NDW: On Jesus's Message

The following is a letter to the editor featured in Neale Donald Walsch's Weekly Bulletin (Number 477) from Saturday 25 February 2012. Very insightful. I thought I would copy it here on my blog. While Neale at some points quotes the bible without citing the exact passage as bible scholars do, you can simply Google the quotes to find their proper citations.

Dear Neale...I'm new with this and have not read your books , being that I have poor vision and they are not in large print and I'm on disability and can't afford the CDs . I have two questions; 1. Who was Jesus and what does God say about Him? 2. I'm a Reiki Master and is doing Reiki to Help people OK with God ? Thank You, Love , Brian ..

Neale Donald Walsch Responds

Dear Brian.....I want to take your second question first, because it is much easier to answer. Of course is it "okay with God" to do Reiki "to help people." It is okay to do ANYTHING "to help people." How can helping people in any form not be okay with God?

Now, to your first inquiry...

Brian, you've asked what many consider to be the central question of the century. The impact of Jesus' life was so extraordinary, it will never be forgotten. That is because Jesus was/is a savior to all humankind. As are you and I.

Now, the difference between you and me and Jesus is that he donned the mantle, wore the cloak, accepted the responsibility. Most of us have not. In that sense, Jesus is our savior. For he did with his life what very few of us have done with ours. He did what we all came here to do! And in so doing it, he "saved" us from the necessity of doing it at all, if we do not wish.

Let me explain. We have all come to save the world. Not from the "snares of the devil," or from "everlasting damnation." (As CWG teaches, there is so such thing as the devil, and damnation does not exist.) We have come to save the world from its own mistaken notion of itself.

We are, right now, living in a world of our own creation, a non-truth, an experience which has nothing to do with ultimate reality, or with Who We Really Are. Jesus knew this. He also knew Who He Really Was. And he declared it, for all to hear. He declared something else as well. He said that what he did on the earth, we could do also.

Some people do not believe this. They cannot believe that they could be given--indeed, that they have been given--the same abilities as Jesus. Yet this level of faith is the key to experiencing those gifts. That is what Jesus taught. That was his central message. I think a careful reading of the following pages (CWG Book 1) would help provide clarity for you about this: pages 52, 55, 67, 86, 180 and 197.

I wrote a booklet, Recreating Yourself, which addresses much of this directly. In it, I make the point that it was Jesus himself who said, "According to your faith be it unto you." It was Jesus himself who said, "0 woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt." And the woman's daughter was made whole from that very hour. And it was Jesus himself who said, "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you."

Yet if you cannot believe in yourself and in your own divine heritage (and because so many people cannot), Jesus set himself before us as the Sample. As the Model. As the Example and Expression of who we all really are. He wanted you to know that you can do it, you can be it, you are it. And in an act of enormous love and compassion, Jesus invited you, if you cannot believe in yourself, to believe in him. The idea being that if you can believe it is possible for one person to do it, you can believe it is possible for all people to do it.

Jesus didn't come here to show you how much greater than you he is, but how much greater you can be. Be demonstrating what he can do, he wanted to show you what you can do.

"Verily, verily I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it."

Isn't that an extraordinary promise? So great and so complete was Jesus' understanding of who he was, and of who you are ("I and my Father are one" he said, and later, "all ye are brethren"), that he knew deeply there was no limit to what you could do if you believed in yourself, or in what was true about you because of what was true about him.

Could there be a mistake about Jesus' declarations here? Could there be a misinterpretation? No. His words are very clear. He wanted you to consider yourself one with the Father, exactly as he is one with God. So great was his love for all humankind, and so full was his compassion at their suffering, that he called upon himself to rise to the highest level, to move to the grandest expression of his being, in order to present a living example to all human beings everywhere. And then he prayed that we would not only see the evidence of his oneness with the Father, but of our own as well.

"And for their sakes I sanctify myself that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one."

You can't be much clearer than that.

Conversations with God tells us that all of us are members of the Body of God, though we imagine ourselves to be separate, and not part of God at all.

Christ understood our difficulty in believing that we were part of God, part of God's very body. Yet Christ did believe this of himself. It was therefore a simple matter (and a marvelous inspiration) for him to invite those who could not imagine themselves to be a part of God to imagine themselves to be a part of him. For he had already declared himself to be a part of God, and if we could simply believe that we were a part of Christ, through the simple truth of our Oneness with each other, with everyone...we would by extension necessarily be a part of God.

Jesus must have emphasized this point of our Oneness with each other, and therefore with him, many times, because the record of his teachings, and the commentaries upon them in the Bible contain countless references to our interrelationship. String just a few of these separate references together and you have an extraordinary revelation:

I and my Father are one. (John 10:30)

And the glory which Thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one. (John 17:22)

I in them, and Thou in me, that they may be made perfect in One. (John 17:23)

That the love wherewith Thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them. (John 17:26)

So we, being many, are one body in Christ; and everyone members, one of another. (Romans 12:5)

Now he that planteth and he that watereth are One. (1 Corinthians 3:8)

For we, being many, are one bread, and One Body: for we are all partakers of that one bread. (1 Corinthians 10:17)

For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. For by One Spirit are we all baptized into One Body, whether we be Jews or gentiles, whether we be bound or free; and have been all made to drink into One Spirit for the body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? (1 Corinthians 12-16)

But now are they many members, yet but One Body. (1 Corinthians 12:20)

The Bible could not be more clear. Jesus could not have said it more directly. All of us are members of the Body of Christ. All of us are the Christed One. And if Christ is one with God, so, too, are we. We simply do not know it. Refuse to believe it. Cannot imagine it.

Yet it is not true that going through Jesus is required in order to be going with Jesus. Jesus never uttered such words, nor did he come close. That was not his message. His message was: If you cannot believe in me, if you do believe that I am who I say I am, what with all that I have done, then you will never, ever believe in yourself, in who you are, and your own experience of God will be virtually unattainable. Jesus said what he said, did what he did --- performed miracles, healed the sick, raised the dead --- even raised himself from the dead--that we might know Who He Was...and thus know also Who We Really Are. It is this second part of the equation which is most often left out of the traditional doctrine about Christ.

You see, Jesus is our savior, to the degree that he has saved us from the illusion of our own separation from God. Jesus is the Son of God, as are we all.

As are we all.

Beginning in February, 2012 I began sharing a very daring teaching. I did so then because I saw the world entering a very important period of its evolution, a time of change and a time of great expansion in our consciousness, and I knew that people were more ready than ever before to hear a very particular message.

"Imagine what your life would be like," I began saying everywhere I went, "if you told yourself before entering any moment, any space, or any experience: 'I have come that you may have life...and that you may have it more abundantly.' What would it be like if you thought of yourself in this way? Do you dare to do so? Is it sacrilegious? Is it blasphemous? Is it heresy or apostasy? Or is it your Natural State of Being?

"If you embrace it at last as your Natural State of Being, you will change your life forever--and the lives of all those whose life you touch."

You will have accepted the central invitation of Christianity, which from the beginning has been the same: To Be A Christed One.

I hope you have found this reply helpful as you continue your own search for your own answers to life's most challenging questions.

Hugs...

Neale

The faith (and doubts) of our fathers

The Economist
Religion in America
What did the makers of America believe about God and religion? The subject is stirring the very rancour they wanted to avoid
Dec 17th 2011 | WASHINGTON, DC | from the print edition
(source link)

IN THE year of our Lord 1816 two grand old men of the American Revolution corresponded eagerly about the work they had recently done, in their rural retirement, on the Bible. Ex-President Thomas Jefferson thanked his old friend Charles Thomson, a co-sponsor of the Declaration of Independence, for sending a copy of his newly completed synopsis of the Gospels.
At a time when many modern Americans are arguing feverishly over the real significance of the nation’s religious and political beginnings, such letters can be dynamite. So let the contents of this exchange be noted carefully. Thomson, like most members of the first American Congress, which he had served as secretary, was a committed member of a church—in his case Presbyterian—but he still felt that there might be things in the Bible that organised Christianity hadn’t grasped. So he spent years re-translating the scriptures; the ex-president approved.
But Jefferson, like most of the top figures in the American Revolution, was far more of a sceptic in religious matters. He was fascinated by metaphysics but he had no time for the mystical. In contrast with today’s vituperative exchanges, these differences did not stop the two gentlemen maintaining a warm correspondence. But Jefferson’s approach to redacting the Bible involved something more radical than translation. He literally snipped out everything supernatural: miracles, the Virgin birth, the resurrection. The result was his own, non-mystical account of the life of Jesus. He told his old comrade: “I too have made a wee little book from the same materials which I call the ‘Philosophy of Jesus.’ It is a paradigma [sic] of his doctrines, made by cutting the pages out of the book and arranging them on the pages of a blank book…A more beautiful or precious morsel…I have never seen. It is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists who call me infidel and themselves Christians.”
If Jefferson was a Christian of any kind, he was an idiosyncratic one. He admired Jesus as a moral teacher but like many of America’s revolutionaries, he had a visceral loathing for priestcraft. Jefferson blamed Saint Paul, the early Church, and even the Gospel writers for distorting the mission of Jesus, which, as he saw it, had been to reverse the decadence of the Jewish religion. Starting from the (correct) proposition that mystical ideas originating from Plato were influential when Christian theology was being developed, he castigated followers of the Greek philosopher for corrupting what he saw as the original Christian message.
Did Jefferson believe in God? Certainly not the Christian idea of a God in three Persons; he saw that notion as incomprehensible and therefore impossible for a rational person to accept. One view is that like many of America’s founders, he was a Deist, believing in a Creator who set the universe and its laws in motion but did not intervene thereafter. (The Deist God has been described as rather like a rich aunt in Australia—benevolent, a long way off, and mostly leaving the world to its own devices.)
The shape of the Earth, for example, he ascribed to a Creator’s genius. “Had He created the Earth perfectly spherical, its axis might have been perpetually shifting by the influence of the other bodies of the system,” Jefferson once told Thomson. Others think Jefferson’s views were somewhere between Deism and traditional Theism. In language that some modern American conservatives can pounce on, he once asked whether the young republic’s liberties could be secure without “a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God”. But that does not imply he held such convictions. Although we know what Jefferson did not believe, it is harder to say what he did believe.
Between now and the 2012 presidential election, many pronouncements by the founding fathers—especially but not only on the subject of Christianity—will be parsed and dissected with passion by both sides. Liberals, keen to protect the American variety of secularism from what they see as a resurgence of zealotry, will stress the rationalist leanings of most of the revolution’s protagonists; religious conservatives will point out that the revolution’s foot-soldiers were generally people of faith who would be shocked, for example, by the idea of banning prayer in schools.
Believers in the idea that America was established as a Christian state scored a hit last year when the Texas school board, a politicised body in which evangelicals control crucial votes, ordered up textbooks laying out this view. Given the size of the Texan market, school-book publishers across the country often follow its lead. The best-known advocate of the “Christian nation” theory is a Texan, an author and evangelist called David Barton, who has been writing on the subject since the 1980s.
Among his recent claims are that the founding fathers rejected Darwinism (although they pre-dated Charles Darwin), and that they broke away from Britain in order to abolish slavery. In fact the southern states only joined the Revolution on the understanding that slavery would not be questioned. Strange as his views may sound to most scholars, Mr Barton’s philosophy is taken seriously in Republican circles. When Rick Perry, the Texas governor and presidential candidate, held a day of prayer for the nation in August, Mr Barton was an acknowledged endorser. One of Mr Barton’s admirers is Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker who argues that American history has been distorted by secular historians to play down the role of faith. “I never listen to David Barton without learning a whole lot of new things,” Mr Gingrich has said.
It is easy to see why politicians are attracted by the assertion that America was founded as a Christian land, and is hence called to be a place of exceptional virtue. It elegantly fuses two beliefs: Christianity itself, and belief in American history as another sacred narrative, one that sees the founders as people of near-infallible wisdom and virtue waging a noble war against the forces of darkness.
If Mitt Romney, a Mormon, and Mr Gingrich confirm their place as front-runners for the Republican nomination, debates over sacred texts and stories—from the Book of Mormon to the days of prayer and fasting decreed by the first Congress—could take some unpredictable turns, even if Mr Romney tries to avoid them. As a political slogan, citing the founders (to condemn welfare, as Mr Perry does) is a formidable weapon; invoking Jesus Christ (to make the case against the minimum wage, as Mr Barton does) is even stronger medicine. Arguments that use both sources at once can seem almost irresistible.

Academic historians are bemused at times by the inquiries they get from people with no previous interest in the nation’s beginnings: what did America’s creators really believe? Jill Lepore, a Harvard professor who deconstructs the uses and abuses of the past, is wary of would-be historians with an agenda. For her, the founders’ genius lay in their willingness to cast doubt on fixed ways of thinking inherited from the past. So to make them final arbiters is to traduce their spirit.
Nor, indeed, were the fathers of one mind. They did not spend their time producing pearls of unanimously agreed wisdom. They quarrelled bitterly. Indeed, if something about this period still resonates in modern politics, it may be the fathers’ disputes, and the subtle points each side brought to bear. The tug-of-war between Alexander Hamilton, who successfully campaigned for an American central bank and other federal authorities, and Jefferson, who favoured states’ rights, is in many ways still going on.
Linda Bilmes, a public policy professor at Harvard, sees in Hamilton’s argument a practical application of the metaphysical belief that man is neither utterly wicked nor naturally virtuous; it followed, Hamilton thought, that honest, competent administration was needed to maximise the chances of virtue prevailing.
The founders’ genius lay in their willingness to cast doubt on fixed ways of thinking inherited from the past. To make them final arbiters is to traduce their spiritJefferson might disagree, but he would enjoy the ensuing debate.
Above all, the fathers were pragmatists. The exigencies of war with Britain, and survival in an unconquered frontier, gave them little choice. Take George Washington. Unlike Jefferson, Washington does not seem to have had much personal interest in matters philosophical. He was a general and politician, not a theologian. Still, when exhorting troops before battle, or addressing fellow citizens of the republic, he could use religious rhetoric. “No people can be bound to acknowledge the invisible hand, which conducts the affairs of men, more than the people of the United States,” he declared in his inaugural address. But these circumlocutions were typical of his references to God.
As his biographer Ron Chernow observes, Washington spoke of “Destiny” or the “author of our being” or simply “Heaven”. Another favourite term was “Providence”—a word often used by Freemasons, a movement of which Washington was an active member. For those who know where to look, the Washington home at Mount Vernon is full of Masonic symbols, one Masonic researcher has written. But on this matter, Ms Lepore cautions against over-interpretation: the Masons were just one of the gentlemen’s clubs where squires liked to gather.
Virtually absent from Washington’s pronouncements was any reference to Jesus. He did not take communion—for most Christians, the most important rite of their faith—and he did not summon a Christian minister to his death bed. Was Jefferson right, then, to claim that “[Washington] thinks it right to keep up appearances but is an unbeliever”? Washington was certainly a diplomat. Although he remained formally Anglican, as president he wrote friendly letters to many Christian and Jewish communities and attended their services. And when he needed a job done on the estate, he was firm, for his time, about the irrelevance of religion: “If they are good workmen,” he said, “they may be Mahometans, Jews or Christian of any sect, or they may be atheists.”
As every American youngster has been taught, one thing that Washington, Jefferson and all the founders did believe in was religious freedom. They were appalled by the fusion of religious and political power, epitomised by the divine right of kings.
The emphasis on freedom seems clearer than anything else about the founding texts. People may still argue over whether those texts have any religious inspiration at all. The constitution contains little reference to any deity, while the Declaration of Independence appeals to “Nature’s God”—a formula that sounds more Deistic than Christian. But the constitution’s first amendment seems crystal-clear on the subject of freedom: it bars Congress from establishing any religion, or from erecting any barrier to the free exercise of religion.
Yet for all the sonorous beauty of much early American writing on the subject, religious liberty too should be seen as something pragmatic—a hard-nosed solution to the problem of stitching together a country out of 13 colonies with diverse populations and different religious arrangements. Nine colonies had established churches at the time of the Revolution; most of these regimes sputtered on for several decades afterwards. The religious scene in the colonies ranged from the strict Puritan communities of New England to the suffocating Anglican regime of Virginia. In New England, Anglican clergy acted as fifth columnists for the crown; Virginia had an Anglican American culture of its own. Maryland had always been a comfortable place for Catholics.
It was all a big, volatile mess, to which a regime of religious liberty was the best solution. Among the many impulses behind the Revolution was a network of Presbyterians and other non-conformists who loathed Anglicans’ entitlements. The advocates of “Christian history” rightly point out that conventional scholars sometimes underestimate the role of low-church Protestant zeal as a source of revolutionary fervour. Non-conformists resented the fact that, as Holly Brewer of the University of Maryland has noted, the monarch in some ways had more sway over American Anglicans than he did over the Church of England. This Anglican (and crown) privilege so infuriated dissenting Christians that it spurred them to form countervailing networks across state boundaries. But neither Presbyterian nativism, or any other sectarian impulse, would have sufficed to underpin a revolution.
As things turned out, the founding fathers—and above all Jefferson—had a much broader vision of the danger that religious intolerance of all kinds posed to the new republic. To see how sectarianism was trumped, it is worth looking at the state where freedom of conscience was first established, after a fight—Virginia.
That battle’s heroes, including four of the first five presidents of the United States, were Virginian gentlemen. Jefferson saw the establishment of religious freedom in his native Virginia—overthrowing an Anglican establishment in which he, as a vestryman, had played a part—as one of his greatest feats. On his instructions, his tombstone records three things: his authorship of the Declaration of Independence, his creation of the University of Virginia (pointedly built around a library, not a church), and religious liberty in his home state.
The dismantling of Virginia’s Anglican regime began in 1776, with a sonorous declaration that “the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence”. This ensured there would be no repeat of the incident two years earlier when a Baptist minister was whipped and jailed for preaching without a licence. The state church was finally dislodged in 1786, when a Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, penned by Jefferson, was passed after a lively debate in which Madison, who had been appalled by the jailing of Baptist ministers in his neighbourhood, prevailed. Madison went on to frame the Bill of Rights for the republic, including its vital provisions on liberty of conscience.

Virginia’s church establishment was ended by a coalition of free-thinking gentlemen like Jefferson and Madison, and non-conformists who resented the curbs on their ability to worship and preach. One of the few conventionally devout figures in the revolution’s front ranks was also one of the few opponents of full religious freedom: John Jay, the second secretary of state. A staunch New York Anglican, he could not stomach the idea of freedom for Catholics. But he was defeated by fellow founders who thought the cohesion of the state should trump any sectarian concern.
On the face of things, the victory for religious liberty, first in Virginia and then in the American republic, was so decisive that no venerator of the founders could plausibly challenge it. Yet Mr Barton, the advocate-in-chief of Christian history, has raised his standard over that very issue. The argument centres on a famous phrase of Jefferson’s, cherished by secularists, which calls for a “wall of separation” between church and state. Jefferson used that formula in a letter to some Baptists who asked him what exactly the constitution’s framers had meant when outlawing the establishment of a state religion. Mr Barton’s line is that the “wall” works only one way, as does the constitution’s ban on a state religion. This principle does not, he says, exclude governance by Christian principles; all it bars is state interference in church life or theology. This argument has been adopted by many other Christian conservatives since he first made it 20 years ago. (A minority of evangelicals take a different view; they think the founding fathers were indeed hopeless freethinkers, and conclude that good Christians should avoid politics. But that is a hard corner to argue.)
There is a great irony about all these disputes over America’s creators, whether they pit Christian against Christian, or religious types against secularists. Regardless of their own views on the spiritual, people like Madison, Washington and Jefferson were intensely concerned for the welfare and cohesion of the new republic. They worried not only about religious wars as such but about political disputes which were “religious” in their intensity. They wanted to create a state and political system to which people with utterly different ideas about metaphysics, and many other things, could offer unconditional loyalty. People who disagree over legal or economic matters ought to be able to respect one another and compromise; people who disagree over things they regard as ultimate—and therefore see one another as heretics—usually can’t.
The religious or non-religious character of the constitution (and what children should learn about it) is only one of many issues on which it is hardly possible, these days, to have a calm debate. Perhaps all sides should ponder the words of Jefferson in his first inaugural address: “Let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions.”

NDW: A Dream Of Your Own Creation

I stole the following article authored by Neale Donald Walsch from a blog post by Christopher OV that he put up on October 15, 2009 at 10:51am here.



A Dream Of Your Own Creation 
By Neale Donald Walsch

You are living in a dream of your own creation. Let it be the dream of a lifetime, for that is exactly what it is.

Dream of a world in which the God and Goddess in you is never denied, and in which you never again deny the God and the Goddess in another. Let your greeting, both now and forevermore, be Namastè.

Dream of a world in which love is the answer to every question, the solution to every problem, the response to every situation, the experience in every moment.

Dream of a world in which Life, and that which supports Life, is the highest value, receives the highest honor, and has its highest expression.

Dream of a world in which freedom becomes the highest expression of life, in which no one who claims to love another seeks to restrict another, and in which all are allowed to express the glory of their being in measure full and true.

Dream of a world in which equal opportunity is granted to all, and equal resources are available to all, and equal dignity is accorded to all, so that all may experience equally the unequalled wonder of Life.

Dream of a world in which judgment is never again visited by one upon another, in which conditions are never again laid down before love is offered, and in which fear is never again seen as a means of respect.

Dream of a world in which differences do not produce divisions, individual expression does not produce separation, and the greatness of The Whole is reflected in the greatness of Its parts.

Dream of a world in which there is always enough, in which the simple gift of sharing leads to that awareness-and creates it, and in which every action supports it.

Dream of a world in which suffering is never again ignored, in which intolerance is never again expressed, and in which hatred is never again experienced by anyone.

Dream of a world in which ego is relinquished, in which superiority is abolished, and in which ignorance is eliminated from everyone's reality, reduced to the Illusion that it is.

Dream of a world in which mistakes lead not to shame, regrets lead not to guilt, and judgment leads not to condemnation.

Dream of these things, and more.

Do you choose them?

Then dream them into being.

With the might of your dreams end the nightmare of your imagined reality.

You can choose this.

Or, you can choose The Illusion.

I have said to you before, through the words of poets and leaders and philosophers: There are those who see things as they are, and say, "Why?" And there are those who dream of things that never were and say, "Why not?"

What do you say?

Michael Newton's Life-Between-Lives hypno-therapy

Based on the descriptions of Life Between Lives from various clients, Michael Newton has compiled a collection of ideas to explain the reoccurring phenomena of The Spirit World and The Soul. This is essential reading for the study of Michael Newton’s Life Between Life therapy.

Source

The Spirit World

Our physical universe appears to coexist with other physical and mental dimensions. These alternative dimensions of consciousness may be layered within our own physical space, parallel to our space, or linked by unknown designs around our dimensions. Contained within our universe are energy waves that appear to be guided both by design and wisdom from a higher consciousness. Our dimension is inhabited by the vibrational energy of immortal beings we call Souls who evolve by gaining knowledge and acquiring wisdom. Souls exist multi-dimensionally, both within and beyond linear time and space. The natural domain of Souls who come to earth is the non-physical dimension that we call the "spirit world" where Souls go between their incarnations. The spirit world is a place of love, kindness and compassion as well as one of order, planning and direction. It is possible that a higher space of perfection (beyond the spirit world) may exist which is not accessible to Souls still incarnating in the human body. Our human reality is a three-dimensional material universe that includes movement and, therefore, a passage of time with the aging of all things physical. Time exists as an expression of change. However, in the spirit world Souls exist in a Now time, which is not on one timeline and is not absolute. The spirit world is characterized by the forces of creative energy, universal thought, and support for spiritual enlightenment designed for the apparent purpose of training and growth in all Souls' evolution toward perfection. At the same time the spirit world offers a space of quiet contemplation and reflection between lives. The human body and physical brain contain the spiritual mind of an immortal Soul. Conscious thought consists of ideas generated by the human and Soul mind in association with each other. Indications are that unconscious intuition, insight and conscience are influences of the Soul. Each Soul is part of a decision-making process in choosing a body for the next life to experience certain karmic lessons as an outgrowth of former lives. All information and experiences accrued through human bodies is retained by the Soul. The reservoir of these Soul memories and accumulated wisdom derived from experience is referred to as the Superconscious mind. The Soul's prior history is retained in higher consciousness, the Superconscious mind, and may be released into human consciousness through various means, one of which is hypnotic regression. However, pre-existing amnesia may be a partial or complete blocking agent for some which may limit recovery of past life and between life information. While Soul memory may be hidden from the level of conscious awareness, thought patterns of the Soul influencing the human brain may induce motivations for certain actions. We do not know the degree to which human choices or actions are influenced by the Soul since this variable is different with each person. Reincarnation, or the transmigration of the Soul, is designed to advance Soul development through the choice of a specific body that will be involved in certain timeline events. This choice is governed by the special needs of the Soul to advance from lower to higher levels of learning based upon performance and desire, as well as karmic issues from former lives. During physical incarnations on earth various possibilities and probabilities arising from karmic influences and Soul contracts are subject to the free will of the Soul. Thus, humans are not bound to a predetermined existence. The meaning behind the existence of each individual has been planned in advance to allow all Souls to come into their physical incarnations with a purpose. Goals are originated, in part, by karmic patterns from former lives and, in part, by specific lessons relating to the ambitions of that Soul. These objectives are established in concert with a Soul's spiritual peers, personal guide(s) and a Council of enlightened spiritual Elders. A new age of spiritual enlightenment has ushered in a period of human history where, with increasing frequency, people are seeking different approaches to exposing their immortal minds. A significant catalyst in this process is Life Between Lives Spiritual Regression utilizing hypnosis.

The Soul

The soul can not be defined because it has no limits that are perceived about its creation. The most consistent reports of its demonstrated essence is that the soul represents intelligent energy which is immortal and manifested by vibrational waves of light and color. All human beings have one soul that remains attached to its chosen physical body until death. Souls play a part in the selection of their next physical body during their reincarnation cycles. The soul typically joins its physical body after conception between the fourth month and birth. Each soul has a unique immortal character. When joined with the human brain this character is melded with the emotional temperament, or human ego, of that brain to produce one personality for one lifetime. Souls reincarnate with human beings for countless lifetimes to advance through levels of development by addressing karmic tasks from former lifetimes. Souls grow in knowledge and wisdom through this learning process while pondering their thoughts and deeds in past lives with peers under the direction of teachers. At the moment of physical death the soul returns to the spirit world, the source of its creation. Since part of a soul's energy essence has never left the spirit world during incarnation, the returning soul rejoins with that essence of itself. This, spiritual learning never ceases for the soul. The spirit world also offers souls the opportunity for rest and reflection between lives. Souls appear to be members of specific spirit cluster groups to whom they have been assigned since their creation. The teachers of each group are the personal spirit guides of members of that group. Members of these groups reincarnate with the soul and assume meaningful roles during a soul's life on earth. Rather than being defined as a place of ultimate non-action, or Nirvana, the spirit world appears to be a space of soul transition into higher forms of energy with capabilities for creation with advancement. The spirit world has an area of influence which is undefined except that it includes our universe and nearby dimensions. No earthly religious deities are seen in the spirit world by returning souls. A soul's closest connection with the divine is with their personal spirit guide and members of a council of benevolent counselors who monitor the affairs of each soul. Souls from earth feel and sense the presence of a God-like Oversoul or Source emanating from above their counselors. The spirit world is composed of highly advanced non-reincarnating soul specialists who regulate the work of advancement for the souls in their care. When incarnating souls develop to a high level of experience, performance and wisdom they will cease to incarnate and become advanced beings themselves who assist the still-incarnating souls. The ultimate goal of all souls appears to be the desire to seek perfection and conjoin with the Source that created them.

Mike Dooley and Arch-Angel Metatron on Solitude

From Mike Dooley on 29 July 2011:

Baby souls follow.
Young souls lead.
But old souls are happy to dance alone.
Not that I'm spying on you,

The Universe

PS: Your wisdom is showing.

Sitting in front of my computer alone in solitude for hours on end is me fulfilling my spiritual mission, according to Arch-Angel Metatron as she is channeled through self described “Earth Keeper,” James Tyberonn. This channeled message was first published online on Galactic Friends on 10 July 2010. But it was republished online on Lightworkers on 12 April 2011 by the same channeler. See the bottom of this copy and paste of Tyberonn’s blog post for the two source links.


Being Alone
“The Sacred Divinity of Solitude”
Updated & Republished By Request
Arch-Angel Metatron channeled by James Tyberonn

Greetings Beloved!I am Metatron, Lord of Light, and we welcome this gathering. We surround each of you in a specially created vector of Unconditional Love. A vector of nonlinear space that is uniquely opened as each of you read these words from your own space and chosen time.

The present phase of linear time on your planet is a uniquely opportune juncture for self-review and chosen solitude. Masters many of you, particularly those above the age of 49, the seventh 7 year cycle, find yourselves in a state of solitude, after spouses have passed, relationships terminated and marriage contracts have ended. And although this path is at times quite lonely, quite difficult and may feel 'unnatural' for many of you, it is with purpose. So we tell you to use this time wisely, embrace it. You are on the cusp of a great graduation.

Now there is a recurring message in many of your religious texts that says "For everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven"

Indeed there is a time for solitude. Divine Solitude is a noble condition, and one that offers quantum leaps in terms of growth, when understood, and recognized for its profound purpose.

You see the Divine-Self is ultimately, conclusively alone in its final pursuit of omnipotence.
In your terms, the soul enters the earth alone, and the spirit departs the earth alone. Ascended Masters that walk the Earth, have for millennia sought solitude in their incarnations before achieving Mastery. So it is with many of you now.

Dear Ones, Many of you who find yourself alone at this time, are of the belief that you must find a partner. Many of you seek your 'soul mate' your twin flame. Yet we tell you, in many cases among the advanced souls, you are alone because you have planned it. Indeed it is a special and noble undertaking. It is time for Divine Solitude.

Solitude for those seeking sanctified light, for those seeking, what is termed 'consecrated enlightenment' chose specific periods in their life plan, to be alone for a time. This does not mean you will always be in solitude, it simply means for a time you have chosen it to 'work on the self'; to achieve self love. Among souls seeking Mastery, approximately one of every three or four lifetimes, is a lifetime chosen for solitude.

Loving the SELF is a Requirement

Love of self is a condition that many, especially those from Christian heritage, have lost. Christianity with its teachings of original sin taught you that you were flawed in your nature, that you needed forgiving. You spent lifetimes prostate asking forgiveness for who you are. You lost your sense of your divinity, and found it easier to give than to receive. Balance was forfeited.

Now, we tell you that as the Earth transforms to the new Crystalline Age, the nature of energy resonance and the dimensional grasp of the planet is expanded. There is a lessening of the influence of duality/polarity for those of you that choose to extend beyond the third dimension.

You may ask whether solitude or partnerships bring greater advancement to the soul. The question is timely and especially pertinent for many of you in the dawn of the Ascension.

The short answer is that both coupling and solitude have their divine purpose.... and we underline the word BOTH. Much is gained in being in committed loving relationship. This is the natural circumstance in most sojourns on the plane of Earth.

But Masters, we tell you that there is also great purpose also in solitude. It is in fact a requisite.

It is no error that great numbers of you on the finals steps of the path of enlightenment are alone in this period. Now is the prelude to the coming Ascension. If you are among these, we tell you that perhaps your solitude is appropriate. Perhaps it is as it should be. You see it is how many of you planned it.

Yet many of you feel that the loneliness is too much to bear and that you must pursue a partner...the elusive twin flame. Dear Souls, there is much confusion around the concept of the twin flame, the 'soul mate', and the role and nature of optimal partnership in Mastery of Self.

Solitude and Nondependency

Solitude is intended to be a period of sublime reverence of self. Your life and your experience in this plane is your own creation, your own living tapestry, woven by your individual belief. Within solitude, the soul is prompted into self-review, and opportunity is given to dive deeply into the deep waters that flow within you. To swim in the ocean of SELF, and in so doing rediscover the love within, to learn what a brilliant spark of God you truly are.

Relationships are a method of reflecting the affectivity of your belief system, and giving you feedback on what, simply stated, is working, and what is not. Detachment requires the individual to explore the self, to reacquaint with the inner horizon, and this facilitates and necessitates sovereignty. Sovereignty is the prepotency of Mastership.

A relationship of two sovereign nondependent humans has greater balance, greater creativity, and greater longevity than a pairing of two beings co-dependent on one another. Do you understand?

Ultimately each soul must clearly define SELF in order to gain Mastery. Self Mastery is embodied in periods of planned detachment. It is that period in which impeccability is crystallized. And we tell you Dear Ones, crystallization, through impeccability is a necessary phase of Self- Mastery. It is a calibrational juncture in the multidimensional sojourn. One enters the void, the great mystery in the quest for fortitude and sovereign vision, alone, without a shoulder to lean on. And in the process, one discovers sublime wholeness and self completion.

Do not misunderstand our meaning; there is great validity in coupling, in the natural aspect of soul mate. But conclusively one walks the path of Mastery in sovereign detachment.

One becomes enlightened when one learns to transcend the physical self. Each of you must endeavor to the final conquest of what we term as 'impeccability'. Impeccability is the crystallization or uniform clarity of the soul, and it is a necessary virtue of Mastery. This involves release of dependency, the release of all that does not serve your divinity. It is a rebooting and reprogramming of all you are.

We have told you that the language, the fabric of higher dimension is sacred geometry. Impeccability is the geometric clarity of the soul mind. By defining oneself through impeccability one becomes crystalline, and thus more capable of Divine Consciousness within the geometric light of coherent higher planes. It is only accomplished by deciding who you are, what you believe, and then living it. Recognizing your truths, and aligning fully to them.

Question to Metatron: Are you saying that loving relationships, such as marriage, are not our ultimate union?

Metatron's Answer: Remember that in the highest realm you are in sacred Oneness, each a part of the Divine One. So in terms of duality experience, the answer to your question is yes. In this context, YES! Masters, in highest reality, you are a unified plural consciousness.

Relationships in the linear duality experience are a means to the end. We are saying that loving relationships are a sacred, joyful tool of achieving Self Mastery, but that ultimately in each soul's journey; there is requisite ultimate growth into sovereignty. The sovereign self is a sufficient self & truly has no dependent need of another. Such conceptual dependency can be a deterrent to Mastery.

In truth you merge in sovereignty with your other half. The other part of your soul that separated in duality expression. Each of you have a male and female component, and the other half is re-merged in the Integral Divine Self before rising into higher realm.

Many of you consider a soul mate and twin flame the same. Only the syntax is in parity. The true meanings are different. The twin flame is the other half of the same soul, split in duality, and these are rarely in physicality together. The 'soul mate' is in our terms, another soul with whom you have contracted to grow together within physical duality, as a means of development and exploration of love with another soul. Movement toward common purpose.

The seeming paradox in linear relationships, that of the 'soul mate' concept (not the twin flame) is that a relationship of two non-dependent sovereign beings, has greater joy, greater balance, greater interface with the divine, greater opportunity for advancement than a relationship based on co-dependence. Do you see?

In this time, in this now, many of you are actually merging with your etheric (non-physical) twin flame, and molding your sacred fullness into one physicality in order for you to enter the crystalline realm in wholeness. In most cases this soul reconnection is accomplished in solitude or in sovereign non dependent relationships.

So we say embrace your chosen period of SOVEREIGN SOLITUDE, it is the sign of your souls intent to enter into Crystalline Mer-Ka-Na Mastery.

The Divine Feminine

We add that many who are in this life, of the female gender, have chosen particularly effacious roles in the balancing of the planet at this time. Is it not true that the planet has been imbalanced in an overage of patriarchal energies for millennia? That is why it would appear that a vast majority of those drawn to the 'New Age' are female, you see, to anchor in the Divine Feminine. Females have been conditioned and labeled in your current paradigm as the 'weaker sex'. Nothing could be farther from the truth!

Many of the females, who find themselves now in single status, are conditioned to feel they must have a partner. Again, we say, embrace your solitude. You chose it, we honor you for the path you have chosen.

The ideal for the planet, is not to be female or male, rather a perfect balance of BOTH, but it is at the moment still in an imbalance of patriarchal resonance. We honor those of you in female biology, you're strength is indeed progressing in creating the nurturing balance.

Truly the over-soul is androgynous, self-contained. Self-sufficient. That does not mean that love is not the frequencial basis of the soul, indeed it is the highest vibration. It is the resonance that is produced by the Ascended Soul to the Cosmos, and reflected back as a collective harmonic of crystalline love. There is a time when those of you have played the role of soul mates, will individualize, and in your terms, part in joy. The evolved soul in achieving omnipotence, will become consummately self sufficient, and in so doing radiate spectacular unconditional love to ALL. That is as it should be, as it must be. It is how you Ascend.

Embracing Sovereignty

The final graduation of the soul is not done in pairing, you see. It is done within the Divine SELF in universal harmonic to the All that is. Do you understand? This is the activation of Self to the divine resonance of the Quantum Crystalline Field. Separation must osmatically occur before the final collective reunion, it must occur to allow for the final coalescence into the ALL THAT IS.
It is who you ARE. It is the IAM that I AM.

Our point here, is that if you find yourself in Solitude, recognize its purpose. If you are in a relationship refine it in beauty to the greater love of non-dependence. You will indeed discover the love expands and the relationship becomes more splendid in non dependency; just as you are discovering relationships of co-dependency are imbalanced one way streets, and fail.

In sovereignty humanity will see themselves in this framework as being 'whole' and not being their partner's property or someone's 'better half'. Each will bring their integral, whole SELF in fullness, in robust flow of energy into relationship, in a manner that often does not occur today. There are pre agreed points that allow for freedom of choice and for change, even if that change is to end the partnership. In sovereignty individuals share their best, without compromise of ideals. Each will recognize the divinity of the other, and retain the integrity of SELF.

They will afford their own promises, promises and choices of a new paradigm, but there will be avenues and opportunities of adjustments and the ability of reviewing terms. This will allow for greater recognition of the SELF. These will be designed to prevent energy blockage and reduce dysfunctional marriages and divorce complications and lawsuits, you see.

Some relationships in these terms will indeed last a lifetime, some will not. But the archetype of sovereignty will better support both, based on choice and mutual agreement of each individuals terms. And as such independence becomes joyful , devoid of one partner being dominant and imposing their beliefs, morality and will over another.

Humankind, in mass today, truly does not recognize or understand their soul, their divine SELF. Self is unfortunately regulated to the realm of ego personality by the masses. It is true that a higher degree of the light quotient is awakened on the planet now, than has occurred at any other time, but it is still only about 10% of the population of eight billion plus that has awakened. That is a sufficient number to bring about the Ascension, but much has yet to be done.

Religion in the New Paradigm
Religion in the new paradigm, must be individualized, must truly recognize the nature of SELF the nature of the DIVINE SOUL. None of your world religions truly answer these questions today. None of your religions answer the questions of mans true Cosmic Extra-Terrestrial multi-dimensional origins. And that must come to understanding in the new paradigm. None of your current mainstream religions can accurately and completely express the true history of man on the earth. As such, there is no one true religion on the planet today. Most are bought and sold on preset regulated templates. Each claim to know the path to God, to be able to lead the way to God, yet none truly do. Each has its dogma, each has its hierarchy and controls.

Man searches for GOD more fervently now than at any other time in on the planet, and so this seeking in itself has the potential to bring in the light. Few religious teachers are true teachers, scholars perhaps, but not true teachers, you see. Others are charlatans, even within metaphysics and the so called 'New Age'. Few who make claim to channel Ascended Masters or Angelics truly do.

Discernment

When integrity is not maintained the connection to true spirit is disconnected, and all who are human are subject to fall in and out of integrity. Truly the way in the Ascension is the ability of each soul to rise into his/her higher self. Look inside and find your own divinity within your heart. Not through blindly following a guru, evangelist, channeler or spiritual leader, but through SELF. Accept only what you discern individually to resonate as true, Dear Ones, and do not give your power to another. Each of you can and must channel your higher selves. Study, look, listen, discern, review and only accept what resonates within you.

The way to the divine, Masters, is through the sacred sovereignty of SELF, and in the Ascension, the way to the higher SELF is through self-definition, and seeking that aspect of God inside each of you, with the great desire that is embedded in each of your souls. Study, seek, and work ! There is little hope for the lazy. You are here to make known the unknown ! Work at it ! Be a warrior of light within duality, for the true battles are within for self mastery. The path is not easy. But within Self Mastery lies an energy so exquisite that it fuels all you require to move forward, and there is another level above each you ascend to. Consciousness ever expands.

You Are Never Alone
Oh Dear Human, We truly do feel your occasional despair and longing, and know that we want you to know that we honour you, know that you are never truly alone. Spirit embraces you, and we are especially available for you to find solace and comfort in the walk of divinity that you are undertaking. For we assure you, that you have chosen to be exactly where you are, and there is a great reason, a noble aspiration and goal in your celibate secular aspect.

It is the very sense of resulting loneliness that so often feels bittersweet and hollow, that compels you to seek the rich ocean of wisdom available to you in rediscovering the vast solace within your own divinity.

So we gently urge you to understand that this, for many Master Souls is precisely why you are outside of relationship at this profound time on your planet.

You are then not alone because of a failed relationship, you are not alone because you are incapable of finding a partner. Indeed you are in noble solitude because you have chosen to move higher, to focus on the inner soul. Every soul enters in solitude, and will depart to higher realms in solitude. But that solitude is an opening to your true nature of plurality consciousness, you are reconnecting to the bigger part of you, and that part does not know loneliness. Lonely only exists in duality.

Dear Hearts, use this time wisely, and embrace it., for you have chosen a path that Masters on the 'Cusp of Graduation' often select. We know it is not easy, but the very real pain you at times feel, is the motivating driver of inner reflection. You are on the cusp of a great quantum leap.

Closing
Discover your path. Discover yourself. Love yourself, love one another, love the divinity inside you and inside every one ! Discover the multidimensional aspects of your true Soul. That is the nobility of solitude.

And thought the path is at times quite difficult and lonely , know that such is the challenge of duality, for above, you are whole, and lack no thing. In the higher realm, Masters, you are in your sacred nature of integral wholeness, in complete and abundant bliss.

I am Metatron, Lord of Light, and I share with you these TRUTHS!

You are Beloved.

...And so it is.

http://www.galacticfriends.com/updates/channeled-updates/4960-metatron-sovereignty-update-july-1010.html

http://lightworkers.org/channeling/129148/being-alone-sacred-sovereignity-solitude

NDW on What God Wants, world events and asking, Where is Harold Camping?

by Neale Donald Walsch
Originally posted on 22 May 2011
The Global Conversation

For far too long the world’s discussion about God has been moving in only one direction, led in the main by those who say that we understand all there is that’s really important for us to understand about God, and who assert that humanity’s problems are not caused by human beings who fail to understand, but by human beings who fail to act on their understanding.

This is a popular notion, but it’s a misconception. Just the opposite has been true. It has been people who did act on what they understood about God who have caused many of our biggest problems.

These are people who thought they knew What God Wants.

It’s people who thought they knew What God Wants who created the 200 years of the Christian Crusades and the horrors of the Inquisition, seeking to win the world for Christianity.

It’s people who thought they knew What God Wants who told armies of Muslims to send marauders far and wide to conquer every land and culture and bring it under the Nation of Islam.

It’s people who thought they knew What God Wants who called themselves the Chosen People and reclaimed land they declared to be originally their own, ignoring the fact that history had caused it to be inhabited for thousands of years by others, and telling those others to now leave portions of that land, and to live when and how they are told to live, as second class citizens without equal rights in their own home.

It’s people who thought they knew What God Wants who hanged men and women in town squares, and burned others at the stake, holding up the Good Book and declaring them to be witches.

It’s people who thought they knew What God Wants who passed laws making it illegal for humans of differing races to marry, or for consenting adults to engage in certain sexual practices.

It’s people who thought they knew What God Wants who created cultural prohibitions forbidding people to sing or dance, draw pictures of any person, or play music of any kind except sacred songs.

It’s people who thought they knew What God Wants who said that it was not okay to even utter or write the name of G­-D—but that it was okay to kill in G-D’s name.

And most recently it’s people who thought they knew What God Wants who said that The Rapture would come at 6 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time yesterday, producing an earthquake “so powerful it will throw open all graves.” This end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it prediction has been spread by Harold Camping, the 89-year-old operator of the Family Radio Christian Network who put up billboards all over the globe warning people. Those who believed his prognostication have quit their jobs, sold their homes, left family and friends and traveled for months now in caravans of vans painted with slogans and sayings about The Rapture, scaring people into thinking that, well, maybe they are right…what if they are right and yesterday everything was over…

Is all of this really What God Wants? All of this fear, all of this anger, all of this judgment, all of these prohibitions and rules and regulations and requirements and demands and behavioral codes and dress codes and eating codes and…stuff we have to do just to keep God from being mad at us??? Is this all really What God Wants?

Are we sure?

It is important to be sure, because we are not talking about a small thing here.

There is much that we have been taught about What God Wants. Are these teachings accurate?

In our very next entry, we’ll begin to take a look.

In the meantime, no one can seem to find Harold Camping today, to get his comment on why the world is still intact. Hmmm…

Stay tuned here. This is not over. This is just beginning. Come back here. Come back often. Every other day if you can. Invite your friends here. Tell them that Something Important in happening here. Tell them that we are writing a New Cultural Story for Humanity here. A cultural story without fear of God, but with a greater love for God than we have ever experienced before.

Watch this space. It is going to be redesigned in the weeks immediately ahead. There will soon be a space for YOU to create your own New Story for Humanity.

We intend to start a huge conversation here. We are calling this The Conversations Movement. It is about taking Conversations with God and moving it into the world. Stay with us. Join with us. Don’t let this happen without you. It’s….

THE GLOBAL CONVERSATION

Don’t let it happen without you.

Source: http://www.theglobalconversation.com/?p=285

(FROM THE NDW RESOURCES & INFORMATION TEAM: The commentaries here are being excerpted from the book What God Wants, by Neale Donald Walsch. To discuss, in person with Neale, the ideas presented here, you may wish to join The Messengers’ Circle, a subscription service at www.nealedonaldwalsch.com. In the Reader’s Forum at that location Neale is able to respond to postings individually, as there are generally far fewer of them. The Messengers’ Circle is a fee-for-service offering (a modest .30-cents a day) for persons who choose to commit the time, energy, and resources to become ongoing students of Conversations with God, and to interact with Neale in ways that will allow them to one day become Messengers in our world.)

NDW: Are we perfect children of God?

Source.

Originally posted on Neale Donald Walsch's BeliefNet blog on Sunday 23 March 2008

Categories: Looking up close at Life


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?

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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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I said here last Sunday that The Body, the Mind, and the Spirit all hold all the data of the universe. Indeed, they are all the data of the universe, compressed into one location.

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

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

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

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

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

Life as we have been living it upon the earth has been, it turns out, a case of mistaken identity. We have been denying...

...our True Selves in favor of a story about who we are that leaves out all the crucial data and replaces it with an utterly fictionalized account of our relationship with All That Is.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amen, and amen.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

NDW on God, spirituality + the news media

In his weekly bulletin for 2 April 2011, Neale answers a question and reflects on how God and spirituality fits in with all the misery and tragedy that seems to characterize the news media. Neale's insight is, as usual, spot on.


Letters to the Editor:

Dear Neale As the world reels to deal with global events, I find that some of my friends are having a difficult time coping with the daily news. Some of them have even taken to avoiding the news altogether. Any suggestions on what I could tell them? Carolyn, Topeka, Kansas


Neale Responds:

Dear Carolyn...Putting your head in the sand like an ostrich is not the most personally beneficial or effective way of dealing with our world as it is. Simply pretending that something isn't there does not make it disappear. Rather, it makes it loom larger in our reality when it cannot help but appear, when one has no choice but to look at it. Tell your friends that it is how you look at something, not whether you look at it.

I see the same difficulties and human tragedies and challenges that everyone else sees...but I see in them something that many others do not: opportunity. I try to experience every moment in life as an opportunity to announce and declare, express and fulfill, become and experience Who I Really Am. Life is creating for all of humanity now a Contextual Field, filled with the right and perfect people and events allowing us to move ever rapidly forward in the evolution of our entire species.

It may seem that evolution should not require the death of thousands and the pain of millions, yet life has always required, from the very beginning, the contribution, in those ways, of many of us, so that All Of Us might move forward in the Process of the Soul---which is a process of self realization. It is only when I understand that death does not exist, and that pain is not the same as suffering, that I can embrace the process that Life exhibits everywhere in the Universe...in the swallowing up of entire stars systems in black holes, and in the swallowing up of entire villages in tsunamis, and in the swallowing up of entire lives in the events, both wonderful and not so wonderful, of our own day-to-day.

I look at life as a continual playing out of God's Plan---which is more of a process than a blueprint---and I know that this Plan has nothing in mind but the best for me. Is it possible that the most horrific events of human life, such as, indeed, the Japan tragedy, or the Libyan struggle, or the loss of homes to foreclosure in America? I believe that the answer is yes, and I understand that it may seem and sound callous to suggest that this is so. Yet when we step back from the tapestry to see the entire picture, I believe we will see the wonder of the entire unfolding, and even, if we look deeply enough, the reasons for it. For now, I invite us all to just Keep The Faith! And so do the very best we can to remain as Sources of Light and Love through all the moments of darkness.

Love, NDW

NDW on God and Economics

Below is a copy and paste of a blog post authored by Neale Donald Walsch at around the time of the 2008 election in which he discusses the economic policies of the Bush Administration. NDW doesn't answer very well the question asked by political science scholars (who gets what, when and how?). Instead, NDW talks about the economic policy of certain right wing politicians. NDW's analysis is not scholarly. Nonetheless, NDW does provide a basic analysis of tax cuts for the rich and does a rather weak job at relating it to the New Spirituality, for what it's worth.

By Neale Donald Walsch
Thursday September 18, 2008

Source link.

Is there a 'spiritual' way do approach economics? I believe the answer is yes. And I believe that the election in a few weeks in the United States will tell us where the spiritual values of America are.

Last week we talked about the two candidates and health care. This week, let's look at the economy and the two presidential candidates.

I was reading The Progress Report, on online newsletter written by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Ali Frick, and Ryan Powers the other day. It offered a remarkably informative look at the economics of John McCain.

"Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has spent much of his general election campaign for president trying to distance himself from President Bush's failed policies -- even though the policies he has outlined and would pursue as president mirror those of the last eight year," the Report said.

"McCain's strategy so far has been to make the public forget he is offering Bush's policies. During the Republican National Convention earlier this month, McCain and his fellow conservatives seemingly refused to acknowledge that the current administration even exists: Bush's name was mentioned once while Vice President Dick Cheney's name was not mentioned at all.," the Report went on.

I was shocked to learn this. I knew that Bush/Cheney were not very popular, but to be shunned by their own party like this....wow.

The Progress Report went on to say that Convention speakers also ignored many key issues that face Americans today, such as health care, environment, and the economy." Yet at times, McCain's surrogates will let the truth slip out," the Report said.

"In June, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) admitted that McCain's economic policies would 'absolutely' be an 'enhancement' of Bush's."

Now that the country is darn near collapsing because of the financial crisis there are not many McCain supporters who want to be reminded that Sen.Lindsey said that.

The Progress Report said that Sen. Lindsey was right. "McCain's economic policies are rooted in the same supply-side economic theories that give huge tax cuts to the rich and the most profitable corporations, which will ultimately expand the already ballooning federal deficit. Indeed, as New York Times columnist and Princeton University economics professor Paul Krugman noted, McCain's economic proposals are "Bush made permanent," the Report went on.

Who will benefit from all this? Well, says The Progress Report, "The wealthy will cash in. If elected president, McCain plans to double down on Bush's corporate and individual tax cuts. His plan calls for reducing the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent, a plan that would save corporations $175 billion per year, with $45 billion going to America's 200 largest companies as identified by Fortune Magazine. The five largest U.S. oil companies would save a grand total of $3.8 billion per year.

"The wealthiest Americans would also cash in," the Report wen on. "McCain's tax plan will increase after-tax income of the richest 3.4 percent by more than twice the average for all households -- and offer no benefit to the poorest taxpayers and minimal savings for the middle class."

At the same time, McCain has not offered any specifics on how he would pay for these massive cuts. In fact, McCain's plan would produce the highest federal deficit in 25 years. After inheriting Bush's $407 billion deficit, yearly deficits under McCain would increase sharply, beginning with at least $505 billion in FY2009.

So, my friends, what do you think? Is 'give more to the rich' the highest spiritual value, in your opinion? I know that John McCain means well. He simply uses the same supply-side economic model as George Bush. This is what we used to call "trickle down economics" -- the idea that as the rich get richer, the benefit trickles down to the rest of America, including the middle class and the poverty class.

This is the man who voted 90% of the time in support of whatever George Bush put before Congress during this term. Are we ready to give this philosophy one more term? Gee whiz, what will it take for some people to admit, we had it wrong; it's time for a change....?

NDW: Economic Crisis God's Will?

Below is a copy and paste of 2 blog posts authored by Neale Donald Walsch in September of 2008 during the economic crisis in which NDW says that Conversation with God tells him that the economic crisis is God's will because it is humanity's sub-conscious collective will. God's will for humanity is humanity's will for itself. In the first blog post NDW asks the question, "Is the economic crisis God's Will?" And then in the second blog post, NDW answers that question. NDW alludes to a follow up blog post (a third post) but I can't seem to find it in the Way Back Machine. Oh well. Enjoy these two blog posts for what they're worth.

Monday September 15, 2008

By Neale Donald Walsch

There are those who say we are on the verge of a major, major economic collapse in this country and around the world. Today's events with one-time financial giant Lehman Brothers declaring bankruptcy, together with last month's government bailout of Fanny and Freddy, make it clear that the world is teetering at the edge of such a collapse.

And so once more we have to ask, as we did on Friday with regard to Hurricane Ike....Is this the will of God?

I raise the question -- again -- because in the past several weeks we have been talking here in our Sunday School All Week program (26 weeks of blogs on God and Life) about the idea, as advanced in the New Spirituality, that we are all creating our own reality -- both collectively and individually.

God says in Conversations with God that this is true; that humans have the power to create their own reality, and are doing so every day, every moment, either consciously or unconsciously. The book Happier Than God describes in detail how the Power of Personal Creation works...and how it has created the global conditions that affect our world today. You may wish to order this book (there is an icon at the far right of this page) and give it a read to learn more about this Mechanism of Creation.

Now some folks have posted comments at this site saying that it is not true, we do not create our own reality. God is "in charge" here, and it is arrogant and blasphemous for us to assert that we have the deciding role to play in the creation of human events. Yet that raises a question -- the same question I asked Friday with regard to Hurricane Ike: Is the present condition and circumstance with regard to global economics (and their possible imminent collapse) a manifestation of God's Will? Or is all this the result of human folly? (Which is simply another way to say, our own creation?)

Where does God stand in all of us? Does God want this to happen? Did God want Lehman Brothers to go under? Is God 'punishing' America for her hubris? Will God bring the United States to its knees, humbling it before the world, reducing it to a third class member of the community of nations?

Can prayer change any of this? If we pray to God, begging God to spare us, and to end or avoid the suffering of millions who could soon be caught in mortgage foreclosures and other fallouts of the financial crisis, will God answer our prayers? If we pray that no more horribly destructive storms hit the Gulf Coast, will God answer our prayers? If we pray that our candidate wins the November election for president, will God answer our prayers?

Does God intervene in the day-to-day life of Man? Does God assert His Will on the day-to-day affairs of the human race? If so, how? If not, why not? Why does God allow such horrible things to happen? Or is it possible that we, ourselves, are creating these outcomes, entirely unwittingly, as a result of our own way of thinking (and therefore of behaving)?

Tomorrow, the answer. Today, I'd like to hear yours. Is God the creator of our moment-to-moment reality? Or are we? Or is it neither? Are we all -- God included -- simply subject to "the sling and arrows of outrageous fortune?"

What is the process by which things happen? What is the mechanism that causes things to occur? IS there such a mechanism? If that popular movie The Secret is correct about the awesome power of the Law of Attraction...are we are attracting these calamities that are now besetting us? If God is truly The Creator, is God creating all this? Or, as I asked on Friday, is it God's way to simply create the heavens and the earth, and then sit back and watch the whole thing unfold, doing nothing?

C'mon folks. If ever there was a need for greater clarity on God's Role in the World's Life, this is the time. It is said that a million people a day hit on this Beliefnet site. Now is the time to have your voices heard...and to add some energy to the Process of Life Itself, however you believe that process works.

Filed Under: Conversations with God, economic crisis, Fanny Mae, government bailout, Ike, Lehman Brothers, Neale Donald Walsch

Source:

http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20080917222520/http://blog.beliefnet.com/conversationswithgod/2008/09/economic-crisis-gods-will.html

NDW’s follow up to the above blog post:

Who is 'in charge' here?
Wednesday September 17, 2008

By Neale Donald Walsch

We in the U.S. are about to decide who is 'in charge' here, by electing our next president in just a few weeks. But who is 'in charge' here on the whole earth? Is it God?

That is the question I have asked in this space in the aftermath of two calamities in one 7-day period: Hurricane Ike and the financial crisis on Wall Street.

Is all of this God's Will?

I believe not. Not in the classic sense that people understand the use of that term "God's Will." In the larger sense of the term, it IS God's Will...because God's Will is our will -- that is, the will of humanity, expressed collectively and individually through all of our thoughts, words, and actions.

I believe that there is no separation between Divinity and Humanity; that God and we are One. I believe that we are all Divine, and that some of us do not know it, do not experience it, do not believe it, do not accept it.

So how does that make it 'true' that we humans 'created' Hurricane Ike, and all its devastation, and the deaths it caused? How does that make it 'true' that we humans created the economic crisis now hitting Wall Street?

I believe it is like this: Certainly no one could claim that we are doing all this to ourselves deliberately. So we can eliminate from this discussion any idea that this is a conscious creation. It must, therefore, be an unconscious creation. It is something we are doing without knowing we are doing it, without being aware of the consequences of our thoughts, words, and actions.

To make the case regarding Ike, I believe -- and weather experts are now telling us -- that the ever-increasing savagry and power of our earth's tropical storms is the direct result of global warming, which, the experts tell us, has raised the temperature of the more shallow waters on the earth (such as along the Gulf Coast of the U.S.), which, in turn, increases the whirl of storm winds moving over these areas, turning them into hurricanes of incredible, and increasingly greater, force.

Climatologists tell us that we can expect stronger and stronger, more violent tropical storms on the earth from now on because of this thermal effect.

This is one outcome -- and only one -- of global warming. And who created global warming? I believe that we did. Unconsciously, to be sure. Unwittingly, for certain. Innocently, absolutely. But in any event most certainly.

Now half the human race is in denial of this point -- which is exactly how we created the situation to begin with. It is like tobacco smokers who deny, deny, deny that their smoking has any damaging effect on their bodies whatsoever -- and then come down with lung cancer. I have known such people who, even as they are dying of the cancer, sit in their bedrooms smoking.

In my mind there is no question that our human activities upon the earth have created the global warming crisis. In our arrogance we declare that we've had nothing to do with it. We haven't even contributed to it. We have had nothing to do with it at all.

This is the statement of many human beings today. We cannot and will not take responsibility for our own actions and choices. And that is too bad. That is remarkably sad. I can only hope that Al Gore and others on the same mission can wake up humanity fast enough for us to do something about all of this.

Similarly, it is greed, and nothing less, that has produced the crisis on Wall Street. Says USAToday in the lead story of today's edition written by reporter John Waggoner: "In staggering succession, some of Wall Street's biggest and oldest firms have been seized, failed outright, or merged into other companies." The paper then quotes Steve Romick, manager of FPA Crescent Fund, as saying, "It's the worst news out of Wall Street since I've been alive."

The choice to do whatever it took to optimize profits is what led to this collapse -- and that choice is the free-will manifestation of human beings.

Yet if God does not 'want' hurricanes to fly or financial institutions to collapse, and people's lives to be disrupted and destroyed in the process, why does God allow it? If God is the creator of our reality, why is God creating it like this?

The New Spirituality says that we are creating our own reality. It says that we and God are One, and that, as an aspect of Divinity, we have the power and the ability to produce and manifest outcomes in the physical world -- and are doing so every day.

We do this, we are told, with our thoughts, our words, and our deeds. We are able to do this because we are gods. We are Individuations, or aspects, of the Divine. Our word is Law. Our word is God's Word.

I understand that to some, this very thought is blasphemy. Fair enough. We each have the freedom to believe what we choose to believe. And I don't mean to offend anyone here by stating what I believe. Yet if what I believe is mistaken, if our word is not God's Word, but God is separate from us and has the final word on everything, then my original question stands: Why is God doing this to us? Or, if God is not doing this to us, why is God standing by, doing nothing, allowing us to do this to ourselves?

What IS God's role in our lives?

I believe that God's role is, has been, and always will be to empower us to create our own reality. I believe that God has given us the ability to do this both individually and collectively. In our next post, we will look at how this power works, and how we can use it in our daily lives.

For now, I would like to share that I believe -- and I believe strongly -- that prayer works. Because prayer is a statement of what we wish and of what we desire and of what we seek to experience, it uses the Power of God precisely as it was intended to be used; exactly as it was designed.

So, today, perhaps we might join in prayer.

Filed Under: Conversations with God, financial crisis, God, Hurricane Ike, Neale Donald Walsch, Wall Street

Source:

http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20080919140354/http://blog.beliefnet.com/conversationswithgod/2008/09/who-is-in-charge-here.html