There is a New Thought teaching going around — actually, it has been going around for years — that can be both misleading and disserving (to say nothing of being dangerous) if it is not thoroughly explained.
This teaching is that “everything is perfect,” and that our job is the “see the perfection” in things being just the way they are, and not look at any condition as “not okay,” or as being negative in any way.
This disservice of this teaching has been exacerbated by some of the writing in one of the most widely read and best-selling books on contemporary, New Thought spirituality — namely, Conversations with God.
That book talks about the so-called Law of Opposites, asserting that certain conditions, situations, and circumstances arise in life that appear to be unwelcome, that appear to be opposing us, but that they are actually supporting us on our soul’s journey — and that should therefore not be judged as “bad” or condemned as “evil.”
I think it’s important at this stage — given where our species is today in its planetary experience — to go over this teaching very thoroughly, and to invite your reactions to it.
I want to begin by saying that what brought this all up for me was an entry in the Comment Section under the last article to appear in this top-of-page headline space on The Global Conversation — a story having to do with violence in our world, which asked if humanity would ever see or create an end to it. The Comments entry came from a reader named Tina Ashe Brown, and is republished here:
“I am wondering simply why we are judging these actions as good or bad? I have been so confused on this since reading the CWG books. There seems to be a message that either I am not understanding correctly or we are having a hard time understanding here.
“I understand that we were sent here because God wanted to experience herself and could not do that because there were no contradictions… opposites. In heaven, or at least in God’s world, all there is is love. Are we here to return this plane to the same? To a place where only love exists or instead are we here to remember and see love even in the face of the violence?
“To love those beings unconditionally even in the face of the thing we are calling bad. Can we experience if we turn this world into a place where there is only love? Isn’t this place just as much a part of God’s world as any other plane? Is there only love here, too, and we are not able to see through our ego and judgments surrounding good and bad?
“I long for home and for that place where there is only love peace and joy, that place inside of me. I do my best to create this here in this plane each and everyday despite the pictures I see. I know we are all one and connected and I send my love to all regardless of the pictures that I see that do not resonate me with me to the best of my ability.
“I chose to focus on this and not on perceived imperfections that might be happening in this world, for I have the faith that everything is just as it should be even if I don’t understand how!”
I would like now to respond to these very sincerely asked questions, and in so doing perhaps bring some clarity to the New Spirituality teachings about Perfection and the Law of Opposites.
Tina, you have said…“I am wondering simply why we are judging these actions as good or bad?”
I experience that simply observing that something is undesirable is not judging it to be ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ and it is important to be clear about that. I personally find butterscotch flavored ice cream to be undesirable. I much more desire chocolate or vanilla. This does not mean that I have judged butterscotch as a flavor to be “bad.” It merely announces my personal preference in the matter of ice cream.
Speaking of violence as something that I find undesirable is not a judgment that it is “bad.” It is merely an announcement that I find it undesirable. Others may disagree. Others may actually desire violence as a part of human life, or think that it is in any event necessary, or natural to the human condition. Still others may think that it is required in order to create a Contextual Field as part of the Law of Opposites as described in Conversations with God.
It is my belief that the violence we see on Earth is neither natural to the human condition, nor is it necessary in order to create a Contextual Field within which we can experience nonviolence. This latter knowing arises out of my awareness that the Contextual Field within which the Law of Opposites plays it effect is much larger than the environment known as Planet Earth.
But let us return to Tina’s entry, so that I may ‘contextualize’ my observations within her inquiries.
Tina, you have said…“I understand that we were sent here because God wanted to experience herself, and could not do that because there were no contradictions…opposites. In heaven, or at least in God’s world, all there is is love. Are we here to return this plane to the same? To a place where only love exists? Or, instead, are we here to remember and see love even in the face of the violence?”
Your first understanding, Tina, matches my own, as given to me in Conversations with God. We were sent here because God wanted to experience Herself, and God could not do that in the Realm of the Spiritual, just as you point out, because there are no opposites there.
The answer to your question is that we are here with an invitation to produce the experience of a world of Divine Love, Divine Peace, Divine Wisdom and Divine Oneness, so that God could know Itself experientially as all those things and more. Yet it is not accurate to suggest that we can only remember, and allow God to experience, those things “in the face of the violence” that we now see on Earth. Indeed, God invites us to create “peace on Earth, goodwill to humans everywhere.”
Yet how can we experience this in the absence of a Contextual Field that holds its opposite? Simple. As explained in Conversations with God-Book 3, all we have to do is understand that the entire Universe is the Contextual Field within which the Law of Opposites operates. Therefore, it is not necessary for us to place on Earth and endure, create or suffer the opposite of Peace and Love, Harmony and Joy, Wisdom and Clarity in order to experience it here. We merely need to know that it exists elsewhere.
Just as I experience and appreciate, more than ever before, the good things in life that I enjoy today by noticing that its opposite exists elsewhere on this planet, so, too, can I experience and appreciate the wonderful aspects of life by noticing that its opposite exists elsewhere off of this planet.
That is the reason that the Universe is so unfathomably large. And Highly Evolved Beings in highly evolved societies in our cosmos (yes, they do exist, CWG confirms) eventually create environments on their Home Planet that provide for the experiences of Oneness of All Life and the Reality of Unlimited Joy, Abundance, and Love by removing its Opposite from their local environment — and simply noticing that this Opposite exists elsewhere. (Including the planet Earth.)
All of this is explained in CWG-Book 3, Tina, and with your review of that material your confusion about humanity needing to continue experiencing violence locally in order to experience its opposite globally will disappear.
Tina, you have also invited us…. “To love those beings unconditionally even in the face of the thing we are calling bad. Can we experience if we turn this world into a place where there is only love?”
The answer is yes, by knowing that lack of love, the opposite of love, exists elsewhere in the Universe. Also, Tina, by using another remarkable device — a magnificent tool revealed to us in CWG-Book 3: Memory.
Our memory has been given to us, Tina, for a singular purpose: To create a Contextual Field within ourselves, allowing us to know about the opposite of what we wish to experience without having to recreate the experience of that opposite condition, situation, or circumstance physically, over and over again.
This is why we create memorials to the Holocaust, Tina, with signs on them saying Lest We Forget. We do not have to recreate a holocaust in order to experience humanity without one — and that is the whole point of these memorials, erected around the world.
Going on, Tina, with your very wonderful and soulful letter, you’ve asked… “Isn’t this place just as much a part of God’s world as any other plane?”
Yes.
“Is there only love here, too, and we are not able to see through our ego and judgments surrounding good and bad?”
Yes. All there is is Love, and human beings have simply not yet learned how to express it in ways that produce pleasure and joy, peace and happiness, without the additional (and unnecessary) experiences of pain, suffering and violence. It is possible for humans to do this, however, and that is what the process of Evolution is all about. And it is why I and others call now for an Evolution Revolution on our planet. (For more information about this, see the special Blue Box in the right hand column on the home page of this global newspaper.)
And then, Tina, you have said…. “I long for home and for that place where there is only love peace and joy, that place inside of me. I do my best to create this here in this plane each and everyday despite the pictures I see. I know we are all one and connected and I send my love to all regardless of the pictures that I see that do not resonate me with me to the best of my ability.”
Wonderful, my friend. That is simply wonderful. It is through such intentioned choices that our world will be changed into one of those places in the cosmos where only peace, love, and joy are experienced.
Finally, Tina, you have concluded by saying…“I choose to focus on this, and not on perceived imperfections that might be happening in this world, for I have the faith that everything is just as it should be even if I don’t understand how!”
Ah! Now this gets us to this notion of ‘perfection.’
It is true, Tina, as Conversations with God tells us, that ‘everything is perfect.’ And God does invite us in this remarkable dialogue to “see the Perfection.’ Yet God makes it clear that this does not mean never seek to change anything.
God tells us that the very reason that everything that exists is perfect just as it is, Tina, is that it presents us with a condition, situation, or circumstance that allows us to know and experience Who We Really Are by expressing and creating whatever we wish to express and create in relationship to those conditions, situations, and circumstances.
This could involve changing a particular condition, situation, or circumstance in such a way that it reflects and demonstrates, evidences and reveals Who We Really Are. We don’t change it because it is ‘bad’ or ‘imperfect,’ but rather, because it simply does not represent (that is, re-present, or present again) Who We Are in the world and in the cosmos.
The famous injunction “Judge not, and neither condemn” did not say, “Change not, and neither alter.” It said judge not, and do not condemn.
The Master, therefore, is one who sees all of Life as perfect, because each moment and every experience, each condition and every circumstance, allows her to respond in a way that reflects and demonstrates every aspect of Divinity that she chooses to reveal, express, and experience in any given moment.
Again, Tina, so that it is very clear: Everything is “perfect” does not mean everything should remain “unchanged.” It merely means that the very existence of a situation or condition provides us with a wonderful Contextual Field within which to embark upon our next creation. The trick is to do it without judgment.
Now, Tina, I hope and pray that this somewhat lengthy response has helped to remove you from any confusion around the messages in Conversations with God as they relate to what you are seeing on this website. I hope you will share this remembering with your friends, so that soon, all the world will understand why the world is the way it is — as well as the spiritual reason we may have for changing it.
God sends Divine Blessings to you, Tina…and to all of you reading this…and, indeed, to all the world.
— Neale Donald Walsch
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