others: those immediately around us, those in our greater environment, and, indeed, those across the world.

Now it is true that the farther from us another person is, the less they can have an effect on our own personal creation, yet they do have some effect. And, of course, the closer a person is to us, the more effect they have. So those right next to us -- members of our immediately family, those with whom we are directly partnered in life -- can have an amazing effect on our moment-to-moment reality.

Therefore, it is highly beneficial to seek vision alignment with those immediately around us. I love this statement, attributed to the power of love and life as personalized in the Christ: "Wherever two or more are gathered, there I am."

The point of that statement -- and the point I am making here: Collective creation can be more powerful than individual creation, at least until we reach the level of mastery where our personal creative power is sufficient to overcome the Collective Consciousness. This is the place at which all the great Masters in history had arrived and resided.

In addition to these factors (the Law of Opposites and the Collective Consciosness), there is the business of our own personal awareness, and the level it has reached. For instance, James, you have said...

"But then there have also been times in my life when I did NOT GET what I have asked for."

I know that you may have just been using a common turn-of-phrase...or were you? Is it possible that this is, in fact, how you were thinking about it? That is, have you been "asking for" things? Outcomes or conditions or experiences that you wish to create? Because if you have, that could be your problem right there.

You see, James...