Why all this talk about Change?
Wednesday, March 18th, 2009Notes from Neale…
My dear friends…
I am more excited than I have been in a very long time over these last two books that have come through me. I am speaking of Happier Than God, which was published last April, and When Everything Changes, Change Everything, which will be coming out this May. I believe these two books have all the practical tools we could ever ask for to help us understand what I have called the Mechanics of Life.
Conversations with God has given us so much rich, deep, insightful information. Its concepts are indisputably among the most extraordinary spiritual statements of the past 25 years. It is not that there is so much that is “new” here (in fact, none of it is “new”), but rather, that this ancient wisdom has been restated in such a clear, contemporary way that it has reached a whole new audience, numbering in the multi-millions across 37 languages.
Where this has brought us now is to a place where many of those millions have been yearning for practical, hands-on tools with which to apply the messages of CwG in their every day lives. The concepts are like a road map. The tools become the vehicle with which we can get where we want to go.
Happier Than God provided us with marvelous insights and plenty of hands-on instruction in how to work with the messages of Conversations with God in a minute-to-minute way, bringing CwG’s statement that we are the creators of our own reality very much down to earth, with extremely practical suggestions on how to make that assertion functional.
Now comes When Everything Changes, Change Everything to give us remarkable tools with which to deal with the tumultuous changes that are taking place all over the world. These include changes in our global and in our local experience.
So much is changing now for so many people. The world’s economies are undergoing radical alterations, causing all of humanity to realign its basic life priorities, and to face an astonishingly important question: Is Bigger-Better-More the best way to create ‘quality of life’?
The world’s politics have changed, and we are seeing things we never thought we’d see before. The world’s medicine and science and technology are uncovering amazing secrets that are shifting our understanding of the very basics of life itself. The world’s spiritual experience is manifesting itself in fresh and remarkable ways, inviting us to wholly new and expanded understandings of Divinity and new ideas of what it means to be human. The world’s newest thoughts about relationship and marriage have moved many people to look beyond their former definitions and expressions of romantic love.
On a personal level, people are losing their jobs, their savings, even their homes. As a larger and larger segment of the population grows older and older, more of us are watching family members make the transition that we call death. Marriages and partnerships are ending more frequently, and over far less, than ever before. Between these last two developments, we are losing loved ones from our lives at a frantic pace. Our approaches to parenting and to education are shifting so dramatically that they are impacting the dynamics of interior family relationships in ways we could not have dreamt of a few years ago.
The whole of human society is in the process of reinventing itself. We are moving through what anthropologist and social scientist Jean Houston calls Jump Time, a moment in the eternal cycle of life when we monumentally shift every aspect of our ground of being, much as humanity did during the 300 years of the Renaissance, when everything from art to politics to culture to governance to commerce to education to religion to human sexual experience to partnerships and parenting changed so fundamentally that nothing–literally nothing–was ever the same again.
The heart-stopping characteristic of this, our Next Renaissance, is that it is not taking place over 300 years, but rather, over 30. This owes to a breathtaking tenfold increase in the width, the breadth, the scope and the speed of our global inter-cultural communication. We live in the Time of Instaparency, when everything is instantly known, transparently. Such moment-to-moment awareness of all that is going on everywhere produces alterations in perspective that start dominoes falling all over the place.
Perspective creates perception, perception creates belief, belief creates behavior, behavior creates experience, experience creates reality, and reality creates the next perspective. It is a circle. A cycle of cause-and-effect turning in on itself, producing a whirlwind, and then an avalanche, of Change.
All of this Change has brought many humans to the edge of their comfort zone. They do not know how to deal with it–and they will not be able to deal with it unless they unlock the secret of Change Itself…which is that nothing changes for the worse. It only changes for the better.
This has not been our experience in life, and so the statement is dramatically counter-intuitive. Yet it is no less true. Change for the worse is literally impossible within the expression of energy that we call Life. That is because Life Itself can fundamentally alter itself in only one direction: the direction that evolution demands. That is, things can only change for the better, things can only improve, because “improvement” is the Only Naturre of God.
Life is God’s way of proving Itself to Itself. The process by which It does this is called Improvement. Evolution is the constant, the continual, the unending adjustment, adaptation, and alteration of Life Itself. No adjustment, adaptation, or alteration reduces Life. All can only expand it. Life evolves to higher and higher levels of complexity. Life cannot devolve if It wanted to. It is incapable of doing that.
It is true that Life can look like it is devolving. Changes can look like they are not “for the better.” But, in fact, Change can only be for the better, or it would not occur. Conversations with God tells us that Life is Functional, Adaptable, and Sustainable. These are the Basic Principles of Life, and they cannot be violated or rendered in any way inoperable, or Life Itself would cease to be–and Life has no intention of allowing that to happen.
All of this becomes imminently clear with the simple substitution of the word God for the word Life. Suddenly, everything is made simple. When human beings understand this, the process of Change is seen for what it is: the ultimate expression of Divinity Itself, sustaining Itself through adaptations that render Itself eternally functional.
Change is an announcement of Life’s decision to go on.
Most people do not see it this way, and so most people, in order to deal effectively with Change, must change the way they think of Change, which will change the way they encounter Change, which will change the way they experience Change. Especially at a time such as now, when everything is changing, they must change everything.
It seems to me that those of us who understand this must stand ready to help those of us who do not. We must all be bodhisattvas. Having reached our destination, we must refuse to go on until all who travel with us have passed us on the way. We must pass on to them what will allow them to pass us.
That is where this new book comes in. And that is where you come in.
I am counting on you to help me form a network of people across the globe who will help us change the world by changing the way people perceive, experience, and create Change. I am counting on you to help people understand the Great Secret of Change: that God is Change.
Change is another word for God. God is another word for Life. Life is another word for Change.
There is a lot of fear associated with Change. People are afraid of things suddenly being different from what they were before. Yet it was Franklin Roosevelt who said, “We have nothing to fear, but fear itself.” I’m going to take that one step further. I’m going to say…
We have nothing to change, but Change Itself.
More about the Changing Change Network in upcoming weeks. AND…we will talk a lot about all this in our Deep Study Program, sponsored by the Foundation and coming up in March. It is designed especially for those who want to “go deep” in their understandings of CWG and how to apply those understandings in every day life! For more information on this extraordinary CWG Deep Study program, go to this link:
http://www.cwg.org/main.php?p=Page&sub=CwG_Deep_Study
Hugs,
Neale.
The CwG Reader
Further explorations of the Conversations with God material from the author
Neale Donald Walsch through the years has given hundreds of talks and written scores of articles revolving around the messages he received in his Conversations with God. Now, every seven days, we will present in this space a transcript or reprint of those presentations. We invite you to Copy and Save each one of them, creating a personal a collection of contemporary and uplifting spiritual thought which you may reference at any time. We hope you will find this a constant source of insight and inspiration.
This week’s offering: In an article written in July, 2002 Neale speaks of the cosmology of all life.
It has been made very clear to me that every thought, word and action in the life of any physical being in the universe originates in one of two places—what we call, in our language here on Earth, love or fear.
These are the original Binary Numbers of the Universe. They are the “0″ and the “1″ of the computer program of Life Itself.
What we know is that all computer programs are designed on a binary system, using a combination of 0′s and 1′s. Pictures and letters and numbers appear on television and computer screens through a process that causes a spot of the screen to contain some percentage of a solid mass, or no mass at all. That is to say, either a bunch of 1′s or 0′s. All printed matter consists of nothing more than white space left open on the page, or space covered by a certain amount of ink.
Similarily, all that exists in the physical universe is composed of either Something or Nothing. This is the Binary System of all Physical Life. Metaphysical Life, on the other hand, exists in a Triangular System. Everything physical initially appears to be, and is understood as, a dyad, whereas everything metaphysical, or spiritual, initially appears to be, and is understood as, a triad.
Examples of physical dyads include male-female, up-down, left-right, and so on. Examples of metaphysical triads include body-mind-spirit and here-everywhere-there, or before-now-after.
The process by which things “solidify” from the triad of things metaphysical to the dyad of things physical is a process of Reduction. Things are reduced from their triad form to the lesser state of the dyad form. In truth, all things retain their triad form, merely appearing to manifest as dyads.
Ultimately, at the highest level of expression, experience and understanding, all form becomes formless. Even the triad form of metaphysical reality dissolves into the formlessness of a Unified Whole, in which the triad is seen as simply a variation of the Single Thing That Is.
This cycle of solidifying and dissolving and solidifying and dissolving is a process that we could call the Endless Cycle of Perception. It is all a matter of how God thinks of Itself, and thus, how God sees Itself and how God experiences Itself.
An example of how All That Is manifests itself at various levels of perception is the human binary experience of Warm and Cold.
We say that a thing is either “warm” or that it is “cold.” This is a binary consideration suggesting that a thing is either this or that. In the physical world many people have a way of looking at things that categorizes them as either black or white. This “either/or” configuration is common.
Deeper exploration reveals that either/or configurations are simplistic at best. We find that there is more than simply “warm” or “cold,” but that there could also be that which is neither warm nor cold. (Water which is too warm to be called “cold” and too cold to be called “warm” is sometimes called “tepid.”)
There is a neutral state that exists between the extremities that form the binary system of things physical. This place of neutrality is the balancing point between the extremes of the dyad.
It is in recognizing the existence of this Balance Point that we acknowledge the True Nature of All Life to be at least a three-point system. All things in physical life are triangles simply appearing to be straight lines with a “beginning” and an “end.” That is, all things in physical life are Closed Systems that appear to be Open Systems.
In metaphysics this Reality is more apparent.
In the Body-Mind-Spirit triad, the Mind is the balancing point between the Body and the Spirit. The Body and the Spirit could be seen as the two extremes of a strictly binary system. In strictly binary thinking, things are either “physical” or “non-physical.” That is, they are considered to be either matter or anti-matter—or what we would call “body” or “spirit.” By thinking triangularly we are able to conclude that things can be both body and spirit. Indeed, this is exactly what we are.
This awareness is created by the Mind, which acts as a linkage, or balancing point, between the two extremities. It is in the Mind that we conceive of both the Body and the Spirit, and thus provide ourselves with the opportunity to experience both.
From the perspective of Ultimate Reality even the triad of Warm-Tepid-Cold (to say nothing of the triad, Body-Mind-Spirit) does not exist. Those words are merely limited expressions or perceptions of The One Thing That Is. (In the case of Warm-Tepid-Cold, the triad is an expression of The One Thing called “Temperature.” Similarly, Before-Now-After are simply limited expressions or perceptions of The One Thing called “Eternity.” Likewise, Body-Mind-Spirit are limited expressions or perceptions of The One Thing called Life.)
Let us utilize our first example to explain and express a universal truth in a way that can be comprehended by the human mind. In this example, we would call “Temperature” the Universal State of Things. From a universal point of view a thing is neither warm nor cold, but simply a specific expression or perception of That Which Is—which is Temperature. These expressions or perceptions may be described as “warm,” “cold” or “tepid,” but those words are just that—merely descriptions. Describing something in a particular way does not alter the fact that there is no separation in the Universal Whole.
In physical life we usually see (indeed, we usually choose to see) only a portion of the Universal Whole, which is a holograph. This limited perspective is what allows us to sort out data from the holograph in such a way that we may experience ourselves as a portion of the Data Itself.
In short, perception—how we look at things—is our way of becoming individualized within The Whole. Perception is a function of the Mind, the Balance Point between the body and the spirit.
This is a lengthy and somewhat sophisticated explanation of the love/fear paradigm as it is experienced within the framework of physical life as we know it. What I understand is that, in physical life, all things emerge from either Love or Fear. This is the Most Basic Dyad of all physical life. It is the Prime Factor. It is the “0″ and the “1″ of the Computer of Life.
Somewhere in between Love and Fear is a mid-point, at which neither one nor the other are experienced in any degree. This is the place of neutrality, or non-attachment, that is described by many Masters. It is a metaphysical place that exists in the Mind and not in physical reality. It is the balance point between the two, and it is in this place of perfect balance between the positive and negative aspects of the Binary System of Physical Life where all Masters reside.
Whereas human Masters reside in perfect serenity in the Balance Point of the Binary System, God resides everywhere within the System. Indeed, God IS the System. The word “God” is one name that we have given to The System. Another name is “Life.”
A Master can be described as existing in neither Love nor Fear because the Master holds the point of perfect balance between the two, turning the dyad into a triad by finding neutrality. God can be described as existing in neither Love nor Fear because God holds the totality of the triad as a single experience. It is not necessary for God to find a balance point between the extremities of the dyad, for God is the extremities, the neutrality, and everything in between.
Masters achieve what appears to be “Godliness” by striking a balance point between extremities of the dyad-experience in physical life. That Which Is God seeks not to strike a balance point, but is everything that would be balanced, and encompasses and includes everything in all experiences. God, therefore, is the sum total of every dyad, every triad, and everything that is anywhere existing.
The difference between Masters and God can thus be described as the difference between “Neutrality” and “Totality.” The Master is Neutral in all things. God is the Sum Total of all things.
Neutrality is the striking of Perfect Balance which is achieved by physical Masters in the physical world. Totality is the encompassing of All That Is.
It is possible for people in physical form, for human beings, to move from Partiality to Neutrality to Totality in the expression of that which we call Life. It is possible for human beings to experience the Oneness of everything, and thus transcend both the dyad and the triad of more limited experience.
This is what the extraordinary book Communion with God invites us to do. Yet we must not remain in a state of communion with All That Is, for if we do, we no longer experience That Which Is in any of its differentiated forms, and, therefore, That Which Is ceases to “be” in our experience.
We have crossed the divide between Everything and Nothing—which is the Great Dyad of all physical reality. We become One again with All That Is, but if we remain in the Oneness, our Oneness cannot be experienced, because there is nothing else but the Oneness, and in the absence of that which is Not, that Which Is is not.
This is the Unsolved Mystery of Life. This is the Untold Secret. This is that aspect of the Universal Process by which Life expresses Itself that is rarely discussed and rarely explained, even in higher schools of esoteric knowledge.
Once we understand this, we cease to desire even the Eternal State of Reunification with Divinity, for we understand that were such an experience to be eternal, it would end immediately.
This is the place where That Which Begins and That Which Ends meet. It is the indefinable, non-locatable space/time in the Cycle of Life where the Beginning and the End are One.
This is where God resides. Indeed, this is what God IS. It is what is described in human sacred and esoteric literature as the “Am/Not Am.” It is what God meant when God said, “I am the Alpha and the Omega.”
Q&A with Readers
Exchanges from the Ask Neale section of the Messenger’s Circle at Neale Donald Walsch’s personal website, and from the book Question and Answers on Conversations with God.
Dear Neale: Who does God Communicate with? He communicates with me. I am sorry — he keeps asking me to contact you (or something does) My name is Maureen, I live in AUstralia. Thats the only thing I am instructed to write.
Dear Maureen…God talks to all of us, all the time. The question is not, to whom does God talk? The question is, who listens? People write to me all the time saying, “God told me to contact you.” I have no doubt this is true. And is what God told ME to SAY to you…
You are in communication with God all the time. God talks to you every day, in many ways. You do not believe this, and so you have come to me to hear it from an “authoritative source.” You believe that God talks to me, but may not be saying much to you. And so long as you believe this, this will be true for you. (“As you believe, so will it be done unto you.”) So God sent you here, to me, so that I could send you back to God, in you.
Neal Donald Walsh
NOTE: The Weekly Bulletin is sent free of charge to anyone who asks for it. It is a publication of the ReCreation Foundation, a non-profit organization undertaking the work of sharing the message of Conversations with God with the world. That message is that the purpose of life is to recreate ourselves anew in the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever we held about Who We Are.
The CwG Weekly Bulletin is prepared by Neale Donald Walsch, m.Claire, Geek Squared, LEP Graduates and other friends.