Q&A on Conversations with God

Excerpt from “Q&A on Conversations with God”

Complex Questions

I love questions. They make my mind expand. And the more difficult the questions, the better I like it. That’s why I loved answering the questions in this book. They include some of the most challenging inquiries I’ve ever received on the Conversations with God material, reflecting the passions, frustrations, interests, and curiosities of some wonderfully engaging and courageous people.

Throughout the book, I’ve tried to categorize these inquires by topic. Some writers, however, clearly had no intention of limiting themselves to one subject per letter. I thought of taking these multiple-topic inquiries and breaking them into segments, putting the various sections into more definable categories, but, in the end, I felt that this would have taken a lot of the steam out of them. These questions are juicy precisely because they are compound and complex.

Life, of course, is like that, too. So here they are, questions that offer a slice of life. Real questions, about real life, from real people.

Why Do People Hurt Each Other?

My name is Penny and the only word that seems to sum up how I felt when I read your book was wow! Neale, these are the questions that your book has raised for me.

(1) 1 still don’t understand why people in relationships, especially families, constantly hurt each other, and the relationships go up and down. Is it karma being worked out from past lives?

(2) In your book, God says the color white does not mean without color, it means color inclusive. Does this apply to race? Does this mean that a white person represents all of the other races combined? As an African-American, I’m curious why God created different races, and His/Her thoughts on the current race issues. I know that no one race is superior to another, but I just need to hear it from God . . . though I already know.

(3) Are you sure there is no devil? Who was Lucifer? There is evil in this world, but is the source solely man? Is there no bogeyman out there? Do you realize if we truly believe this, how much fear this releases—and what potential it shows we have?

(4) How do I release my great level of fear about everything?

(5) Is God a "he" or a "she?" Which is it? And what should we call her? Does she mind? Does she even care? I could never have asked such a facetious question before reading your book.

(6) Are there any good organized religions that incorporate most of God’s true messages? I was raised a Catholic, but left the church when I started my search for truth. I don’t know what to label myself now, except "Child of God." I totally believe in Jesus (because he answered me time and time again), so I suppose that makes me a Christian of sorts. I believe in a lot of New Age thought, but not all. So I might be a Christian New Age Mystic. (Smile)

And finally (7), how can I talk to the Goddess? Will She talk to me, even with all my fears and doubts? How do I connect with Her? This sounds crazy, but I want to hear Her say she loves me, too, and feel her love. I want to spend my life helping others that are less fortunate, but I need to ask Her what area I should help out in—AIDS, homelessness, kids? Where! Can you help me? I hope that you can feel the sincerity of my message, and I have faith that you will answer me. With much love and thanks. Penny.

My wonderful, wonderful Penny, of course I am going to answer you! And what a letter! I could write a book from this one! Let’s take your questions in order.

(1) People hurt each other in relationships because they do. They do it because they do, Penny. There is no larger reason for it, such as "working out karma from past lives," etc. It’s just something that happens. It’s part of life. Nobody hurts another out of villainous intent. Remember these two important teachings, Penny:

• No one acts inappropriately, given their model of the world
• All attack is a call for help

People hurt each other because they want something they think they can’t have, or have something they don’t want. They are in one of the above two conditions, and they don’t know what to do about it. They think that the only method of getting their way, having their desires met, etc., is to hurt another. They do not have to do this, but they do not know that. They do not understand how to "have what they want," or "not have what they don’t want," without hurting one another.

The problem is education, not intent.

Greet each instance of hurt with compassion and love. Compassion for others’ lack of understanding (we have all been there at one time or another), love for others’ humanness, and their attempts—however apparently misguided—to solve their dilemmas and keep on trying to make their lives work.

We are engaged here in a process of becoming. Of creating. Of being. Some of us are "being" more than others. That’s just how it Is. That’s what I call "Isness." It’s just what’s true. Accept that with a smile. Embrace that with love in your heart. Understand, deeply, that no one wants to hurt you. They simply do it inadvertently, or perhaps, indeed, on purpose, because they know no other way to have the experience they desire. The next time someone hurts you, ignore the hurt and go to the only question which matters: What do you want or need so badly that you feel you have to hurt me to get it? You can ask this question silently, in your heart, or, if you have a particularly open and honest relationship with the other person, you can actually address the question verbally. Try it sometime. It is a terrific argument stopper. It is a terrific abuse ender.

What do you want or need so badly that you feel you have to hurt me to get it?

What is it you want to have, or feel, right now?

Is there a way I can help you to have that without giving up who I am?

Even asked silently, in your own heart, these questions can change the moment so dramatically, so immediately, so powerfully, that you won’t even know what happened. And your "partner" in the dance will wonder what new level of mastery you’ve gone to! There’s much more to say on this subject.

(2) I cannot speak for God here, Penny. And while I’ve said that, let me make that statement about everything that appears in these letters. These letters are not an extension of the book Conversations with God.

I am not presently at the level where I can sit down any time I wish and begin receiving the kind of information that came through me for that book at my whim. As I explained in Book 1, those writings took a year to come through. Another year for Book 2. And even longer for Book 3. So I do not claim the letter you are holding in your hand to be a direct channeling from God, or inspired writing, a term I do use to describe the CWG trilogy. These letters to readers reflect what I have gotten out of the trilogy myself. They are my understandings, based on over six years of "taking dictation" for the trilogy. I want to be clear on that. I want to get as far away as I can from any paradigm which suggests that "What Neale Says is What God Says." It would be a huge—I mean, monumental—mistake to create such a paradigm around me.

Now, to your questions on race, Penny. I do not believe that the so-called "white race" represents all other races combined, but rather, it is simply one more off-shoot of the Mother Race, with skin pigmentations and physical characteristics that are nothing more or less than the result of biological survival imperatives in the earliest stages of human development, based upon conditions existent for the various peoples on the planet at that time. These races continue to proliferate as a result of the hereditary gene pool which was formulated at that time and then passed on through succeeding generations.

As to "why God created different races," I do not think God sat down one pleasant morning and said, "I shall create many different races, each of a different color and characteristic." I think that God simply allows the process of life to exist, and that it is out of the process of life that all things are created. Not just races, but volcanoes. Hurricanes. Earthquakes. Human errors and mistakes. Travesties of justice. Goodness and mercy. You name it. I don’t think that God sits up there somewhere and creates these "terms and conditions" of the human experience one by one, or even all at once with a single master stroke. I think that God simply created life itself, as we have defined it in the physical universe, with an extraordinary set of laws which govern the who, what, where and why of things. The discipline of science is man’s attempt to uncover those laws, to understand them, and then to work with them to produce desired results. There is even a spiritual movement called Religious Science, which is based on the thought that God’s laws are understandable by man, and may be used with predictable and consistent results.

As to God’s "thoughts on the current race issues," I don’t know about that. You’d have to ask Her. I do have an idea, however, of how God might answer that question. I believe God might say, "Human beings have exhibited an extraordinary penchant for taking anything which renders them different, and allowing that to separate them. You have created a species which does not tolerate differences very well. It is this single human failing which has led to the massive misery which visits your planet. If you could just get over your differences, and stop seeing them as that which separates you; if you could just focus with love on those aspects of your being which you hold in common—the desire for peace, the wish to love and be loved, the hope for a life of dignity in a world of choices which are free, the yearning for an opportunity to each rise to your highest potential, and the earnest and unending urging within you to express the very best that you are—if you could see these as the aspects of humanity that matter, encouraging and fostering, nurturing and empowering them, rather than empowering your fear, anger, hatred, and distrust over your differences, then the whole of the human experience would change forevermore, and you would be in the paradise I had originally created for you."

As I interpret CWG, I also believe God would say: "My singular treasure, Penny: Of course it is true that no one single race is ‘superior’ to another. Superiority of any kind does not exist in ultimate reality, for you are all ‘superior,’ and thus none more superior than another. This is what is meant by the teaching that you were created, all of you, in the ‘image and likeness of God.’ This is what is meant by the profound statement upon which your very nation was built: that all men are created equal."

Finally, I believe that God would make one closing, and extraordinary, statement: "It is also true, Penny, that not even I am ‘superior’ to you. When you understand this, you will know the grandest gift of God: that each of you is endowed with the wisdom and the power and the perfection and the love of that which is God Itself, for you are what I Am. This is necessarily true because what I Am is all there is. The only ‘difference’ between us, Penny, is that I know this and you do not." This is what I truly believe God would say, my new friend, and who is to deny that He has said it just now?

(3) Yes, Penny, I am sure there is no devil. For greater clarity on this point, reread pages 14, 24-25, 51, 53, 61, 85, 154, 196, and 204 of CWG Book 1. I could add nothing here that would be more eloquent.

(4) Franklin Roosevelt said it with remarkable clarity: "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." You will release yourself from fear, Penny, when you realize that there is nothing to be afraid of. What is the worst that can happen? In any situation? Well, that you will die, of course. That’s about the worst, right? And that might just be the best thing that’s ever happened to you. People who have died and returned to their body, people who have had NDEs (near-death experiences), fear nothing. Did you know that? They fear nothing. Do you know why? Because they have gotten very clear that there is nothing to fear—not even death.

Fear is an announcement that you do not believe in God. For if a God exists, why would He want anything less than what is best for you? Yet if you are having experiences that you judge to be less than "the best," who is at cause in the matter? God? Or could it be you?

Yet do not denounce fear, Penny, and neither condemn it. For fear is merely the opposite of love, and without it, love could not exist in your reality. Therefore love your fear. You might even say, love it to death.

(5) God is neither a "he" nor a "she." God has no form which is permanent, save that form which you would call formlessness. Yet God can, and does, take whatever form and whatever shape God knows you will understand. And no, God does not "care" what you call Him, as long as you call Her. That is to say, don’t ignore Him. This is not because She is lonely and needs your company. It is because God’s greatest pleasure is to be there for you, in as large a way as you will permit, in whatever form you will allow yourself to recognize. Do you recognize God in the form of a flower? How about an inspired melody? The whisper of the wind? The softness of the new fallen snow? How about the face of your persecutor? Do you recognize God in the person of your villain? If you do not, you do not know God at all, nor understand Her ways, nor have any idea at all what He is up to. Only when you see God everywhere you look— everywhere—do you see God at all. This is a difficult concept for most people to grasp; this is a very hard truth for many to accept. Yet it is true. It is the greatest truth ever told.

(6) It is difficult for me to be anything but purely subjective on this question, so I am tempted to not answer it, because who cares what Neale Donald Walsch thinks? The important thing is what you think. Check out the world’s religions. Read up on them. Go to a few churches, synagogues, mosques, temples and houses of prayer. See what you think. Feel what you feel. Your truth will be made clear to you.

Now, while there are good things in most every religion, I want to remind you of what CWG says on this topic. It says that religion is man’s attempt to explain the inexplicable, and that in this it does not do a very good job. I agree with CWG’s wisdom on this. I think there is a vast difference between "religion" and "spirituality." I seek to practice spirituality, not religion. Still, if I were looking for a "good organized religion," here’s what I would seek, and here’s what I would avoid:

• I love ritual, and I also love factual information which helps me to understand things. So many of the churches today offer a preponderance of either one or the other, either explaining everything about God so factually that it all seems too dry, or moving toward the experience of God so ritualistically that there is only "airy-fairyness," and nothing to engage the mind. So I look for a church which combines and mixes the factual and the ritual, thus touching, and allowing me to experience, all of the parts of me: body, mind and spirit.
• I know that God exists and acts in, as, and through everyone and everything, and so I am uncomfortable in churches or groups which tend to deify one particular being, however holy, over others. I believe that other-being-centered religions can be dangerous, because they offer a temptation to substitute the holy being around which the movement revolves for one’s own holiness, one’s own truth, one’s own divinity, and to that degree they delay the spiritual quest and betray the spiritual experience to which life invites all of us. For this reason I avoid other-being-centered churches, where individual thinking and individual experience is virtually not allowed if it so much as questions, much less contradicts, the teachings of the holy Other.
• I know that God is neither a man nor a woman, neither black nor white, but takes whatever form God chooses, for whatever purpose God declares. I also know that God finds no one sex, race, color or type of human being superior to, or more "holy" than, any other. And so I look for churches and spiritual organizations that honor the God and the Goddess, that elevate, and give equal opportunity to, men and women, and that deny no one the chance to create holy ritual and perform sacred service as priests, bishops, ministers, teachers and leaders.
• I know that God speaks directly to and through human beings in this day and time, and has in all days and times, and for this reason I avoid any church, sect or philosophy that holds that man cannot have direct, immediate, two-way communication with God, but insists, rather, that an intermediary or particular process is required—which just happens to be the intermediary or process around which that religion or philosophy is formed.
• I know that there is no "one right way" to approach God, experience God, love God and bring the direct experience of God into one’s life, and because I know this I dismiss at once any church, religion, group, sect, cult or clan that claims and asserts that its teachings are the only true teachings, that its way is the one true way, and that any other teaching or way, no matter how sincere or well intended, can only lead to damnation and the angry, unmerciful curse of the very God to whom one is reaching out.

These are my personal guidelines, Penny, and they don’t have to be yours. The difficulty with these guidelines is that they tend to eliminate virtually every organized religion on the face of the earth. So there you have it.

(7) And now Penny, to your last question: you can speak directly to Goddess/God any time, any place. You do speak to Him with every thought, every word, every idea, every choice, every action. You cannot not talk to God. And God talks back to you every day in a million ways. She may even be talking to you now. Listen . . . look . . .

. . . I love you Penny.

Finally, as to how you can find a way to serve others through and with your life, see Bringers of the Light, a booklet I’ve just made available through our Foundation. And God bless you, Penny. You’re a marvelous work, and a wonder.

How Can I See Myself as "Equal?"

Hi Neale! I love the book you wrote with God, CWG Book 1. Thank you. Two questions. (1) I’ve never felt like other people. I feel stupid and not as smart, yet I know that I know things, if they would just surface. A big block. I have friends, but I feel they can hold a conversation without stuttering and forgetting, and that they know more. How can I break through this block and see myself as their equal, as I know I am? If you don’t understand this question, God will.

Second, my children, whom I love dearly, sometimes just won’t listen. Why is this so hard for me? I’ve cried many a night about what to do. How long am I going to have to deal with this, and when is it going to end? Maybe other moms have the same question, so if possible, put this in your newsletter. Carol, Montrose, PA.

My dear Carol, the question is not whether you are "as smart" as other people. I am not as smart as Albert Einstein was. I am not as smart as Jonas Salk or Thomas Edison or—well, heck, I’m not even as smart as my brother! Comparisons with other beings are pointless. There are a lot of things that my brother is not that I am. There are also a lot of things that others are not, that you are. It is of no importance whether you are as "smart" as someone else. Each of us has our own gift to give. And yet not all have the same gift.

The Bible puts this wonderfully, Carol, in one of my favorite passages . . . from 1 Corinthians 12:29, to 1 Cor. 13:13. In this section, the question of comparison to others is raised. And the point is eloquently made that there is only one gift that really matters. Without this gift all other gifts are pointless and have no value. Yet with this gift nothing else is needed or necessary. Here is what that passage in the Bible says. Please read it carefully, Carol.

Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles? Have all the gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?

But covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet show I unto you a more excellent way.

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing.

And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing.

Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.

But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

You see, my wonderful Carol, there is only one thing that really matters. Are you a loving person? If you are, you have demonstrated the greatest gift of God. Nothing else matters. Nothing. Not how well you speak, nor how fast you think, nor how good you are in a conversation. Not how much you know, nor how little you err, nor how great your earthly achievements. None of these things matter in the eyes of God.

How can you remove your block? How can you feel that you are "equal" to your friends, as you know inside that you are? By knowing that you are "equal" to everyone in the sight of God. And then by expressing your wonderful love to everyone, equally. For as you love others, so will they love you. And as you know others, so will they know you.

Now, Carol, to your question about the children. My suggestion to you, Carol, is that you change the way you are talking to your children. I want to recommend a book to you, Carol. It is absolutely the best book I have ever read on this subject. The book is How to Talk So Kids Will Listen, and Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. Go get it, Carol. Today. It should be at the library.

Generally, the strategy suggested in that book is to talk to children in a way which allows them to see you as being on their side in the struggles of life. No matter what they are wanting, being, doing or having, find a way to position yourself on the same side of the problem.

Let me give you a very simple example. Let’s say you have a 5-year-old, and that child is demanding a cookie. As it happens, dinner is less than 20 minutes away. Now as a mother, you have a choice here. You may try to carefully explain to the child that dinner is on the way, that a cookie before dinner will spoil his appetite, and that therefore the answer is no (which puts you on the opposite side of the problem), or you can empathize with the child’s plight, join him in his unhappiness over it, and actually get him to solve the problem for you. This is done by engaging in a little creative dialogue, something like the following:

Child: I want a cookie!

Mom: Boy, you know what? I want a cookie, too! I love cookies, don’t you?

Child: Yeah!

Mom: But we can’t have one.

Child: Why not?

Mom: Well, because dinner is going to be ready soon and if we have a cookie now, we might get full before dinner, and then we won’t eat it. And I have done all that work making it for nothing. But I’m sad, because I really would like to have a cookie right now. Wouldn’t you?

Child: Yeah.

Mom: Can you think of any way we cannot be so sad about the cookie?

Child: Yeah! Eat one anyway!

Mom: (laughs) That’s one way. But we can’t do that. Remember the rule? No eating snacks before dinner. I don’t like that rule sometimes, but that’s the rule. Now what am I going to do? (A sad look on her face.)

Child: (Instantly wanting to help.) Don’t be sad, Mommy. We can have a cookie after dinner. Can it be our dessert?

Mom: What a good idea! Boy, that’s a great idea! We can have a cookie after dinner! Great! Lets go pick one out right now, and put it by our plates so it’s ready for us to eat!

The point of this exchange is to avoid placing yourself in the position of obstacle. If the child sees you as the obstacle to what he wants, you can be sure that difficulty will follow. The problem is that your children see you as the obstacle. You are that which gets in the way. It is for this reason that your children may not listen to you. If, on the other hand, the child sees that both of you are facing an obstacle which is in front of you, not between you, he will more often than not become your helpmate in facing the problem and solving it. This is a simplistic example, but the formula can actually be applied to just about any problem, no matter what its nature or the age of the child.

Now the frazzled parent is the parent who insists on remaining the obstacle and demanding that the children listen and obey or else. All this does is create incredible friction between parent and child, turning each exchange into a power struggle of major proportions, and building resentments in all directions.

Still, being the most powerful one may work in the short term. It is in the long run that it never will. Not if your aim is to retain your child’s love, respect, and friendship; not if you want the kind of relationship with your child in which she actually comes to you with her problems when she is older, rather than going anywhere and everywhere else.

The central question in all interactions with children is: What would Love do now? That is the central question in all interactions with adults as well.

And contrary to the old school hard liners, this is not molly-coddling or catering. (Notice that the child has not been given in to, has not gotten what he wants.) This is simply holding your ground in a way which recognizes that the child is a person, too.

All about Cigarettes and Soul Mates and Children . . .

Dear Neale: I am very happy to have been turned on to, and by, your fine CWG books. I have been consciously searching for the past five years. I have been at many turning points since then, at times not even knowing what I believed or what my truth is, but I am now creating the real me and I believe God, and yourself, have cleared up a lot of questions and confusions I have had. I do have some questions for you!

(1) I am a cigarette smoker. My belief system is that it does me good by grounding me, allowing me to think there is no harm to me. I have never bought into the way society thinks. I’m actually very healthy. Is this one of the ways I’ve shown myself that I am able to create what I want by going against mass consciousness? Please expand on this. (2) My second question surrounds anger. I would be very pleased to have God speak directly to and about anger with our life partners. How can the cycle be stopped? How can we change the pattern? (3) I would like God’s perspective on soul mates. (4) Are we able to pull the energy into this lifetime from a past life where we actually had a specific skill or ability? (5) I have a starchild, an 11-month-old son. I am wondering if God could speak about the children that are coming through, their purpose and mission. Thank you for all your answers. God bless, love and light, Sandi, Klamath Falls, OR.

Dear Sandi, Whew! When you ask questions, you ask questions! I’m not really sure that I can give you the in-depth answers to all of your questions here, as really they would fill an entire book. But let me give you the short version on some of these and then refer you to some additional reading. First of all, about cigarette smoking. I am asked this question often. Look, let me give you the most direct answer that I know how to give.

If you believe that your level of consciousness has been developed to such a degree that you can overcome the mass consciousness created by millions and millions of people, that is, if you believe that you are literally a walking master, then I think that you can safely proceed with any behavior whatsoever, including jumping off buildings to demonstrate that you can fly, standing in front of locomotives to demonstrate that you are impervious to harm, or any other demonstration that it would please you to make. However, Sandi, if you are able to do these things, you will have been the first person I have met in a very long time demonstrating such abilities.

So I think that the answer to your question lies within you. Only you can assess where you are on the scale of evolution, and only you can decide for yourself what is true for you. The advice given in CWG is good advice in that it simply suggests that the human organism was not constructed ideally for the intake of alcohol or the inhalation of cigarette smoke. That is to say, the basic design of the instrument is violated by such treatment. Is it possible by the sheer strength of our consciousness to overcome this basic design mechanism and fly in the face of all evidences that are presented to us? One presumes that it is. Is it wise to attempt such a demonstration? That is a question only you can answer.

Concerning your questions on anger, Sandi, I have not enough room here, as I said, to reply in depth, but let me say this. People are generally angry about only two things. Either there is something they want that they do not have, or there is something they have which they do not want. Their fear is that they will not get what they want or they will not be able to let go of, or get away from, what they have. Anger is fear announced. When we step away from expectations with regard to these matters, and when we reduce our choices to simple preferences rather than addictions (things we must have), then we take a giant step away from anger and toward mastery. The cycle and the pattern of anger is ended when we see the perfection in every moment and reduce our expectations to zero.

In regard to soul mates, I have to tell you that this subject is far too large to even attempt to answer here. But the question of soul mates is addressed in wonderful detail in CWG Book 3. For now, don’t worry so much about the issue of soul mates, but rather pay attention to who you are in relationship to every other person, place or thing in your life. Remember always that you are in the process of creating and recreating who you are and who you intend to be. That is your job, whether you are doing it in the presence of a soul mate or in the presence of anyone else. Stay close to this purpose. Stay connected with this function. Stay clear about your intention, and the matter of the intensity of soul mate connections will be less of a challenge or problem for you.

Now you are asking me if you are able to take energy from your previous lifetimes and bring it into this lifetime, and I gather that what you mean is that if we were a piano player or an artist or a great leader in a previous lifetime, are we able to bring some of those energies into our present experience. The answer, again in short, is that often our present lifetime will show us how we have been in a previous experience. Children who suddenly demonstrate an ability to play the piano at age 3, or demonstrate aspects of higher reasoning at age 5, and people who suddenly discover a so-called "latent" talent or ability are, in fact, tapping into a previous soul experience. Can we do this intentionally? I tell you that it is said in Conversations with God that you can create yourself in any way that you wish, either pulling from past experiences, or creating out of thin air.

Concerning what God has in mind with regard to children and their purposes and missions, I must disabuse you of the notion that there is any purpose or mission whatsoever. Your question implies that God has something in mind when these children are created, and then they have to live up to that. Reread Conversations with God again and you will see that there is no such mission established by God. If God were to establish a special mission for a child, why would God then keep it a secret from that child? The purpose of life is for us to decide what our mission is and who we are in relationship to that, not to discover what mission God gave us when we were born. Life is not a process of discovery; it is a process of creation. Thanks for your letter, Sandi, and I wish I could respond in greater depth, but space here does not permit.

A Man with a Ton of Questions . . .

Dear Mr. Walsch: I will focus on questions that have arisen from CWG Book 1. Page 33, paragraph 3: Where is the point that you stop your help for another individual as not to interfere with their karmic path? Page 37, paragraph 7: What does it take to grow individually to change collective thinking? If the human body was made to last for hundreds of years, then what is the proper diet if moderation is not the key, or does this just include alcohol? What are angels? If as a master I do not show emotion, then what is compassion? What is the relationship between souls, for example, twin flames? For what purpose were the dinosaurs created, or any animals?

In the past books that I have read, who are the entities that channel through these other individuals, and what is the relationship between your book and the book The Door of Everything, where God also spoke through another person? There is something wonderful going on in the Saratoga Springs, NY area; besides meeting my wife here, I believe I was brought to Saratoga for another reason, and I am anxiously waiting the answer. Jim, Saratoga Springs, NY.

Dear Jim, Thank you very much for your fascinating letter. Let me see if I can answer your several questions one at a time.

You asked, where is the point at which one stops with one’s help for another so as not to interfere with that other person’s karmic path. The answer is that you must always remain sensitive to and deeply aware of the will of another person, in so far as it is possible for you to know that. Therefore, you always ask another person what it is they will for themselves, and then assist them in providing that. Never assist another person, nor do anything with regard to another person, which is against his or her will. You must always come from the same place God comes from, namely, "Your will for you is My will for you." When you are simply assisting another person in doing his or her will, then you are helping that person. When you are attempting to assert your will over the will of another out of some misplaced thought that you "know better," then you are interfering in the other’s karmic path.

You ask, "what does it take to grow individually to change collective thinking?" You change collective thinking, Jim, when you demonstrate to the collective consciousness, that is to all other people whose lives you’ve touched, who you really are. By demonstrating who you really are, and by moving to the grandest version of the greatest vision you ever held about yourself. When you demonstrate this grand vision, people see you as you really are, and they begin to get ideas about themselves as well. When we give other people ideas about themselves out of their experience of us, we begin to change collective consciousness. What it takes to grow individually to that stage is simply a decision, Jim. Life is a choice, and who we demonstrate ourselves to be is who we choose to be. Our experience is produced out of our intentions for it, therefore the answer to your question "what does it take to grow individually?" is, it takes nothing but your choice and decision to do so.

You ask if the human body was made to last hundreds of years, then if moderation is not the key what is the proper diet, or does moderation just include alcohol? The answer to your question is that there is no such thing as a "proper diet," there is only the diet that you are choosing, depending on what it is that you wish to do. The way you eat, Jim, is an announcement of your decision about what you wish to do with your life, to say nothing about how long you want to live it. If you want to live a very long life, it would probably be best if you ate everything in moderation, in particular, red meat and other "dead" foods. Of course, I would drastically limit my intake of alcohol, if not eliminate it all together. I would also never smoke, nor would I do drugs. I would stay away from foods with high fat contents, because it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that fatty foods cause circulatory difficulties which produce health complications and premature death. I think there is enough information in the marketplace, Jim, on healthy diets that one does not need to hear from God yet again on this. For some wonderful, and very practical, guidance on this question, I strongly recommend reading Diet for a New America by John Robbins.

Your next question is what are angels. The answer is angels are exactly that, angels. That is to say, wonderful beings, compassionate, warm and loving creatures, aspects of the divine, and partners in the life experience. Angels are explained in complete detail in CWG 3, but I can tell you now there are such things as guardian angels, or what we call guardian angels, and they love us unconditionally, as you very well might expect.

You ask if as a master you do not show emotion, then what is compassion? The answer is, Jim, that compassion is not an emotion, compassion is an experience. It is an experience that you choose to have, and that you choose to share. Unless, of course, you don’t.

You ask what is the relationship between souls? There are such things as soul partners, and again, CWG 3 explains these higher connections in considerable detail. I hope you will read it. For now, simply know that there are soul partners all over the world and you have more than one soul partner. All of us have many, many soul partners, and that explains why all of us fall in love with many, many different people. Let yourself have that love when you experience it, let yourself move through the experience itself and embrace it fully and richly.

You ask for what purpose were the dinosaurs or any animals created? The answer is, nothing in life has any purpose whatsoever, as CWG very clearly points out. There is no purpose "assigned" to things by God, and things do not have a "purpose" intrinsically. Nothing has any purpose except the purpose you give it, Jim. Read CWG again, and you will understand this thoroughly.

Finally, Jim, you ask about the relationship of entities who have been channeled by other people as well as in the wonderful book by Ruby Nelson called The Door of Everything. My answer to your question, Jim, is that God makes Herself known to each person and to all of us in whatever way God feels will be most effective and most immediately productive. Because that is so, God takes many forms. Yet all of it is God—every single bit of it—and there is nothing in the universe that is not God. Therefore, The Door of Everything has come from the same source as Conversations with God, but you must understand it came through a different filter. Ruby Nelson’s filter may not be the same as my filter, nor may Ruby Nelson’s understanding be the same as mine. So we have this difficulty of the filters through which God speaks, whether those filters be Ruby Nelson, Neale Donald Walsch, or Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Nevertheless, if we carefully analyze the writings of all these people, and others, we see in them striking similarities. Perhaps we should pay considerable attention to these similarities. It seems to me that when twenty different people who do not know each other and live at twenty different times on the planet write essentially the same things, there may be something here for us to look at very carefully.

The entities who channel through other individuals are all part of God manifesting in the imagination or in the objective experience of those channelers in whatever form they claim to take. In other words, Jim, they are exactly who they say they are. All of it is part of God, and there is nothing which is not part of God. That’s the whole point of CWG, that’s the whole point of the teaching, that’s the whole point of the great mysteries of life, and once those mysteries have been unraveled, we see this very clearly.

One final comment, Jim. You say that you were brought to Saratoga Springs for some reason other than simply to connect with your wife, and that you are "anxiously awaiting the answer." Jim, you will have missed the whole point of Conversations with God if you do not hear what I am now going to tell you. You are not to anxiously await for "the answer," but you are, rather, to create the answer. The answer will not come to you out of thin air; rather, it will be created by you out of thin air. There is a vast difference between these two, and if you do not understand this difference, please re-read Conversations with God over and over again until you do. The point CWG makes quite profoundly, Jim, is this: life is not a process of discovery; it is a process of creation. Therefore, Jim, anxiously await nothing, and inspiringly create everything that you would choose and desire in your life. Thank you for writing, Jim.

Of Angels, Animals and Doctors

Dear Mr. Walsch: I have three questions that came up for me while reading your book.

(1) There has been of late a surge of literature about, and interest in, angels. What do you think or feel about this subject?

(2) God seemed to have some pretty strong feelings about eating animals, but it seems to me people have been eating animals as far back as the cave man. And even animals eat animals! So when did it become inadvisable?

(3) Lastly, I was really shaken after reading pg. 190 in CWG where it indicated that annual physicals and use of medicine are something we should engage in. Now back on pg. 49, it mentioned that the medical establishment opposes new treatments, even miracles.

I have always felt that by walking into a doctor’s office I was giving up the belief that my body is capable of healing itself. In addition, by going into an atmosphere where sickness is a business and a very strong belief, I was creating a situation for myself in which I would actually make myself sick. Going to a doctor is saying "I am sick," thereby creating the physical reality of sickness. And what about the drugs they give you? What about radiation therapy? Now there’s a hell of an idea! Let’s prescribe something that’s going to make people sick as hell and probably won’t work anyway! Why not help people find out why they came down with cancer instead? Janet, Litchfield, CT.

Dear Janet, (1) I think angels are very real, very present, and very wonderful. (2) God has no preference in the matter of whether we eat animal flesh or not. He simply notices that we have a preference for living long and healthy lives, and offers His advice on how to do that. And, incidentally, when noticing that "even animals eat animals," it should be pointed out that animals eaten by animals are often still alive, or have just been killed, and have probably never been injected with chemicals, preservatives, hormones, etc., which is more than can be said about the long-dead animals humans eat.

(3) Let’s look at your "treatise" on medical doctors, one statement at a time.

First, you said that you have always felt that by walking into a doctor’s office you were giving up the belief that your body is capable of healing itself. Of course, if you have always felt that way, and if you refuse to change how you’ve "always felt," then there you have it. It can be no other way. On the other hand, you can decide not to feel that way. When I walk into a doctor’s office I walk in with the feeling that my body can heal itself, and that a doctor can sometimes be of help, too. By taking an airplane to Dubuque, I am in no way invalidating my ability to get to Dubuque by car. I am simply choosing another way (perhaps a faster way) of getting where I want to go. In life, Janet, making one choice does not invalidate the other. Choosing chocolate does not make vanilla "wrong." Unless, of course, it does. It all depends on how you feel about it.

Next, you said that when you went into a doctor’s office you were going into an atmosphere where sickness is a business. I think differently. I see a doctor’s office as a place where the people there say healing is the business. Therefore, I do not see myself as creating a situation for myself in which I would actually make myself sick, but, rather, creating a situation for myself in which I would actually make myself well.

As for drugs and radiation therapy, there are as many people for whom these measures have done a lot of good as there are for whom they have been ineffective. I am not willing to dismiss all drug intervention on the basis of someone’s idea that drugs are no good. And I know too many people who have greatly benefited from radiation therapy—including some very close to me—to dismiss that avenue out of hand. Now you ask, why not help people find out why they came down with cancer instead? I agree with you. The question should be asked. But the person who already has cancer may want some additional assistance.

Yet the point of CWG, Janet, is that you create your own reality. There is no contradiction in the book on this point. If you see or perceive other contradictions, always go with your own deepest feelings, your own deepest truth. I am not here to talk you out of your truth, but to assist in leading you to it.

Questions, Questions, and More Questions!

Dear Mr. Walsch: I recently finished reading CWG Book 1 and want to tell you what an amazing and inspiring piece of work I think it is. I was astounded at the complete, unerring, unchallengeable logic that was conveyed through the dialogue, which reconciled (finally!) the many contradictions inherent in traditional interpretations of Biblical text. These are contradictions which have always nagged at me and prevented me from experiencing peace of mind and joy and love through knowing God as He is explained by conventional religions.

This was the first time I felt that the complete truth about God and man’s relationship to God was expressed in one single source, and expressed in a way that I instinctively knew had to be the truth based on what we always have been taught about God’s perfection and unconditional love. While some of the information explained in the book was new to me, none of it surprised me, as it all flowed logically and consistently from the basic premises set out in the beginning.

I likewise was intrigued at how the book incorporates into one coherent whole the many truths that are scattered among different religious, philosophic and scientific disciplines. Your book fills in all the missing pieces of those other disciplines that have caused them (in my mind) to collapse from flaws in logic and internal inconsistencies. Your book has given credibility to those partial truths expressed in other places, and now I can regard them in the context of the whole.

It was quite a moving and emotional experience reading through your book. Words fail me at the moment (No, they don’t), but I can say that this was the first time I remember truly feeling the love of God and love for God. I experienced such a light coming from within me that I have never felt before—an incredible lightness of being, so to speak. An indescribable comfort. I intend to reread the book so that I can internalize and apply its truths in my life. I would like to thank you and God personally for having this dialogue and for sharing it with the world.

I do have some questions, and hope you will respond to them.

1) God says that the human body was not intended to consume alcohol. Have you received any revelations on other types of foods, such as red meat, poultry, fish, seafood, caffeinated drinks or foods, decaffeinated drinks (such as coffee and tea), or any other type of consumables?

I was not given any more specific information in the books. However, the universe has sourced us with the informed judgment of many health experts who have made some good observations and suggestions about all of this. What I know is, people have their own physiological needs and tolerances. Listen to your body, my friend. Listen to your body.

2) Do animals have souls? If so, do they know God? Do they feel love? If so, do they feel love for humans?

Yes to all of the above. Everything has a soul. If you define the soul as divine energy placed within everything, which carries the vibration of life, then everything has a soul.

What is man’s relationship to animals?

Whatever he intends it to be. Man’s relationship to everything is decided by the same thing: his intentions. Life proceeds out of one’s intention for it. And every intention is an announcement and a declaration, a creation and an experiencing of Who You Are and who you choose to be.

3) Do spirits (ghosts) dwell on earth? If so, why? If so, for how long (i.e., does a spirit that roams the earth eventually move on, and if so, under what circumstances)?

The answer to each of these questions is yes and no. Spirits do what they choose to do, just as we do. Some souls "stay around" for a while after they leave their present bodies. Some move on immediately to other experiences. It all depends on what the spirit is feeling and knowing and wishes to experience. There are no particular circumstances or conditions necessary for souls to do any particular thing. Spirits do as they wish. That is what is known as being a free spirit. Some people choose to be this even while in their bodies.

4) Regarding the story of Noah and the flood, did such a thing occur, and if so, was it caused by God? If so, why? If so, what is the meaning of God’s covenant after the flood not to repeat the experience? The story, as it is told in Genesis, says that God caused the flood to destroy all mankind because man had become corrupt, strongly disappointing God. God spared Noah and his family because Noah was not corrupt, but righteous. Following the flood, God comes to understand that man is inherently evil and therefore should not be punished for having a quality he cannot help having. Much of this runs counter to what is written in your book, i.e., God (1) would not feel disappointed by man; (2) would not intervene with man’s world; (3) would not seek to destroy man; (4) would not believe man to be inherently evil; and (5) would not make an ill-formed decision because He (a) would not feel regret, regardless, and (b) would not be able to make an ill-informed decision. I would like the meaning of the story of Noah explained, if possible.

I love your phrase, "following the flood, God comes to understand." Do you imagine that there is any time in the sequence of events when God does not understand everything?

It is fascinating to analyze stories and myths such as the Noah story, but probably not too wise to put too much literal faith in them. Like all great stories, which have been passed from generation to generation, there is probably a bit of truth in them. This truth is the seed; it is the germ of the story. Much, however, has been "added on" through the years in order to use the original experience as a learning device. No doubt there was a great flood on this planet. And no doubt, a wise man and leader of the people named Noah took all he could put together, including two of every animal he could find, a male and (since he was really using his head) a female, and hauled them on board a great boat to ride out the storm. It was his way of making sure something would survive.

It is quite possible that he had a premonition of the flood and actually built his boat for this purpose. Stranger things have happened. But God did not cause the flood to punish anybody. God did not cause the flood at all. God does not cause anything, but rather, watches us cause it. And God does the watching, by the way, without judgment. Your understanding of the material in CWG in this regard is complete and correct. As for the meaning of the Noah story, it has no meaning at all, except the meaning you give it. So it is with all of life.

What do you think it means? Better yet, what do you choose for it to mean?

5) My question about Noah raises a more general question, which is, do you intend to provide other reinterpretations of stories in the Bible that currently are misunderstood or misinterpreted (such as those that you already conveyed regarding Adam and Eve, the Ten Commandments, and Jesus Christ)?

First, let’s be clear that I have conveyed nothing, nor have I offered any reinterpretations of anything. I believe the commentaries to which you refer all came through me from God. So I’m finding the general tenor of these questions starting to make me a little uncomfortable, as if I was the source of all this. I am not. And I am very clear about that. I am merely a scribe. A reporter. I take dictation.

Now, as to whether my source is going to provide additional commentaries such as those you label "reinterpretations" of the Bible, I don’t know.

6) Sometimes the Bible uses what appears to be very unambiguous language to describe God in a way which is not consistent with how God describes Himself in your book (e.g., in the Bible God describing Himself as a "jealous" God, or God telling man that he must "obey" Him). Either these "unambiguous" words are incorrect, are missing qualification, or have another meaning I do not see. My sincerest regards, Linda, VA.

Well, Linda, that’s quite a letter! Thank you! As to your final comment, the words in the Bible do not have a meaning you do not see. You see their meanings, all right. Most of the Biblical descriptions of God are simply inaccurate.

Psychics, Hell, White Light

Dear Neale: After reading the closing of your book and down to the ending of the last letter of your name there were chills that came all over me, and then even more chills. So I give you thanks for being the messenger you were meant to be. Above all, I give thanks for this book to be written. For I, too, had many of the same questions you did; I have even more regarding the psychic world. My questions are: (1) How do you become psychic? (2) Is there a danger, as they say, for "bad" spirits to enter you if you do not put the white light around you? (3) In Mary Summer Rain’s book Spirit Song she meditates and is in a place they call "hell." If there is no "hell" what place has she experienced? (4) What purpose is the white light? (5) Is it okay to ask a psychic for information about yourself and loved ones who have passed away? Or should we develop this ability ourselves? Love and happiness, Stephenie, Corona, CA.

Boy, Stephenie, your questions invite an entire book! Actually, question 1 is covered in the CWG trilogy. Let me give you some quick reference data here. First, there is no way to "become" psychic. You already are. Everyone is "psychic," and there is no way not to be. Being psychic is part of our nature. It is our sixth sense. And recognizing this is the first step toward actively utilizing one’s psychic ability. So here is the short version of the answer to your question 1: Recognize, acknowledge, accept and own your own psychic sense as a natural gift. Use your psychic sense every day by paying attention to it; listen to your "intuition" about things, and act on that as often as you can. Don’t think when you get a "psychic hit," just act. Do it. The more you act quickly on your psychic "hits," the more you’ll learn to trust them, as you find that acting on them brings affirmative results. Listen to feelings. Feelings are the language of the soul. If it "feels" like you should be doing, or not doing, something, listen to that. That’s your psyche (soul) talking to you. Give yourself permission to be "wrong." It’ll take a while to separate genuine intuitive wisdom from the mish-mash of thoughts, ideas, fears, etc., running around inside your head. Don’t give up if you start following your feelings, or giving in to your first impulse, and finding yourself "wrong

" for having done that. Grant yourself some leeway here. Especially at first. Say the first thing that comes to your head. Whenever you get a "hit," say it. Out loud. Put yourself "out there" in that way. You’ll find that you’re blurting out to others some of the most astonishing stuff, and some of those others will look at you in shock that you could have come up with that such insight and information. Never use psychic gifts for personal aggrandizement or enrichment. That’s very much akin to using sex for personal power or manipulation, instead of the pure and loving purpose for which it was intended. I have found that psychic gifts "go away" if they are used to attract a shower of attention or money. Use psychic gifts only in the service, and for the benefit, of others. I realize this is my personal construction, but after all, it is me you are asking!

(2) I do not believe in the often talked about "danger" of "bad spirits" entering me—and so, of course, they don’t! Ha! I have to laugh at that, because I really don’t know which came first, the chicken or the egg! I mean, I genuinely don’t know which happened initially, the belief or the experience. I do think—and the CWG trilogy has led me to further believe—that our thought about a thing creates our reality of that thing, so if you carry a thought that (a) there is such things as "bad spirits," and (b) putting the "white light" around you protects you from them, then that will be our experience. As a result, you won’t be bothered by "bad spirits" any more than I am!

(3) I haven’t read Mary Summer Rain’s book Spirit Song, although my wife has, and loved it (as she does all of Mary Summer Rain’s writing). I know Mary Summer Rain to be a very honest person, extremely true to herself, and so I am sure that she had the precise experience she has written about. My own CWG 3 talks much more about this experience of "hell" which many people believe in, and which some (such as Mary) have apparently had, if only through brief, revealing "visitations." What place has Mary experienced? Good question. You would have to ask her. In my own view of things (which is worth nothing, actually, since this was Mary’s experience), I would speculate that she has visited a place created deep in her personal belief system—which is to say, her personal reality, for in my construction, belief systems are reality. This place may be so deep in most people that they may have forgotten when they originally created it, or even that they did. In fact, they would swear to you that they didn’t, that it is real. That it is Reality. And indeed, for them it is.

"Hell" is simply not a reality for me, so I don’t go there, nor am I afraid of going there, nor, therefore, will I ever go there, for there is no "there" to which to go! You see? Of course, I could be all wrong in this, so I would be careful about adopting my belief system if I were you.

(4) What do you wish to be the "purpose of the white light"? Do you not see that things do not have a "purpose" intrinsically? That is the hardest part of what has been revealed to me for most people to understand. A thing has no purpose in and of itself. Every purpose for any thing is given to it by you and me. We decide what a thing means, and what purpose a thing shall have. And before we decide, a thing has no purpose at all!

Now it is true that some things have already been "assigned" a purpose by those who have come before us, and by the collective agreement of their offspring. We all understand the purpose of a fork, for instance. Or of a shovel. So we agree on some things, collectively, and thus make life workable. But there are some things we can’t agree on, no matter how many people have "come before" with an idea about it. What is the purpose of sex, for example? Or of power? What is the purpose of illness? Of God? What is the "purpose" of music? Of art? (They are still debating that one in PTAs and School Board budget meetings all across America. Some say music and art have no purpose, and therefore no place, in public schools. Others vehemently disagree.) So you see, the white light has no purpose. It is purposeless, as is all of life. What is the purpose of your life? You decide! And while you’re about it, decide what the purpose of the white light is.

(5) Of course it is okay to ask a psychic for information about yourself or a loved one who has passed away! Why wouldn’t it be? At least, that’s my opinion. Now someone else may tell you differently. Don’t you see? There is nothing but point of view to dictate this. And whatever point of view you adopt, so, too, will it be for you. Now, do you think God has a "rule" about this? Wrrooonnngg. God has no rules about anything! That’s the whole message of the CWG books!

Questions About Time, Ghosts, and "Fate"

Dear Mr. Walsch: I really enjoyed your books. The only thing I had a hard time understanding was the "time" concept. I just cannot follow that if you have lived 300 different lives, they are all existing at the same time. I think what you said in CWG is amazing, just very hard to follow. Just how can your soul be existing in all those bodies at once? Also, there are ghosts, aren’t there? Possibly souls that have a mission they have to solve before they find the light? Or are they lost or in limbo? Are they in a different dimension? Why are they around? What should we do, if anything, to help them? Are there poltergeists? And last, I have always believed in "fate." That when it is your time to go, it doesn’t matter what you are doing, or where you are, when you are called, you go. I know when someone dies, people will say, "Oh, if only he didn’t get on that plane, he would still be here." I feel that if it is someone’s time to go, it doesn’t matter if you are on a plane, at home gardening, or in a line at the bank. Donna, Virginia Beach, VA.

Dear Donna, Good questions. Let’s take them one by one. On the time thing, don’t try to understand this with your mind, Donna. Remember, to really reach enlightenment, you’ve got to be out of your mind. By that I mean you’ve got to be willing to "get out of your head" about it, and stop trying to think your way into heaven.

A great deal of the ancient wisdom defies all logic. We cannot figure it out. We think about it and think about it and think about it, and it just does not make sense. We try to make it make sense, and we fail. That is because we are thinking about these things from our limited perspective, which creates a very limited understanding.

You’ve got to "step out of the box" to get some of these concepts, Donna. And that means not trying to "figure it out," but just accepting what "feels right" what seems to satisfy at a deep level, even though it makes no sense on the surface.

So don’t try to get it all straight about the time thing, Donna. Just read and re-read the section and take from it what seems and feels right to you. If you remain confused, stay with the confusion. Let that be all right with you. A lot of times we are so insistent on having all the answers right here, right now that we do not give ourselves sufficient time to think deeply. Or to come to intuitive knowings without really thinking about things at all. Just "be with it" for a while.

Some of the great geniuses of our time came to their most extraordinary conclusions only after years of "being with" a problem. And they were okay with that. They were very used to "not thinking about what they were thinking about," if you can understand what I mean. Then one day, after putting it on the back shelf for many months or years—bingo!—there was the answer!

So give up needing or trying to know something or to understand something completely, Donna. Just let it go and let it be all right that for now you don’t have the answer. Create the space for the answer to occur to you.

As to your ghost question, I believe there are spirits who move about on this plane. As to why, and who they are, I have left this for CWG 3.

Regarding "fate," that word is an acronym for "From All Thoughts Everywhere." In other words, the results of our collective consciousness. In the strictest sense, there is no such thing as fate. That is, there is no particular way a thing is "supposed" to "turn out." Who would make such a decision? Surely not God, for CWG makes it very clear that God has no preference in the matter. That leaves only us. We are the ones, Donna, who are determining our own "fate" by the thoughts we entertain collectively. Our collective consciousness creates a great deal of our individual reality. Because this is so, it looks to us like something which has been predetermined. Yet if life is at any level predetermined, the greatest promise of God is a lie. For God says that we are the creators of our own reality. If that is true, then "fate" in the purest sense cannot be a reality.

Questions About Prayers, the Book Of Job,
Biblical Truth, and Sexuality

Dear Neale: (1) Why is time never mentioned in your book or the Bible? (2) When is prayer answered after two months or a year? Of the "I Am" you say moves the universe, when is prayer answered—in days, weeks, years, and who decides when? (3) The Book of Job in the Bible—was that made up? Did Job bring all that misery upon himself (did he create it himself?) (4) Just what books/verses in the Bible are true? And (5), in Conversations with God (pp. 63, 205-08), God said sex is great, wonderful, do it, have fun. Yet on pg. 49, he says we on Earth are doing nothing to stop 40,000 people a day from dying of hunger, while we bring 50,000 people a day into the world to begin new life. Seems to be a small problem here. When you have sex (fun, wonderful, powerful, exciting, etc.), you create those 50,000 new lives. He/you mention nothing of birth control, abortions, to stop these lives from entering, let alone the diseases we now have. Neither is age mentioned with regard to enjoying sex. Is there one? Is 10 too young? 15? 18? Please don’t get me wrong. I love sex. It is great. But you/God left yourself wide open on this one. Marge, Buchanan, MI.

Your questions tell me that CWG succeeded at what every book hopes and seeks to do: make people stop and think. Remember now, this is me answering. I don’t represent these answers to be replies direct from deity, without a filter. So if we can agree on that, I’ll give you my impressions on all this, based on what I’ve learned these past three years as a result of the dialogue.

(1) I can’t tell you why time is never mentioned in the Bible (although I can tell you it is not the only enormous component of the life experience which has been ignored in that book after it was revised and finally released). I can also tell you it is mentioned, and explained quite extensively, in Conversations with God Book 2.

(2) When asked this same question, Jesus said, "Seek and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you. Yea, even before you ask, it shall be answered." You need to accept the enormous truth in those statements. It is a metaphysical reality. Before you will have asked, God will have "answered" you! This is because the answer already exists in ultimate reality. And that is because you created it by thinking about it. And creation and manifestation take place in the same instant. This is so because there is only one instant. That is to say, time, as a linear expression, does not exist. This gets back into question 1, and is answered thoroughly in CWG 2.

Now, since your prayer has already been answered, the correct prayer is never a prayer of supplication, but always a prayer of thanksgiving. Okay? Now, here comes the big bomber, Marge. Here’s the direct answer to your inquiry. The degree to which you accept and believe that your prayer has already been answered creates the degree to which you experience the answer as having been made manifest in your present reality. In other words in the "I Am" paradigm, should you have the consciousness of a Christ, you would experience immediate results. Jesus is far from the only person, incidentally, who has seen his will made manifest in physical form in the instant his will became known. Others have accomplished this. (See Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda; study the life of Sai Baba.) Many avatars and masters have produced instant results, instant healings, instant answers to prayers.

Sometimes, there is the question of whether each part of your three-part being is in harmony and in agreement about a thing, and that has much to do with how quickly and how successfully you place an experience in your reality (or, if you will, have a prayer answered by God). The question is very complex, and so I shall probably have to write a booklet on it. Look for How Prayers Get Answered. I’ll try to write a booklet every so often to answer in depth some of these very good questions.

(3) I don’t know whether the Book of Job was "made up" or not, but I suspect it is not entirely factual. It seems as though a very well meaning person put that down on paper in order to show the power of faith and the promise of patience in the face of endless suffering. On the other hand, there may have been a man named Job, and he may have had endless troubles, and the account may have been the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The far more interesting part of your question seems to be the second part: did he draw the misery to himself? If it did happen, did he create it all? The answer, of course, is yes. At some level, all of us are creating every single moment which we are experiencing, including your having written and my having addressed this question.

Now, some things we create at a conscious level, and some things we create at a subconscious level (making it seems as though we did not "create" them at all). Some things we solely create and some things we co-create, and some things we create in concert with many, many others through the device known as collective consciousness, but all the time we are creating. The question is not, are we actually creating this? The question isn’t even why are we creating this? The only question of importance is, who am I now in the face of this creation? For all of creation exists as an arena within which we are invited, encouraged, and have, ourselves, been created, to answer that question.

The process by which we create things (events, occurrences, opportunities, outcomes, etc.) is far too complex to go into here, and is explained in extraordinary detail in CWG. Those sections deserve close rereading.

(4) I am unable to sit here and review, book by book, chapter by chapter, verse by verse, which portions of the Bible are "true" and which are "false." Obviously, it is all "true" for some people, and all "false" for others, and a little bit of both for most. It is important to understand, Marge, that nothing is "true" as you understand the word. That is to say, objective truth does not exist in the Universe. The only "truth" is subjective reality—in other words, what you and I perceive. That is because whatever we observe in the so-called "objective universe" is affected by our observation of it.

I realize that I am getting into quantum physics now (and perhaps more deeply into this question than you wanted to go) but it is vital for you to add this to your comprehension if you are ever to find peace in your soul: "true" truth does not exist. That is because, even at the God level (especially at the God level), we are making it all up. For more on this, read a wonderful book called The Universe is a Green Dragon by Brian Swimme.

Now, Marge, the question is not, which verses of the Bible are true? The question is, which verses are true for you? I find great truth in the Bible and enormous wisdom—incredible insight, really, all over the place. There are also some places where I cringe, and find that the Bible does not speak to me. The same has been said, incidentally, about Conversations with God, which is good, which is wonderful. I would hate to have produced a book with which everyone agreed, down to the last word. Can you imagine the responsibility of that? No, I’d much rather have you be responsible for what you find there. That’s as it should be. It’s the same, obviously, with the Bible.

(5) Now let’s get to your sex question. I see no contradiction in God’s message in CWG regarding sex. Nowhere does the book call for irresponsible sexuality. Yet somehow in some people’s minds God’s injunction to "have fun" with sex, to engage in sex as often as you like, to see and experience and share the joy in it, to play with this wonderful gift, as the book so directly puts it—somehow these encouragements are seen as licenses to act irresponsibly. No one suggested anything of the sort. Those connections—between fun, joy, play and irresponsibility—are connections you have made in your own mind. Someone has told you that to have fun, to participate in sex joyfully, to play with sex, is, or inevitably leads to, irresponsible behavior. I am unwilling to make that connection. Certainly not automatically, which your question suggests. Your question suggests that the connection is automatic; that the outcome is automatic; that one thing leads to another, rather than that one thing could lead to another, which is quite a different thing.

It is precisely this teaching—that joyful, playful, outrageous sexuality and full, rich sexual expression lead inevitably to irresponsible behavior—which has thrown most of the world (and decidedly, most of the Western world) into its chronic paranoia about sex. A paranoia, incidentally, which has produced mass (and massive) guilt around the one aspect of humanness around which there was supposed to be no guilt.

The human sexual response is a joy, a gift, a twinkle-in-the-eye celebration of life itself. It was never meant to be covered up, stowed away, kept out of sight, never talked about in polite company without embarrassment, and never actually engaged in without uptightness, shame, tentativeness at best. It was meant to be engaged in lovingly, openly, honestly, laughingly, joyfully, uninhibitedly, and with outrageous happiness. Notice that nowhere does it say irresponsibly. Nor are love, openness, honesty, laughter, joy, uninhibitedness, or outrageous happiness synonyms for "irresponsibility." The book spoke of the joy and freedom and happiness of sex in that context—and assumed that the reader understood that one thing does not equal another.

As to when—at what age—a child should begin to "enjoy" sexuality, the answer is: immediately. In fact, the child does. Almost immediately. It is we, uptight adults, who tell children (even infants) not to "touch there," not to "look there," not to even notice that "there" exists. It is we, uptight adults, who overlay our guilt, our shame, our embarrassment, our sexual dilemmas and our dysfunctions on the child. The child has no sexual dilemma. The child has no sexual dysfunction. It is only after listening to and observing adults that the child begins to pick up signals that something is "wrong" about sex; that we shouldn’t even say "penis," for heaven sake, or "vagina," and so we make up all sorts of cutsie little words for the two-year-old to hear and use, lest, God forbid, the child actually uses the right word. Is it any wonder our society is so twisted around its sexual attitudes when we can’t even let our kids say "penis"?

Is it any wonder the world uses as its most demeaning expletive a four-letter word which just happens to describe one of the most extraordinary physical experiences of which humans are capable?

So my answer to your question, Marge, is the answer that you may not want to hear. There is no time that is too early for children to experience with joy their sexuality. This does not mean intercourse, obviously. This means noticing, honoring and celebrating that we are all human beings, Mommy and Daddy included, and that sexuality is a joyful, not an embarrassing and shameful, part of our humanness. There are ways in which the stomach-quivering, heart-pounding, mind-blowing, wonderfully exciting experience of discovery of self and another may be encouraged, nurtured, created and allowed, while remaining totally within the boundaries of age-appropriateness, honesty, love (of self and others), integrity, responsibility, and the celebration of life. Regretfully, Marge, most parents have not looked for such ways; most cultures have not even tried. Don’t you think it’s time we did?

When children are encouraged to express and experience the joy of their sexuality and the sexuality of all human beings in age-appropriate ways, their largest participation in that experience occurs at an age-appropriate time, which time is different, Marge, for every young person. Their fullest participation may not occur until they are 90, for it is part of the mystery and it is in the endless attraction of this experience that we can discover new beauty, new wonder, new openness, new vulnerability, new trust, new joy, new playfulness, and new depths of love, and the ability to share love, even as we grow older. But not, but never, Marge, if we start from shame, guilt, and embarrassment.

Questions About Sin, Near-Death Experiences,
Bible Truth, and Life Purpose

Dear Mrs. & Mr. Walsch: I address you both because great couples work together and I only want answers, it doesn’t matter from who. I’ve been asking our Father for guidance & the answer is always that I should write to you so that others will share in the answers.

I was raised by a self-proclaimed Pentecostal preacher who sexually abused me. I spent 20 years living a destructive lifestyle, often trying suicide. It was on one of these attempts I believe I met God. Six years ago, I tried to kill my stepfather and had a complete breakdown. I was put in a mental hospital and diagnosed as manic-depressive. I then began to notice how many mental patients are terrified of not just the devil, but of God.

I have been mentally stable since reading (many times) CWG 1 & 2 and now try to help the mentally ill. My husband and I meet thousands of people every year (we move every couple of months), mostly of Southern Baptist and Pentecostal persuasion. I have to be honest, most of these people get mad when I talk about CWG, but they always come back with questions—questions I’m not able to answer. I’ve been fortunate to be able to share CWG with so many and have seen people change their lives completely, thanks to you and our Father. But I need to know the answers.

Now for the questions. If there’s no sin, what did Jesus die for? How do we explain people who have life-after-death experiences and claim they went to hell? If the Bible isn’t all true, what parts do we study? Are we supposed to still pay tithes? I was taught to pay tithes to the place where you’re taught. Are you set up to receive tithes? I look foolish when I can’t answer these questions, from other people, and possibly hurt the person’s chances of knowing our Father.

How do I discover my purpose? I know the Father ruined my suicide attempts for a reason. Is sharing enough? How can I do more to help? Loving Friendship, name withheld by request, WA.

Dear Loving Friendship: My wife Nancy has asked me to respond to you, so here goes. Let’s take your questions one at a time.

If there’s no sin, what did Jesus die for?

Jesus died and rose again so that we might know the truth about him, and hence, about us. His act was meant as a demonstration of Who We Really Are. Every act is an act of self-definition. That is true for you, and it was true for Jesus. Jesus was a divine master who possessed absolute understanding of the truth, about himself and about God. He wished to share this truth with all the world. Thus, he said "I and the Father are one." He also proclaimed us to be his brothers, and was heard to ask, "Have I not said, ‘Ye are gods’?" With regard to his miracles, he said, "Why are you so amazed? These things, and more, will you do also."

Jesus did not die for our sins, but rather, to demonstrate that we are sinless. We were made in the image and likeness of God, and Jesus kept trying to tell us so. But few believed him. He knew that only a real demonstration of Godliness could prove convincing. Well, he convinced many people that he is God, all right, but quite a few missed the point that we are all the same thing. We started worshipping him, and that wasn’t what he intended.

How do we explain people that have life-after-death experiences who claim they went to hell?

God says we will experience in the first moments after "death" whatever we expect to experience. If we are afraid we will "go to hell," we will create that outcome in our reality. We need not worry, however, because we will only experience our self-created "hell" until we don’t want to anymore, until we don’t believe in it anymore. That’s the moment we end the present experience. Incidentally, it’s very much the same way here on earth. We can think we are in a living hell, and then we can change our perception about it, and the entire experience changes for us.

If the Bible isn’t all true, what parts do we study?

Study any parts you wish to study. If you could only study stuff that’s "true," that would leave out half the history books and social studies texts you read in school, and most of the newspaper articles written today. Read the Bible as often as you like, and go within with each reading to ask yourself what is true for you. Do the same with Conversations with God or any other book of spiritual wisdom.

Are we supposed to still pay tithes?

That is a question that is often asked. Many people want to know whether "good spiritual behavior" requires them to contribute to churches or charity. First, let’s make something clear. You are not "supposed" to do anything. Who would do the "supposing"? Tithing is a very effective means of increasing your financial abundance, for that which you give to another, you give to yourself. If you demonstrate yourself to be abundant, you will experience yourself being abundant. That is why most spiritual movements and nearly all religions encourage tithing in one form or another. Not because it is "good" to tithe, but because what goes out comes back to you. And yes, The ReCreation Foundation, which is a non-profit organization, does receive tithes each month from people all over the world who choose to contribute to what they consider to be a source of spiritual inspiration.

How do I discover my purpose?

You cannot "discover" your purpose. CWG says life is not a process of discovery, it is a process of creation. You have no purpose until you assign yourself one. Who else would give you one? God? And, having given you one, would He then keep it a secret from you? Here is a great wisdom: We are waiting for God to show us our purpose, and God is waiting for us to show Him our purpose.

I know the Father ruined my suicide attempts for a reason. Is sharing enough? How can I do more to help?

There is nothing you need do to help, because nobody needs your help. There is only one reason to do anything: to announce and declare, express and experience, fulfill and become Who You Really Are. Does sharing your wisdom and your help with others give you an experience of Who You Are? Then do that. If it does not, then don’t do it, because you will only wind up resenting it anyway, and that will help no one.

My friend, read CWG over again, because all of the answers are in there. Everything I’ve said here is in the trilogy. There is no need to convince anyone of any of this. All people come to the truth when they are ready. Just watch and wait. "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." Wait for the "student" to be ready.

How Can God’s Laws Be Applied?

Dear Neale: Would you please clarify something I am confused about? Tithing. I tithed for years when I was in a fundamentalist church, so I know what it means. For the past year I have been giving away at least ten percent of my gross income, most of it to sources of spiritual growth. So many different things I’ve read have been consistent about the importance of putting back at least ten percent into the universe, but there seems to be no consensus about where to give it.

You have also talked about being the source of what we choose to experience more of. So, if I desire more money in my life, I need to give to those who have less. Does this come out of my tithe, or is it extra? I am willing to contribute to Habitat for Humanity, because I wish to own a house. Again, should this be out of my tithe, or above it?

Also, if I wish to own a house, and give thanks that a house is coming into my life, how specific must I be about what I would like? Do specifications limit God? Do I assume God knows what is best for me? Is vagueness usable by God/the Universe? Again, I get different messages from different places. God bless you, Neale! Brenda, Vancouver, B.C.

My Dear Brenda: God bless you, too! You know, you ask some of the most important questions dealing with the practical application in day-to-day life of the highest spiritual laws.

First, about tithing. The reason we tithe is as a demonstration. By tithing we systematically demonstrate the truth which we hold about money, just as our whole life is a demonstration of our truths about everything. The only people who tithe, who routinely give money away to others, are people who are very clear that there is more where that came from. Out of this clarity arises the demonstration, and out of this demonstration arises the precise experience of that about which one is clear.

Of course, we are right back to that age old question: which comes first, the chicken or the egg? In the case of the universal laws, or what I call the metaphysical principles, the question in answerable. Demonstration always precedes experience. That is, you will experience what you demonstrate.

This is why I say, "That which you wish for yourself, give away to another." But there is a trap here. If you are doing something in order to produce a result (for instance, tithing in order to bring more money into your life), then you will not produce the result, and you may as well give it up before you start.

The reason this is so is that your very reason for undertaking the demonstration says a lie about you: namely, that you do not have all that you wish right now, and need or want more. That underlying truth, what CWG 1 calls your "sponsoring thought," is what produces your reality. So no matter how much you give, you will experience not having "enough" and "wanting more."

On the other hand, if you are doing something as a demonstration that the result has already been produced (for instance, tithing ten percent of your income each week out of your deep sense of knowing that there is always enough for you to share, that there is "more where that came from"), then you will have larger and larger experiences of this truth.

Remember, you are not producing the truth, you are recognizing it. Do you see? Do you get It?

There is no "rule" in the universe about the level at which one must demonstrate in order to experience a universal truth. So your question about the amount of your financial contributions back to the universe has no answer. In my own life, I just give wherever and whenever it feels comfortable and true to myself to do so. I do not give in order to produce "plenty." I give out of simply noticing that plenty has already been produced.

Rules, such as the strict injunctive to give away ten percent of your worldly goods, are for those who need rules in order to implement basic truths and to live within the paradigm of basic understandings, such as the understanding of plenty. They provide a discipline. They offer a guideline. Masters are their own discipline. Masters create their own guidelines.

So, what that means, Brenda, is that you can give what you choose to give of your abundance. If you want to stay with a strict hard and fast ten percent, I would include everything you give to support the good of another in that figure, including the contribution to Habitat for Humanity. Here’s how I did it some years ago. I set up a rough "division of the goodies." To my home church: three percent of my income each week; to the Children’s Miracle Network (which I want to support), two percent each week; to the local medical assistance program for the indigent, two percent each week; to a special fund for family and friends when they need help, two percent each week; to set-aside for last minute choices and decisions (like Habitat for Humanity, one percent each week. Voila! There’s your ten percent!

The answer to the second part of your question (where you ask about "vagueness") is again just about the same. Some teachers say, "don’t limit God by being too specific." Some teachers say, "Be specific about what you choose!" I understand your frustration. So what I say here will be a great relief. It doesn’t matter.

Look, Brenda, it’s not as if God will accept your request only if it is made under certain guidelines, you know? That gets right back to ancient religions which teach that there is only one way to God, and all the rest of us are going to hell. Not so. Big lie. Same with this.

Even before you ask, God knows what you desire. You want to visualize something general, like "the right and perfect car"? Go ahead. You want to get specific? That’s okay, too. Visualize a big red car with black interior. See the dashboard design in your mind’s eye. Call out the model number, if you choose. Yet here’s the trick; here’s the secret. As soon