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| "Remember: We Are All One." |
These books came to me highly recommended from several friends and strangers. i now pass that recommendation on to all of you - i think these books would benefit absolutely anyone who reads them.
i read them over a span of more than two years. Sometimes i would motor right through huge sections, taking many notes (as i almost always do when i read), and making them some of the most dog-eared volumes i've ever owned. Other times, long periods would pass when i didn't pick them either due to not reading or reading other things. Many, many times i found though that when i did pick them to read i would immediately find exactly the bit of insight, wisdom or information that i seemed to need right then.
In the text of the work, the voices of both God and the author both emphasize that this work is meant to be read in its entirety and the order it is presented, simply to avoid confusion. It did become clear how certain quotations could be taken out of context and mean something very different than was intended. i would say though that having read all three cover to cover, not only did all of the ideas make sense, and not only did them all seem believable, they all even seemed to be unavoidably and indubitably true.
They are written in the format of a conversation between the author, Neale Donald Walsch, and God. i do believe, in fact, that that is what it is. i do believe that these books were inspired by God at least as much as The Bible was. But then, i believe that about many books and other works of art. And it is incredibly comprehensive, covering (but not limited to) practical advice on family, friends, and work, the nature and power of love, responses on big questions about the universe and our place in it, whether there are E.T.s, angels and ghosts, the reason that we sleep, 2012, theological and moral understandings, it even makes clear the fact that time does not exist.
That in mind, i will attempt to share here i think is the most interesting insight of the book - the identity and nature of God.
(All quotations here are from Book 3, the only volume i have with me right now. All three books though contain the same truths, the first on the interpersonal level, Book II on the societal level and Book II on the universal level - but this is a question of focus, not content.)
On page 10, the voice of God says,
"I am God.
I am the Goddess.
I am the Supreme Being. The All of Everything. The Beginning and The End. The Alpha and Omega.
I am the Sum and the Substance. The Question and the Answer. The Up and the Down of it. The Left and the Right, the Here and the Now, the Before and the After.
I am the Light, and I am the Darkness that creates the Light, and makes it possible. I am the Goodness Without End, and the "Badness" which makes the "Goodness" good. I am all of these things - the All of Everything..."
Well, that got me thinking. God is the good and the bad? That means that God is flowers, and he is also dog droppings. God is gold and God is clay. God is animals and plants. God is fashion designs, tv commercials, and corporations. God is toenail clippings, armpit hair and farts. God Is Bush, Blair, Obama, Berlusconi and bin Laden. God is sunrises and sunsets, and hurricanes, earthquakes and tornadoes.
"And this is what you do not understand about me," God says. "You want to make Me the one, and not the other. The high and not the low. The good, and not the bad. Yet in denying half of Me, you deny half your Self. And in doing, you can never be Who You Really Are."
God is not limited, we should not pretend that she is so.
Importantly, these books repeatedly make it clear that God is not judgemental. You can do no wrong BECAUSE God is not vulnerable or damageable. He is above that, he is not offendable:
"The reason i have no need to forgive you is that you cannot offend Me, nor can I be damaged or destroyed. Yet you imagine yourself capable of offending, even damaging, Me. What an illusion! What a magnificent obsession!"
i will admit that people claim the opposite of this are misinformed or confused, not malicious or bad - but how spectacularly illogical and egotistical, it seems to me, to think that we can offend a truly all powerful being. The very act of being offended is a sign of weakness, which God would not have.
Of course, since God is everything, this all means that WE are God. i, PaxRyan, am God, and so are you, you blog readers you! Our friends and enemies, and even our families, as well. God is within all of us and everything (...the 8th grade atheist inside of me can't believe i just wrote that!!)
Now check out the math on that one: If God is everything, then we are God. God is eternal, then we must be eternal. If God is the Creator, and God is Life - then that's what we are too!
And that means that we are everything else! WE are animals and criminals, plants and saints, shit and shingles, Bush and bin Laden, all of it!
We are God is everything!:-)
In the book, God reminds us: "Remember, We Are All One." (p. 350)
And this brings big responsibility for us. This truth has very real, practical implications:
"Your world will follow your idea about yourself... First comes your thought about yourself, then follows the outer world of physical manifestation.
What you think, you create. What you create, you become. What you become, you express. What you express, you experience. What you experience, you are. What you are, you think.
The circle is complete." (p. 257, my emphasize added)
On page 344-345, the voice of God says,
"You have always thought that God is the Supreme Being... And you have been right about that. I am exactly that. A BEING. Notice that 'being' is not a thing, it is a process.
I am the Supreme Being. That is, the Supreme, comma, being.
I am not the result of a process, I am the Process Itself. I am the Creator, and I am the Process by which I am created.
Everything you see in the heavens and earth is Me, being created... I am never 'done.' .....
...God is an event. You have called that event life."
"You are a human being. And what you are being is decided and chosen by you." (p. 233)
This does not mean that we are all wizards, capable of doing and creating whatever we want. But it does mean that we all can be! Here is the reason we are not all capable of magic already:
"Always in life you have before you three choices:
1. You may allow your uncontrolled thoughts to create The Moment.
2. You may allow your creative consciousness to create The Moment.
3. You may allow the collective consciousness to create The Moment." (p. 71)
So, it is always your thoughts creating your world. (As also quantum physics is indicating through modern scienctists.) But most of us don't bother to control what we think. We believe that we do things we don't want to, which is never true. Nor does anything outside of us create our thoughts or feelings. Confusion about this is #1 here.
Some of us allow what other people think to completely influence our own thoughts, or we choose to believe we have no choosing power, and i think this is what he means in #3 there.
But what is clear is that we do in fact have the ability to control our thoughts, our lives, and everything around us - #2. This is what we want - to be aware of, and therefore in control of, what we think, and so to create consciously. This is the point of meditation, of visualization, it is the reason, for example, that athletes, musicians and other performers practice - in order to be in control of their thoughts and do what they want to do when they want to do it. This, i am learning, is what magic is, what creates what we would ordinarily call super powers. And it is possible, because we are God, we are the creator.
For this reason, our intention is the most important and powerful thing in the universe.
"Motive is everything. Objectives determine outcomes. Life proceeds out of your intention. Your true intention is revealed in your actions, and your actions are determined by your true intention. As with everything in life (and life itself), it is a circle."
God created us, we create God. These ideas are synonymous to me. Speaking of synonymous, check this out, from the voice of God in the book:
"All of these words are therefore synonymous. Think of them as the same thing:
That in mind, i will attempt to share here i think is the most interesting insight of the book - the identity and nature of God.
(All quotations here are from Book 3, the only volume i have with me right now. All three books though contain the same truths, the first on the interpersonal level, Book II on the societal level and Book II on the universal level - but this is a question of focus, not content.)
On page 10, the voice of God says,
"I am God.
I am the Goddess.
I am the Supreme Being. The All of Everything. The Beginning and The End. The Alpha and Omega.
I am the Sum and the Substance. The Question and the Answer. The Up and the Down of it. The Left and the Right, the Here and the Now, the Before and the After.
I am the Light, and I am the Darkness that creates the Light, and makes it possible. I am the Goodness Without End, and the "Badness" which makes the "Goodness" good. I am all of these things - the All of Everything..."
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| Book 1 |
"And this is what you do not understand about me," God says. "You want to make Me the one, and not the other. The high and not the low. The good, and not the bad. Yet in denying half of Me, you deny half your Self. And in doing, you can never be Who You Really Are."
God is not limited, we should not pretend that she is so.
Importantly, these books repeatedly make it clear that God is not judgemental. You can do no wrong BECAUSE God is not vulnerable or damageable. He is above that, he is not offendable:
"The reason i have no need to forgive you is that you cannot offend Me, nor can I be damaged or destroyed. Yet you imagine yourself capable of offending, even damaging, Me. What an illusion! What a magnificent obsession!"
i will admit that people claim the opposite of this are misinformed or confused, not malicious or bad - but how spectacularly illogical and egotistical, it seems to me, to think that we can offend a truly all powerful being. The very act of being offended is a sign of weakness, which God would not have.
Of course, since God is everything, this all means that WE are God. i, PaxRyan, am God, and so are you, you blog readers you! Our friends and enemies, and even our families, as well. God is within all of us and everything (...the 8th grade atheist inside of me can't believe i just wrote that!!)
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| Book 2 |
And that means that we are everything else! WE are animals and criminals, plants and saints, shit and shingles, Bush and bin Laden, all of it!
We are God is everything!:-)
In the book, God reminds us: "Remember, We Are All One." (p. 350)
And this brings big responsibility for us. This truth has very real, practical implications:
"Your world will follow your idea about yourself... First comes your thought about yourself, then follows the outer world of physical manifestation.
What you think, you create. What you create, you become. What you become, you express. What you express, you experience. What you experience, you are. What you are, you think.
The circle is complete." (p. 257, my emphasize added)
On page 344-345, the voice of God says,
"You have always thought that God is the Supreme Being... And you have been right about that. I am exactly that. A BEING. Notice that 'being' is not a thing, it is a process.
I am the Supreme Being. That is, the Supreme, comma, being.
I am not the result of a process, I am the Process Itself. I am the Creator, and I am the Process by which I am created.
Everything you see in the heavens and earth is Me, being created... I am never 'done.' .....
...God is an event. You have called that event life."
"You are a human being. And what you are being is decided and chosen by you." (p. 233)
This does not mean that we are all wizards, capable of doing and creating whatever we want. But it does mean that we all can be! Here is the reason we are not all capable of magic already:
"Always in life you have before you three choices:
1. You may allow your uncontrolled thoughts to create The Moment.
2. You may allow your creative consciousness to create The Moment.
3. You may allow the collective consciousness to create The Moment." (p. 71)
So, it is always your thoughts creating your world. (As also quantum physics is indicating through modern scienctists.) But most of us don't bother to control what we think. We believe that we do things we don't want to, which is never true. Nor does anything outside of us create our thoughts or feelings. Confusion about this is #1 here.
Some of us allow what other people think to completely influence our own thoughts, or we choose to believe we have no choosing power, and i think this is what he means in #3 there.
But what is clear is that we do in fact have the ability to control our thoughts, our lives, and everything around us - #2. This is what we want - to be aware of, and therefore in control of, what we think, and so to create consciously. This is the point of meditation, of visualization, it is the reason, for example, that athletes, musicians and other performers practice - in order to be in control of their thoughts and do what they want to do when they want to do it. This, i am learning, is what magic is, what creates what we would ordinarily call super powers. And it is possible, because we are God, we are the creator.
 |
| Ouroboros |
For this reason, our intention is the most important and powerful thing in the universe.
"Motive is everything. Objectives determine outcomes. Life proceeds out of your intention. Your true intention is revealed in your actions, and your actions are determined by your true intention. As with everything in life (and life itself), it is a circle."
God created us, we create God. These ideas are synonymous to me. Speaking of synonymous, check this out, from the voice of God in the book:
"All of these words are therefore synonymous. Think of them as the same thing:
God
Life
Love
Unlimited
Eternal
Free
....You are all of those things, and you will seek to experience yourself as all of these things sooner or later." (p.206-207)
 |
| Thank you Neale Donald Walsch for sharing your inspiration! |
Now, like i said, these books came to me, brought by the recommendations of other people. And, it seems to me, that they came when i was ready, not before. i had already begun exploring the truths of spirituality through yoga, meditation, traveling to India,, studying with Peruvian shamans,studying many different religions and their roots, and reading and studying many different teachers. This trilogy has helped me greatly and was a well-timed step on my path. Here, i've written about the nature of God and divinity because it is something i happen to be very interested in. But overall, here is the message of these books in its most precise and succinct form, is the overall message of these great books:
"There's nothing I have to have, there's nothing I have to do, and there's nothing I have to be, except exactly what I'm being right now." (p. 362)
i know that might sound difficult to accept at first. But, i can tell you, in context of these three books, having just read them, it does make sense and it is comforting. Now i just have to internalize this that i already know intellectually to be true. It is, like the book says, a process.
"Acceptance, proclamation, demonstration. Those are the three steps to God. Acceptance of Who and What You Really Are. Proclamation of it for all the world to hear. And demonstration in every way." (p. 263)
i encourage you to pursue these ideas yourself, by reading these great books, through Neale's web page, by connecting with him on Facebook, or by simply contemplating the ideas themselves on your own.
i also encourage us to not worry - from what i am coming to understand, we are all on the correct path, we just don't yet understand all of our plan yet. i felt not just the ring of truth, but also comfort and a sense of empowerment as i read this:
"If you could see you as God sees you, you would smile a lot." (p. 349)
This is a great review! I am so glad I became aware of your blog. A couple of years ago at a tag sale I picked up a copy of Conversations with God, I still have it but haven't gotten the chance to read it yet. This review totally inspired me to pick it up this week and start it. I love when Walsch wrote:
ReplyDelete"The reason i have no need to forgive you is that you cannot offend Me, nor can I be damaged or destroyed. Yet you imagine yourself capable of offending, even damaging, Me. What an illusion! What a magnificent obsession!"
The past year has been quite a spiritual journey for me as encountering God through meditation has really stripped me from the need for dogma and has plunged me into the sea of experience, where endless revelations are to be had when it comes to that which is God...
I'm looking forward to reading more on your blog! :)
Just reading the above I am sceptical. Yes God is in everything. WE are not supposed to be judgemental (not knowing the back story), but God is upset by evil and God does judge, forgiving if we change our ways, make amends. God is empathetic, and cares, is grieved or sometimes angry if people behave in cruel or unfortunate, uncaring ways. Look at Jesus in the temple kicking out the corrupt money changers, Jesus crying about Lazarus'death and the grief of his good friends Mary and Martha.
ReplyDeleteAs always...what a beautiful blog from a beautiful heart. Thank you for sharing.
ReplyDeleteWith love and light.
Anonymous 1, i will not judge what you are saying;-) i will say though that God claims he does not judge in Walsch's book;-) Nobody claimed he did not care or that he wasn't empathetic. (ok, i will also add that the man-controlled, traditioanl JudeoChristian idea of God is the one that turned me into an 8th grade atheist!)
ReplyDelete"we are all on the correct path, we just don't yet understand all of our plan yet."
ReplyDelete"If you could see you as God sees you, you would smile a lot." (p. 349)
I like both of these ideas - thanks for sharing!
It is a very good book to read and reflect on...
ReplyDelete