Neale Donald Walsch - A Dangerous Spiritual Teaching

The message that for many years spiritual teachers have been sharing—that “you are creating your own reality”—can be a dangerous teaching if it is not fully explained.

There are two things you must know about the “you create your own reality” teaching:

     (1) First, it must be explained (as we have done several times here now) that you are not “creating” anything, but merely noticing or remembering its existence, then, by focusing on it, calling it forth as a “manifestation” from the Field of Infinite Possibilities that is the Always Now/Always Here of things. What you are creating is your Interior Reality of these manifestations. It is in this sense that the statement “You are creating your own Reality” is true.

     (2) Second, you must understand that even what we call the act of “creating” the Exterior Events of our lives is not something that anyone is doing alone. No Exterior Event in Physicality is created by any single individual. Such a thing is impossible.

Victim or Co-Creator?

a message from Neale Donald Walsch

My dear friends...

I made the point here last week that in the world of Duality Thinking (which is the world in which most of us live), you could imagine that somebody else is “doing something” to you, or that some seemingly uncontrollable outward condition has been encountered by you, without you having had anything to do with it. Let me go on this week to say that such a thing is impossible, given that Duality is not the Reality, yet in the world of our illusion such impossibilities can seem very real.

The world of Duality Thinking says that there is YOU and IT, or YOU and THEM. In the world of Non-Duality Thinking (which is the world as it is, and the world in which Masters live) there is only YOU and US. There is nothing else but US, in differing form.

If there is only US, then nothing can be happening TO us, and everything must be happening THROUGH us. Nevertheless, an event could have the appearance of happening TO us—in which case “us” changes to “you” very quickly in our thinking. Especially if what is happening is what one would call a negative event, it will be nearly impossible (depending upon one’s level of mastery) to stop from thinking of oneself as the victim, rather than the co-creator, of a present situation.

You Are Co-Creating Life's Events

a message from Neale Donald Walsch

Here in the Bulletin we have been exploring the nature of the events of life that appear in our reality every day. It is sometimes assumed that you have no control over exterior conditions, circumstances, or events--and I know that it can very often feel that way--but, in truth, you are co-creating them with others in your life--remembering, of course, as I have mentioned in previous weeks, how we are using the word "create" as a synonym for remember.

(To recap: When you "create" things you are actually remembering, or becoming aware of once again, what always was, is now, and always will be. Your awareness expands to the boundary-less place beyond Time and Space, into the spaciousness of all the When/Wheres of Existence.)

You have co-created the outward circumstance called repetition in order to create the inner experience called understanding. It is for this purpose that you are co-creating, one by one, all the conditions, circumstances, and events of your life.

Events and Experience Are Not The Same

a message from Neale Donald Walsch

My dear friends...

Last week in this space I mentioned that all of us are "choosing to have" all of the experiences that we are having, moment-to-moment. For some, this is hard to believe. Why in the world would we choose some of those worst events of our lives?

To begin to grasp the idea above, it is important for us to remember that an Experience and an Event are not the same thing. An "Event" is something that is occurring in your exterior environment. All Events are co-created by the lot of us. An "Experience" is something that is occurring in your interior environment. All Experiences, without exception, are created individually, each human being producing their own Reality.

The proof of this is that three different people can participate in, or witness, the same event and all three can have a different experience of it. This is what is meant by the New Age teaching: "You create your own reality," which I will go into in even more useful detail in the next chapter.

Doing Things You Never Did Before

a message from Neale Donald Walsch

My dear friends...

We spoke in our last Bulletin about what happens when you have The Holy Experience. This experience is what results when you notice what is already there in your life, and step into the demonstrating of it as you walk through your daily moments. Everything shifts in those moments, because you are experiencing them in a new way. Nothing has changed, but everything is different.

If you are picking up this conversation in the middle here, it may serve you to go back an issue or two in The Weekly Bulletin and "read into" what is being said here. And...now to go on...

When you have entered into The Holy Experience, people--in many cases total strangers--will begin to notice you. Your own inner guidance will lead you to grander and greater expressions of your wonderful Self.

You'll find yourself doing all sorts of things you might never have thought you'd be doing...or could only have dreamt of doing before now. Like writing poetry (and having it published), or taking up photography (and having people asking you for your pictures).

Making Your Life Larger

a message from Neale Donald Walsch

My dear friends...

Last week in this space I offered you six words, given to me by God, that could change your life. Those words again: Your life is not about you. Powerful, powerful words. Life changing words. And when I embraced those words, and all they brought when put into action, I had given myself the Holy Experience as it relates to my larger life in the world.

How? By giving me a direct experience of Who I Really Am. And that is what I came here for. That is what I'd been yearning for. That is what I had been searching for, hoping for, working for. I just didn't know how to produce that experience in my own reality.

Until I did. Until God gave me the clue, in those six words.

With the adopting of that message as my personal mantra (switching the words to the First Person: My life is not about me...), I quickly found my personal priorities changing. No more was I concerned with when I was going to have my next happy moment, but when you were; how I was going to feel the most joy, but how you were; whether I was going to find real peace and honest, true love, but whether you were.

Of course, you can only imagine what this produced in my life. Suddenly, everything I had spent years "efforting" for came flowing to me easily. I took special note of the CWG message: Be the Source. I was advised by God to no longer be the Seeker, but to be the Source in the life of another of that which I had been seeking in my own life.

Abolish the Thanksgiving holiday

a message from Neale Donald Walsch

As I made note of above, this is Thanksgiving Week in the United States, where I am writing this, and where Thanksgiving Day is one of the biggest family holidays of the year. But I have an idea about this holiday that is different from most Americans. I think that the holiday should be abolished. I have made this comment before, in other years, and I repeat it here...

I don't think that Thanksgiving should be a holiday at all. I think it should be a HOLY day, and placed on the calendar of all sacred days and events.

I also think we should change the way that Thanksgiving is celebrated. Forget about sitting down to a big meal and offering thanks to God for all the bounty that has been received during the past year. Instead, create a new ritual. Sit down together and thank God for all the goodness that is to come.

Do not go around the table and have each guest tell what he or she has to be thankful for. Rather, go around the table and have each guest say what they are going to be thankful for in the coming year-and then have everyone give thanks right then and there, ahead of time.

Your Life Is Not About You

a message from Neale Donald Walsch

My dear friends...

Last week in this space I said that there is a reason that taking the focus off of myself and placing on others has worked so effectively in changing my life, and I promised that I would continue that discussion this week.

The reason is that there's no such thing as "other" people. Everyone else is me. We are all one.

Separation is an illusion. No one is separate from anyone else. Therefore, what I do for you I do for me, and what I fail to do for you, I fail to do for me. What I give to you I give to me, and what I fail to give to you, I fail to give to me. What goes around comes around.

As noted above, you may not always receive it in return from the exact person you gave it to, but in the overall scheme of things Life will bring to you--sometimes from totally unexpected sources--what you bring to it.

As soon as I turned my life outward--worrying very little about how a thing affected me, or how my life was going, or what I imagined that I needed, but focusing outward instead, looking to see if there was some place or some way in which I could offer my gifts to bring help or joy to others--I found a pathway to real happiness and genuine inner peace.

That wonderful spiritual teacher of mine who I mentioned earlier, the minister named Terry Cole-Whittaker, once asked a room full of people, in which I was seated: "What would you do if you felt that you were through with you? What if you were finished, and God told you there was nothing more you had to do to make yourself better, or more perfect? What if God said you are fine just the way you are, that you are perfect in God's eyes just the way you are showing up right now. Then what would you do? What would you work on? What would you tell yourself you had to 'fix' over there, or heal about yourself, or accomplish in order to feel 'whole'?

Why Can't I Be Happy?

Posted by: Jon

a message from Neale Donald Walsch

The most amazing message I ever received in the Conversations with God dialogue consisted of six words. In just a half dozen sounds I was given everything I needed to know about the experience I was having on the earth.

I was in a deep place of wondering why, up to that point, my life was not bringing me the happiness I was seeking, even though I was almost always doing work that I loved to do, being with significant others that I loved to be with, and enjoying a family that I loved to enjoy.

"What is wrong with me?" I asked God. "Why can't I be happy???"

"It's all very simple," God said. "You think your life is about you."

I wanted to know what God meant. What was God saying? Then I heard the six words that changed my life,

"Your life is not about you."

Then who, pray tell, is it about? I wanted to know.

"Your life is about everyone whose life you touch," God told me. "And it is about how you touch them. How you touch them determines how you experience your Self--and how you experience your Self determines how happy you are."

Stop Trying To Earn a Living

a message from Neale Donald Walsch

For many, many weeks now, we have been exploring what I have called The Holy Experience here in The Weekly Bulletin. I hope with all my heart that this has served you, and that you have had a chance to read all that has been written here. I believe that the messages that have come from God to our world can truly change your life.

One of the things we have been looking at here is the experience that we call "work." What I am hoping to do here is put you in a position to make what you call "work" what you call "joy." The Holy Experience as it relates to your work life is experienced when you understand that no matter what you are doing to produce income, it is a joy because it is producing income--and income, rather than lack of it, is what you choose. Therefore, you are doing what you want to do.

The Holy Experience expands when you realize that you can allow the flow of Life Force through you in the way that you find the most exciting and the most fun, without thought of "how much money you can make," and that you will still be alive at the end of the process. (Unless you're not, in which case it won't matter anyway.)

I was presented with a plaque many years ago by Rev. Terry Cole- Whittaker, a hugely popular and wonderfully wise minister who has been sharing life truths with thousands of people for many years. The plaque said:

Pain & Suffering Are Not The Same

a message from Neale Donald Walsch

Last week in our ongoing series on The Holy Experience we defined it as that moment when nothing has changed, but everything is different.

Now this does not mean that we should ignore all suffering, look past all of another's torment, and proceed as if nothing bad is happening in the world. Quite the contrary. All of the circumstances on our planet, all of the conditions of Life, are placed BEFORE us BY us (remember always: we are acting co-jointly; there is only One of us) in order that we may decide, express, and experience who we really are in relationship to them.

Thus do those who suffer, and those who end the suffering of others, both experience Who We All Really Are.

I believe this is exactly what is happening here upon the earth. I believe that everything that is happening is happening perfectly so that all of us may awaken. I believe that many Souls are doing what you and I would call suffering and dying, so that all of us may have awakened, within, the Divine qualities of compassion, caring, forgiveness, understanding, patience, love, and, most of all, the Unity and Oneness of Life.

To the unaware observer, this may seem like a cruel way for Life to inform Life about Life through the process of Life Itself. Why should people have to suffer in order to demonstrate to themselves or others Who They Really Are?

That is a salient and important question. It is a question that every thinking person must ask if these spiritual understandings are to have a leg to stand on.

The answer is found in Conversations with God, which tells us that, in fact, people do not have to suffer in order to demonstrate to themselves or others Who They Really Are. Suffering as a means of producing such demonstrations is, it turns out, a choice.