Communion with God (Conversations with God Series) - Softcover

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Neale Donald Walsch is the author of the New York Times bestsellers: Conversations with God book 1, book 2, and book 3, as well as Meditations from Conversations with God book 1 and book 2, and the Conversations with God book 1 Guidebook. Walsch lectures and hosts workshops throughout the country, in addition to running his foundation, ReCreation. His books have been translated into twenty-two languages. He lives in Oregon.

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Excerpt

God has spoken to you many times in many ways over many years, but seldom asdirectly as this.

This time I speak to you as You, and that has occurred on only a handful ofoccasions in the whole of your history.

Few humans have had the courage to hear Me in this way-as themselves. And fewerstill have shared with others what they have heard. Those few who have listened,and shared, have changed the world.

Aesop, Confucius, Lao-tzu, Buddha, Muhammad, Moses, and Jesus were among them.

So, too, Chuang Tzu, Aristotle, Huang-po, Sahara, Mahavira, Krishnamurti.

Also, Paramahansa Yogananda, Ramana Maharshi, Kabir, Ralph Waldo Emerson, ThichNhat Hanh, the Dalai Lama, Elizabeth Clinton.

As well, Sri Aurobindo, Mother Teresa, Meher Baba, Mahatma Gandhi, KahlilGibran, Baha-' Alla-h, Ernest Holmes, Sai Baba.

Including Joan of Arc, Francis of Assisi, Joseph Smith . . . and more, others,not mentioned here. This list could go on. Yet, relative to the total number ofhumans who have inhabited your planet, the number is minuscule.

These few have been My messengers-for all have brought forward The Truth withintheir hearts, as best as they understood it, as purely as they knew how. Andwhile they have each done so through imperfect filters, they have nonethelessbrought to your awareness extraordinary wisdom, from which the whole human racehas benefited.

What is amazing is how similar their insights have been. Offered at vastlydifferent times and places, separated by legions and centuries, they might justas well have been speaking all at the same time, so tiny have been the variancesbetween them, and so huge the commonalities.

Now it is time to expand this list to include others, living today, as My latestmessengers.

We will speak with one voice.

Unless we do not.

You will make that choice, even as you have always done. For in each Moment ofNow have you made your decision, and announced it in action.

At the beginning, your thoughts are Mine, and Mine are yours. For at thebeginning, it can be no other way. There is only one Source of That Which Is,and the one Source is That Which Is.

All things emanate from that Source, then permeate the Isness all over, andreveal themselves as Individuations of the Whole.

The individual interpretations of the one message produce the miracle of Onenessin many forms.

This Oneness in many forms is what you call Life.

Life is God, interpreted. That is, translated into many forms.

The first level of translation is from the unified non-physical to theindividuated non-physical.

The second level of translation is from the individuated non-physical to theindividuated physical.

The third level of translation is from the individuated physical into theunified physical.

The fourth level of translation is from the unified physical into the unifiednon-physical.

Then the cycle of Life is complete.

The continuing process of the translation of God produces endless variety withinGod's unity. This variety of the unity is what I have called "individuation." Itis the individual expression of that which is not separate but which can beindividually expressed.

The purpose of individual expression is for Me to experience My Self as thewhole, through the experiencing of My parts. And while the whole is greater thanthe sum of the parts, I can only experience this by knowing the sum.

And that is who you are.

You are the Sum of God.

I have told you this many times before, and many of you have heard this as theson of God. That, too, is correct. You are the sons, and daughters, of God. Yetit does not matter what labels or names you use, it adds up to the same thing:You are The Sum of God.

So, too, is everything around you. Everything that you see, and do not see. AllThat Is, All That Ever Was, and All That Ever Will Be is Me. And all that I am,I am now.

I Am That I Am-as I have told you many times.

There is nothing that I have ever been that I have ceased to be. And there isnothing that I will ever be that I am not now. I cannot become anything that Inow am not, nor can I fail to be anything that I once was.

This is as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world withoutend. Amen.

I am coming to you now, in this day and time, as you begin another millennium,so that you may start a new thousand years in a new way: knowing Me at last,choosing Me first, and being Me always, all ways.

There is no mistake in the timing. I began these new revelations early in thelast decade, continued My conversations with you throughout the last years ofthe century, and in the final moments of the last millennium reminded you howyou may have a friendship with Me.

Now, in the first year of the new millennium, I speak to you with one voice,that we may experience communion.

Should you choose this experience of communion with God, you will finally knowpeace, and joy unbounded, and love fully expressed, and full freedom.

Should you choose this truth, you will change your world.

Should you choose this reality, you will create it, and at last fully experienceWho You Really Are.

It will be the hardest thing you have ever done, and the easiest thing you willever do.

It will be the hardest thing you have ever done because you will have to denywho you think you are, and stop denying Me. It will be the easiest thing youwill ever do because there will be nothing that you have to do.

All you have to do is be, and all you have to be is Me.

Even this will not be an act of will but a simple acknowledgment. It will notrequire an action, only an admission.

I have been seeking this admission forever. When you grant Me admission, you letMe into your life. You admit that you and I are One. This is your ticket toheaven. It says: Admit One.

When I gain entrance into your heart, you gain entrance into heaven. And yourheaven can be on Earth. Everything can truly be "on earth as it is in heaven"when the time of separation is over and the time of unification is at hand.

Unification with Me, and unification with all others, and with every livingthing.

This is what I have come to tell you, once more, through the messengers oftoday. You will know them as My messengers because they will all be bringing thesame message:

We Are All One.

This is the only message that matters. It is the only message there is.Everything else in Life is a reflection of this message. Everything else sendsit.

The fact that you have so far failed to receive it (you have heard it often, butyou have failed to receive it) is what has caused every misery, every sorrow,every conflict, every heartache in your experience. It has caused every murder,every war, every rape and robbery, every assault and attack, mental, verbal, andphysical. It has caused every illness and disease, and every encounter with whatyou call "death."

The idea that we are not One is an illusion.

Most people believe in God: They just don't believe in a God who believes inthem.

God does believe in them. And God loves them more than most of them know.

The idea that God turned stone-silent and stopped talking to the human race along time ago is false.

The idea that God is angry with the human race and kicked it out of Paradise isfalse.

The idea that God has set Himself up as judge and jury and will be decidingwhether members of the human race go to heaven or hell is false.

God loves every human being who ever lived, lives now, or ever will live.

God's desire is for every soul to return to God, and God cannot fail in havingthis desire fulfilled.

God is separate from nothing, and nothing is separate from God.

There is nothing that God needs, because God is everything there is.

This is the good news. Everything else is an illusion.

The human race has been living with illusions for a long time. This is notbecause the human race is stupid, but because the human race is very smart.Humans have understood intuitively that illusions have a purpose, and a veryimportant one. Most humans have simply forgotten that they know this.

And they have forgotten that their forgetting is itself part of what they haveforgotten-and therefore part of the illusion.

Now it is time for humans to remember.

You are one of those who will lead the vanguard in this process. There isnothing surprising in this, given what has been going on in your life.

You have come to this book to remember The Illusions Of Humans, so that you maynever again be caught up in them but achieve communion with God once more in theliving of your life through the awareness of Ultimate Reality.

It is perfect that you have done so. And it is, obviously, not happenstance.

You have come here so that you may know experientially that God resides withinyou, that you may have, whenever you wish, a meeting with the Creator.

The Creator may be experienced and found within you and all around you. But youmust look past The Illusions Of Humans. You must ignore them.

Here are The Ten Illusions. Get to know them well so that you will recognizethem when you encounter them.

1. Need Exists
2. Failure Exists
3. Disunity Exists
4. Insufficiency Exists
5. Requirement Exists
6. Judgment Exists
7. Condemnation Exists
8. Conditionality Exists
9. Superiority Exists
10. Ignorance Exists

The first five of these are the Physical Illusions, having to do with life inyour physical body. The second five are the Metaphysical Illusions, having to dowith non-physical realities.

In this communication, each of these illusions will be explored in detail. Youwill see how each has been created, and you will see how each has affected yourlife. And before this communication is complete, you will also see how you canundo any effects of these illusions that you wish to undo.

Now, the first step in the process of any really open communication is that youmust be willing to suspend your disbelief about what you are hearing. You willbe asked to do that here. Please temporarily give up any previous notions youmay have about God and Life. You may return to your previous ideas at any time.It is not a question of abandoning them forever but of merely setting them asidefor the moment to allow for the possibility that there may be something you donot know, the knowing of which could change everything.

Examine, for instance, your reaction to the idea that God is communicating withyou right now.

In your past, you have found all sorts of reasons not to accept that you couldhave an actual conversation with God. I'm going to ask you to set those thoughtsaside and assume that you are receiving this communication directly from Me.

To make it easier on you, I will speak of Myself in the third person throughmuch of this communication. I recognize that it may be a little unnerving foryou to hear Me using the first person singular. And so, while I will do it oncein a while (just to remind you who is bringing you this information), I willmost of the time speak of Myself as, simply, God.

While your receiving a direct communication from the Deity may seem improbableto you at first, understand that you have come to this communication toremember, at last, Who You Really Are, and the illusions that you have created.Soon, you will deeply understand that you have actually caused this book to cometo you. For now, simply hear Me when I tell you that in most of the moments ofyour life, you are living an illusion.

The Ten Illusions Of Humans are very big, very powerful illusions that youcreated during the earliest part of your experience on Earth. And you createhundreds of smaller ones every day. Because you believe them, you have created acultural story that allows you to live these Illusions and thus make them real.

They are not really real, of course. Yet you have created an Alice in Wonderlandworld in which they seem very real, indeed. And like the Mad Hatter, you willdeny that what is False is false, and that what is Real is real.

You have, in fact, been doing this for a very long time.

A cultural story is a story that has been handed down from generation togeneration, across centuries and millennia. It is the story that you tellyourself about yourself.

Because your cultural Story is based on illusions, it produces myths rather thanan understanding of reality.

The cultural story of Humans is that

1. God has an agenda. (Need Exists)
2. The outcome of life is in doubt. (Failure Exists)
3. You are separate from God. (Disunity Exists)
4. There is not enough. (Insufficiency Exists)
5. There is something you have to do. (Requirement Exists)
6. If you do not do it, you will be punished. (Judgment Exists)
7. The punishment is everlasting damnation. (Condemnation Exists.)
8. Love is, therefore, conditional. (Conditionally Exists)
9. Knowing and meeting the conditions renders you superior. (Superiority Exists)
10. You do not know that these are illusions. (Ignorance Exists)

This cultural story has been so ingrained in you that you now live it fully andcompletely. This, you tell each other, "is just the way it is."

You have been telling each other that now for many centuries. Indeed, formillennia after millennia. For so long, in fact, that myths have grown up aroundthese illusions and stories. Some of the most prominent myths have been reducedto concepts, such as . . .

* Thy will be done.
* Survival of the fittest.
* To the victor go the spoils.
* You were born in Original Sin.
* The wages of sin are death.
* Vengeance is Mine, sayeth the Lord.
* What you don't know won't hurt you.
* God only knows.
. . . and many others, equally destructive and non-serving.

Based on these illusions, stories, and myths-none of which has anything to dowith Ultimate Reality-here is how many humans have come to think about Life:

"We are born into a hostile world, run by a God who has things He wants us to doand things He wants us not to do, and will punish us with everlasting torture ifwe don't get the two right.

"Our first experience in Life is separation from our mother, the Source of ourLife. This creates the context for our entire reality, which we experience asone of separation from the Source Of All Life.

"We are not only separate from all Life but from everything else in Life.Everything that exists, exists separate from us. And we are separate fromeverything else that exists. We do not want it this way, but this is the way itis. We wish it were otherwise, and, indeed, we strive for it to be otherwise.

"We seek to experience Oneness again with all things, and especially with eachother. We may not know why, exactly, yet it seems almost instinctual. It feelslike the natural thing to do. The only problem is, there does not seem to beenough of the other to satisfy us. No matter what the other thing is that wewant, we cannot seem to get enough of it. We cannot get enough love, we cannotget enough time, we cannot get enough money. We cannot get enough of whatever itis we think we need in order to be happy and fulfilled. The moment we think thatwe have enough, we decide that we want more.

"Since there is 'not enough' of whatever it is we think we need to be happy, wemust 'do stuff' to get as much as we can get. Things are required of us inexchange for everything, from God's love to the natural bounty of Life. Simply'being alive' is not enough. Therefore we, like all of Life, are not enough.

"Because just 'being' isn't sufficient, the competition begins. If there's notenough out there, we have to compete for what's there.

"We have to compete for everything, including God.

"This competition is tough. It is about our very survival. In this contest, onlythe fittest survive. And to the victor go all the spoils. If we lose, we live ahell on Earth. And after we die, if we are losers in the competition for God, weexperience hell again-this time forever.

"Death was actually created by God because our forebears made the wrong choices.Adam and Eve had everlasting life in the Garden of Eden. But then, Eve ate thefruit of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and she and Adam weredriven from the Garden by an angry God. This God sentenced them, and all theirprogeny forevermore, to death as the first punishment. Henceforth, life in thebody would be limited, and no longer everlasting, and so would the stuff ofLife.

"Yet God will give us back our everlasting life if we never again break Hisrules. God's love is unconditional, it is only God's rewards which are not. Godloves us even as He condemns us to everlasting damnation. It hurts Him more thanit hurts us, because He really wants us to return home, but He can't do anythingabout it if we misbehave. The choice is ours.

"The trick is, therefore, to not misbehave. We need to live a good life. We muststrive to do so. In order to do so, we have to know the truth about what Godwants and does not want from us. We cannot please God, and we cannot avoidoffending Him, if we do not know right from wrong. So we have to know the truthabout that.

"The truth is simple to understand and easy to know. All we have to do is listento the prophets, teachers, sages, and the source and founder of our religion. Ifthere is more than one religion and, therefore, more than one source andfounder, then we have to make sure to pick the right one. Picking the wrong onecould result in us being a loser.

"When we pick the right one, we are superior, we are better than our peers,because we have the truth on our side. This state of being 'better' allows us toclaim most of the prizes in the contest without actually contesting them. We getto declare ourselves the winners before the competition begins. It is out ofthis awareness that we give ourselves all the advantages, and write our 'Rulesof Life' in such a way that certain others find it nearly impossible to win thereally big prizes.

"We do not do this out of meanness but simply in order to ensure that victory isours-as rightly it should be, since it is those of our religion, of ournationality, of our race, of our gender, of our political persuasion who knowthe truth, and therefore deserve to be winners.

"Because we deserve to win, we have a right to threaten others, to fight withthem, even to kill them if necessary, in order to produce this result.

"There may be another way to live, another thing that God has in mind, another,larger truth, but if there is, we don't know it. In fact, it is not clearwhether we are even supposed to know it. It is possible that we are not supposedto even try to know it, much less to truly know and understand God. To try ispresumptuous, and to declare that you have actually done so is blasphemous.

"God is the Unknown Knower, the Unmoved Mover, the Great Unseen. Therefore, wecannot know the truth that we are required to know in order to meet theconditions that we are required to meet in order to receive the love that we arerequired to receive in order to avoid the condemnation that we are seeking toavoid in order to have the everlasting life that we had before any of thisstarted.

"Our ignorance is unfortunate, but should not be problematic. All we need do istake what we think we do know-our cultural story-on faith, and proceedaccordingly. This we have tried to do, each according to his or her own beliefs,and thus we have produced the life that we are now living, and the reality onEarth that we are creating."

This is how most of the human race has it constructed. You each have your minorvariations, but this is, in essence, how you live your lives, justify yourchoices, and rationalize the outcomes.

Some of you do not accept all of this, yet all of you accept some of it. And youaccept these statements as the operating reality not because they reflect yourinnermost wisdom but because someone else has told you that they are true.

At some level, you have had to make yourself believe them.

This is called make-believe.

Yet now it is time to move away from make-believe and toward what is real. Thiswill not be easy, because Ultimate Reality will differ a great deal from whatmany people in your world are now agreeing is real. You will literally have tobe "in this world, but not of it."

And what would be the purpose of that if your life is going well? Nothing. Therewould be no purpose. If you are satisfied with your life and with the world asit is, there would no reason for you to seek to shift your reality and to stopall this make-believe.

This message is for those who are not satisfied with their world as it is.

We shall now examine The Ten Illusions one by one. You will see how eachillusion has caused you to create life on your planet as you are now living it.

You will notice that each illusion builds on the previous. Many sound very muchalike. That is because they are alike. All of the illusions are simplyvariations on The First Illusion. They are grander distortions of the originaldistortion.

You will also notice that each new illusion was created to fix a flaw in theillusion just before. Finally, tired of fixing flaws, you simply decided thatyou did not understand any of it. Thus the final Illusion: Ignorance Exists.

This allowed you to shrug your shoulders and quit trying to solve the mystery.

But the evolving mind would not allow such a retreat for very long. In just afew short millennia-a very brief time, indeed, in the history of theUniverse-you have come to the place where ignorance is no longer bliss.

You are about to climb out of primitive culture. You are about to make a quantumleap in your understandings. You are about to see through . . . The TenIllusions.

Continues...

Excerpted from Communion with Godby Neale Donald Walsch Copyright © 2002 by Neale Donald Walsch. Excerpted by permission.
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