God--what is it?

Notes from Neale...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My dear friends...

I am in Canada this week, on Cortez Island, at Hollyhock Retreat Center, for a small-group event to share the messages of Conversations with God. As I sit here on the plane to Vancouver, British Columbia I find myself looking closely at the question: Why am I going off to talk to a handful of people again? What is the point of this?

I keep thinking that if I reach enough people before I die the world will sooner or later reach Critical Mass in the number of folks who understand what I have come to understand: that the only way we are going to heal our world...and I might even say, save our world...is by changing our Cultural Story about Who We Are, why we are here, our Right Relationship with our fellow humans, Who and What God is, and our True Relationship with the Divine.

Every human ill can be traced to misunderstandings around those five questions. I call these the Pinnacle Questions, because the answers to these questions determine not only how we see our world, but how we experience it; and not only how we experience it, but how we create it.

Right now we are creating our Collective Reality based on what I am certain must be inaccurate answers to those five questions. Here are, according to Conversations with God, the correct answers.

1. Who We Are?
We are Individuations of Divinity, God made Man, Aspects of the Divine. We are The Deity, made manifest on Earth. We are the Individuated Essence of All That Is. We are the Creator and the Created. We are spiritual beings inhabiting a body. The Body is not who we are, it is something we have.

2. Why we are here?
We are here on earth, functioning daily in the Realm of Relativity, to announce and declare, create and express, become and fulfill the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever we held about Who We Are. We are The Spirit, evolving. We are the Soul, becoming. We are God, godding -- that is, God, becoming more and more of what God is, through the creating and the experiencing of that. All of these ideas might loosely be summarized with a single word: evolution. We are, in a sense, evolution itself, demonstrated.

3. What is our Right Relationship with our fellow humans?
Our relationship with other human beings in the same as our relationship with the Self. In the truest meaning of the word "other" there is no Other. There is only the Self, manifesting as a unique expression of the Self. It is like snow. The snow is the snow. It is nothing but the snow, even though each individual flake of the snow is entirely and completely and utterly different from every other flake. There are no two snowflakes alike--and there never have been since the beginning of time. Nor will there ever be through all eternity.

Looked at individually, all the snowflakes look different (because they are different). Looked at from a distance, it looks like all the same thing (because it is). How can so many billions and trillions of different-looking things form a Whole that is One Thing, exactly the same? How can so much Individuation create so much Single Identification? It is the miracle of snow. It is possible and it is happening, every day all the time. So are we. Every day, all the time. We are Differentiating the Oneness.

You are not "your brother's keeper," you are, in fact, your brother. You and your fellow human beings are individuations of a single mass, singular expressions of The Singularity Itself.

When you treat all other expressions of The Singularity as you would treat your Self, everything in your life and your world will change.
Everything.

And you, and humanity itself, will be Self Realized at last.

4. Who and What is God?
It is easier to say what God is not than it is to say what God is. There is nothing that God is not. God is Everything That Is...and Everything That Is Not. God is pure energy, The Essence, the Sum Total of Everything. God is Life, expressing. And Life is the expression of God. Life as we experience it is God Made Physical. It is inaccurate to define God as a power super being in the sky, having all the emotional and psychological characteristics of Man, including likes and dislikes, emotional proclivities, demands, requirements, and the need to judge, punish, and condemn those who do not understand his needs or respond to them in the One Single Way that he requires. It is accurate to define God as All That Is.

In March of 2007 I delivered a satsang in Tokyo in which I discussed God's true identity. Early in the program I described God in this way:

"God is not a Super Being in the Sky, with the same proclivities and emotional needs as human beings, including the need for love and for revenge. God is life's Essential Energy. You might want to call that energy Pure Intelligence.

"Intelligence doesn't care whether you believe in It or not. It doesn't care whether you use It on purpose or not. If you do use It on purpose, It doesn't care how. It makes no judgment about any this. In fact, It makes no judgment about anything at all.

"Pure Intelligence wants nothing, needs nothing, seeks nothing. It simply Is. It exists in a way that allows Itself to be used. It does this, it allows this, it makes this possible, by placing Itself inside of Everything.

"Wherever you look you will find Pure Intelligence. It is at the basis of all things that exist. Snowflakes reflect Pure Intelligence. The tiniest atoms reflect Pure Intelligence. The biggest swath of the night sky reflects Pure Intelligence. The process of life Itself, examined at every level, reflects Pure Intelligence.

"The energy that I am here calling Pure Intelligence can be used-is being used-at every level of life, by Life Itself. You are using this energy, you are focusing this energy, every second of every minute of every hour of every day...usually without knowing it.

"The fact that this energy exists, and the way to focus it, therefore using it to one's personal advantage, is what has been called 'the secret.' A movie by that very name was made last year and is now sweeping across the world.

"This energy that I am calling Pure Intelligence, and that I am telling you is another name for God, has no opinion about anything. That is because It doesn't need anything. It is singularly without need, for the simple reason that it is everything that exists in any form whatsoever. This includes not only physical things, but metaphysical things as well. This includes all spiritual things, and anything in any form that simply IS...including thoughts, emotions, feelings, ideas, and, yes, the black holes of space.

"Think about this. If God is truly everything that exists in any form whatsoever, what in the world could God want or need or require? Why would God punish us for not giving God what we imagine that God wants or needs or requires?

"The answer to these questions is self-evident. It need not be discussed in great detail, because simple logic reveals it to us and makes it clear how we have been held captive by the mythologies of our own culture and its past.

"The opportunity that lies before us, and before all sentient beings, is to use the Essential Energy of Pure Intelligence in the way in which it was designed to be used. Not all things that exist in the universe can use this Essential Energy consciously. That is, with full self-awareness and with intention. Only those elements of Life Itself that are self-conscious-that is, aware of themselves-can do so.

"I should correct that last statement. Not even all elements of life that are self-conscious can use the Essential Energy consciously. It is not only a question of being conscious, it is also a question of the level of consciousness that a being or a species has attained. For instance, a dog, while highly intelligent, is not sufficiently self-aware (as far as we know) to be able to use Essential Energy with intention.

"Human beings are not only aware of themselves, they are aware that they are aware, and so have risen to at least the Second Level of Consciousness. This level of consciousness allows sentient beings to notice themselves, and even to notice themselves noticing themselves. That is, we can stand 'outside of ourselves' and watch ourselves doing what we are doing and thinking what we are thinking and saying what we are saying.

"We can even watch ourselves watching ourselves. We can step back into the hallway of awareness, looking through doorways both forward and backward -- and, according to some, ultimately seeing and experiencing our Divine and Sacred Self."

5. What is our True Relationship with the Divine?

Ah, yes, the question of the hour. And we'll save the answer to that for next week!
Applying The Messages of CwG

Questions and Answers with Readers and Neale
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Neale:

I have a few questions for you. (1) What is the purpose of living and dying for hundreds of thousands of lifetimes? It seems like an endless cycle. Where does it ultimately lead to? (2) In New York when I attended your lecture, you signed my book "I see who you are and I love what I see." What does that mean? Who am I that you see? (3) What is one's life purpose? How does one find that out? (4) How can I have a conversation with God? I would like to have an intimate relationship and conversation with Him.

Holly
Piscataway, NJ.

Dear Holly,

I have a few answers for you.

(1) Living and dying has no purpose save the purpose you give it. Life is purposeless, pointless. So if you think you are involved in an experience that is pointless, you are right. That is God's greatest gift to us. You see, if God had given life a point, life would have no choice but to obey. Then the point of everybody's life would have had to have been the same! So God, in infinite wisdom, imbued life with no purpose whatsoever, in order that each and every one of us might imbue it with a purpose of our own, thus to define and create, announce and declare, express and experience Who We Really Are. Thus, I suppose it could be said that the purpose of life is to create and experience Who You Really Are. Mind you, not to discover Who You Are, but to create it. You see, there is nothing to discover. In essence, you are nothing, until you decide and create Who You Are.

In essence, you are nothing. I mean that literally. I mean that the essence of you-that which you are-is nothing at all. That is, you are not any particular thing. You are no-thing!

Did you know that, Holly? You are no-thing! That's how you start out, being no thing. And then you decide and declare, create and become, that which you say you are.

This is God in the act of God-ing! This is what's going on, Holly! Do you understand it? God is creating and experiencing Godself, through you.

So that, ultimately, is the "purpose of it all." Or, more correctly, it is the process that's going on. It is what's taking place. I mean that literally, too. We are, quite literally, "what is taking place" in time and space. How we "take our place," what we choose to be and do, is totally up to us. depends on what we'd like God to be.

So, where does this cycle lead to? You tell me, Holly. And I mean that literally, too! You tell me, every day, with your life. Your life is your decision as to where this all leads to.

(2) Who you are that I saw in New York, Holly, is a creation of wonder and beauty; a being about to burst forth into new realities, new and higher experiences of her wondrous self. I saw a child of God, Holly. I saw a Goddess Herself. Do you not see that when you look at yourself?

(3) See my answer to question 1 above. You do not "find that out," Holly. You decide that. Life is not a process of discovery. It is a process of creation. We keep waiting for God to tell us, show us, and God keeps waiting for us to tell Him, show Her. You see, Holly? We're waiting for the One Who Waits for Us.

Stop waiting, Holly. And stop asking. Start declaring. Life is not a question, Holly. Life is a declaration.

(4) You just did, Holly. You just did.

Hugs...Neale.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Best of the Blogs...

Each week we present in this space the best from past entries on the worldwide CwG Blog. The blog can be accessed daily on the home page at www.beliefnet.com.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Monday May 5, 2008

Category: Looking up close at Life

Why you came to this earth

There is a reason you came to the earth. Your soul knows this reason, but your mind may not, because your mind may be thinking about it in all the wrong ways...

(Last Friday I began here a series of blogs on life purpose and life mission. You may find it useful to refer back to that blog to "catch up" on where we have been and where we are going here.)

My life mission is to change the world's mind about God. What's yours? I asked this question last week, and the first response I received in the Comments Section was this, from Josh...

Well if I had already tapped into why my soul came here to this earth to be and do what it came here to be and do I would already be doing it, but I'm not, all I know is that my soul came here to evolve and experience something, I only wish I knew what it was it came here to experience.

Josh, what I want to tell you is that millions of people feel exactly the way you do. Millions. In fact, most of the people I meet -- and I do a lot of traveling, all over the world -- tell me the same thing. "If I only knew...if I only knew..."

I want to share with you now what I share with them:

There is nothing to know, Josh. There is no 'blackboard in the sky' on which it is written:

JOSH IS A FINE PERSON WHO LIVED IN THE FIRST PART OF THE 21ST CENTURY WHO:

...followed by a blank line that God has filled in, with different words for every person....and all you have to do is find that blackboard...

That's not how it is, Josh. God is not sitting up there with a purpose in mind for each of us, our job being to discover what that is. Why would God do that? Why would God be so cruel?

"Ha! I've got a great purpose for Josh...but I'm not going to tell him what it is. Hey, angels, come on over here! Look down there! See Josh? Look at him scrambling around down there trying to find the purpose I gave him. Think he'll find out what it is before he dies? Ha! This is great!"

That's not how it is, Josh. That's just not how it is. Conversations with God tells us: "Life is not a process of discovery, life is a process of creation."

There is no purpose, set in heaven, for you to discover, there is only an opportunity for you to create. Here's the extraordinary news, Josh: With regard to "what it was you came here to experience"...you get to decide.

And here's the even better news: There's no limit to what you can decide.
The question is not, "What am i supposed to be doing here?" The question is, "What do I choose to be doing here? What do I want to be doing here?"

My own life mission -- to change the world's mind about God -- is not something that was "given" me. It is something I gave myself.. I decided that on my own. Nobody told me to do it.

You get to make your own determination about why you are here, Josh, and what you came to experience. That is what life is for. God gave you the gift of life just so that you could make this very decision -- and then live it out as your functioning reality.

Neale Walsch