An Open Letter to Our World
DOES GOD REALLY DEMAND AND
COMMAND OUR ABJECT OBEDIENCE?

EDITOR’S NOTE: I am excited to be able to use this space on the Internet as a place in which we can join together to ignite a worldwide exploration of some of the most revolutionary theological ideas to come along in a long time.

The ideas I intend to use this space for in the immediate future are the ideas found in GOD’S MESSAGE TO THE WORLD: You’ve Got Me All Wrong.  I believe this new book (published last October by Rainbow Ridge Books) places before our species some of the most important “What if” questions that could be contemplated by contemporary society.

The questions are important because they invite us to ponder some of the most self-damaging ideas about God ever embraced by our species.  For example…

One teaching about the Divine is that God demands obedience.

We also note that the vast majority of those who believe in God believe that God is judging, condemning, and punishing when God’s demands are not met.

But now comes The Great What If . . .

What if God demands nothing, judges nothing, and punishes nothing?

Would it make a difference? Does it matter? In the overall scheme of things, would it have any significant impact in our planetary experience?

Yes. More violence, more brutality, more killing, and more outright war has been committed in the name of God than under any other banner. If the entire world believed that God demands nothing, judges nothings, and punishes nothing, the spiritual basis for much of the righteousness that underlies, justifies, and motivates humanity’s most egregious and self-damaging behaviors would evaporate.

Further, if judgment and punishment were now said to be not part of God’s Kingdom, the foundation of humanity’s entire legal system would be shaken to the core, with many of the laws in many of our countries having to be rewritten or repealed.

As well, if we embraced the notion that God demands and commands nothing, many of our cultural norms, customs, and prohibitions would be stripped of their moral authority, and would likewise eventually have to be abandoned for lack of any premise or basis.

Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the case of same-gender marriage. Even as restrictions against marriages outside of a person’s faith or race were one day held as being “against God’s Law”—but are now seen as perfectly acceptable expressions of love (except in some communities and cultures, where it still is not)—so, too, will gay marriage one day become widely embraced as entirely appropriate between people who deeply love each other. This will occur when the entirety of humanity abandons all notions that an expression of true love that strays from past societal norms somehow breaks God’s commandments.

If there are no commandments from God, then we can no longer kill, no longer punish, no longer judge, oppress, harm, restrict, limit, or damage others in the name of the Lord. This would wipe out an entire mountain of vindication for a huge catalogue of human cruelties and atrocities.

The question is, would it also remove from humanity’s experience a moral compass upon which our species has depended? What would our new moral compass be?

Perhaps it is time for us to acknowledge that God has been telling us from the very beginning, and it is becoming more clear to us every day, that humanity’s Ancient Cultural Story about a God who is demanding and commanding is plainly and simply inaccurate.

It is okay now to remove this ancient teaching from our current story, and to stop telling this to ourselves and to our children.

God demands and commands nothing. This is because God has no reason to demand or command anything. And this is because God needs nothing.

God “needs” no experience—emotional, physical, or spiritual—since God is the source of every experience God could have. How can the source of something need that thing? How can the Source of Everything need anything? And if the Source of Everything needs nothing, why would It command anything?

It is not as if some behavior of ours, such as obeying God, could cause God to have an experience that God could not have without us exhibiting that behavior. To put this another way, God is not dependent upon us for God’s nonexistent needs to be met.

There is no reason, then, to believe in a God who is so displeased in the absence of a particular behavior that we will be punished horribly and eternally.

God is Love, and this love knows neither condition nor limitation. It is not based on receiving anything back, and it is not withheld because God is angry to the point of everlasting condemnation, for the simple reason that God is never angry to the point of everlasting condemnation (or ever angry at all).

There are those who say that God demands or commands things not because God needs something, but because we need something. Specifically, we need instructions, directions, requirements, and commandments in order to stop ourselves from running amok, and to help us make our lives work.

This viewpoint holds that without commandments and directions, we wouldn’t know how to behave—or be willing or able to behave in ways that serve our continued survival—because of our very nature.

It is said by some that it is “human nature” to behave irresponsibly and uncontrollably, selfishly and even violently, and that it is only God’s requirements and restrictions—and the threat of God’s punishment if we don’t heed them—that keeps us from being totally self-centered, self-serving, and self-destructive.

Following suit, punishment has become the rationale for all civil laws and government regulations restricting and governing the behavior of people, from stoplights and speed limits that must be obeyed, to product labeling rules that must be followed, to sanitary standards that must be maintained, to workplace regulations that must be followed.

Without these and other behavioral rules being imposed, the conventional wisdom goes, everybody would do as they pleased, no one would be protected, and people everywhere would be the victim of those who are careless or unscrupulous.

Yet are humans incapable of being self-regulating?

The answer is no.

All humans have the innate ability to govern their own behaviors and to adjust them to the degree that they harm no one, while producing maximum positive results for each individual and maximum benefit for the collective. All we have to do is determine to use that innate ability. Ironically, what ignites the desire to do so is the absence of rules and regulations . . . from God or anyone else.

God understands this. That is why the ultimate gift God has given humanity is free will. Freedom is the fundamental nature of divinity. And God knows that humanity will always act in humanity’s best interests, once those best interests are made clear.

If you want a wonderful example of this, watch people as they whiz around the traffic circle at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris—where there are no lane markings, no traffic lights, no signs showing who goes first or where, and no police officer to direct the endless and rapid flow of vehicles.

Thousands of people make their way around that monument every day in a hectic mish-mash of interweaving iron on tires—and they do not have to be forced by any law or regulation to yield the right-of-way, stop before smashing into others, or go when others have stopped. They do so automatically.

When you know what it is you’re trying to do, the preferable and beneficial action to take becomes instantly obvious and very clear to you. That’s why there are fewer traffic accidents on that circle than there are on the Champs‑Élysées a hundred feet away, where traffic lights abound, lanes are clearly marked, and the way to proceed is guided by rules and regulations.

Humanity on a global scale cannot become clear about its own best interests until humanity on a global scale is clear about what it is trying to do. And this is where we have fallen short. We have not moved to total clarity and mutual agreement on what it is we are “up to” here during our time upon the earth. Once we do, our behaviors will self-modify and self-regulate in ways that will produce maximum effectiveness.

A species that is highly evolved is one that has reached a collective understanding about what is in its highest and best interest, based on a mutually held awareness of what it is seeking to achieve and to experience.

Because we are not at that stage in the development and evolution of humanity, the pressing question today becomes: What could get us there?

The answer is: A letting go of our Ancient Cultural Story about who we are and why we are alive; about the purpose and process of life; about the nature and desire of God.

God told us in The New Revelations that in order to get to that place, we will need to have the courage to take five huge steps:

Step 1: Acknowledge that some of our old beliefs about God and about life are no longer working.

Step 2: Acknowledge that there is something we do not understand about God and about Life, the understanding of which will change everything.

Step 3: Be willing for a new understanding of God and Life to now be brought forth, an understanding that could produce a new way of life on this planet.

Step 4: Be courageous enough to explore and examine this new understanding, and, if it aligns with our inner truth and knowing, to enlarge our belief system to include it.

Step 5: Choose to live our lives as a demonstration of our highest and grandest beliefs, rather than as a denial of them.

A huge shift in humanity’s thinking—perhaps the biggest invitation ever issued by life to life—would be the accepting, embracing, and adopting of the following spiritually revolutionary statement:

Nothing can occur in all the Universe that violates the Will of God.

Everything in human theology, virtually every tenet of every religion on the face of the earth, is rooted and built on exactly the opposite thought. God’s will can be violated, our religions say. This is the foundation of every religious doctrine of judgment, condemnation, and punishment.

Yet the violation of God’s will is utterly impossible unless there is something more powerful than God in the universe—something that can override God’s will. But nothing of the sort exists, for God is the All In All, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the Sum Total of Everything.

If, therefore, something is happening, it is happening because God has not stopped it from happening. And if God has not stopped something from happening, how can it be said that it is happening against God’s will?

Those who say that God allows God’s will to be thwarted, and that, therefore, it is possible for people to violate the will of God, have rendered themselves blind to a simple logic: If God allows something, then it is not against God’s will.

You could not lift your little finger if God did not want you to. Everything that happens, therefore, happens because God allows it to, or it wouldn’t and couldn’t be happening.

The theological question thus becomes not whether God allows—and therefore wills—what is happening to be happening, but why God would allow it.

The answer is that God’s greatest desire is for that fundamental aspect of divinity that we just spoke of—freedom—to be expressed in every moment by every manifestation of divinity. And since God cannot be hurt or damaged in any way by anything at all, God has no reason to place restrictions on the freedom of any of God’s creations or creatures.

God also has no reason to judge, condemn, and punish anyone who uses that freedom. Indeed, to do so would be to change the definition of freedom itself, so that it would then mean: “The ability to do as you are told, or suffer the consequences.”

Yet this is not what freedom means. That is not freedom at all.

Freedom is Love demonstrated; it is Love in action. Restriction of any kind is not Love in action, because restriction is limitation, and Love knows no such thing.

Total Love and Absolute Freedom are synonymous, and produce the theological concept known as free will.

God has given all of God’s creatures this gift so that God could give Itself the gift of totally experiencing the wonder and the glory of what It Is. Yet free will is obviously not free will if the use of it in a particular way produces indescribable and everlasting torture in the fires of hell. Such a response to the use of God’s greatest gift to humanity would make a mockery of both the gift and The Giver.

As well, free will means nothing in an environment in which there are no choices. If God is to experience Its full wonder and glory, that which is not considered fully wondrous or glorious in human terms must exist alongside of that which is, so to produce a context within which wonder and glory itself may be not simply known, but expressed and experienced. Thus, the physical universe has been created as a Contextual Field within which choices become possible.

Another way of saying this is that the Contextual Field that is our universe exists in the way that it does because in the absence of That Which Is Not, That Which Is is not.

That is, it cannot be experienced.

In the absence of Darkness, Light cannot be experienced. In the absence of Small, Big cannot be experienced. In the absence of There, Here cannot be experienced. In the absence of Slow, Fast cannot be experienced. Nothing can be experienced in the absence of a contrasting element. It can be known theoretically, but it cannot be expressed experientially.

Therefore has God created a universe in which divinity has what appear to be exact opposites, or dualities, but are not.

Using an example from our physical reality, we often label things as either “hot” or “cold.” These appear to be opposite ends of a polarity, but they are not. They are degrees of the same thing—called temperature. There is no “duality” in temperature, there is only One Thing, variously expressed.

In much the same way, all manifestations of life are expressions demonstrating degrees, or variations, of the single thing called divinity.

And thus has God invited divinity’s human individuations to judge not, and neither condemn, that which seems to oppose them, but to see it as simply another aspect of the Self, providing an opportunity to be a light unto the darkness, that they might know Who They Really Are—and that all those whose lives they touch might know who they really are as well, by the light of this example.

One’s free will choosing of any thought, word, or deed need not be, therefore, a demonstration of one’s obedience, but may be an acceptance of one’s invitation from God to step into the highest demonstration of one’s best idea about oneself. With this understanding, what may have been considered one’s burden may become one’s joy.

Life becomes an experience of exaltation when one realizes, finally and at last, that neither fear nor obedience are required by God.

(The entirety of the exceptional text of GOD’S MESSAGE TO THE WORLD: You’ve Got Me All Wrong brings our species theological constructions that truly challenge the world’s thinking about God. Five full chapters of this book may be sampled here: www.godsmessagetotheworld.info)

Comments

37 responses to “An Open Letter to Our World
DOES GOD REALLY DEMAND AND
COMMAND OUR ABJECT OBEDIENCE?”

  1. Leon Jackson Avatar
    Leon Jackson

    I always look forward to your new articles Neale. Great one here. I feel people that feel want rules and regulations because they are afraid to trust their own innate ability to govern themselves. We have been taught that without someone telling us what to do that we don’t have the knowledge to know right from wrong and that is absolutely not true. We do know right from wrong and I think its time for us as a society to start believing and trusting in ourselves more because God is in us and working through us to do whatever it is we think we need to be done. Whatever we do it is God’s will if it’s allowed to happen and we jave to be willing to trust that

  2. mewabe Avatar
    mewabe

    The more people are regulated and restricted by literally thousands of laws, the more they become irresponsible and associate freedom with irresponsible, destructive, selfish behavior. And the more they become irresponsible, the more they need regulations. This is a vicious cycle that leads to tyranny, as we can see today when governments and all forms of authority treat the public as if people were unintelligent and infantile.

    If the Divine itself has granted us free will, who among us has the right to impose his or her will on another? The answer? No one. Not a single government, not a single institution, no judge, no school, no so-called “authority”, absolutely no one, as the only relevant “law” or “authority” are love and our own conscience.

    This is why Albert Camus said:
    “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”

    Yes, all creatures, all life in its original state, all in nature is born FREE. So are we. This is why my God is a God of the WILDERNESS.

    Once you are connected to the whole, once you know that you are related to All Life, you naturally act in a way that benefits all life, without self-sacrifice, without coercion from above, but by spontaneously working in harmony with all life.

    The old ideological dichotomy between the far right (Ayn Rand) and the far left (socialism or communism) becomes totally irrelevant, as total freedom is then achieved when you understand that all you do to others, to other creatures and to the earth, you do to yourself, as you are part part of the whole. You then naturally find a way of life that works beautifully for the individual and the whole.

    However, although humanity speaks much about freedom, a great majority of humans do not want to be free, and act both as slaves and tyrants, because freedom requires a courage most lack, the courage to break cultural conditioning and social norms, which, aside from endless laws and regulations, represent a potent form of internalized tyranny.

    1. Christopher Toft Avatar
      Christopher Toft

      Indeed! It seems to me that if there is one thing that slows the expression of growth, compassion, awareness and pure love/beingness it is the idea of obedience and authority over others. We only have to look at experiments such as Stanley Milgram’s studies on obedience to authority or Robert Zimbardo’s famous Stanford prison experiment to see the horrific results of obedience/authority. I would go as far as to say that all forms of fear based thinking(Not caution, that is different) have at least an element of obedience/external authority thinking to them. I think most are rooted in it.

      1. mewabe Avatar
        mewabe

        I agree, and this is very true…authority/coercion/obedience destroy growth and creativity as well as many forms of human expressions.

        Authority and coercion invariably create resentment, so that is another way, an indirect and additional way that they prevent the growth and full expression of love and compassion.

        Has an artist ever been able to create a masterpiece with a gun to her head? Has a poet ever written something beautiful under threats and while forced to do so? Has any person been able to fall in love under direct order by some authority to do so?

        How can people flourish under the coercion of the law, of oppressive institutions, of repressive governments and religions? They cannot, all they do is barely cope and survive.

        But the unknown fact is that all forms of authority, all forms of governments, all top down institutions are repressive and totally illegitimate, without exceptions.

        No government, no institution, no authority of any kind has ever actually been granted the right to rule over people by the people. They only seem to have been granted this right within the context of cultural myths. Governing bodies have simply taken this right, by force, and kept it and exercised it while modifying it through the centuries, by force.

        This is dangerous talk, but it needs to be said…no…it needs to be shouted loudly from the top of the mountains…and without a permit for a “free speech zone” 🙂

        1. hempwise Avatar
          hempwise

          Good post Mewabe the term indigenous peoples call this subjugation and dominating nature is called Wetiko .It means literally eating yourself and that is exactly what we are doing .They knew this along time ago and we are just finding this out now .

          I think we need to take the best of what the indigenous people knew and apply their wisdom with modern technology in a safe and sustainable way .A combination of Ancient wisdom and creating a world that works for the highest interests of all while protecting and nourishing mother Earth must be our clear intention .

          The problem i feel is getting people to agree on the way forward so the interests of the few do not dominate the interests of the many .

          Thom Hartmann talks a lot about Wetiko and this sickness in his many books .The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight wakened me up to what was really going on .But It was Neales Cwg book 3 that mentioned this book so a big thanks to Neale for giving us this gift .

          1. mewabe Avatar
            mewabe

            Thank you hempwise…
            Yes, many Indigenous people had an ancient understanding that will help humanity some day.

            Unfortunately, regarding the problem of getting people to agree, I truly feel and think that all of humanity will begin to agree that something major needs to change when, and only when, the “natural environment” (life itself) stops our world civilization dead in its track, and business as usual can no longer go on another day, not in North or South America, not in China, not in Europe, not in Russia, not in Africa or India, not even in Antarctica.

            Neale and many others are planting seeds for that time when the ground will be fertile…when humanity’s collective consciousness will be shaken to the core by catastrophic global events and everyone will realize that the only choice is to change now or perish.

            Until that time, we will need to be patient, and personally plant seeds in humanity’s consciousness wherever and however we can.

          2. hempwise Avatar
            hempwise

            As you said once before sowing the seeds of sanity !

  3. Erin Avatar
    Erin

    Neale, you gave me a gift maaany years ago…and maaany Thanks, again, for It:
    “Freedom is the grandest gift of Love, and Love always (and all ways) seeks to give the grandest gift.”

    The most Amazing Experience, that brought forward sooo many other Amazing Experiences, was that of Mom. I set out on quite the journey to re-define & re-examine the premise of this title. From city, through Bible Belt, to the middle-of-nowhere, to rurals…through books, observes, trials & errors, and maaany conversations & altercations. And through all of it, that one liner above un-nailed the whole deal…The boxes fell apart…and I was the one set Free to Be the Mother I already had in me.

    The process is on-going…a Mom Experience is an ever-expanding thing. And I have to whole-heartedly agree with mewabe, here, too…The examples I found most functional & Soul-supporting came not of Human conditionings, but through Nature’s un-conditions of simply Being Real…Honest, up-front, & to the point, with little room for lack of Awareness of one’s surrounds, yet plenty for Opportunity to Experience.

    Human stuff comes heavily sugar-coated, with a warning label of how bad sugar is…a constant Catch-22. To move from such over-processing may seem chaotic…We have long been told the story that “Children thrive best within Boundaries”…but I will attest that this is Not So! Rather, Peacefulness, Cooperation, Respect, & Wisdom come through the Freedom that Love presents. I have come to Trust in this, whole-heartedly, and It has yet to waiver in any aspect of giving.

    Blessings…To Being so Loving that All are Free to Be so Loving. <3

  4. Patrick Gannon Avatar
    Patrick Gannon

    I just got my weekly CWG newsletter and was delighted to see a return to core message. It was a great newsletter (Does God Care About Us?) I figured I’d hop over here and I see that this post as well harkens back to time when CWG seemed to have a more unifying message. I still think the term “god” is an unnecessary stumbling block… “pure intelligence” and “essential energy” were very good alternatives from your newsletter!

    I see the “god” you’ve described in this post as another word for consciousness – but I have to remain agnostic. I’m reading a book called “Consciousness and the Social Brain” which is quite supportive of the materialist idea that consciousness emerges from matter (the brain) rather than vice versa. The subject is gaining more and more attention, which is very exciting, but mainstream science continues to provide evidence that consciousness is emergent, while the other side, does not seem to be delivering objective results (which may be impossible by the very nature of the thing – but maybe not).

    You’ve reminded us of the 5 steps – all very valuable points; but how do you get people to pay attention to them in the first place? If this consciousness thing is really and truly there and some people can really and truly do things with it, and if we all have just a little bit of that shared, group consciousness – why don’t we try to prove it? Can fear of failure be part of our highest vision of ourselves? If we are comprised of “pure intelligence” and “essential energy” because these are the things God is comprised of and God is all that IS, then why can’t we test ourselves? Let’s try to stand up on our baby legs.

    The problem I know, is that experiments such as this with global “prayer” sessions have not produced objectively useful results, and nobody wants to look foolish by failing… but that’s how we learn. For the prayer sessions, It might just mean that focus wasn’t “fine” enough as to who or what was being prayed to and asked to perform this or that. Example: Get thousands of people to focus on a specific number at a specific time – put it on the screens of as many thousands of people as you can get – just for 5 minutes, and see if it affects a random number generator in any meaningful way. Invite skeptical scientists to oversee the process.

    Ah the musings of a Friday afternoon and looking forward to a visit with my friend Jack Daniels following a run so I can listen to this materialist researcher on my audible book tell me why my proposal here can and will never work… It would be so fun to prove him wrong.

    P.S. I did not get that same sense, as in recent months, that CWG was being treated as a religion. Not that what I think matters, but I like the return to the core message.

  5. John Jung Avatar
    John Jung

    Neale, you wrote: “There is no “duality” in temperature, there is only One Thing, variously expressed” and “Nothing can be experienced in the absence of a contrasting element.”

    From this, it is logical to conclude that we can not experience temperature, only hot or cold. You further suggest that “divinity” is like temperature, not having “duality”. Logically then, we cannot experience “divinity” because it is what includes “degrees or variations”. I can go along with this because it is how you define the use of the word “divinity”. My problem is that in other writings, you seem to have suggested that divinity, god and love are all the same. Unless I misunderstand, this means we can’t experience god or love, either. Like divinity, I have no problem with god being included in not being able to be experienced. This “god” is your own definition, just as there are so many others. I do have a problem with love not being able to be experienced. I experience love as the opposite of fear. How do you experience it?

    1. Christopher Toft Avatar
      Christopher Toft

      John, isn’t Neale saying that hot and cold(or luke warm, moderately chilly, freezing etc) are aspects of the same (abstract) “thing” we call broadly call temperature? Your thoughts on this are very timely for me, as I have been struggling with similar thoughts. I think what Neale is saying is that everything is aspects of the same thing, God/love/being, fear is God/love/being distorted through imagined illusions(correct me if i’m inaccurate). It would follow that God/love/being is any honest genuinely expressed experience of joy, playfulness,freedom, courage, compassion, empathy, fun, sexuality, abundance, any purely creative experience. I don’t think that experiencing or living our fears/illusions is necessary, the memory/knowledge of fear provides a sufficient context for “relativity”. It’s also possible to experience relative mind states that are a mix of fear/distortion and honest self expression I think.

  6. Tom Lincoln Avatar
    Tom Lincoln

    Divinity CAN be experienced, and when it is experienced in its fullness there is no question about it. However, it is very rare. Nevertheless, the experience confirms all that Neale has been saying and some things that he is not saying. For instance, one might feel a halo-like energy field around his or her head.

    1. Patrick Gannon Avatar
      Patrick Gannon

      I have had a couple ‘fleeting’ experiences that might be described in this way. How are we to know that these experiences aren’t just the result of chemical reactions and the electronic firing of neurons in our brains? How can we know whether the brain creates this sensation or whether it has some other cause?

      1. mewabe Avatar
        mewabe

        Just a suggestion, from my own understanding/experience: absolutely everything in life is a manifestation and expression of some form of consciousness. Chemicals and neurons are ruled by consciousness, as consciousness or Mind is the first cause, not the other way around as materialism postulates.
        The trick is then to become fully conscious.

        1. Patrick Gannon Avatar
          Patrick Gannon

          Ah, but how do you “prove” this? I don’t agree or disagree, but there is far more evidence on the side of materialism, so how can your conjecture be proven? Without said proof, it’s just a belief, no different than believing in Bible God, Zeus, or Dionysus. On the other hand, believing consciousness emerges from the brain is also a belief – but one with more science currently supporting it.

          When you lose key parts of the brain, patients can and do lose ‘awareness.’ Can we differentiate between awareness and consciousness so as to explain why one comes from the brain and one doesn’t? Or does it?

          1. mewabe Avatar
            mewabe

            It’s rather easy: there is materialist evidence on the side of materialism that uses materialist methods, and there is spiritual evidence on the side of spirituality that uses spiritual methods.

            Can we prove that love exists? If not, isn’t love then just a belief, or do you endorse the materialistic belief that it is the mere outcome of chemical reactions?

            I have undeniable proof of psychic phenomena, in my personal life: for example the exact prediction (a personal warning) of an exact and totally unexpected event before it happened. This is not the work of neurons or chemicals but of consciousness.

            Having psychic abilities, I am way past all beliefs. For example, I know of life after death and have no need to believe in it anymore than I have a need to believe in the existence of the earth. I have actually never endorsed or been interested in religious or spiritual beliefs, but have always been a seeker of truth.

            However I have understood materialism to be a very narrow and limited approach, as well as an illusion (the scientific method insists of the existence of objectivity…but objectivity itself is an impossibility and an illusion, because everything in life is interrelated and interdependent, including the mind and its focus and observations and conclusions).

            The mind or consciousness is not the brain, but it is limited, to some degree, in its expression in physical reality, by the brain, which is the instrument, not the master. In the case of injury or illness, the expression is even more limited, just as you would be limited driving in a car that would suddenly loose a wheel or two.

            Yet it is possible to master consciousness to a degree that transcends the physical. Yogis do it, Native Americans do it.

          2. Patrick Gannon Avatar
            Patrick Gannon

            “do you endorse the materialistic belief that it is the mere outcome of chemical reactions?”

            Thanks for your comment Mewebe. Please note that I’m not endorsing any explanation – I just try to look at all of them. I lean first one way, and then the other. My personal experiences, while remarkable, lack sufficient evidence to take as proof.

            Your explanation is somewhat convincing to me, based on some of my own personal experiences, but would not be to a materialist. Further, I have no way to know if my experiences were created by my brain through electro-chemical processes or something else entirely.

            There are a number of experiments that show that the brain in some tests, makes decisions several seconds before the subject becomes “aware” of having made the decision. According to test results, the brain decides before the conscious awareness knows it has made a decision. This is counter-intuitive to what you would expect if the consciousness was telling the brain what to do. They can see the brain react and predict with significantly greater than random chance, what the subject’s decision will be, before he/she is even aware of having made a decision. That’s a strong argument for the brain making decision that the self conscious individual becomes aware of after the fact. It strongly implies that the brain is making the decision. Are you familiar with these experiments?

            Can we prove love exists? Like the words ‘awareness’ and ‘consciousness’ themselves, the word is open to interpretation. To me, love is that condition in which the happiness of another is essential to your own, which means we also have to define happiness. In any event we’ve determined that this condition called ‘love’ exists, and that a condition called ‘awareness’ exists, and a condition called ‘consciousness’ exists – but do they exist just because our brain says they do? Is our brain essentially talking to itself, and has it created our level of awareness and consciousness merely as an artifact of evolution?

            Then again, does the brain and this material world even exist in the first place; or is it all just a simulation, a computer game, with us as the agents, the actors pre-programmed, but like actors in a computer game, with some small element of free will to allow us to choose between random options? In that case you have to ask who or what did the programming and we’re off to the races again.

            Unfortunately it seems that at least for now, the only way to know for sure is at the personal level. You mention Yogis and Masters who “claim” to be able to “do it” but these claims have not been convincing to materialists. One can therefore only know experientially (perhaps). Unfortunately, I’m not a master or a yogi. Meditation makes me feel good – but I’ve had no experience that I could honestly say gave me a “knowing” that transcends the proof my logical mind needs to see in order to come down on one side or the other of the issue.

            I come back to wanting to try some large scale experiments – tens or hundreds of thousands of people all trying at once to affect the output of a random number generator….

          3. mewabe Avatar
            mewabe

            “According to test results, the brain decides before the conscious awareness knows it has made a decision.”

            I think that this would be because the decision the brain, in these experiments, appears to have made all on its own is as yet unconscious…The unconscious is a part of consciousness or the Mind, which Is why I emphasized the importance of becoming fully conscious. Indeed consciousness governs our individual unconscious and subconscious as well as our conscious, not to mention our collective unconscious. The more conscious we become, the more we can master consciousness.

            My psychic experiences were not about the brain making a decision before I became aware of it. It had to do with external events.

            I will try to answer and to add more thoughts a little later…thank you for the dialogue!

          4. Patrick Gannon Avatar
            Patrick Gannon

            Re the brain process… I thought of the same thing, but it’s starting to sound a bit convoluted. The “unconscious” consciousness, decides to choose an option, and informs the brain, which chooses the option, or acts under the direction of the “unconscious” consciousness, and then some seconds later, the “conscious” consciousness becomes aware of making the decision at that instant in time, even though the actual decision was made seconds before. Sounds a bit sketchy to me.

          5. NealeDonaldWalsch Avatar
            NealeDonaldWalsch

            It feels to me that you gentlemen are engaged in a lengthy discussion that comes close to rivaling “How many angels fit on the head of a pin?” It’s all very interesting “mind stuff”, but life will never make sense to your Mind, as your Mind is dealing with extremely limited data. Only when you engage your Soul will any of your human life begin to make real sense. Indeed, then it will all become clear to you. Materialists are not convinced of the accomplishments of Yogis and Masters, and they are equally unconvinced that I had a Conversation with God. What is clear, however, is that they do to have to be. Fifteen million people have found value in these conversations, and that’s good enough for me. The more “supramental” we become (the term that Mewabe marvelously quoted from Sri Aurobindo), the more we become able to access data existing outside the Mind. I will trust a priori data over empirical data anytime.

            The only way humanity will race forward evolutionarily is if we consider the possibility that there is something we do not fully understand from our so-far-collected empirical data, the understanding of which would change everything were we to understand it. But it is not only empirical data which can be understood—and effectively utilized. Indeed, it is more often than not the use of “non-empirical” data that produces miracles.

            Conversations with God has generated 3,000+ pages of non-empirical data that has changed the lives of millions for the better. As have other philosophical, spiritual, and religious messages. Thank goodness humanity has not limited its intake to physical, hard-evidence-based data only.

            Have some philosophies, spiritualisms, and religions done more harm than good to some humans? Yes. Unquestionably? Does not argue for relying on empirical data only, and exclusively, in the fashioning of our lives? Absolutely not. Have some philosophical, spiritual, and religions thoughts and ideas done more good than could ever have been done by only evidenced-based reasoning? Of course.

            Shall we, then, use our energy trying to figure out what is “true” and which point of view is most accurate about the topic above? Does it matter? I suggest it does not. Shall we adopt (I am merely asking, not suggesting that you are advocating) a materialist philosophy that demands everything we call “true” be evidence-based? Ah, I suspect that if we did, William’s words might one day ring softly in our ears: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

          6. Patrick Gannon Avatar
            Patrick Gannon

            Well, to me, it’s a pretty short discussion that has barely scratched the surface; but thank you Neale, for jumping in.

            I think it’s short-sighted to dismiss materialists who have come to their conclusions using the scientific method. This method and these people, have brought us explanations for the origins and design of our universe, not to mention germ, evolution, gravity, relativity, and other theories that explain the workings of our physical universe. They have given us this tool, the internet, we can use to belittle them if we so choose. At this point in time, a non-physical matter reality is only conjecture, a hypothesis, a proposal – not even a full blown theory by anyone in the mainstream. Lanza’s Biocentrism idea is probably the closest to being a mainstream theory that stands in opposition to the materialist viewpoint.

            You make the point that materialists are not convinced of the accomplishments of yogi’s and such, but that is the very thing we need to try and convince them of. If they aren’t convinced, why should we be? The attitude that comes across from both the legacy religious and the developing ‘New Age’ religions (NAR) is that science is an enemy because it wants proof. That’s its job. That’s why it exists.

            There is, I propose, a fear of science among NARs because it has already essentially destroyed the legacy religions – at least the Abrahamic ones. The creation story is pure myth; there was no global flood, the Exodus never happened; there was no conquest of Canaan by Israelites – the entire foundation is based on campfire stories, and we know this with a high degree of certainty due to the scientific method being used in a range of fields such as geology, archaeology, cosmology, evolution, etc. The universe does not work the way the religions said it did, and science has pretty well proven that, so I submit that there’s a fear of what else they will prove as time goes by.

            Now we have a new movement (that I propose is morphing into new religions), and it proposes an all-pervasive ‘soul’ or ‘consciousness’ that explains everything. I hold no current personal belief in this view, but that certainly doesn’t mean I deny it – it’s a fascinating idea and it often “feels” right; but then, so at times did my childhood religion. I simply want to know; and I think science can and will be able to do that for us eventually. I think many people are afraid to know. Many people will let go of their money, houses, cars and kids before they will let go of their beliefs. Discarding beliefs is too painful or fearful; like cutting off a part of yourself. The thing is, the more you discard invalid beliefs, the easier it gets and the fewer new ones you are likely to take on. Belief is a trap that stalls personal progress, in my view.

            One problem, I think, is the growing wedge of antagonism between NAR believers, who think they already know (and who at a personal level, may in fact “know” – I’m agnostic on that), and scientists who have difficulty taking subjective data and using it to draw objective conclusions. This can be done, but it’s a more difficult task, requiring tons of subjective data, such that predictions can be made, tests performed and results confirmed. One of the things that drives in these wedges is the pseudo-science that NARs often engage in. They watch a video about quantum mechanics and the double-slit experiment and conclude that this proves the spirit world exists, and then go preach this to people who haven’t a clue about what particle physics, never mind quantum mechanics is all about (hardly anyone understands QM). Mainstream scientists scorn this kind of behavior and the wedges get driven deeper.

            Neale, you point out that CWG has benefited millions of people. I do not disagree. I am one of them. However I don’t think it’s the end of the line. I was an unwilling but true believer of my childhood religion. I finally read the primitive book cover to cover some years ago, and realized I’d lived so much of my life in wasted fear of a hell that didn’t exist that I was furious. I understand the anger and viciousness of some atheists, because I was there for a while, but after a while it didn’t feel right. My sister sent me CWG which gave me another option to consider, and consider it I did for several years, reading your books and playing the CWG CD on long trips again and again. (Love Asner as God! LOL – but there’s that personal deity that is guaranteed to drive away legacy religionists). I’ve given away a lot of CDs and a few books and preached CWG with the fervor of a Christian evangelical to both religious and atheist audiences, and was equally derided by both.

            But I read. I was introduced by a friend to a scientific version of CWG (so to speak), Thomas Campbell’s “My Big TOE,” and it was very compelling, and it got me interested in physics, so I started reading that, and then more on consciousness, and in between I read religious history and theology. Right now I’m reading a very compelling theory about how a ‘schema’ for awareness is created by our brains using information from a variety of sources in order to create something we call ‘awareness.’ Without certain parts of the brain, this condition doesn’t work right. With stimulation of the right parts of the brain, you can induce an OBE. That points to the brain being the source and the consciousness being emergent – but it’s not conclusive and still has many open questions, and the author, unlike a believer, admits there is more to be studied. As I read, I think back to Campbell who describes consciousness metaphorically as “bits” of information – the basic unit of all that IS, simply driven by evolution to organize, reduce entropy and produce energy for useful purpose (a process he describes as ‘love’), and wonder how to tie that into this new theory.

            This research is going to continue, but science is going at it from a materialistic perspective, and if that perspective is wrong, it will take longer to get to the truth, but they’ll get there eventually even if it takes centuries. I would like to see more of the scientific method employed from the perspective of consciousness being the source, rather than the brain; but alienating scientists won’t speed that up – so can we do it ourselves? Can we get their attention? Show them evidence and they’ll come around. Get 100,000 people to stop a clock by focusing on it on the internet and you’ll get someone’s attention – including our own; which is really what it’s all about. If it can’t be done, what will that mean? Many, are scared to find out, aren’t they? If that’s not a good test, why not, and what is? That’s where the discussion should be, in my view.

            As mentioned, in the course of reading, I read the materialist views of consciousness, as well as other viewpoints. Many if not most people only read things that reinforce beliefs they already hold, but that’s like plucking one of your eyes out. Unlike the religionists and new agers who “believe” they know all about consciousness, the scientists admit, one after the other, that they do not know. They have theories, and their theories have more objective evidence and having come to understand the importance of having a skeptical but open mind, I have to consider all aspects if I am to be true to myself (whatever that is).

            So CWG became a stepping stone to me that opened up new ideas which I investigated. I read all sides, from Monroe’s OBEs to Newton’s LBLs, Elgin’s Living Universe, a number of your books, and so on. I have had my own ‘experiences’ but they have been fleeting and could very easily be explained by bio/electrochemical reactions in my brain, stimulated by one thing or another. I don’t know. How do you explain that researchers can stimulate a particular part of the brain and consistently cause an OBE to occur? Is it real, or is it happening in the brain – which appears to be the case?

            Now you ask if it’s beneficial to try and know what is really “true” and I have to most passionately disagree with you that it does not matter. It does matter. It is all that matters. It is perhaps why we are here, to see if we can figure it out and know it universally. Humans appear to be driven to discover that which we do not know.

            What I have to wonder is if there is a reason many believers & religionists old and new alike don’t want to know the answer. What if it turns out that consciousness is a product of the brain? What if the materialists are right? What would that mean? Legacy religion is going through a lot of angst right now, refusing to let go of beliefs that have been disproven. Widespread cognitive dissonance issues are negatively affecting our entire society. We’re going nuts because we know our Abrahamic religions have been invalidated, but we just can’t let go of our beliefs and I think it’s created a sort of societal mental illness. NARs may be nervous about finding themselves in the same place, if the “truth” is eventually discovered, and it conflicts with their beliefs, so this apprehension is not unreasonable – but it doesn’t get us where we want to go.

            What is everyone so afraid of? What if this is all there is? Why would that be so bad? Might we not be more inclined to live for the here and now? Isn’t the old saying, ‘we should live today like there is no tomorrow’? Would it be so bad if we didn’t have to get back on board the reincarnation merry go round?

            I don’t know what the answer is, but I want to know, whichever way it turns out. If the new age movement is secure in its belief, and if these yogis and masters can really do these things the rest of us haven’t done yet, then let’s put our intellectual effort into figuring out how to prove whether or not there is a consciousness that is not merely a product of our brains. Give science a reason to look beyond the materialist viewpoint.

            You expressed dissatisfaction with the pace at which the CWG message was being deployed around the globe in an earlier conversation. I wonder if it’s because people are in a ‘waiting mode’ waiting to see what the science will tell us. How can we speed that up?

            In the event that the materialists are right, and apologizing for my verbosity, I leave you with one of my favorite quotes from the only Prophet in the bible who actually had a clue:

            “So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun.”

          7. hempwise Avatar
            hempwise

            Hi Patrick ,
            Have you heard of Lynn Mctaggart she writes books on cutting edge science and spirituality a good one,s are The Intention Experiment and The Field.She sets up experiments to try and verify some of this stuff.
            I would say i was a bit like Mewabe a seeker of truth .Our sixth sense is there all we have to do is use it more ,kind of like a muscle to develop we have to trust it and be open .
            The last few days i have had three experiences of meeting people i have not seen in months and the next day BANG they appeared one after another as if by magic .Where does that come from ?
            Science has limited understanding because all its answers come from within the illusion .
            Interesting Discussion but one that is a big deep Rabbit Hole .

          8. Patrick Gannon Avatar
            Patrick Gannon

            I’ve heard her name, but have not read any of the books. Thanks for the recommendation. Hmm. A little research tells me that she’s a rabid anti-vaxxer whose writing on the subject contains lots of errors, so her credibility factor is not real high to begin with.

            “Science has limited understanding because all its answers come from within the illusion.”

            That sounds like something Thomas Campbell would say in his trilogy. I’m interested in promoting discussion about how we go about proving that there is an illusion to begin with.

          9. mewabe Avatar
            mewabe

            How would an iron-clad proof that consciousness exists independently of the physical actually improve the world? Would it diminish selfishness, aggression, greed, would it make humanity more loving, compassionate, respectful of the natural world, or would such knowledge be used to perpetuate the status quo, give more power and control to those who already have power and control, manipulate mass consciousness, and even be channeled into military ends?

            Scientific knowledge has not improved the HUMAN in humanity…it has only given people technologies meant to improve physical conditions. As Einstein said, “Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.”

            I am interested in what can improve the human side of us, what will make us more loving, more sensitive, more feeling. I am not sure than even a scientific proof that the Divine exists could do this. Left brain knowledge does not open a closed heart.

          10. Patrick Gannon Avatar
            Patrick Gannon

            Picture this scenario… A group of people accomplished in psi techniques, preferably organized by an academic rather than commercial** source, who, having performed a wide range of experiments with individuals and having some confidence in what can be done, designs an experiment to be played out on a far larger scale. I’ve read of experiments in which a number of people working together claim to have affected the output of a random number generator, for example. So, this group arranges for an experiment to be made available to all-comers on the internet. It includes an audio/video presentation the participant is encouraged to listen to with headphones, in which meditation, perhaps based on top of SAM audibles from the Monroe Institute, is used as preparation. Participants are then instructed to focus on “N” let’s say N is the number “7” and they do this for “Y” minutes, leaving it to whatever the ‘experts’ propose is optimum.

            After this period, the random number generator output is examined to see if there is a greater than chance distribution of the number “7.” Let’s say there is a significant result and this is communicated to the participants, not to mention the media at large. Those participating will gain confidence that they have abilities they only suspected before. Don’t you think they will be excited and encouraged to try something even larger? Look at the lesson in what could be accomplished with ONEness and working together towards a common goal. More people will want to participate. Eventually people will want to try healing cancer patients and the like.

            The hard part is that it may not produce significant results that can be relied on to draw conclusions. Prayer sessions of this sort haven’t yielded significant results – but one can question the effectiveness of prayer to an imaginary deity in order to actually heal someone. But what if it yields no significant results? What then? Try it with more people? Rework the experiment?

            We have to be prepared to accept that what many here think about consciousness is wrong, and that it does simply emanate from the brain. I predict that many believers will have so much difficulty dealing emotionally with the distinct possibility that it may not work, that they won’t want to try in the first place. But what if it worked? Wouldn’t that be amazing? And the next experiment, with even better results? Now what do the mainline scientists do? They have to look at it. They have to take that random number generator apart and put in a whole bank of them to ensure that what they are seeing is real… but what if it is? It changes everything. It’s the jump from childhood to adolescence, where indeed there are dangers – but also potentially a lot of fun and a lot of learning.

            Yes, there is a danger that those who see the success of the experiments will want to harness this ability to do evil. Will they be able to do so? Will they be able to draw enough people together to overcome those who want to do good? Will the psi effects even work that way? If consciousness is love, would you be able to manipulate it in an evil way? Learning this one way or the other would also be instructive.

            Will we end up in a battle? I doubt it, but we’re blowing each other up with bombs now. Could it get worse? Here’s where you have to decide if you really believe in the Abrahamic religion’s assertion that mankind is essentially evil. I don’t think that’s the case, but if it is, we’re screwed anyway. If on the other hand, we are all ONE, and come from a common source and determine that by working together we can accomplish incredible things – wouldn’t that contribute to a huge leap in our evolution? If you really believe in your heart that people are evil, then of course you wouldn’t want to take the chance of unleashing new forces. So what do we really believe about ourselves?

            **I make this clarification, a) because some of my reading indicates that people who use their psi “abilities” to make money, lose them, and b) credibility with the scientific community would be improved if any and all profit motive was removed. If you set up something like this with New Age spokespeople like Chopra and NDW, etc., then people wanting to participate will find themselves on mailing lists for CDs, books and all sorts of other programs. Motives will be questioned, which will diminish credibility, which is why it would be best to organize something like this from an academic institution in my opinion. The Monroe Institute might be a good place to design such a project, and maybe someone like the Univ of Virginia, who has a program that studies such things, to oversee it.

          11. mewabe Avatar
            mewabe

            Patrick, I think I understand your approach, as you are apparently in the process of discarding all assumptions and presumptions while attempting to uncover some “truth”.

            And so you appear to have discarded all but the proven “evidence-based” method in order to arrive at this “truth”.

            You need proof…something “tangible”, that cannot be disputed. Have you asked yourself why?

            Why is it that you need a proof of the existence of consciousness? Do you not trust your own consciousness? Are you not connected to it?

            When you taste a ripe pear, is this a subjective or objective experience? Do you need to collect data from 1000 other people giving you an exact same description of their experience with a ripe pear in order to validate your own? Don’t you know that all experiences in consciousness (or soul experiences) are subjective by definition?

            Or is the problem that you do not see consciousness, like you can see your hand?

            Okay, then, do you see love? Can you put love in a box, on a shelf? Can you measure it, weight it? Do you see fear, can you put it in a test tube? Can you hold joy between your fingers or throw it on the ground? Do you see talent, can you pour talent in a glass and drink it? Do you think talent is just a belief? Or are all of these the products of chemicals and of the firing of neurons? Are we just machines, mechanical devices? Is that what you are wondering?

            This is the Cartesian worldview (the universe as a mechanical device) and it has been proven inaccurate for decades now.

            The ultimate question might be, do you trust yourself? And if not, why not? What has made you pull away from the subjective, the intimately personal, and seek the illusion of pure objectivity?

            Or do you think that humanity will only evolve when it has empirical “proof” of the existence of consciousness, of the soul, or of the Divine?

            No…this would not be evolution, but superficial mind knowledge. As Neale mentioned, the mind is very limited, particularly the neocortex and logical mind. It has its uses, but it cannot see the whole picture. It is, as Alan Watts put it, as the very narrow beam of a flash light that scans a dark room…extremely focused, but seeing only one part of the whole room at a time, never uncovering the whole picture. The mind extreme focus is also the mind extreme limitation.

            There is a dimension of beingness, or consciousness, that is much greater than what the logical mind can grasp. Evolution will only come from its awakening and unfoldment, not from the collection of data.

            An example: artists or poets do not rely on the logical mind to create…they do not think A+B=C. They actually do not think…they sense, they intuit, they feel, they use everything but data and the logical mind or “reason”…and do you know why and how? Because they are notably connected to their souls, this fuzzy “concept” that annoys the hell out of the rational-minded.

          12. Patrick Gannon Avatar
            Patrick Gannon

            Mewabe, I’ll respond:

            “And so you appear to have discarded all but the proven “evidence-based” method in order to arrive at this “truth”.”

            PAT: I have discarded nothing, but I give the evidence-based method more credibility because its track record is far better. Belief has a poor record of veracity. A great deal that mankind has ever believed has eventually been proven to be incorrect.

            “Why is it that you seem to need a proof of the existence of consciousness? Do you not trust your own consciousness? Are you not connected to it?”

            PAT: Hmm, not sure I need proof of consciousness – the issue is, what exactly is it and where does it come from? What do you mean in asking if I “trust” my own consciousness? Trust what? That it’s there? Sure it’s there, but where does it come from?

            “Haven’t you observed that all experiences are subjective by definition?”

            PAT: I have no way to know if a pear tastes the same to everyone else that it does to me. The rainbow I see will never be exactly the same one you see (because we look at it from different angles). Yes, all experiences are subjective – but where do they come from? They appear to be the result of chemical and electrical impulses that are fed into my brain, which then interprets the data in conjunction with the stored memories it already has to arrive at an awareness of the taste of the pear. That it probably works this way, doesn’t mean that there is or isn’t a greater consciousness; it’s just the mechanics by which our physical persons experience something – or so it seems.

            “Okay, then, do you see love?

            PAT: This and the other attributes you list are subjective experiences that many scientists claim are developed in my brain as a result of various stimuli. Various chemicals may wash through my brain as a result of various stimuli and give me “feelings” that are entirely based on physical phenomenon. I don’t know. The fact that our brains can conceptualize something that isn’t physical, really doesn’t prove anything except that it can do so.

            “The ultimate question might be, do you trust yourself? And if not, why not? What (seems to) have made you pull away from the subjective, the intimately personal, and seek the illusion of pure objectivity?”

            PAT: Caution… I am not seeking the illusion of pure objectively. I’m seeking knowledge and truth. I don’t know what that is. Please don’t assume that I favor any particular viewpoint, but I can play devil’s advocate for either side. In doing so, I often learn new things. I continue to meditate on a near-daily basis. I have not abandoned seeking spiritual answers, or that which is subjective and intimately personal. Given what I know now, all I can do is hang on to agnosticism and be honest and humble in stating: I DON’T KNOW. But I want to know, and I’ll look at all sides in the interests of my own intellectual honesty. I understand the value of subjective evidence; but because it is subjective a lot more of it is needed, and it’s subject to a more critical review.

            “Or do you think that humanity will only advance when it has empirical “proof” of the existence of consciousness, of the soul, or of the Divine?”

            PAT: Of course not. Humanity has continued to advance since its inception. Consciousness could be a completely materialistic advancement, by the way; if so, why would it stop? The real question is – what will it do for the advancement of humanity if we discover the truth – one way or the other?

            “This is how materialistic science is also limited, by its very methods.”

            PAT: That’s fine. It means it will take longer. It means lots of scans are required to see the whole room – lots of subjective experiments and evidence. Eventually the room becomes understood, or at least better understood, no matter how thin the beam of discovery. As the evidence mounts, the beam may begin to widen.

            “There is a dimension of beingness, or consciousness, that is much greater than what the logical mind can grasp.”

            PAT: I am not opposed to this idea at all. I think there’s a 50/50 chance it could be correct.

            “this is not a belief but a knowing.”

            PAT: It may be a personal “knowing” and I don’t have that, so unless or until I reach that state, I can’t comment on it. Till shown to be otherwise, I will treat it as a belief, because once we believe something we think we have the answer and we stop looking, and that’s when progress stops.

            “Evolution will only come from its awakening and unfoldment, not from the collection of data

            PAT: That’s an opinion. Physical evolution will continue in any event, and if that’s where consciousness comes from, that quality as well may continue to evolve; even if it’s a product of the brain. With regard to collection of data, what if we collected enough subjective data such that people would awaken because of growing evidence? What if you didn’t have to trust your beliefs, but could point to real data? What if 100,000 people stopped a clock or affected the output of a random number generator? What would that do to drive forward the evolution of a “dimension of beingness, or consciousness, that is much greater than what the logical mind can grasp.” Those who participated would be amazed. Others would want to try it again. Scientists would have to give it consideration. Never turn down the collection of data!

            “the equivalent of trying to guess how many angels fit on the head of a pin 🙂

            PAT: If there really are angels, then I’d be very interested in knowing how many can fit on the head of a pin! This analogy is really off the mark, by the way. This is not a pointless discussion, else it would not generate any interest. It’s what we all want to know.

          13. mewabe Avatar
            mewabe

            Thank you for your answers Patrick…I understand your need to know, but do not confuse tangible proof with knowledge.

            I know, for example, psychically, that the mind does not disappear upon death, even though there is no physical brain.

          14. Patrick Gannon Avatar
            Patrick Gannon

            I don’t require “tangible proof” but since the proof is all subjective, it must undergo greater scrutiny, and the more of it (subjective evidence) there is, the better. When there’s enough to make predictions, then you’re getting somewhere. My interest in this entire discussion has been to ask – how do we go about providing more evidence?

          15. mewabe Avatar
            mewabe

            I think that if you look, you will find much subjective “data” out there…yet this data is still rejected by the strict materialist as being irrelevant.
            Humanity will evolve, and as it does, extra sensorial gifts and experiences will become common place. Just as when toddlers learn to speak, we will learn to expand and manifest consciousness and the truth of the soul at a much greater or “higher” level, when we are ready and not before.

            In the meantime, we have to be satisfied with our own individual, extraordinary experiences, and trust that they are real.

            Believe me, I understand skepticism…people can delude themselves, and many do. It all depends on your goal. Aim for the highest spiritually and you will avoid common pitfalls, while still trusting your subjective experiences.

    2. mewabe Avatar
      mewabe

      This usually corresponds to the opening of the crown shakra and universal consciousness. It is usually above the head. It comes with the merging of the individual with the universal, and of course the rise of the kundalini energy.

  7. mewabe Avatar
    mewabe

    People of the Dogma
    who tell the world
    that a God or a prophet dictated your law
    and gave you a mission to convert, persecute or kill
    all who do not obey.

    Is you deity so weal and vulnerable
    that it would feel threatened
    by the unbeliever and the unyielding?

    Is your deity like a child
    that it would need protection
    from the disobedient and the unruly?

    Is you deity so deeply afraid
    that it would instruct you to unleash terror and damnation
    upon all whose only weapon
    is an idea to be different?

    Who is this weak, frightened, vulnerable deity of yours
    but a projection of your weak and frightened minds?

    Your actions speak as loudly as your words:
    that which you inflict upon others
    is precisely that which you hold within.

    1. NealeDonaldWalsch Avatar
      NealeDonaldWalsch

      Wow. i may have to put that in my next book.

      Wow. That goes beyond “well said.”

      1. mewabe Avatar
        mewabe

        Thank you so much Neale! (I think you know my actual name, if you want to use it, please feel free.)
        I wish we didn’t have to say these things, hopefully humanity will soon move out of the dark ages 🙂

  8. Deangelo Avatar
    Deangelo

    I agree with you neale.
    If god is truly ‘love’, he(or she) doesn’t need any obideince or worship

  9. Lloyd Bradsher Avatar
    Lloyd Bradsher

    There is only one guiding direction, “Do what you will, but harm none”. This means harm not yourself, others, nature, etc. and who is to judge what we do? We are, and we know when we have done something harmful. Our hearts tell us when something does not feel GOOD, and we know when we are not acting out of LOVE. Once we realize that we are all ONE, connected to everything in the Universe, we KNOW then that harming others and nature is harming Ourselves. Seems simple, logical, and understandable to me and has been my guiding light for decades. Now do I or have I caused harm, of course, but as I become aware of the harm I learn to do better and seek other means to live life in peace within myself and within society and nature. Namaste’
    Butch

  10. mewabe Avatar
    mewabe

    I suggest everyone watches the earth day video Dear Future Generations.
    Thank you for caring 🙂

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