REGARDING ABORTION: What is the spiritual value we are invited to honor?

There has been quite a remarkable discussion taking place both on the personal Facebook page of Neale Donald Walsch, and in the Comments postings beneath the current Headline Story here on this newspaper page. The discussion now moves to this Question of the Week space.

The Question This Week: What are the spiritual ramifications of the abortion issue…and can humanity agree on a resolution of this major social issue that so divides America, and much of the world?

We begin the discussion with a re-posting of the exchange between Ronald Moore and Neale Donald Walsch found in the string under the headline story. We invite Mr. Walsch’s Facebook audience to join in this discussion…

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

  Comment by Ronald Moore on October 22, 2012 at 1:35 am

  1. We are truly far from the ideal world of CWG right now and we have a long journey yet till we are there. We are free to make or own decisions with the knowledge that those have consequences. This subject would not be so difficult if it was anything but babies. Aren’t we supposed to be more compassionate towards the most defenseless of us all? It becomes more murkier when you see that the vast majority of these procedures have absolutely nothing to do with the safety of the pregnant woman. There is no easy answer, I certainly as a man don’t have the answer. What might help us is that we just be honest about this and stop all the lies. The truth will set us free and yes sometimes the truth hurts.

    POSTING FROM NEALE DONALD WALSCH IN RESPONSE…

    1. Comment by Neale Donald Walsch on October 22, 2012 at 8:03 am Edit

      Dear Ronald Moore…Now we are getting somewhere. You have said, “It becomes murkier when you see that the vast majority of these procedures have absolutely nothing to do with the safety of the pregnant woman.”

      I agree. I think we can all agree, on both sides of this question, that the statistics clearly show this.

      Ronald, you have also said: “There is no easy answer, I certainly as a man don’t have the answer. What might help us is that we just be honest about this and stop all the lies. The truth will set us free and yes sometimes the truth hurts.”

      I agree again. There IS no “easy answer.” But we might start with a “truth that hurts.” If we come from a new and larger understanding of Life, and what is really “so” about Life, we might find many of our internal conflicts disappearing.

      CWG has been contending for nearly two decades now that the problem facing humanity is a spiritual problem. There is something that we don’t understand about God and about Life, the understanding of which would change everything. Let’s start there…

      One thing we don’t understand about Life is that it is eternal. Your Soul always was, is now, and always will be. It has been, and will be, forever, and even forever more. It has lived many so-called “lives,” or physical incarnations. This is true of the Souls of all living beings.

      The key spiritual question here then becomes: Is this true also of the Soul of a fetus? If it is, then the question of “murder” is off the table in the abortion issue. And, for that matter, in all human affairs. The question in all human affairs becomes: What is the purpose of the Tri-Part Being that we call humans (Body/Mind/Spirit) coming into physical form in any particular lifetime? Does the Soul get only one lifetime to complete its purpose? Does it get any finite number of lifetimes? Or does it get an endless number of lifetimes, an infinite number, using All of Eternity to experience what it was designed by God to experience?

      And what, pray tell, is that?

      These are the difficult questions that true spiritual investigation must explore. And these questions confound the Mind, because the Mind is working with extraordinarily limited data—and inaccurate limited data at that: The inaccurate data given to us by human religions. Well intentioned religions, let us make it clear, but religions whose understanding is just as limited as that of human individuals. The problem: we are dealing here with incomplete data.

      Human religions would have us believe, for instance, that the Soul lives One Lifetime, and that is that. This places the question of abortion—and all human interaction, for that matter—within an extraordinarily limited context. Is it okay to end the Singular Life of A Soul using the death penalty, but not okay to do so using abortion? And what, exactly, makes one action perfectly okay, while another is not?

      Ah!, we say…because we have found the criminal “guilty,” while the fetus is “innocent.” So WE get to “play God” and decide (and we’d better be Right in every case about this) who is “guilty” and who is not. But in terms of a fetus we know for certain that it is innocent, and should therefore be granted physical life under every circumstance, without question.

      Yet when we discuss things at this level, we are not talking about the level of Soul. We are talking about the level of physical being. The Soul of the criminal may or may not be “guilty.” We say that is up to God to decide. It is not ours to judge. God will make that judgment. Some people have killed others with what they felt was “good reason”. So we let God be the judge. We only kill those who WE think we have “good reason” to kill. If THEY thought THAT had “good reason” to kill, and if we don’t agree, we kill them for that. But we can only deal with the physical, and we have to let God deal with the spiritual. We’ll deal with the bodily issues and let God deal with the Soul-level issues.

      Yet if that gives us the “right” to terminate the life of a cellular physical mass that call call a fully grown adult — through the death penalty, for instance (to speak nothing of what we call our “justified” wars) — why would it not give a woman the “right” to terminate the life of a cellular physical mass the size of a small coin, that we call a fetus?

      In both cases, are not the spiritual matters the purview of God? Yes, but we have that question of Guilt and Innocence once again. But have we not said here that many innocent people have been killed in wars that some humans felt were nevertheless justified? And have not innocent people been killed using the death penalty that some people felt was nevertheless justified? Could not both have been “mistakes”?

      You see, the whole of human affairs becomes very complicated when we consider its complexities within the context of what we imagine ourselves to know about Life Itself. Yet what if there was something we do not KNOW about God and about Life, the knowing of which would change everything? What is life was eternal, and you could not “terminate” the “life” of any Soul, no matter how hard you tried? And what if there was no such place as “hell,” and that even Hitler went to heaven — as Conversations with God says? What if there is more to this whole process of Life on Earth than meets the eye? What if we are trying to put a puzzle together with half the pieces missing?

      NOW we are talking. Care to have THAT discussion?

      If so, use the Comment Section beneath this post.

Comments

29 responses to “”

  1. Michael L Avatar
    Michael L

    Two questions please,

    What would love do now? That is really the only question I need answered.

    Indeed, Michael. I agree with you. What would love do now…for the woman who unwillingly conceives as a result of rape or incest? For the woman whose physical life is threatened by her pregnancy? For the woman whose physical life is not threatened, but whose health and quality of life is deeply impaired by an unexpected, unwanted pregnancy?

    Moreover, who should make that decision, Michael, in the name of love? The government, or the woman in question? That is the issue here, being considered within a spiritual context as it relates to The New Spirituality. Conversations with God says that “freedom” is the ultimate expression of Divinity. I do not see how, within that context, any action by any government that takes away any woman’s right to choose, can be embraced or endorsed by any spiritually aware person.

    (What if life was eternal, and you could not “terminate” the “life” of any Soul, no matter how hard you tried?)

    So one step further….those aborted souls came to the physical to be aborted. What are they creating with that energy?

    It is not my understanding that Predestination is the state of things in Ultimate Reality. Therefore it could not be said that “souls came to the physical to be aborted.” What could be said is that Souls make a Free Will decision, in collaboration with the Soul of the mother, to create the termination of its present physicalization. This decision would be in service to the agenda of both Souls.

    As to what “they are creating with that energy,” we cannot know, Michael. We cannot know the Sacred Journey of another. The most we can do is speculate. And, of course, every instance will be different. In one case, we can speculate that what the two Souls are “creating with that energy” might be an opportunity for the mother to remember and experience a very high level of Forgiveness Foregone (the wonderful experience and gift discussed at some length in the book The Only Thing That Matters). In this experience, a Soul remembers Forgiveness (for Self and others), and then remembers that Forgiveness is not even necessary, and not any part of the Kingdom of God, but is replaced with Understanding. Thus: Forgiveness Forgone.

    Yet we cannot know the agenda of any individual Soul. We can only know the response and the reaction of God: Always and only Total Understanding, Complete Compassion, and Unconditional Love. AND….the giving and presenting to the Soul of another opportunity—and another, and another, one after the other in Reliable Repetition—to express and experience any and every aspect of Divinity. For this is the purpose of all of Life.

  2. Margaret Anne Avatar
    Margaret Anne

    Even if there is reincarnation, even if that concept is a reality, which no one can prove, I do not believe for one nano second that this gives anyone the “right” to terminate a life form that God has willed to be in existence. I do not believe in any life being termed an “accident” because i believe every life has a purpose and a plan. I don’t know about the reincarnation thing but i also do not believe this concept, real or imagined, should have any basis when deciding on whether or not a “fetus” also known as “small one” should be given the right to live or not. OF COURSE we all are given such rights!!

    I agree. And we all have the “right” (I would choose to use the word “opportunity” or “invitation”, rather than “right”, when speaking of the experience of the Soul) to choose to move our experience of Life from the Physical Realm to the Spiritual Realm (or, as humans would term it, to “live” or to “die”). In other words, a Soul may choose to return to the Spiritual Realm to serve its own agenda and the agenda of the mother who gave its physical body birth. This choice is always made in collaboration with the mother.

    The book HOME WITH GOD in a Life That Never Ends tells us that no Soul ever “dies,” and that no Soul ever leaves the physical plane at a time or in a way that is not of its choosing. The difficulty that most human beings have with the present question is that most human beings believe that something can happen to a Soul that the Soul does not choose to have happen. Yet such a thing is impossible, given the nature and the identity of the Soul.

    If we accept as a matter of spiritual truth that all Souls are aspects, individuations, and singular Expressions of Divinity, to whom and through whom nothing that It does not choose can happen, then the matter in question must be considered within a whole new context. Namely: Why would a Soul actively choose to have a particular physicalization terminated? That is something that only an individual Soul can know. Yet if we accept as a matter of spiritual truth that the Soul of a newborn human (as opposed to the Soul of an adult human) is powerless in human affairs and therefore can have things happen TO it that it does not choose, then we have a different discussion altogether.

    For that matter, if we hold that even the Soul of an adult human being is not responsible at some creative level for all that it is experiencing (including the timing and the manner of its departure from physicalization, or what we commonly call “death”), then we must conclude that all of Life On Earth is a victimization of sorts, in which the Soul has no complicit or explicit role.

    The latter view is the understanding and the teaching of most of the world’s religions. It is the holding of this teaching as Truth that is the cause of most of the world’s problems.

    The moment that we accept that the Soul is not powerless, but powerFUL, in that moment we begin to admit to the possibility that we are creating our own reality here on Earth–co-jointly with all other souls. In THAT moment we face an incredibly impactful question: At what POINT does the Soul gain the ability to control and create its own experience? At birth? Before birth? At a certain point in “time” after birth?

    These are the questions of Deep Theology that few people considering the issue of abortion have explored or faced. Yet not to do so is to consider the abortion question (and ALL questions about our lives) with the thinnest and tiniest spiritual, philosophical, and intellectual muscle of our Mind. (To say nothing of any access to the wisdom of our Soul.)

    Our country has become quite barbaric and heartless. Babies in the womb feel PAIN and i believe it has been proven that they can feel this pain by 6 weeks gestation, which is when most women discover they are pregnant and when some abortions take place.

    I am not sure where you have gathered this information, but it does not appear to be from medical science. Most encyclopedias inform us that the fetal stage commences at the beginning of the 9th week. The heart, hands, feet, brain and other organs are present, but are only at the beginning of development and have minimal operation. Fetuses are not capable of feeling pain at the beginning of the fetal stage, and may not be able to feel pain until the third trimester. At this point in development, uncontrolled movements and twitches occur as muscles, the brain and pathways begin to develop.

    This does not “argue” for abortion, it simple sets the record straight with regard to your statement, above. If you can cite medical or scientific statements that “babies” in the womb feel pain at 6 weeks, if would be extremely helpful if you could give us a reference. While the word “baby” carries significantly greater emotional impact that the word “fetus”, I understand that at six weeks we are discussing a small mass of cellular tissue that at no level and in no way is functioning as a human being—not even a “baby” human being. If my understanding is incorrect, please offer me a correction.

    I am not a judge without experience. I myself was forced into two abortions when i was younger and it traumatized me. Abortion does not just end the life of a child. It can end or severely damage the emotional, spiritual and physical life of WOMEN. America must wake up to this issue, i believe. And for those who would say i have “no right” to make a judgment, having had abortions myself, i would have to say, “experience is the greatest teacher.” You can no longer call infanticide, in utero or outside (as done in partial birth abortions) a “choice”. It’s murder, plain and simple. No less so than any other murder.

    Dear Friend, Margaret Anne…While I deeply respect and honor your point of view, it is not my understanding that terminating the physicalization of a small cellular tissue mass, without function, awareness, or feeling sensation of any kind, is what humans refer to as “murder.” My sadness, however, is that many of the people who do call this “murder” think nothing at all of terminating the physicalization of the cellular mass of a fully grown human being, which does have function, awareness, and feeling, through the procedure known as the Death Penalty.

    Now I know that you, Margaret Ann, did not bring up the Death Penalty, but I am introducing it here as you did bring up the word “murder,” and if we are being asked to consider the termination of a pregnancy in that context, I believe it is fair to place that context over other areas of discussion regarding commonly accepted human behaviors, yes? — NDW

  3. Judith Avatar
    Judith

    Neale,
    thank you for creating a space for this conversation …. i am grateful for
    your response … sometimes i need to stop and re read again and again to gain understanding …. i am stumped in a few directions … how about the 10 Commandments ? why then were they given ? why then commanded not to ‘kill’ … i do not believe in the death penalty, or abortion … Neale, doesn’t a civilized society need to have boundaries and rules …. guidelines … what then the lesson of the forbidden fruit … for our own good ? oh Neale … thank you for being here … love to you and yours
    judith

    Here are the answers to your questions, Judith, as I understand them: (1) Conversations with God tells us there is no such thing as The Ten Commandments. Who would Got “command,” since their is naught but God? And who would God punish if God’s commandments to Itself were not kept? CWG says there are no “commandments,” only ten Commitments. These are promises made by God in answer to the plea of Moses, who pleaded: “Tell us Lord, what is the true way back to you? Give us signs, we beg you, so that we may know of a certainty that we are on the path.”

    And so God said to Moses,”These signs, those road markings, I will give you. You will know that you are on the True Path back to God, because when you are walking the Path of Divinity, you shall not have strange gods before me. You shall honor your father and your mother. You shall not steal. You certainly shall not kill. You simply won’t when you are ‘on the path.’ You allowed yourself to hear these statements as ‘commandments,’ but they were not. They were my Commitments to you: By these signs will you recognize–that is, re-cognize…that is, ‘know again’–that you are on the path. Look for these behaviors in you. They will be your sure and certain sign. You cannot do other things when you are on the path to God. It would feel utterly unnatural for you to do so. It would be virtually impossible.”

    To answer your next question, Judith…yes, a civilized society does need boundaries and rules, guidelines, etc., if only to keep track of where everyone is going. But in highly evolved societies, Judith, these boundaries and guidelines never have to be forced upon people. The beings in such a society are completely self-regulating.

    At present, such a thing on Earth would be impossible. Our civilization here is not very evolved, my friend. We are actually infants among the sentient beings of the cosmos. So the “lesson of the forbidden fruit” is a little hint from God and God’s teachers about what works and what doesn’t work, given what it is we are trying to do on this planet. Unfortunately, we’re not paying much attention to that. But we will, Judith, we will. Very soon now, we will be paying a great deal more attention to what works and what does not. You watch.

    Thanks for asking your questions. All good thoughts…Neale.

    Love to you…Neale.

  4. John Holloway Avatar
    John Holloway

    first, if there is a god, it does not judge. Man judges. If we as a society want to stop the perceived need for abortion we must also have the courage to take on all of the religions that also condemn any form of birth control in the name of this same god.

    A particularly interesting comment, John. Let’s all of us take a look at this. Because you are right. The Most Holy Roman Catholic Church for centuries did not allow the use of contraceptives, at the same time condemning abortion. The original purpose of these twin denunciations, of course, was to grow the church. The idea was to make it what is has, fact, become: the largest single denomination of any organized religion in the world.

    I’m not sure what the church’s official stance on contraceptives is now, but I do know that the time has come to change many of the things we believe in this society if we are to save it. We cannot afford, as a species, to continue producing more and more offspring. We need to produce less. The Catholic Church suggests that humans use the practice of Abstaining from sex as a means of producing fewer children. That, of course, is against the very nature of our human beings. So we continue to have sex, we continue to produce babies, and we continue to drive ourselves and our civilization to the brink of its own self-destruction through over-population and the non-sustainable demands that it is placing on our ecosystem.

    Yes, John, we must have the courage to “take on” any philosophy or religion which would make it more and more difficult to meet the goals of population control. I agree with you.

    Hugs…Neale.

  5. Link Avatar
    Link

    The thing that stumps me about the people that care so deeply about these unborn babies, is that they care about the unborn baby more than they care about the child once it is alive. Perhaps if America was a socialist country, then we could discuss further the topic of taking care of these births ‘planned’ by ‘god’. Who do you suggest takes care of the extra millions of children born into the world, unplanned, by underage, under-educated, single and many times poor women? Thankfully, at this time women still have the option to end an unwanted pregnancy and continue growing and living. Hopefully seeking and gaining the knowledge they need in order to bring a child into the world when they are emotionally and physically ready to do so.

    Of course it would be wonderful if we didn’t get pregnant in the first place. But I can speak from personal experience of having an abortion myself, over 15 years ago, that I am very thankful that I did. Note: I was taking birth control at the time. I was not emotionally or physically damaged in anyway whatsoever by the procedure. I have not regretted it for one moment. I was not ready, my life was unsettled and it would have been a complete disaster.

    I think the big difference with my situation and the woman speaking above, who was ‘forced’ to have an abortion. Which is a heartbreaking thing to hear, is that I made the CHOICE myself. This is a big difference. Of course you were scarred emotionally, you were FORCED to do something you didn’t want to do. Just as I would be emotionally scarred if I was FORCED to have a child I didn’t want and wasn’t ready for. It isn’t the abortion that scarred you, it is the situation that you were in, the lack of CHOICE. I think that is a very important distinction.

    Beyond the spiritual questions discussed here, there is a reality to deal with. There are already too many people on this planet with the pregnancy and growth rates we have in the world, we already have a problem of over-population. The idea that abortion is some terrible sin that ‘god’ has an issue with, is naive. Bringing a child into a world, where it cannot be supported and brought up in a vibrant environment, where it cannot evolve into an intelligent human being, is much worse, it is cruel.

    Thank you Neale for opening up this important discussion.

  6. mewabe Avatar
    mewabe

    I understand the need to talk about abortion, because of the way it is connected to religious beliefs and addresses how we all perceive life, freedom, etc…

    But in the spirit of the interconnectedness of all life, let me bring up something else: will we still be busy talking about abortion when the planetary ecosystems collapse? (I mean to say when, not if, because unless we all act today, some systems will collapse).

    I just looked at a book, Earth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet…which lists the environmental problems we are facing, or rather are not facing, in gruesome details. The list is long and daunting, yet the entire world seems to be in a state of denial.

    Are we to respect and nurture all life, or only human life? Religious individuals (specifically Christians, Muslims, Jews) rarely address the life of the planet…only human life. This is why we have a national debate about abortion and not about the effects of global warming, the oceans dying, etc…

    How long will it take for humanity to understand that it is as much an illusion to believe in a separation from the divine as it is to believe that we are separate from nature? Nature is our life, in the physical…the earth gives us and sustains our bodies…without the earth, no physical bodies, whether babies or adults.

    There is an urgency, an emergency…our collective backside is on fire, and we don’t even know it! This emergency is completely, utterly ignored by most, including politicians and religious leaders. How can this be?

    We will have a rude awakening, but why is it that humanity cannot learn, cannot grow outside of a crisis?

  7. Buzz Avatar
    Buzz

    Hello everyone! May I put forward an opinion?

    Firstly, I need to recall your attention to the illusion of reality. It is where we exist, and it allows this conversation to occur. Without reality, God could not experience the individuations of itself interacting. Separation and uniqueness from God is illusory and necessary. We are all one, and we appear different from each other. The other catch phrases by Neale apply too: there’s enough and it must be controlled and carefully distributed because otherwise there wouldn’t be enough; there’s nothing we have to do, but in order to continue living you have to breath, drink, eat, sleep, etc., and in order to express yourself you must interact. The illusion is so convincing, our uniqueness so obvious, what would drive a rational person to question it, yet we must. And that’s not all.

      Secondly, Our old cultural story has been trying to develop rules and codes of conduct that apply to everyone since tribal times. It’s easier this way. We can then mass disseminate those rules to the populous, and teach those rules to teachers, who then teach our young. As a result our world is overflowing with people trying to tell each other how to behave, from street signs to every company and organisation creating a 50 page long list of terms and conditions.  

    In tribal times, every instance where someone felt something unfair had transpired, elders would be called on to understand the situation and correct the conflict. Every single instance. Ever since modern civilization, when our tribes became villages then towns then cities, we have tried to apply short cuts to this process for expediency. We would record the circumstances and response judgements of similar circumstances and bundle them together.

    Now take a moment and put these three paragraphs on the illusion and our rules together in your mind. I’d bet many still are thinking that if we can wake people up from the illusion, and come from the place of “What would Love do now?”, many problems would disappear, including most of the conflict that the rules are there to quell, and you’re all correct. However, I want to call to your attention a secondary, supporting, complimentary solution.

      If our legal, cultural, religious and spiritual systems could borrow a page from our Old Tribal Story, and applied it to our New Cultural Story, we could negate the power and influence that all the rules from our Old Cultural Story has created. Everything from the 10 Commandments to the operating Ts&Cs for your new smart phone would seem irrelevant. Remember WECCE? Our ability to adapt is the only factor that shows evidence that life wants to continue, yet rules are not supposed to change. Laws like gravity are by definition reliable constants, and we mirror our religious, civil and criminal laws on that principle.

    What if laws were fluid, open to interpretation by definition, and enforced based on what works versus what doesn’t work depending on where we agree we want to go, rather than taken literally. What if the letter of the law was written as a parable, a collection of metaphorical stories that each conveys a principle, just as children have been learning fairy tales since prehistoric tribal times. What if issues like abortion and the death penalty and collateral damage in war were dealt with openly, transparently, and very publicly in every single instance. At least we’d have a lot more to talk about, no one would feel left out, and people would be forced to decide where to place their attention. This would automatically eliminate a large percentage of frivolous claims by people who seek attention by making a whole lot out of nothing. They would be laughed at. Abuse would be much harder to hide when placed in the spotlight. Every second of every day every conscious person would decide what is important to them in the moment, ignoring everything and everyone else. An explosion of awareness would result, time would cease to exist, and the only reality left would be Here And Now!

    Blessed be loved one,
    Buzz

  8. Buzz Avatar
    Buzz

    OMG Mewabe,
    Finally there is someone other than I that fully understands this, and grasps the importance and urgency of our ecological situation. I’ve been under pressure from knowing this since I could read. I saw this issue developing in the first memories I have as a child (yes, literally that far back!) I have taken some very extreme efforts to call people’s attention to it over the years, yet people are so happy in their comfort zone and I’ve found they actually take measures to avoid paying attention to the message by any means necessary. Yes any means. My life has been threatened more than once if I didn’t stop bringing their attention to this threat alone.

    Denial is a powerful river in Egypt. When you’re on it, survival comes first, and keeping the journey going comes second. The idiots on the shore waving signs are ignored, even when they say:

    WATERFALL AHEAD!!

  9. mewabe Avatar
    mewabe

    See Buzz, we can agree! (not that we have to, you know we can respectfully disagree or agree on anything…)

    This has also been my number one focus, for as long as I can remember. Well, we have to keep speaking out, putting the message out there, keep taking action as if we thought it mattered or made a difference, because it does even though we may think it does not (the problems appearing to be so huge and overwhelming, and the world being so deeply asleep it looks like a collective coma).

  10. Buzz Avatar
    Buzz

    Mewabe,
    Please go back to the last “Question Of The Week” to understand the significance of this answer: I agree with all of that.

    My whole life I have been in confrontation with people, especially my parents. I have come to expect that everyone thinks differently to me, and that my point of view is unique. I am growing my consciousness so fast I feel all alone at th front of the Gaussian (bell) Curve of human evolution. When I find someone to agree with, I lose their company because they see me as clingy, when I’m just desperate for company. In response to this I’ve tried devolving, until I realised the experience of trying evolved me even further out in front. Every action moves me forward. So I tried restricting interactivity to slow my personal growth, but this made me feel even more alone. I don’t know who I am, where I am, why I am where I am, or what I intend to do about it. I have no answers because I am the truly great explorer, navigating uncharted territories. And there is no one alive who can help me because my awareness is unique, my experience unique, my journey unique. I am alone with God.

    Footprints In The Sand: “… what about those bits where there is only one set of footprints?” I asked. And God simply replied “That was where I carried you.”

    Oh how many times I have been carried, not knowing which way to go, I have lost count. Is it dozens or thousands I cannot say, but this I am sure: without that, I would have performed euthanasia on myself decades ago, and many times since.

  11. Buzz Avatar
    Buzz

    As to our consciousness, and the possibility of having experiences beyond the physical, it doesn’t make logical sense to me, but I’m open to discussing it.

    God created the physical universe in order to experience itself. Several NDW books state this in different ways. If God were able to experience interaction with itself individuated, why bother with the physical stuff? Remember the parable of The Little Soul And The Sun? The Little Soul knew itself as different from Sun by moving into the dark. The darkness is a metaphor for physical manifestation, the Sun is God. Only by being physical can we experience separation and differentiation from God and each other.

    I feel this to be true as much as it makes sense to my mind. It has closed a chapter of the great lecture of life, and now the floor is open for questions, comments, arguments, and even irrationalities. I am entitled to say “That’s totally full of BS” and stay in denial indefinitely without harming anyone but myself. I can choose that and so may you, and you, and Neale, and the whole planet. This is my truth.

  12. mewabe Avatar
    mewabe

    Thanks Buzz for sharing more of who you are, now I have the beginning of a better understanding.
    I have to go away for a few days to attend to family matters but I will be back.

    Just a quick note: I understand what you said about God creating the physical universe to experience itself…yet, could you consider the possibility that what some call the ethereal body, or light body, or spirit form, or individual soul (or any other name describing a non physical individuation of consciousness through which we still experience being) is still a distinct creation, distinct from God, the absolute, the source of all, and therefore still part of God’s creation aimed at God experiencing itself?

    I have to go, will read the reply when I come back at the end of the week…

  13. Buzz Avatar
    Buzz

    You’ve used a lot of synonyms, but I don’t understand the question. Have fun travelling. Later.

  14. Buzz Avatar
    Buzz

    Say you have a beautiful cake (God). If your cut a slice out of the cake and remove it, both the cake and the slice are still called cake (God), but you’ve created something new called ” A piece of cake” (a soul). If the slice is returned to the cake, the slice Is both a slice and a part of the whole. Actually the slice never stopped being part of the whole, there was just the illusion of separation. The slice is unique, as there is no slice identical to it, but it is the same as any other part of the cake in ingredients and appearance. God is the entire cake, and all the pieces, and can create new pieces of itself by dividing pieces up into smaller, slightly different pieces, but regardless of how many times the cake is cut up, it is all still cake. Only through the cake being consumed does it fulfill its function and create experience of being eaten. Only by taking on physical form can a soul express its desire and experience its function, which is to experience interactivity with what it is not: everything other than cake.

  15. Love Montes Avatar
    Love Montes

    I really want to know more about this. I’m really to KNOW !!

  16. Marko Avatar
    Marko

    The question comes down to, what animates, sustains & gives life to the body? When the soul our consciousness leaves the body it’s no longer animated. What animates the body?

    Do we really know for sure? Will science eventually tell us?

    Can a fetus at any stage grow with out a life force in it?

    Magically,
    -Marko

  17. Bonita R Avatar
    Bonita R

    I like your spunk Neil.

  18. Barbara Avatar
    Barbara

    Perhaps the question should be “What are the spiritual ramifications of forcing women into having unsafe, dangerous abortions because safe, legal ones are not available?” Perhaps we need to remember why women fought so hard to make abortion legal in the first place. We need to remember those who died due to hemorrhage, leaving living children behind, with their mother no longer there to care for them.

    When we legislate against abortion, this is what we do. The focus should really be on providing readily available, free contraception to all women of reproductive age. That is what really reduces the number of unplanned pregnancies that may result in abortion.

  19. Mickey Thomas Avatar
    Mickey Thomas

    I have to agree with God on this matter. There is no right or wrong, so the decision made by the woman and the man involved should be final without any judgement from others. Of course the man should be involved only if there is a relationship already between them.

    The final decision is the woman’s to make. She should be able to be comfortable talking with her parents, a friend, her lover, or just with God.

  20. mewabe Avatar
    mewabe

    Yes Barbara but the Republicans and their evangelist and fundamentalist pals are so out of touch with reality that they would rather teach abstinence rather than provide free contraception. They are trying to get us all back to the 12th century.

    Has anyone heard of the Seattle-based Mars Hill Church?…One of the fastest growing and most conservative evangelical church in the nation, a hipster mega church that tells women to submit.

    Mars Hill members talk about sex, drink alcohol, get tattoos, and swear. They listen to Fleet Foxes; they love Star Wars and graffiti art. They also believe homosexuality is a sin, MEN ARE MEANT TO LEAD, AND WIVES MUST SUBMIT TO THEIR HUSBAND as the church submits to God.

    The American Taliban is marching forward!

  21. Buzz Avatar
    Buzz

    There has been deep polarization in the minds of humans everywhere since life began. The US is no exception, and it is Gods will it be this way. It is only through diversity and variety that experiences between drastically different people are possible. If everybody looked the same, We’d get tired of looking at each other. If everybody sounded the same, we’d get tired of talking to each other. If everybody thought, felt, and believed the same way, we’d get tired of all interaction and creativity with and for each other. Life itself would be forced to adapt by creating something in our collective awareness so drastically different from who we are, we would become galvanized in unity simply to survive. This new thing would be so threatening, so pervasive and resilient and undeniably obvious to every living thing that denial equals suicide. The threat is already here, the storm is growing, and it’s driven by the Law Of Opposites. The new threat is Climate Change.

  22. Barbara Avatar
    Barbara

    Mewabe, those who claim to be pro-life, but oppose birth control are not really pro-life. They are just anti-sex. Being able to control how many children to have and when to have them is very much an economic issue – not just for women, but for men as well. It is also an environmental issue. The powers that be do not want to talk about how overpopulation of our planet is at the root of much of our problems.

  23. Buzz Avatar
    Buzz

    Isn’t it amazing how people are willing to talk about the deepest most fundamental issues on an anonymous forum, yet keep their feeling private when their identity is on display, on record.
    Barbara, please tell us more about your thoughts on over population. Are you familiar with the work of Richard Heinberg?

  24. Lauren Avatar
    Lauren

    Before even addressing this “question of the week”, I think people still need to get their head around the fact that “god”, some figurehead “out there” or “up there” indeed seemilngly willed a life to comeforth, in whatever form or state, on behalf of the world. This is not so, or accurate, as WE are “god”, you are “god”, even that homeless smelly guy on the main street is “god”. You are your own “god”, as we are all the same “god”. This is because we are all one but appearing as seperate. So therefore a seperate thinking entity to exist from us or you, and will something for another is impossible right from the start. Because we are all one. So how can you take the viewpoint that you cannot kill another being/take it’s life away as it was not your right to go against a more superior others (it’s that “other” god again….!) will? It is impossible right from the start, because there is no “other”, and never was. The most highest love and compassion and life is one that allows total free will and choice to one and all, as we are all one. So no matter WHAT the choice, choose it. Choose to do or be or say whatever. And that includes abortion. Remember there are no exceptions. That is free will right then and there. But in saying that, that does not then allow you to act or choose without any consequence. Indeed you choose your own consequence too! Indeed your choice action is your choice consequence too and at the same time. There is no seperation….

  25. Buzz Avatar
    Buzz

    Just the illusion of separation within the illusion of reality. The reality of our existence is that we exist to express ourselves and interact within the illusion, and in order to do that separation from the object we are interacting with is essential and fundamental. This includes separation from God, whom we are never actually separated from as God is within us, to act as if we are NOT all one, even though we are. LMAO

  26. Barbara Avatar
    Barbara

    Buzz, I am not familiar with Richard Heinberg, but from looking him up on wikipedia, it seems he thinks along similar lines. The growing human population is putting increasing stress on our ecosystems, and due to our actions our planet will become increasingly inhospitable to life as we know it. We are rapidly reaching the tipping point, if we haven’t already, of drastically changing our climate. I would say that we cannot destroy our planet, but our planet may not be able to sustain human life in the future. I think that the current measures of a healthy economy are wrong. They focus on growth, equating that with health. Continuous growth is not sustainable in the long run. We need to shift focus from what is growth to what is sustainable.

    In the current thread on abortion, what is sustainable is focus on women being provided with reproductive control. A focus on making abortion illegal is not sustainable, as desperate women will abort no matter if it is legal or not. No woman who wasn’t pregnant ever got an abortion. People will have sex, as it is most often crucial to maintaining a romantic partnership (those non-romantic relationships being friendships). No one will be able to stop that. And women need to be able to control whether or not they bear children even after they are in a monogamous long-term relationship. I sometimes want to ask those men who say women should keep their legs close if they don’t want to get pregnant if their wives are using that method of birth control, which makes them bitter and want everyone else to suffer equally from their lack of a sexual outlet.

  27. Judith Avatar
    Judith

    neale,
    Yes, i do care to have ‘that’ conversation. I do not believe that this is only a womens issue … it is so much more than that … the old excuses for terminating a pregnancy do not fly anymore … I believe there are things that define a generation … an individual … what do you stand for ? what will we not stand for.
    we need to challenge ourselves to see the Truth … how many law makers have ‘seen’ an abortion … how many have seen a ‘partial birth’ abortion … this issue is about how we treat the least of us …. we need to create a new vision for us … for ALL of us. If we are ONE … then we are all affected by the choice and actions of the one. The amount of abortions we have in the U.S. is staggering …
    When we ‘ go to our highest thought’ of who we are … and hold the thought … this does not include the fear based elimination of another life …. a life, created by God …. GOD is the creator of LIFE … God creates life through us We were given the gifts to co create … ‘ the seed and the garden’ …. interesting how there is a strong desire for others to have a child, an infant … the longing the aching for a child, so many suffer with infertility, to give the gift of life, the most beautiful… what a gift …
    …. we need to become more aware of who we are and the impact of our choices …. i hold the vision of an abortion free world … we are asked to co create with the Father … … we know how we procreate … so if one does not wish to co create than one should do all things possible to be self respecting … on living a life representing this belief.

  28. Judith Avatar
    Judith

    ” For it is the function of Life …
    to create more Life … through the Process of Life Itself.

    NDW …well said

  29. Laura Pringle Avatar
    Laura Pringle

    Neale’s stirring the pot;) It’s a moot discussion. Abortions wouldn’t exist if God didn’t want them to. People judge the actions. Karma determines the outcome.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *