Seven Questions That
Could Change the World

The following inquiries, made in the depth of our own soul, and used by us to invite others into their own soul searching, could change the world.

The Three Persistent Questions

  1. How is it possible that 6.9 billion people can all claim to want the same thing (peace, security, opportunity, prosperity, happiness, and love) and be singularly unable to get it?
  2. Is it possible that there is something we do not fully understand about life, the understanding of which would change everything?
  3. Is it possible that there is something we do not fully understand about ourselves, about our own life and its purpose, the understanding of which would shift our reality and alter our experience for the better, forever?

These are powerful questions. They deserve answers. They at least deserve being asked. Yet are great numbers of people asking them? Are politicians? No. Presidents and prime ministers, kings and heads of state? No. Religious figures? No. Educators? Not many. Military generals and admirals? No. Leaders of business and industry? No. Ordinary people at their dinner table? Well, yes, possibly. Beginning now. Perhaps. Beginning now.

Ordinary people like you and I will now be asking these questions all over the planet. And when we finish asking the first three, we’ll then move to…

The Four Fundamental Questions Of Life

  1. Who am I?
  2. Where am I?
  3. Why am I where I am?
  4. What do I intend to do about that?

I do not believe that one can ignore these questions and rapidly evolve. None of us can. We must end any personal confusion we may have around these questions (there are many other questions in life, but these are foundational), or we will go through our days and nights having no idea what we’re doing or why we’re doing it.

This is the situation with most people on the earth today. And that is the reason why the world is in the condition that it’s in.

I did not move forward in my life until I answered the Four Fundamental Questions of Life. (And by the way, I answer them daily. Sometimes during the day as events transpire. Used in this way, these questions are not only informative, they are transformative.)

And the first of these four is the real key. It unlocks everything. It invites us to look deeply at the biggest mystery, the mystery of our own identity. By that I don’t mean, of course, our name. I mean our identity in the cosmos.

There is no “right answer” to this question, there is only the answer you give.

The second question seems simple, but its answer may not be. Where am I?

Where do you conceive of yourself as being? That is, what is this place in which we experience our existence? How do you conceive of it? How do you hold it in your reality?

I am speaking here of how you hold it conceptually, yes? I’m not talking about your physical description of this place (“I live on planet Earth. It is the third rock from the sun…,” etc.), I am referring to your conceptual understanding of this space. Is it a place of learning, a school?

Do you experience it as a place of testing, an examination room? Is it a place of proving or contesting or competing, like a giant racetrack or an athletic field, where some are winners and some are losers?

Do you have no conceptual reference point for this space, and truly conceive of it only as a physical location in a larger system of planets whizzing around a star?

What is this place in which we find ourselves? The mind begs to know…Where am I?

Again, there is no “right” answer to this question. Yet until I gave it some answer, I had no conceptual framework within which to hold my life’s experience. And absent such a framework, those experiences themselves felt essentially meaningless. No different from those of a fly or an ant. I felt that I was simply a more sophisticated life form. I had a life expectancy and, barring unforeseen circumstances, I knew I would be here for x amount of time, but what is this place?

And then, the next question looms: Why?

Why am I where I am? Why am I not somewhere else? Is there a “somewhere else”? What is the purpose of my being in this time and place? Is there a purpose? Who would give it one?

I don’t know how a person advances in their evolution without giving some thought—and eventually, some sort of answer—to these questions.

Many people respond to these questions with a curt “I don’t know” and let it go at that. I couldn’t do that. And I don’t encourage any true students of life to do that. If they truly don’t have an answer, I encourage them to create one. That is, decide what their answer is, out of pure intention. In this way they live their life from Intention rather than living their life by default.

A life lived by default is a life lived according to the Default Responses of the majority of people on the earth. I hope that none of you ever again chooses to live your life like that. Most of us have lived at least portions of our lives in this way, but we never have to again if we do not want to.

The last inquiry

This leads to the final question. Not just the final question in this series of seven, but what could be, metaphorically, The Final Important Question of Life: Having given your answers to all the other questions, you are invited to decide, What do you intend to do about that?

This is always the final question in life. In every situation, in every circumstance, in every moment that our experience presents, the question always and forever is: What do I intend to do about that?

Life proceeds out of your intentions for it. This is the fuel that drives the engine of creation in your life.

It is important to understand that life is nothing but energy. It is energy organized. And who does the organizing? We do. Surprisingly, the answer is…us.

Life is pure energy that circles back into itself. That is, life is a self-fuelling, self-sustaining, self-determining, and self-creating process. It depends on itself, relies on itself, and looks to itself to tell itself what the next expression of itself shall be.

This is true universally, it is true globally, it is true nationally, it is true locally, and it is true individually. It is merely a matter of proportion. And so we see the Universe deciding about itself in this way, our planet deciding about itself in this way, our nation deciding about itself in this way, our own city or community deciding about itself in this way, and our own person deciding about itself in this way. Life informs Life about Life through the process of Life Itself.

Why am I where I am? Why am I not somewhere else? Is there a “somewhere else”? What is the purpose of my being in this time and place? Is there a purpose? Who would give it one?

Life’s information creates life in formation. At the most personal level, your information creates you, in formation. You are constantly forming and reforming yourself, shaping and reshaping yourself, creating and re-creating yourself anew. Indeed, the function of life is to re-create yourself anew in each golden moment of Now, in the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever you held about Who You Are.

That’s all of it, in a nutshell. That’s what’s going on here. All of humanity is engaged in this process. We are doing it politically, we are doing it economically, we are doing it culturally, we are doing it racially, we are doing it socially, we are doing it sexually, we are doing it spiritually. This is all we are doing and we’re not doing anything else.

This is what God is doing. God is re-creating Itself anew in the single and only moment called Now—and life is God, doing this. Life is God, expressing Itself in an endless multiplicity of forms. You are one of the forms of God. You are, all of you, God’s information. And thus, Gods… in formation.

Note: Work with Neale Donald Walsch in London, England on October 22 2016.  Click this link:

http://www.hayhouse.co.uk/lectures-events/event-tours/neale-donald-walsch-london-2

Comments

9 responses to “Seven Questions That
Could Change the World”

  1. Andres Avatar
    Andres

    Thank you again Neale for generously sharing God’s wisdom. I do have a question, but it might be somewhat grammatical. It relates to “doing” vs. “being”. The fourth question asks “what do you intend to DO about that?”. It may be that I have dragged myself into a lot of “doing” throughout my life, but my personal answer seems to lean towards observation, awareness, contemplation. And yet it seems unsustainable, so many things seem to require urgent and endless “doing”, in my life personally and collectively also….climate change, rising inequality, political turmoil seemingly everywhere, you name it! Maybe it’s just fear. Any thoughts?

    1. mewabe Avatar
      mewabe

      Being and doing are not separate things when we act in harmony with our true nature, with the “Tao”, and from the the heart and soul. A tree does what a tree is, and so does a mountain lion or a cloud. Humans do not act human when they are estranged from their own nature and have forgotten the meaning of their humanity, have forgotten who, where and why they are.

  2. Victor Avatar
    Victor

    These questions indeed require all these explanations… Otherwise, they could be superficially answered…

    I’ve read these questions many times but now, they appear more clear to me. Perhaps my time, perhaps a more comprehensive explanation, perhaps both.

    Thank you Neale.

    Blessings

  3. Prem Lulla Avatar
    Prem Lulla

    Dear Neale

    I have read all books of CwG series and always felt inspired by your books.
    The seven questions (current article) also has given me much clarity on my individual role.
    I will look forward to doing my bit on individual level.

    Thanks a lot, please keep it up.

  4. mewabe Avatar
    mewabe

    Life is God..and God is life.

    I hesitate to intrude on this platform once more, to bring up something to the attention of your readers, Neale. But I guess I will, because it is important.

    Depending on whether you get your information from the mainstream media, you might not be aware of the existence of an Indigenous movement that arose organically to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. The Sacred Stone Camp in North Dakota is now roughly 8000 strong and comprised of 75% Indigenous people (“American Indians”) from all over the nation as well as Canada and Mexico, Central and South America.

    They are not protestors but protectors, and of course non violent. This is a prayer camp, born of dreams and visions, and prayer, in spite of what the North Dakota authorities, who are clueless and corrupt, bought by the oil corporations, are telling the press.

    There will come a time when we will, all those of us who follow a spiritual path, have to take a stand for life. Not a political stand, not a religious stand, but a stand that places our body where our souls and hearts reside, which should be with life.

    This is exactly what these Indigenous people are doing today…there are making a spiritual stand. They are saying “Mni Wiconi”, Water Is Life. The pipeline is scheduled to run under the Missouri river, you can do research on the web for more details about this as well as pipelines having broken in Wisconsin and in Saskatchewan.

    The indigenous people accurately call water life. Corporations call it blue gold. Real human beings see a lack of clean water as being threatening to life. Sociopaths (corporations, their politicians lackeys and the banks that fund corporate projects) see a shortage of clean potable water as another source of huge profit, as some corporations attempt to own and control water supplies. So polluting more water sources evidently works for them and their future plans for control and profit.

    Some people are human…others are predators, such as those who run corporations and other such criminals. It is time for humanity to restore the balance and eliminate this predatory mindset once and for all, literally speaking, for all our relations. It is as in the wild where predators feed off weak, vulnerable and isolated preys.

    For those who are so inclined, there are other ways to become wealthy than predation, than exploiting a suffering and vulnerable humanity, and of squeezing the earth as if it was a lemon, to extract all it has to give until it dies.

    We who choose to be real human beings need to be strong and united to defeat the predators and protect all of the creation.

    It is not a matter of standing against anything, but of standing for life and defeating those who stand against life. Passive, “sit back”, uninvolved and self-centered spirituality is no longer a viable, realistic or relevant option.

    Spirituality is not about “me”, it is about being. And being involves all life.

  5. mewabe Avatar
    mewabe

    Let’s try again:

    As the previous version of my comment was eliminated (censored), I will do a much weaker, totally vague and totally watered-down version, so as not to offend the mainstream mentality that now apparently controls the content of this thread. Those who still have the ability to think can do their own specific research and draw their own conclusions:

    “Life is God”..and God is life.

    Depending on whether you get your information from the mainstream media, you might not be aware of the existence of an Indigenous movement that arose organically to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline and protect the water (the Missouri river).

    There will come a time when we will, all those of us who follow a spiritual path, have to take a stand for life. Not a political stand, not a religious stand, but a stand that places our body where our souls and hearts reside, which should be with life.

    This is exactly what these Indigenous people are doing today…they are making a spiritual stand.

    It is not a matter of standing against anything, but of standing for life and non-violently and effortlessly defeating those who stand against life. A passive, uninvolved, detached and self-centered spirituality is no longer a viable, realistic or relevant option, if it ever was.

    Spirituality is not about “me”, which is a temporarily limited concept, it is about being. And being involves all life, which includes the future generations as well as all of this divine creation.

    If you do not think this event (the Indigenous people protecting water and life) is relevant to this conversation about God and life, you are not connecting the dots.

    1. Stephen mills Avatar
      Stephen mills

      I am aware of the of the Dakota Access Pipeline and the movement to try to stop it. But not from the deadsteam media as you aptly put it ,but through the Thom Hartmann website Americas number one progressive media source .

      This is very important we need to stand in solidarity with everyone who protects life over profit and see the bigger picture the (Big Self) and how it’s all connected .What we do to the land we do to ourselves .The land has no ownership but belongs to life and we are the stewards who have responsibility to care for it and keep it pristine for those that come after us .As well as the water and air that we breath.

      We do not need to use hydro carbons and chemicals anymore the common good of America and the world has been sacrificed by the oppression of corporations and corporate media who keep people apathetic and in a state of amnesia .

      Great questions deserve great answers .

      Hemp

      1. mewabe Avatar
        mewabe

        Indigenous people remember the ways of earth, as John Trudell put it…for some reason most other people, and they unfortunately are the vast majority and the most wealthy and dominant culturally and technologically as well as militarily, have forgotten their direct connection to life, to the air, the ground, the water. They just don’t feel it.
        It seems to be difficult to get them to reconnect, so lost are they in their fantasies of technological utopia and in conceptual thoughts such as religions, ideologies, etc…lost in their minds.
        Yet there is no secret to this Indigenous understanding…all one needs to do is take a walk in nature, barefoot, and feel the ground under one’s feet..or sit on the ground and connect…or touch a tree or a rock, and feel that they are alive, and connected to us and to everything else.
        This is not magic, or conceptual knowledge…it is something animals feel (which is why they flee danger such as a tsunami before it happens), and most Indigenous people feel as well. This is about feeling…something that seems very difficult for modern man to do, so lost is he, again, in his mind, and so alienated is he from earth.

  6. Charles Avatar
    Charles

    “Self centered spirituality”. I’m thinking about this out of context in which I originally read it. the Pentecostal church I was raised in left me feeling sad and confused. People in the church were quick to judge, talk about others, place blame… the word “hypocrite” comes up every time I speak to someone about why they quit going to church. I have every right to agree with them, or do I? I think it must have been a lack of “self centered spirituality”.

    Any spirituality should be self centered. How will you ever answer the four fundamental questions of life without a careful and thorough self examination? If we do not search within, we are left without. We are left making choices that please others, our thoughts will always lean to the majority, we will, and already do, make choices against ourselves to get acceptance. Then once we are accepted, in full, we still have to wonder what it will take to be happy. So when we live without, we stay without…happiness.

    I spent 40 years of my life without. I lived to please others, always going along with whatever the winning vote then go home and gripe and drink it all away. I still gripe a lot. I have found the ability to speak up when I don’t agree, I’m not popular but I haven’t moved against myself much. I can say in my angriest moments, I’m happy.

    If I had not come across a story of a homeless man turned author and needed a book to read while in jail, I may very well still be confused and unhappy. A jail cell gives a man/woman lots of time to reflect and consider ones own beliefs. A little self centered spirituality. The alone time is necessary. The real moment I understood who I was, what I existed for, where I was. As I sat on the back porch, alone on an unusually quiet morning, smoking a cigarette (I quit smoking), I looked out over a large area of trees and sky. I kept looking downward toward the base of the trees then at the farm field and then the gravel in the driveway. I thought about the rocks on a molecular level, constantly moving. Which reminded me of the universe and how much life was moving around me. Everything became sacred. Life became sacred, my life. All of nature became sacred and I became rightfully small. I then became apart of. It took several years to decide what I would do about it. It’s a question that must be asked every moment of every moment. The answer can only come from within, the answer is a self-ish answer. Obtained through “self centered spirituality” while considering how it may effect all life.

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