December, 2012
Dear Readers…This week’s column is a little different than usual in that I’m sharing my own Advice question I asked in a conversation with God in 2009. The answer I received completely cured me of these fears and I sincerely hope it helps you as well:
“Will you please help me get to a place of total calm and perfect relaxation and confidence with my singing and speaking, no matter where it is and what the situation is? Thank you in advance for this answer and for helping me to be a conduit for your message with the beautiful talent you have given me.”
Be still and know. There are no mistakes. You cannot make a mistake. How many times do I have to tell you? How many performances does it take to know? I haven’t failed you yet and I never will. I gave you these gifts for a higher reason. Yes, you love singing, but as long as you are singing for you, you will have these fears. Therefore, don’t do it for yourself. Let this be your gift. No matter how long it takes before a performance, go within, be still and know. When you get to a place of total calm in meditation, allow it, be with it, give it plenty of time, then walk onstage and allow me to come through you. I will not leave you. I cannot leave you. You are my child in whom I am well pleased.
(Annie Sims is the Global Director of CWG Advanced Programs, is a Conversations With God Coach and author/instructor of the CWG Online School. To connect with Annie, please email her at Annie@TheGlobalConversation.com
(If you would like a question considered for publication, please submit your request to: Advice@TheGlobalConversation.com where our team is waiting to hear from you.)
The National Rifle Association has just held a press conference at which their top executive said that what American needs right now are more guns, not less, and called for armed guards at every school in the nation. Do you agree?
This is the third in a 4-part series of commentaries on the Connecticut events, and the larger implications of them.
In Part II of this series I made the statement that there is no end to life, and no revenge or punishment (Who would That Which Is punish? Itself? There is nothing else in existence but Itself). There is also no such thing as Right and Wrong, and for the same reason. That Which Is is always That Which Is, and there is nothing else except That Which Is. In other words, nothing stands outside of The All. Nothing stands outside of God.
Because this is true, in Ultimate Reality the conditions of “rightness” and “wrongness” do not exist. There is only what works and what does not work, given what it is that any individual aspect of The One is trying to do. There is no judgment in this matter, there is only the individual assessment of every sentient being as to whether a particular activity, choice, decision, or behavior is producing what that sentient being (or species) intends, wishes and chooses to create.
Applied to the event at Sandy Hook Elementary School — and the shooting events that have occurred since then (there have been 117 gun deaths in the week following the shooting in Connecticut, according to the Twitter feed @GunDeaths) — we see that our present social system is not working.
Actually, nothing is working. Not one of our systems. Not our political systems, not our economic systems, not our ecological systems, not our educational systems, not our social systems, and not our spiritual systems. None of them have produced the outcomes for which we have been yearning. In fact, it’s worse. They have all produced exactly the opposite.
This tells me that the problem in our world today is systemic. It has to do with more than simply our actions. The problem in the world today is not a behavioral problem, it’s a spiritual problem.
One’s behavior and one’s spirituality are not the same thing, of course. The first — hopefully — springs from the second. So if we reflect deeply on the school shooting in Connecticut we see that there is something amiss here that has to do with much more than just the unstable, imbalanced mind of a single individual.
After something as horrific as Sandy Hook, many (especially the NRA) want to say: “Terrible as it is, it is just the out-picturing of one twisted, distorted individual. There’s nothing you can do about that — expect maybe, arm everyone else in the country.”
The National Rifle Association actually has just released a statement at a press conference in Washington saying that “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” and calling for an armed guard to be stationed at every school in America. This, it says, is the solution to gun violence in schools.
The NRA spokesperson said nothing about the solution to gun violence in America away from schools; about gun violence in general. It is too bad he did not, because, as reported by the Internet site Gawker, “While the NRA Was on TV Talking About the Need for More Guns Some Guy Was Walking Up and Down a Road in Pennsylvania Shooting People.”
It’s true. According to a report in the Altoona Mirror: Four people are dead—including the shooter—and three state troopers were injured this morning in a shooting incident in Frankstown Township, Blair County District Attorney Richard Consiglio said. The gunman and two other men and a woman are all dead, Consiglio said.
And so we are faced with the supreme irony: National Rifle Association CEO and executive VP Wayne LaPierre is telling us more guns are needed out there, not less, just moments after — unbeknownst to him — more innocent people two states away were shot by a man running around with a gun.
The challenge here: We just don’t get it. We just don’t get that the problem is not guns. And the problem is not violence. And the problem is not our mental health system. The problem is not a physical problem, it is a spiritual problem. It has to do with what we hold to be true, about ourselves and our world.
Let me give you another example. The online news source Common Dreams reported on Dec. 21 that “We just passed the 333rd consecutive month of global temperatures above the 20th-century average. Climate scientists now say it’s growing worse faster than any of them predicted even a few years ago.”
How is it possible that such a thing is occurring, and nobody in the corridors of real power on this planet is doing anything about it? Further, how is it possible that millions of regular people living their regular lives in the world are not making those in the corridors of power do something about it?
Simple. The “regular people” are not yet affected by it. At least, not enough of them. It is projected that in 20-30 years half the world’s people will be suffering a water shortage. Then there will be some voices raised. Yet what good will that do? Voices are being raised right now about half the world’s people suffering a food shortage. Over 400 children die of starvation every day on Earth. Is the power elite doing anything about it?
Does it matter that there was another killing of a group of innocent people just before that NRA press conference? Or that there have been 117 gun deaths across America since Sandy Hook? Will those in the corridors of power do anything about that?
Not likely. Not unless and until there is a huge shift in our collective consciousness, a huge altering of our collective spiritual reality. Presently, most of the humans on Earth do not believe the first message of Conversations with God, a four-word announcement that, if embraced and placed into social, political, and economic policy, would change the world overnight. That message: We Are All One.
If we implemented this policy this very day, much of what is predicted to become part of our dire future will never happen. If this idea were adopted and embraced as a functioning reality by humanity, much of what is going on right now would never occur again.
But until enough people “get” that what is happening to anyone is happening to everyone, there will never be sufficient energy behind any effort to reform our way of being and our way of living on this planet such that Life Itself suddenly (and at last) begins to make sense.
That’s why I founded Humanity’s Team, a global spiritual activist organization devoted to placing one message before the world — We Are All One — and producing one outcome in our collective experience: a life worthy of a highly evolved species.
There is a way to bring an end to not just the violence in our schools, but the violence in our homes, on our streets, in our politics, the violence that we perpetrate through our global economics, and yes, the psychological, emotional, and even physical violence that too often emerge from those practicing our religions.
We don’t even have to search for that way. We don’t even have to try to figure it out. One way, at least, has been given to us, articulated for us, spelled out as clearly as can be, in the Conversations with God series of books. This may not be the only way. It may not even be a better way. But it is one way that we know can be no worse than what we are doing now (to position it as safely as possible), and that certainly stands a chance of proving itself to be very effective at uplifting our collective life experience.
It is important, I think, that we begin to at least open discussions about this. We need to have conversations ABOUT conversations WITH God. Each of us can engage in this process, creating a Civil Rights Movement for the Soul, freeing humanity at last from the oppression of its belief in a vengeful, violent, and vindictive God, and releasing our species from a global doctrine that creates separation and vicious competition, replacing it, finally, with an ethos of unity and cooperation, understanding and compassion, generosity and love.
This is what it will take to shake the corridors of power. Words are more powerful than any weapon. It was Victor Hugo who famously said: All the armies of the world cannot stop an idea whose time has come. Let’s do what it will take. Join me in this project of Humanity’s Team. In the final installment of this series, I will explain more of what that could “look like.” Stay tuned.
If today was your Birth Day, the first day of your life on earth, knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?
What would you change?
Today, December 21, 2012, may hold significant meaning to you. Or perhaps it may just be like any other day, holding no more meaning or significance other than the fact that it is Friday, marking the end of a long workweek, simply the day before the weekend.
To me, this day represents opportunity. Whether we embrace this day as one of importance or not, the opportunity is still presenting itself to us to create and recreate our idea of who we are according to and in alignment with our next-highest thought and next-highest vision. We can choose to step into that opportunity…or not.
It really is as simple as that.
Perhaps this day is a symbol of the space between “what once was” and “what is yet to come,” a realm where everything is fluid and free, expanding and contracting, undecided and willing, hopeful and perfect….a pristine representation of the Glorious Moment of Now.
Maybe today reflects that moment we experience at the end of our exhale, just before our body begins to inhale another breath, a brief glimpse of nothing needed, nothing wanted…the stillness in our beingness, the peacefulness in our completeness.
Perhaps today will mark the end of life as we know it, but not in the way we have been coerced into believing. Within the space of our next choice, we could put an end to many of the conditions in our world which interfere with each and every person’s ability to experience joy and freedom and love and companionship and prosperity and comfort.
Some people think the opposite of love is hate. However, the opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is indifference. For me, December 21, 2012, symbolizes a return to love, a return to the essence of who we really are.
Am I standing in the light of my own truth?
How am I showing up in my relationships?
Why am I right here…right now?
How may I serve?
This particular date has received a lot of attention, but we don’t have to wait for a particular day or month or year to create change. We can do so within the infinite number of Birth Moments in our lives. As Conversations with God offered to us, “The deepest secret is that life is not a process of discovery, but a process of creation. You are not discovering yourself, but creating yourself anew.”
Birthdays are days to celebrate. And birthdays are often a time to give and receive gifts. So today I celebrate our collective birth and offer my presence as my gift so that each and every person I encounter shall have an opportunity to return to love and to know and experience God.
Happy Birth Day.
(Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor & Administrator of The Global Conversation. She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team atwww.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support. To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.
I am going to use my time in this blog to stray off the topic of addiction and recovery and share my passionate feelings on one aspect of the Newtown tragedy that I feel is not being talked about. I am going to direct my comments specifically at those in the news media, for I see that they have yet again taken to the airwaves with around-the-clock sensationalism. They seize every opportunity to capitalize on ratings without the slightest thought that what they are doing may be setting the wheels in motion for the next big attack.
Last Friday, as word was coming out of what had happened, I found myself in places where people had the news on so they could receive the latest information. Most of the information that came out ended up being incorrect, distorted, and sensationalized. For crying out loud, they didn’t even get the killer’s name right!…the very name that they will use every time there is a horrific event such as this going forward.
Each member of the media wasted no time applying their own agenda to the tragedy: gun control, security measures, mental illness, politics, bullying. The list goes on and on. What was missing? The media never focused on themselves. I am willing to bet that not once have the words “we in the media are a huge part of this problem” been uttered over the airwaves. I will also to go out on a limb and say that that the media would not be willing to admit the possibility that they are urging on the next killing spree by continuously letting us know who the current leader in mass killing is.
There are mentally challenged, socially inept, psychopathic people living in our society, sitting in front of the cable news shows all day and all night while the overly dramatic tones of the newscasters drone on and on about the same topics. Have you noticed that they are on loops? Every hour the same stories over and over, just adding a little more drama disguised as information to keep you sitting in front of the television to get the latest tidbit of misinformation.
These deranged, lonely, isolated people are far too easy prey for the good-looking, intelligent-speaking commentators on the screen. They see their opportunity for fame. They are very aware of the notoriety the other socially disabled psychopaths have received. Every time something like this happens the news networks start blaring the names of the killers at Columbine and Virginia Tech, reminding us what their kill totals where and what the new bar has been raised to. These killers live in infamy due to the media’s unrelenting worship.
Many prominent figures have weighed in on the Newtown massacre, each offering their own solution or thoughts on how we got here and how we can get out. I believe this is a “we” problem — we see this happening, we sit in front of our high-definition televisions and pad the news show ratings, we beg them for more information. Do we really need to know anymore than “a deranged person stormed a school and took the lives of innocent human beings?” We don’t need to know the who, what, where, how, and how many. We just don’t. It does not matter. What matters is it happened. Now we have to decide who we are around it and what we want to do about it, if anything.
I had made a decision a year or so ago to turn off the news. We stopped watching the morning news, nightly news, breaking news, live-team-coverage news, hurricane-watch news, the all of it. The level of peace and serenity I felt increased exponentially. I had had a similar awakening a few years prior to that. I used to be a faithful listener of talk radio. I had the whole day lineup from the morning guy, to the midday guy, to the afternoon-drive guy. I let them have space in my head for free. And by the end of each day, I had the talking points memorized. One by one, it became clear to me that the sounds they were sending my way were not who I was, nor who I wanted to be. When I turned the talk shows off and turned on the sounds that felt more in line with who I was, I found a higher place of beingness. I found that my head became filled with my heart messages and not someone else’s words. I was in control of my beliefs. This is a powerful place, friends. I invite you to join it with me.
Tune out and tune in. You will not be missing anything. You will hear about the important events that happen in the world. You will still have the opportunity to express and declare who you are and what you believe about them. You will actually be much clearer about who that is without all the mis-information the media provides. You can find news outlets that you can regulate. You can stay informed and create your own thoughts and feelings around the information you choose to give priority to.
We do not need the cable news shows telling us what to think and feel. They use fear as a tool to keep people listening. When was the last time the news gave you anything you needed or protected you from harm? Why not turn off the TV and turn on some music that will bring a smile to your lips or a tear to your eye? Let your Soul hear something that welcomes it into your living room.
So this is my soapbox around the Newtown tragedy. What is yours?
(Kevin McCormack is a Conversations with God Life Coach, a Spiritual helper on www.changingchange.net, Addictions recovery advisor. To connect with Kevin please email him at Kevin@theglobalconversation.com)
As I write this column, it’s just hours before the Mayan end of the world prediction is meant to happen, and with my time being short, I’m not taking any chances. I am having some yummy holiday treats to celebrate life…but just in case I make it through, these treats won’t ruin my healthy diet and I can use them all holiday season long!
Here are some treat recipes from my end of the world party that you can enjoy at your holiday events as well!
Enjoy!!
Holiday Oatmeal Cookie
Ingredients:
- 3/4 cup vegan butter (earth balance)
- 1 cup packed coconut sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 cup hemp, almond or coconut milk
- 1 cup oat or almond flour
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp cloves
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg
- 1 cup chopped walnuts
- 1 cup raisins
- 3 cups rolled or quick cooking oatmeal
Preparation:
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Beat together the sugar, butter and vanilla until smooth and fluffy. Add the milk and mix until combined.
Add the flour, baking soda, salt and spices, and stir until well mixed. Add the remaining ingredients. Batter will be very thick.
Drop 3 inch balls onto cookie sheet and flatten slightly. Bake 12-15 minutes, or until done. Cookies will still be slightly soft and chewy. Yum! Enjoy your healthy oatmeal raisin cookies!
Just in case it’s not the end of the world, this Pumpkin Pie recipe is to live for!
Ingredients (makes 2 pies):
8 ounces tofu cream cheese
30 ounces (about 3 3/4 cups) canned Pumpkin Pie Mix
1 1/4 cups soaked raw cashews (soaked overnight in salted water)
3 Tbsp lemon or orange juice
2 tsp cinnamon
2 pie crusts
handful of cashews for garnish
Crust Ingredients:
3 tbsp flax seed meal OR 1.5 tbsp Chia Seed meal
1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp applesauce
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
8 drops vanilla liquid stevia
1 tbsp honey
1/4 cup coconut oil, liquified
1 cup almond meal flour
1/2 cup coconut flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
Filling Ingredients:
2 cups cooked pumpkin
1 cup coconut milk
1/3 cup coconut sugar
1/8 to 1/4 tsp vanilla liquid stevia (one or two droppers-full, or to your taste)
1 tsp vanilla
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
3 tbsp Gelatin that has been completely dissolved into 1/4 cup boiling water
Instructions:
Mix all crust ingredients with a hand mixer. Roll out dough and place in pie pan.
In a blender or food processor, combine all filling ingredients until smooth. Pour into pie shell and refrigerate overnight.
Soak your raw cashews in salted water overnight or at least 6 hours. They should break apart easily and be tender to bite when properly soaked.
Preheat oven to 375.
Drain your nuts and set aside. Also set aside about 15-20 cashews for garnish. Gather all ingredients and set aside as well.
In a food processor, add the cream cheese, pumpkin pie mix (or substitute ingredients), cashews and lemon juice. Blend on high until a creamy mixture is reached. Pulse in additional cinnamon (other spices may be added as well).
Pour your puree into your two pie crusts.
Swirl and smooth top with fork. Dot on cashews around the edge and center as you’d like.
Bake at 375 for 30 minutes. Cool. Place in fridge to firm before serving. Enjoy!
Finally, Guiltless Brownies
1/4 cup Grade B Maple Syrup
1/2 cup Coconut oil
1 tsp Vanilla
2 Eggs
1/2 cup Oat Bran
1/4 cup ground Flax Seed
1/2 cup Dark Cocoa Powder
1/2 tsp Baking Powder (note–>not baking soda)
1 pinch Pink or Sea Salt
2 shakes cinnamon
1/2 cup Unsweetened Applesauce
1/4 cup Unsalted Almond butter
1/2 cup Organic Raisins, Walnuts or/and Coconut flakes
1 cup dark chocolate or carob chips
LOTS of LOVE!
Note: can add 1 ripe banana for extra moist brownies
Heat oven to 350
Mix Maple Syrup, Butter Spread, Vanilla, Eggs, Almond Butter & Applesauce together. Then toss in the raisins/walnuts & 1/2 cup of the carob chips.
In separate bowl, mix dry ingredients; oat bran, baking powder, salt, cocoa, cinnamon, flax, etc.
Then, as guessed, mix dry ingredients into the wet bowl and spread into greased square pan 8x8x2 inch pan, if possible.
Bake for 22 minutes, then turn oven off and add the 2nd half of the carob chips (1/2 cup, although I usually add more) on top of cooked brownies. Close oven and let warm for 1 minute.
Be sure to not leave in too long with chips on top or it will ruin the spread-factor (no fun).
Take out and spread melted carob or dark chocolate chips on top to make icing. Cover to keep moist, then eat when even the slightest bit ready and enjoy!!
Did we survive? Am I in heaven or was it just these treats?!
Well, I hope the fact that you’re reading this means we all survived the end, and I also hope that you have the best holiday season ever. May 2013 be a healthy, happy and prosperous year for you all. Blessings – JR
(J.R. Westen, D.D. is a Holistic Health & Spiritual Counselor who has worked and presented side-by-side with Neale Donald Walsch for over a decade. He is passionate about helping individuals move beyond their emotional and spiritual challenges, transforming breakdowns into breakthroughs. His coaching provides practical wisdom and guidance that can be immediately incorporated to shift one’s experience of life. As is true for most impactful teachers, J.R.’s own struggles and triumphs inspired him to find powerful ways of helping others. Sober since June 1, 1986, J.R.’s passion for helping individuals move through intense life challenges drove him to also specialize in Addiction and Grief Recovery. J.R. currently shares his gift of counseling & coaching with individuals from around the world through the Wellness Center, Simply Vibrant, located on Long Island N.Y. In addition, he works with Escondido Sobering Services and serves on the Board of Directors for the Conversations with God Foundation. He can be contacted at JR@theglobalconversation.com, or to book an appointment, write support@simplyvibrant.com.)
I recently had a BIG ah-ha moment regarding what I want to do with my life, and I’m really excited about it. It was like a light bulb went on in my head, almost like the idea was placed there. However, I am finding that I’m afraid to take the leap at this time due to a number of reasons (time commitment, money, will I even be good at it, etc.) and am wondering if I should wait for a better time. How do I truly know if it’s the right time or even the right choice for that matter?
Nancy, Colorado
Hi Nancy,
I love when that happens! And you described it perfectly, like the idea “was placed there” – and in my humble opinion, Nancy, that’s how you know. When you feel it with such certainty and conviction, when your whole being lights up at the mere thought of it, when it feels like a no-brainer. Only you can answer if it’s the right thing for you to do (and I’m dying to know what “it” is), of course, but the above “symptoms” are great indications that it is. Now, regarding the “timing”: No matter how valid a reason seems to not do something, they are excuses, my friend. The bottom line here is that if there is something you want badly enough, if something is important enough, you can and will make it happen. There are many resources and tools out there to assist you, as well as support from others, but it is up to you to follow through on it, and it takes action on your part. This is a hard concept to swallow for some, because I think in the back of our minds we’re all hoping for that miracle or to be rescued. But the miracle is inside us, it is us.
Furthermore, consider that it isn’t a question of whether this is the right choice or the right time for it, it’s a question of whether or not you want it to be. You get to decide if it is or not, you get to give meaning to it, no one else. And rest assured that whatever you decide, whatever meaning you give this, the Universe will line up to support you. Be easy about things, and trust that.
Two great and powerful questions to ask yourself right now are, “If not you, who? If not now, when?” Some other general things to consider to help you give meaning to this:
~ Check in with yourself to see if this is an inspired action, one that excites you, lights you up, so much so that you actually feel it in your body (heart races, adrenaline pumping, can’t sit still you’re so jazzed). It’s important to be aware of what you uniquely respond to and what works for you, as opposed to what may be right for others.
~ Money is the number one excuse why people don’t follow through with something they want. You already know the financial cost. Now ask yourself, “What is the cost of me not doing this?” This is a great question to ask yourself even when money isn’t involved.
~ Bring the future into the now. Visualize who you will be should you accomplish what you set out to do, and get as detailed as possible. Allow yourself to feel what it’s like to already be there. Hold on to that vision and those feelings to help keep you motivated.
~ When embarking on something new or different in life, fear and discomfort are always present. Change is scary and uncomfortable, and is a natural part of growing yourself and stepping into who you really are. Acknowledge this in the beginning, expect it and embrace it, and it will be easier to move through.
Most of all, Nancy, whatever you decide, trust yourself. Give yourself permission to feel good about it. There is no right answer about anything – there’s only the meaning you give it.
Nova
(Nova Wightman is a CWG Life Coach, as well as the owner and operator of Go Within Life Coaching, www.gowithincoaching.com, specializing in helping individuals blend their spirituality with their humanity in a way that makes life more enjoyable, easy, and fulfilling. She can be reached at Nova@theglobalconversation.com. )
(If you would like a question considered for publication, please submit your request to: Advice@TheGlobalConversation.com, where our team is waiting to hear from you.)
Part One: Sharing Love in Newtown, and Beyond
Last week, an incomprehensible tragedy occurred in Newtown, Connecticut. The effects of this devastating event could not only be felt in the community of Sandy Hook Elementary, but in the hearts and minds of teens all across the nation. I have heard my friends repeatedly ask and wonder, “Why did this happen? What made Adam Lanza do it? How can we stop this from ever happening again?”
Though these questions have no easy answers, we do easily notice that teens don’t want to become a product of their society – we don’t want to align ourselves with a world filled with acts of thoughtless violence. We teens know that life can be so much more than what is now, but most of us just aren’t sure on the way we will achieve it. We want to change the world, but how?
Changing the world sounds like a pretty difficult task, not to mention a HUGE burden of responsibility. But it doesn’t have to be. It CAN be incredibly simple, if we choose it to be. In our first steps towards creating a New Cultural Story, we don’t need to change the world; we just need to change a few things in ourselves. In Conversations With God For Teens, Neale presents the Three Way Path: Have fun. Spread joy. Share love. By just applying these three simple ideas in our own thought, word, and deed, we will bring more change in our world than we could have ever hoped for. By being the embodiment of fun, joy, and love, we can be the change we wish to see in the world.
So, it’s not so tough after all. Teens across the nation are already changing the world, and they are doing it by sharing love with the residents of Newtown. One of the largely unpublished stories of the Sandy Hook Tragedy was a photograph from Reuters from the memorial of a floor-to-ceiling printout entitled “Stay Strong Newtown: 10,000 Teens Send Their Text Messages of Support.” For the single act of violence, 10,000 messages of love, comfort, and empathy were sent by these teens alone. These teens shared love, when love may seem hard to find. For the families involved in the tragedy, they are receiving and feeling that love. And that has made all the difference.
I thank not only those teens, but every teen who has sent their messages of love to a world that so desperately needs more of them in its inbox. Sharing love has shown that our generation truly believes in a new path with a new direction. We just need to forge on.
(Lauren is a Feature Editor of The Global Conversation. She lives in Wood Dale, IL, and can be reached at Lauren@TheGlobalConversation.com)
This is the second in a 4-part series of commentaries on the Connecticut events, and the larger implications of them.
(WARNING: This is not a small subject. Therefore, it may take you as long as 5 minutes to read this full commentary, and perhaps another few moments to offer your own Comment on it, should you choose to offer one (and we hope that you do). In our 120-character, read-it-in-7-seconds Twitter World, only you can decide if this is a worthwhile use of your Mind’s time.)
As I said in Part One of this 4-part series of commentaries, the horrible shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut on Dec. 14 leaves every sensitive, caring, compassionate human being who describes herself or himself as “spiritual” with deep sadness and searing, penetrating, urgent questions.
What is true about God? What is true about Life? What is true about who we are as creatures on the earth calling ourselves sentient beings? Is there a purpose and a meaning to all of this?
I believe that yes, there is a meaning and a purpose to it all that is going on during this time of turmoil on our planet. Conversations with God had caused me to believe there is a reason and a purpose to all of life, exactly as it is occurring. I’d like to explain that…but first, a word to the grieving and to those left wondering about the big questions of life in the aftermath of the school massacre at Newtown…
What is true about God is that God is real, God exists, and God is both the source and the essence of all the compassion, love, understanding, and wisdom in the Universe.
What God is not is what may be even more meaningful. My clarity and my understanding is that God is not what many — so very many — have said that God is. God is not a despot. God is not a punisher. God is not a vengeful, angry Super Being who needs certain things to occur in the Universe in order to be pleased.
God is not angry with us, and God does not become “angry.”
God is the essence of Life Itself, the Original Energy, the Prime Source, the Creator and the Created. God has bestowed upon everything God created the gift of Free Will. This means that there can be no punishment for anyone or anything, otherwise the idea of “free will” would be a sham, a fraud, a counterfeit notion. What “will” is “free” if it can and must only do what God wants or it will fry in hell in eternal damnation? That is not “free will,” that is “choice by coercion.” That is “decision by intimidation.” Under the legal system of most countries such “free will” would be called “duress.”
So we know that God is an all-loving, non-judgmental, non-avenging Deity. What, then, is true about Life? Is there no justice? Is there no system of Right and Wrong? Do people such as mass murderers simply go unpunished? And what is the point of Life Itself? Why are we here, and how are we expected to know how to act, how to behave with one another, if there is no moral law, no code of ethics — and no punishment even if there was one?
Okay, one thing at a time.
What is true about Life is that it is an ongoing, never-ending process, not a one-time experience. It is an expression of the Essential Essence, or, if you please, an out-picturing of God in physical form.
The point of Life is to give That Which Is (an energy or essence that I call “God” and that others call, variously, Adonai, Akshar, Allah, Brahman, Brahma, Deus, Divinity, Divine Mother, Ekankar, Elohim, God, Hari, Indra, Jehovah, Krishna, Lord, Mahesh, Manitou, Ormuzd, Parameshwar, Purush, Purushottam, Radha Soami, Ram, Rama, Theos, Thor, Varuna, Vishnu, or Yahweh, depending on their culture, background, belief or religion) a means by which to experience Itself in fullness.
Because there is no end to life, and no revenge or punishment (Who would That Which Is punish? Itself? There is nothing else in existence but Itself.), there is no such thing as Right and Wrong. There is only what works and what does not work, given what it is one is trying to do. There is no judgment in this matter, there is only the individual assessment of every sentient being as to whether a particular activity, choice, decision, or behavior is producing what that sentient being (or, it the case of Earth, our species) intends and chooses to create.
Having said all of that, I think it is important at this time of national mourning and global self-reflection not to fill the air with too many articulations of fine print regarding the esoterics of life. So I will stop with this for now, and say simply that God may be called on in this moment to bring all of us wisdom and clarity, understanding and compassion, healing and even an eventual return to joy.
I have been told in the dialogue published under the title HOME WITH GOD in a Life That Never Ends that no death is ever in vain. Every life and every death has an impact upon, and a deep meaning for, every person who has come to know of it. That is why they have come to know of it.
It turns out that Life is a process that informs Life about Life through the process of Life Itself. And so, everything that happens, happens for a reason, for a purpose. Its purpose is to inform All That Lives about how that living is being done — and then to give All That Lives another chance, another opportunity in an eternity of opportunities, to change that; to make whatever alterations in Its experience of Itself that All That Lives may decide is desirable.
It is for this reason that no part or aspect or individuation of All That Lives would or ever could be punished for doing what it has done, or for playing the role it has played, in the larger process of Life informing Life about Life through the process of Life Itself. Life will not punish Itself for telling Itself about Itself through the expression of Itself. That would be Self-defeating.
It is for this reason that Conversations with God observed that even Hitler went to heaven. First, there is no place but “heaven,” since everything and everywhere is the “Kingdom of God.” Second, there would be no reason to punish Hitler or anyone else for behaving in a way that told us about ourselves collectively, such that we made alterations in the way that we continue to express Life in us, through us, and as us. (Unless we do not. Whether we change our behaviors based on past behaviors is up to us. Will we do so now, in the aftermath of Connecticut? That is the question, isn’t it. Will we, for instance, do something about taking assault rifles off the streets, and big-load ammunition clips out of the hands of people who simply don’t need them?)
Some Souls take on the task of teaching us about ourselves and about where our individual and collective behaviors are leading us. They do so in ways that we call both horrible and heroic. Hitler was such a Soul, and we called him horrible. The children of Connecticut and the courageous adults who died trying to save them were such Souls, and we shall call them heroes.
There have been others, both positive and negative (as humans would label them). The same is true of events, in the abstract. There are both positive and negative events, and all are designed to teach us about ourselves. Or, more accurately, to remind us of who we really are, and to produce a contextual field within which we can express and experience that — and then, enlarge that by recreating ourselves anew in the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever we held about Who We Are.
Within this context, in the eyes of God all Souls are sacred and all Souls are what we would call “heroes,” for the very act of entering into, and living within, the Realm of the Physical is an act of faith and courage — qualities of Divinity that life in physical form will call upon us to call forth and to demonstrate again and again, in ways large and small, throughout our experience on Earth.
Physical life is also a great joy, and thus, an unspeakable blessing. Yet here is a great secret: It takes bravery to experience joy. And the greatest joy, which is the experience of Divinity Fully Expressed in you — requires the greatest courage.
We see then that all Souls are acting at all times in service to The Whole. We each receive the invitation to carry for humanity the totality of its experience. Its pains, its sorrows, and the burdens of unknowing; its joys, its wonders; and the glories of knowing its Divinity. For it is the purpose of The Whole — that is, of Every Soul in Community — to know Itself, to experience Itself, and to be Itself through the expression of Itself in every conceivable form.
I know that it is expected and perhaps even trite to say that the Souls who left physicality on Dec. 14 at Sandy Hook Elementary School did not die in vain — but it is profoundly true. Their death is intended to awaken us, to show us many things about ourselves, so that we may decide many things about ourselves, thus to expand our experience of many things about ourselves. We fall to our knees not in sadness, then, but in honoring and in gratitude, as we see that the Souls of Sandy Hook celebrated their Continuation Day through the highest demonstration that physical life can offer of the meaning of love. For greater love hath no Soul than to give up a physical life that another may have theirs in greater knowing, abundance and expression.
And so now, may you know and experience Divinity Expressed, with God’s Blessings flowing to you and through you all the days of your life, in tribute to those who have given all of humanity this opportunity.
With love and caring eternal…Neale.
ON THE FACEBOOK PLATFORM there is an excerpt-by-excerpt posting of The Only Thing That Matters, the newest book in the Conversations with God cosmology. Here is the latest of those entries…
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It is time now to enter into deep, honest, self-examination…I need to ask myself some questions. Some important, even pointed, questions:
Are my minutes fulfilling? Are my hours ringing with satisfaction? Are my days overflowing with contentment? Are my weeks and months teeming with accomplishment of my Soul’s agenda?
Are my years brimming with spiritual radiance and soulful, Divine expression and experience? Or do I awaken on milestone days—birthdays, anniversaries, times of celebration—with a vague feeling of how fast time is passing and how slowly I have progressed at what I came here to accomplish—and how difficult it is to accomplish it . . . ?
For that matter, have I always been clear that there is something specific that I came here to accomplish? If so, have I known exactly what that is?
I guess I should not be surprised or embarrassed if I have not. It turns out that 98% of the world’s people do not. And it’s not their fault. And it’s not my fault if I find myself even now, at least from time to time, among them. Because nobody told them, and nobody told me, what really matters.
Oh, they’ve tried to tell us. Some people have tried to convince us. And many, many of us listened to those people, because to know something for certain—as religions and politics allow us to think that we do—feels better than to not know.
But the more I listened the more I knew that what others were “buying into” of what still others were telling them couldn’t possibly be true. So I moved away from all of their agendas. I may not have known where I was going, but I knew what I wanted to get away from.
The result is that I am spending less time these days in that larger group. And right now I am not even in it . . . or I would never have this book in my hand. It is wonderful that I am not among that 98% now, and that I spend less and less time there, because there’s nothing worse than spending most of one’s life on things that just simply don’t matter.
No, wait, yes there is. It would be worse to not know what does matter. It would be worse to not know that what I am doing here is taking a Sacred Journey, fulfilling a Divine Purpose.
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All of the excerpts so far posted on Facebook may be accessed here.
