Notes from Neale

The CwG Reader

I get a lot of email from people every day, and many postings as
well on my two websites, and a great deal of that communication is
from people who are not happy in their life. As I read their
heartfelt outpourings, I become very clear that every day on the
spiritual path offers an invitation and a challenge.

The invitation is to step up to the next level of self-exploration,
self-creation and self-fulfillment, and the challenge is to `weather
the storm’ that is in front of us right now from which that
invitation arises, and to keep coming back to the invitation itself,
to continue to focus on the invitation, and embrace it.

That is not always easy. In fact, it rarely is. And so we can’t help
but wonder sometimes, "When will this be over? When will this
`trial by fire’ be done??? Why can’t life be easy???"

Those are fair questions, and all of us have asked them. Some of us
have had to ask them more than others.

There appear to be at least two schools of thought on that within
the so-called New Age community. One thought is that life becomes
easy when we stop resisting "what is." We are encouraged to simply
stand in what’s happening Right Here, Right Now without resistance,
judgment or condemnation, knowing at some level that whatever is
going on is Perfect for us in our evolutionary process or it
wouldn’t be happening. (This is, loosely, the Byron Katie/Loving
What Is school of thought).

A second idea is that we need do nothing in any given moment but
listen to our feelings about things, and if we feel good about what
is going on, move toward that, and if we feel not so good about what
is going on, move away from that. (This might be called, loosely,
the Abraham/Esther & Jerry Hicks school of thought.)

None of us want life to be a constant struggle. Yet what makes
it a struggle when it is one? That is the question. Is it our
resistance to what is now going on? Or is it our failure to follow
our feelings about what is going on? AND…are our feelings
created by the resistance, or do they exist apart from that?

This is another way of saying, is it the exterior event that is
affecting us so negatively, or is it what our Mind is doing
with the exterior event?

Perhaps more to the point in this discussion…Does it even matter?

When you’ve just about "had enough," it may feel as though it
doesn’t matter. If I have a raging backache, I have a raging
backache, and telling me that it’s all the result of my thoughts
doesn’t make we want to endure the backache one bit longer than if I
know it was caused by my having lifted something wrong. A backache
is a backache, no matter what caused it.

There comes a time when the cause of something becomes unimportant.
We just want it to stop. Analyzing why it began can
often be only more aggravating…

One thing is sure about this thing called The Spiritual Path. It is
infinitely more arduous than just bumping along —
"doop-de-doop-de-doo…" — on the road of life without any thought
of the "soul" and its "journey" or the "meaning and purpose" of our
life or, for that matter, our very reason for being on the planet.

When we step off onto the Spiritual Path we confront
obstacles almost immediately. If it seems as though there were fewer
obstacles in life before, it’s probably because there were…precisely
because we were not on the path where the obstacles are found.
There’s no obstacle on the path that takes you nowhere…

Let me repeat that.

There’s no obstacle on the path that takes you nowhere.

That still does not make it any easier to take The Road Less
Traveled (which is, of course, the title of a marvelous book by M.
Scott Peck on this same general topic). That still doesn’t exactly
make you want to jump up and get started, with a cheerful, "Hey,
yeah, bring on those obstacles! Let’s hear it for crappy days and
difficult times!"

So what is the answer?

Well, I think the answer is two-fold. First, when you’re tired,
you’re tired. When you can’t run anymore, you can’t run anymore. So
I think the first thing you have to do is be good to yourself and
acknowledge that. Then, take a break as soon as you can. Whatever
that looks like in your life, take a break. Give yourself permission
to do that.

If you can’t do it right this minute (There could be a variety of
reasons why this might be so: You’re part of a plan that also
involves someone else, people in another place or space are counting
on you, etc., etc.), plan to do it very soon. Tell yourself you’re
going to "put up with" whatever is going on for just a tiny bit
longer…but be sure that you can see, right now, the "light at the
end of the tunnel" — and make certain you don’t go past that
stopping point. Tell yourself, "that far, and no further."

Doing this will give you a sense that this IS going to stop, that
there IS an "end in sight" — and that can do a world of good.

Then, when you’ve had a break and you’re emotionally rested, move
back into the process (that’s what this all is, by the way…it’s a
process) with a new perspective about what is going on, who
is causing it, and why. Elevate your thought about the occurrences
at hand. Think a new thought, a higher thought, a more positive and
affirmative thought.

This is what Esther and Jerry always advise. The exterior situation
of the moment may not change, but your idea about it can. Then, by
changing your idea about it, you can often actually change the
exterior situation. This is because the Interior affects the
Exterior.

Above all, try not to throw the baby out with the bath water. That
is, don’t jettison everything and everyone in the space because the
space hasn’t felt good. Recognize the part you have played in the
space not feeling good (don’t "beat yourself up" about it, just
recognize it) and then quietly and gently recommit to your continued
growth, through movement along that Spiritual Path, with love and
compassion for yourself and for all those who are equally struggling
as they walk the path with you.

And ask for God’s help. By all means, do that. Do not try to do all
this without God. Ask God to be with you, to walk with you, to stand
by you, especially through all the nearest upcoming moments as you
shift back into meeting and facing the next obstacles that your path
of choice will place before you.

And finally, know that it will — yes, it really and truly will —
all get easier. That was a question I asked God, you may remember,
in my conversations. "Will it ever get any easier?" I asked
plaintively, and God answered, "Yes, oh, yes, my child. I promise
you, it will get easier."

In the meantime, know that I love you — and that you are loved
also by God and by Life Itself. You are so admired for having taken
this journey, for having committed to this path. All the angels in
all the heavens are cheering for you now, rousing now to send you
all of their best energies.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = =

This week’s offering: The other side of goals-Part II

I have been looking at an important question. Probably the most
important question of my or anyone else’s life:

What lies on the other side of goals?

Believe it or not, this is a question that no one ever asked me,
ever — much less answered. IS it "more of the same," just Bigger
and Better? I hope not. There’s got to be more to life than just
chasing after the carrot — however big or important the carrot may
be.

So let’s discuss that today. But first, I’ve got to tell you about
Edmonton…

I’m in Calgary today, writing this. I flew in from Edmonton
yesterday, following a wonderful evening program there Saturday
night. It was the biggest crowd we’ve had at any of our stops on
this Canadian tour, and the program could easily have gone on for
another two hours. That’s how much interest there was in the room.

The New Spirituality is catching on in our world, and people are
showing up in larger and larger numbers every day as we provide
opportunities to explore its dimenions.

Now, let me tell you about Edmonton, the city. This is BOOM TOWN,
Canada. The real thing. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. The
economy there is taking off like a skyrocket. Everywhere you look
there are Help Wanted and Now Hiring signs. I mean, everywhere. On
the way in from the airport we must have seen 50 of them, at
virtually every third place of business. Downtown, same thing.

Businesses are hiring, hiring, hiring. There are more jobs, of every
kind, than there are people to fill them. As a result, out-of-work
folks from everywhere else in Canada are streaming into Edmonton
daily — and still they can’t seem to fill the void.

Canada invites and welcomes immigrants with open arms, I was told by
a Canadian. So, if you live in the States or elsewhere and can’t
find work…run, don’t walk, to Edmonton.

Let me give you an example of just what I’m talking about here. At
the Ramada Inn where we stayed, the front desk clerk we worked with
had just been hired a week earlier. We asked for the bellman to help
us in getting our bags to our room and they said, "Sorry, we don’t
have any bellmen to do that." Got to our room a little hungry after
traveling, so called Room Service for a quick sandwich. "Sorry, we
don’t have Room Service up and running just now. Not enough
personnel."

It’s not that the Ramada does not want to provide these basic hotel
services, it’s just that the labor pool is being tapped and drained
severely. Here’s what’s happening: every able-bodied man is going
"up north" to work in the oil fields, where they can earn big money.
Alberta — the province where Edmonton lies — has been going
through a huge oil boom. So much so that last year the Provincial
Government (similar to State Governments in the U.S.) gave every
taxpayer a check for $400, returning its revenue surplus to the
people!

No one works for minium wage in Edmonton. If you own a business in
Edmonton and you tell someone you’ll hire them for minimum wage,
potential workers laugh at you and walk out. They can do better
anywhere. There is enormous competition for workers. I’ve never seen
anything quite like it; I’ve never been in a place where it was the
workers who had the upper hand in hiring situations. One can get a
job overnight. I mean, literally, you can drive into town and be
employed before you get to your motel room, where you were going to
stay until you found work. In fact, the motel itself will probably
hire you!

AND, if you have a high skill set, you can practically write your
own ticket in this town. So…I pass this on to you if you or
someone you know has just had a devil of a time finding employment.
If you don’t mind a place with a little Real Winter (possible snow
and cold many days late October through early March), a place with a
growing and vibrant New Spiritual community, a place with lots of
new cultural happenings and a sizzling young people’s atmosphere (a
drive down Whyte Avenue on a Saturday night is as good as being in
San Francisco), pack up and head on up the road! Edmonton is a great
place to be!

(And no, I do not work for the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce! I’m
just hugely impressed with what I saw there. This is Opportunity
City/Canada right now!)

Okay…

So now, to our question for the day. What lies on the other side of
goals?

As I was explaining the other day, I am in the blessed position (and
I really do "get" the blessing that I have received, believe me) of
having met or exceeded just about every goal I ever set in my life.
I have lived my Life Dream in every way.

Remember when we were young how we used to kid around and say, "When
I make my first million I’m going to…"? Well, I’ve made my first
million…and my second…and I’m working on my third. I have the
big house, the nice car, the "running money" to go into any store
and get just about anything I want. I’m not bragging about that,
just simply saying what is so. I also have worldwide recognition, a
life work that has brought me immense satisfaction, friends and
acquaintances in high places, entree just about anywhere, and a
travel schedule that has taken me to every corner of the globe. I
just don’t know what more, in terms of physical joys and comforts, I
could want. And I am deeply grateful. Humbly, deeply grateful.

(I may not seem very humble, judging from the way I’m flashing this
news all around in these last two blogs, but I promise you….I am
very humbly grateful to God. I’m sharing all of this here simply in
order to make a point.)

I’ve done it all and got it all — and now what?

I mean, really. Now what?

Do I just set new goals…so that I really can have Bigger, Better,
More? (I read a story in the newspaper here yesterday about a man
who made $85 million on the lottery, and he said his life goal now
is to parley that into a billion. He wants to be a billionaire
within ten years. And I thought as I read that…gosh, when is
enough enough? This guy’s 85 million makes my 2 million look like
chump change, and I think that I’ve reached the End of Striving for
physical things. What does he know that I don’t know? Or is it the
other way around…)

In addition to the fact that I’ve got all the physical "stuff" I
could ever want, I’ve also done just about everything I’ve ever
wanted to do (see my last blog for the rundown!). So I’m one of the
lucky ones. So now what? I’m still young. I’m not 79. I’m not 86.
I’m 63. So now what???

Now maybe I can get down to the Real Work that I came here to do.
Now maybe I can grow my soul. Now maybe I can experience Who I
Really Am. And now maybe I can understand that I did not have to do
all that other stuff first before I got to this. That understanding
is important to me, because it will stop me from thinking that there
is still more I have to do before I get about the business of my
spiritual evolution.

Why is it that I have always put my spirituality last? And what
would it take for me to put it first? Other people have done it.
Many other people have done it. And most of them have been people
who have accumulated much less in terms of physical "stuff" and
accomplished much less in terms of physical "doingness" than I.
Their focus was never on "doingness" to begin with! It was on
beingness.

My mother never "did" the raft of things that I have done, and never
gathered the things that I have gathered, yet she achieved more in
one week of her lifetime than I have achieved in the whole of mine.
She achieved goodness. I mean, she actually achieved that. And
compassion. And kindness. And patience. And givingness. She achieved
givingness. She demonstrated, every day of her life, what it was
like to give, what it was like to put happiness and peace and
comfort and understanding and joy into the lives of others, with
absolutely no thought, zero thought, of her own peace and comfort
and joy.

My mother achieved Unconditional Love as a State of Being in her
lifetime.

Now that’s an achievement. It makes whatever I may have done look
like Cub Scout stuff.

And my mother isn’t alone in this. Many people have been able to do
what my mother did. Or, to put it more accurately, they have been
able to be what my mother was being every day that I knew her:
caring, giving, loving, and selfless.

These are the qualities that will make a difference in how we feel
about our life on the last of our days. I am deeply aware, keenly
aware, of the people that I have hurt while undertaking my journey
– the journey that I have described in such detail here. Who cares
if I have achieved all these things if I am a slob, a manipulator,
an emotionally insensitive, utterly selfish, occasionally even
ruthless person who will do anything and hurt anybody to satisfy his
own desires? What difference will it make to my soul?

Sooner or later we ask ourselves, what in the world am I doing here?
In my case, I’ve had to wait until I did just about everything that
I ever wanted to "do" before I realized that none of this had
anything to do with why I came here. None of it was relevant. None
of it was why I inhabited a physical body, why I returned to the
Realm of the Relative from the Realm of the Absolute.

Only now, in my later years, have I understood that I am on a
Journey of the Soul, not a journey of the body — and that I could
have taken THAT journey without doing a damned thing. (Which would
have been nice to know a lot earlier, when I was doing one "damned"
thing after another.)

So now I want to embark, finally, on the journey that I came here to
take: a journey to Oneness, a journey to Wholeness and Completeness
and real, true, happiness. It is a journey that is taken through the
doorway of understanding and compassion and giving and forgiving and
sharing and caring and NOT caring a twit about what I get out of it,
but caring only about what I put into it and about what you get out
of it, so that through the gifts I give to you, I am revealed to
myself. I experience my Self as Who I Really Am.

This is what my mother did. This is what all saints do. And saviors,
too. For when we see what they have done we are in that moment saved
– rescued from any False Thought we may ever have had about Who ALL
of Us Really Are. My mother, and all saints, served as a model for
the rest of us, for those of us who are busy, busy, busy going about
our busy-ness and getting things "done."

My task here is to know who I am. To see it, to realize it, to
experience it, and to demonstrate it, so that the process of my
spiritual evolution may proceed. It is a joyous by-product of this
proces that others may see and realize who they are, and all the
world may be awakened.

I have not accomplished my task. I have barely begun.

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not
love, I have become as a sounding brass or a clanging 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, but 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, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not
parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not
seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in
iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all
things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail;
whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is
knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy
in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is
in part will be done away.

When I was a child, I spoke 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 in a mirror, darkly, but then face to face.
Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

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

And I have not learned this, nor demonstrated it. For love tells the
truth in all things, and speaks the truth as soon as it is known.
Love would never seek to have desires quenched at the expense of the
hearts of others. Yet this I have done…and more than once.

Yes, I have achieved some things in my life, and gathered much of
the "stuff" that many seek to gather. Yet now, in my 66th year, I
see that my journey has just begun.

I must set about learning, at last, to love. And I must set about
that journey now. For it is as the Buddha said:

The trouble is, you think you have time.
 

Has it been a good year for you? Have you experienced your soul
expanding, your heartspace increasing, your mind opening even more
to the wonders and the mysteries of life?

How is your relationship life going? Is your life purpose being
expressed in your daily activities? Are you in touch with your
deepest and highest self? And how are you doing with all the changes
in your life?

I am so deeply committed to bringing forward the messages of
Conversations with God in a helping way, in a way that can bring
real and vital new energy to your experience of life. That is why in
the 14 years since publication of the groundbreaking spiritual text
Conversations with God, I have presented an Annual Holiday Retreat
from Dec 28th to Jan 1st.

>From the beginning it has been our most popular and most attended
event each year. Once again this year we are offering this event
here in Ashland, Oregon.

In a very special mind-expanding, spirit-awakening 4 day
presentation, I will offer you the opportunity to truly celebrate
your life just as it has occurred, and then to recreate it anew in
the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever you held about
Who You Are as you move into the New Year.

Wrapped in the soft and gentle poetry of my wife, Em Claire (www.emclairepoet.com),
this is a highly experiential event filled with personal sharings
and emotional healings, imbedded in deep discussions of the
Conversations with God material.

The wonderfully evocative and joyful musical artistry of recording
artists Cathy Bolton (www.cathybolton.com)
and Don Eaton (www.small-change.org)
will add to an inspiring and uplifting encounter with Self, with
God, and with Life that you are not likely to ever forget — and
that others have told us has changed their lives for the better.

The program ends with a very special Resolution Ritual in the final
moments of 2009, with participants publicly declaring their
intention for the 12 months ahead. Then we’ll usher in 2010 in grand
form with a traditional New Year’s Eve party.

You took the first step when you read Conversations with God.
Now, take the next step…

You already know
you if you want wish to be there.

If you do — if your soul is calling you to spend this very special
time with the Conversations with God material and with me
(something that you may have been promising yourself you would do
one day!), please contact Will Richardson at 352-442-2244. He’ll
answer any questions you may have.

NOTE: Not all events are sponsored by the ReCreation Foundation, but
because all of the events move forward the message of
Conversations with God, which is the mission of the Foundation,
the Foundation is pleased to inform you of them.

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