Notes from Neale…

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My dear friends…

There are those who say that Moloka’I is the most beautiful of all the Hawai’ian Islands. I’m not sure that I’m qualified to make that assessment, but I can tell you that is it breathtaking.

We’ve been here since last Friday, and tomorrow I’ll be co-presenting with Alan Cohen at a one-day program on Maui, followed by a second one-day with Alan Sunday in Honolulu. (Details in the calendar section below.)

This is the last chance I will have to tell you about our very special Deep Study program coming up March 10-11-12, and while I know it is late in the game if you have not already signed up, every so often there is a person who hears about it at the last minute and says, “Wow, this is for me.”

I want to also fulfill my promise of last week in this letter and tell you about the Three Brands of Truth, which is part of the information that is now coming through me as I write the new CwG book, When Everything Changes, Change Everything. So let me just say a word or two about Deep Study, and then we’ll get into that.

The Deep Study Program is for only a handful of people every year (we do not accept more than 30 for the whole class). It is a highly intensive 3-day exploration of all of the major messages in Conversations with God-and how to share them effectively with others.

The program is for people who have always wanted to teach this material, but haven’t felt totally confident in how to do so. It’s also for people who really want to get down to it” and take a very deep look at what CWG is saying, and how its messages are to be interpreted, as I understand them

Not very often do we get a chance to sit down with people like Deepak Chopra or Marianne Williamson or Eckart Tolle for three days and just plumb their mind in a small group setting about our favorite book of theirs…and while I am hardly in a category with teachers and writers of their caliber, there have been readers of CWG who have asked me if I would ever give a concentrated series of personal lessons in this material.

Deep Study is just exactly that. We work from 9 in the morning until 9 at night for those three days, and with just 30 in the room, it is a marvelously individualized experience. If there’s a “last minute” person out there whose soul is calling them to look at this material more thoroughly, a quick phone call to Will Richardson at the foundation would secure one of the last remaining places in the room. His number is 352-442-2244. He’ll give you all the details.

Now, from the newest and not-yet-published book, a look at the three brands of truth.

The events of your life are created by conditions and occurrences outside of you, but your ‘reality’ is created by conditions and occurrences inside of you-in your mind. It is here that events are turned into data, which are turned into truths, which are turned into thoughts, which are turned into emotions, which are turned into experiences, which form your reality.

Now let me put those elements in a straight line, with plus and equal signs placed strategically between them. This allows us to focus in on the process of reality-creation a little more sharply. As I observe it, that process works like this…

event+data+truth+thought+emotion=experience=reality

I call this the Line of Causality, and I’ll be bringing it into our discussion again. This is the path the mind travels on its way to producing your reality. You’ll notice that on this line, Thought comes before Emotion, and gives birth to it. Likewise, Truth comes before Thought, and gives birth to that. (We’ll get to the “Data” later.) What the line does not show is that there are three kinds of truth.

This is more than a little important to know, because it is the existence of these three kinds of truth that lead to the possibility of a Triune Reality. Put another way, if there was only one kind of truth, there would be but a single reality.

The three kinds of truth are…

A. The Actual Truth

B. The Apparent Truth

C. The Imagined Truth

In a bit I’m going to explain all of this and I think you’ll find it fascinating. For right now, know that it’s really as simple as A-B-C. Each step away from “A” takes you farther from peace.

If peace is what you are searching for during this moment of change and turmoil in your life, if peace is that for which you yearn, you will want to journey upward from Imagined Truth to Apparent Truth to Actual Truth, so that you may shift your ground of being from Distorted Reality to Observed Reality to Ultimate Reality.

This is what personal and global transformation is all about. This is what every human who we have honored with the name of Master has done. And this is what you can do, right here, right now, on this day.

In your life, has everything changed? Then change everything. Start rearranging your thinking about “reality.” Reality is not static, it is fluid.

(Well, that’s not exactly accurate. It IS static, but our experience of it changes. And that, of course, is what this whole book is about. The exploration here is about how to change your experience of Change Itself. Or, put another way, how to change your experience of reality-since Change is the constant reality.)

I have to tell you, I felt like I’d been awakened out of a sound sleep when I first “got” that there are three levels of reality and that we can experience the things that are happening in our lives at the level of Distortion, the level of Observation, or the level of Actuality. It took me a long time to figure this out. It took me a long time to notice what I am telling you here so casually.

I don’t want it to take you as long as it took me. I want you to be able to understand this now. First as an intellectual concept, then as a functional tool. You need this tool now, not ten years from now, not ten months from now, not ten weeks from now. Not even ten days from now. You need this tool in your hands now, because now is when you’re moving through incredible changes.

If someone had told me this stuff in the moment that I was going through big changes…what a difference that would have made. So here goes. Let me tell you all of what I’ve uncovered about this.

Each of these “realities” that I’ve just spoken of is remarkably different from the other-not a little bit different, remarkably different-and that is something that most people do not know. Gosh, no one ever told me that there are three realities, much less the difference between them.

The difference between them arises out of those three brands of truth that I just spoke of.

One of the biggest surprises of my life was learning that there is no such thing as absolute truth.

Now that should be on a billboard somewhere. Heck, everywhere. On every road and highway there should be a huge sign:

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS ABSOLUTE TRUTH

Ever caught yourself asking someone, “Are you actually buying that”? Well, this is about that. This is about what you “buy into” every day.

When you go into the Supermarket of Life you’ll find Truth packaged in three brands. You can buy Actual Truth, you can buy Apparent Truth, or you can buy Imagined Truth.

For right now we’re going to pretend that Actual Truth is not on the shelf. I don’t want to discuss the actuality of things just yet. (That’s what PART TWO of this book is about!) I just want to look at Apparent Truth (what we have observed) and Imagined Truth (what we have distorted). Only when we see these clearly can we understand Actual Truth.

The Apparent Truth is based on what you have observed in the past to be going on when you saw something similar to what you see in front of you right now. It is what you think is apparently so, based on your history, about the physical event that is occurring in the present moment.

Your relationship has ended. Or you got laid off. Or you lost your home. Or someone close to you has passed on. Or you’ve become an empty nester, with your children suddenly no longer in your home after being a huge part of your life for 20 years. Or whatever.

This is what’s going on right now in your physical world. It’s what’s happened. You know it happened because it is your direct observation. If you stay in your Apparent Truth, you will be okay, because your Apparent Truth will give you all the facts of a similar experience you have had in your past. But will you stay there? And, if you embrace your Imagined Truth rather than the Apparent Truth, will you have the tools with which to elevate to The Apparent Truth?

You will if you embrace Change #4 in this book: Change your choice of truths.

So, here you are in the present moment. But wait. You’re having a lot of emotion about it. Strong emotion. Emotion you’re having a hard time dealing with.

It is this emotion that is producing your Here-and-Now experience. It is this experience that you call your reality.

Why are you having all this emotion? Why are you so angry, or so frightened, or so sad? Mostly because you, like most people, do not come from your Apparent Truth when forming your thoughts about a present-day event. If you did, things would be a lot easier.

Most people come from their Imagined Truth about what’s happening in their present moment. This is what most people buy into.

A lion appears out of nowhere and roars. You experience being petrified-because you imagine that you are in danger of being mauled. A mountain road takes a turn and you find yourself driving on the outside ledge, with a 3,000-foot drop off just outside the window. You experience being terrified-because you imagine that with one wrong move you could die. An audience is awaiting your entrance for a major speech. You experience being paralyzed-because you imagine that you stand a good chance of going out there and disappointing everybody while making a fool of yourself.

A spouse abruptly leaves. Or you get laid off from your job. Or you lose your home. You experience being stunned, angry, mortified. And, sooner or later…afraid.

All of this is based on your Imagined Truth, which is that this is ‘bad,’ that you’re going to be ‘unhappy,’ that lots of ’struggle’ lies ahead, or whatever.

(More next week, as we print another excerpt from When Everything Changes, Change Everything. Note: This book may be pre-ordered from Amazon.com. It is scheduled for publication in May.)

Love and Hugs,
Neale.

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The CwG Reader
Further explorations of the Conversations with God material from the author

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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: The transcript of a talk by Neale on November 5, 2002 at Unity on the Plaza in Kansas City, Missouri.

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(Applause)

Thank you very much. You’re very sweet - thank you.

It’s good to have you here tonight. It’s good to be back. I’ve been here a number of times before; feels like coming home. And as you know, if you’ve been with me before, that I love Kansas City - I always have, and I always will. It’s a great place, much like my home town of Milwaukee; it’s very similar in many ways - similar architecture, similar feeling among the people, just like the good mid-west. Those are my roots, so thanks for coming out - I feel really at home tonight.

It’s important for us to be here tonight. You know, in the past, when I’ve spoken here, and elsewhere around the country, my talks have been kind of humorous, hopefully a little bit insightful, contained a little bit of wisdom. I’m not sure there will be much humor tonight . . . perhaps a little. But I come here tonight on a very serious mission, at a very serious time - with a very serious request, in hopes of producing an outcome that can have very serious and important consequences for our planet.

So bear with me tonight if the tone and the texture of this evening’s talk is a little bit different than you might be used to hearing from me, for those of you who have heard me before. Because a great deal has changed since the last time I was in Kansas City. A great deal has changed in my life and in the lives of all of us - and in the collective experience of humanity.

So I come here tonight to talk to you about, not only what’s been going on, most of which we already know, but some of the reasons that I believe these things have been occurring, which we may or may not know - or be clear about. And then about some of the things that we can do to help ourselves help each other to stop this terrible movement that we see the human race making, toward it’s own rapid self-distraction. And make no mistake about it - I am not exaggerating.

And, by the way, I want to thank Mike Murphy . . . did anybody catch me on Mike Murphy today? (applause) Mike and I spent and hour and a half today . . . when you sit around and talk for an hour and a half with Mike Murphy, you’re just charmed out of your shoes. He’s kind of an institution here in Kansas City, and I can understand why. Great guy!

I was sharing with Mike this morning on the radio part of what I want to share with you tonight. But let me begin at the beginning, if I can, and just back up a few steps, rather than drop you into the middle of this, and see if I can create a context for us to share together and talk together tonight. We’ll also have a question and answer session in the second half of our evening, so that we can dialog together. Dialog about ways that we can alter the prevailing notion of life on earth, which is what is going to have to happen, in the next days and times, if we are to stop ourselves from destroying ourselves.

I don’t imagine I have to say much to anybody about the eleventh of September. By this time, commentaries about September eleventh have become almost trite, although no less serious, then they were at the beginning. But it’s important to understand not only the nature of what occurred on the eleventh of September, and the things that happened before and since, but also the role we can play, should we choose to do so, in making certain that those tragic experiences are diminished, if not eliminated, from the human adventure here on earth. Because we don’t have many more temper tantrums that the human race can tolerate. Many more human temper tantrums could destroy us.

And let me explain to you why - though I’m sure you already know - in the main, you are aware of this - we now have the ability, that we have never had before, in the history of our species, the ability to end life as we know it. Certainly to alter it to such a degree that it would bear no resemblance to the way humans are now living life on this planet. And we have that ability, perhaps for the first time in human history, in these days and times.

In the beginning, when we had disagreements between us, we could throw rocks at each other, or fling arrows through the air, or drop pellets of lead, project lead with powder - gun powder - or drop them from airplanes, and like that. And by using those limited devices, we could try to resolve our conflicts. And we did so. And we eliminated a small number of people, or even a large number, eventually, with the atom bomb, and so forth, but never, never did we come close to eliminating all of life as we know it on the planet, because we simply did not have the technology to do that. Today we do. Today we do.

And so today, it becomes urgent - not merely advisable - that we no longer have human temper tantrums, that we find a way to live, at last, as we would hope that adult human beings could live. Differences notwithstanding. Our differences, apart and aside, to find a way that we could live - together - in peace and harmony.

Now you would think that that would be a relatively easy thing to do. But with all that we’ve been taught, and all the wisdom that’s been given us, through the years, by our religions, by our philosophies, by our various political movements, and by life itself, you would think that with all we’ve gathered, and all we’ve taught ourselves, and all we imagine ourselves to know, we could find some way to get through the year - much less the decade, much less the century - without killing each other, over our differences.

(This always frightens me - I always think I’m having a stroke up here. (Laughter) I just had a stroke!! (more laughter) Oh yeah - they said they were going to turn the lights down - that’s right. (yet more laughter) This happened to me the last time I was here - I remember it. When the lights went down, I went woo-woo!)

I think of the human race as little children. I still hear the voice of my mother, telling me and my three brothers, “play nice! Can’t you just play nice?” Well, we are, on this planet, as little children. And I feel the universe - God, if you will, the Deity, whatever, the source of all things - is saying to us “Can’t you just play nice?”

But the problem now is that if we don’t find a way to play nice, we’re not going to play at all, for the reasons I just gave you.

So it’s now or never time in the human experience. It’s now or never time for this species. We now have got to find a way to play nice, or the game itself is going to be over. And I promise you - I’m not exaggerating this. Walter Cronkite, the other day, was talking about this stuff, and he said, “you know, I don’t know if people understand this or not, but we’re on the verge of world war three, here.” But it’s not going to be like the other world wars - it’s not going to be conventional, with planes flying over and bombs dropping, and troops landing on the beachheads. There may be some of that, but there may also be the insidious use of letters - just envelopes that arrive in the mail with a little bit of white powder. Or some guy who walks into New Jersey someplace, or South Dakota somewhere, with a suitcase, no bigger than a little attaché case - loaded with enough explosives - enough atomic hardware to blow the whole place up. Or some other kind of insidious biological or chemical weapon. But it will be world war three nonetheless.

The war to end all wars - the war to end all life - or at least life as we know it. And I don’t think Walter Cronkite is exaggerating either.

So clearly we’ve got to do something to stop the seemingly inexorable movement toward our own destruction. But what? What can we do? Is there anything that we can do - you, and me and you? I don’t mean our leaders - the people who are in power. Clearly there are things that they could do, and they don’t seem to be wanting to do them. But is there anything that WE can do? Because if there would be something that WE can do - and I don’t mean me - I mean you and me - right here, tonight, and in the next few weeks and months and years - wouldn’t it be good to know what that would be, so that we can get about doing it.

Now the biggest mistake we can make, at this juncture of human history, is assuming that there is nothing that we can do. That, in fact, the problem is bigger than we can handle. That we have to leave it in the hands of those people who we have put in charge of our future. We have to leave it in the hands of our political and religious leaders. That would be a horrible mistake, for us to assume that, and yet, it could look very much like that. If we aren’t careful, we might convince ourselves, that there’s nothing we can do.

So I’ve come here tonight on a very special and important mission - to let you know there’s something that YOU can do. You - that nice lady sitting up there - smiling at me now. (laughter) All of you. You young people. And you older people. And you very older people. (laughter) (I wasn’t speaking of anybody in particular (laughter) because I’m one of the very older people.)

I’m one of the very older people, and my heart cries inside - what kind of a life will I leave? What kind of a world will I leave, for my children and my children’s children? My life is two thirds over. I’ve only got one third left to go, I would imagine - maybe a slice less than one third left to go. I’m one of the older ones, now (I don’t know when the hell that happened). (laughter) I was only 32 a couple of weeks back! (laughter) Although I have to say that I feel better now than I have felt in 20 years, and that’s the truth of it.

So, here I am, at that wonderful turning point of 60. (60 - gosh, you don’t look 60) (laughter) So at 60, my concern is not so much for my own future, although I have a concern for that, but really at 59-60 years old - right where I am right now - the turning point, my concern, my real concern, is for this young lady right here. How old are you, sweetheart? (A young woman replies: Nineteen) And you? (Twenty-one) Anyone here younger than that? How old are you? (A small girl hesitates, then answers: Eleven) You had to think about that, did you? (laughter)

See, what do we say to our nineteen and twenty year olds? What do we say to our eleven year olds, when they come back to us in fifteen or twenty years and say, “Dad - Mom - Gramps - Grandma, how could you have done this to us? You had such a good time out there. You created such a good, good life. Did you have no time at all - in your day or in your year - to work hard to give what you had to me?”

Now that is not a suggestion that none of us in this room have worked hard to pass on this paradise on earth that we have created. We have worked hard to do that. That is to suggest that unless we now double our efforts, all that we have done, that has gone before, will be for naught.

And so now, we must move to the next level, in our commitment to them. Life begs us to. Life is our challenge today.

This time last year, I was preparing to write a book called “Dying with God.” It was to be the last book in the “with God” series of books. And it was due to my publisher last February. So I had about four or five months to write it in, and I normally write a book in about that time, so I was pretty much set up and ready to go. But after September 11th, no matter how hard I tried to start that book, this book insisted on being written. I tried to write that book, and this book insisted on being written. So I finally had to call the publisher and say, “I can’t deliver the book that I’m supposed to write, because another book is insisting on coming through.”

Now anyone here in the creative or performing arts understands that phenomenon. You’re getting ready to do one kind of a statue and a whole different statue comes out of the clay. You’re ready to create one kind of song, and a whole different song comes out of your mind. You’re ready to write one kind of poem, and a whole different poem emerges from your heart. You are ready to write one kind of book, and an entirely different book appears before your eyes, almost as if by magic. That book appeared before my eyes almost as if by magic, borne of my concern, my deep caring, and my confusion, following the September 11th events of a year ago.

For I had written many other books by that time - 15 of them, in fact. And in those 15 books that I had written and had published, I had been saying things to the world, that brought many people - millions of people - multi-millions of people - to a place of new clarity and new insight and new wisdom, so they said to me, through their communications, through mail and e-mail, and like that. I’m very grateful that so many people have felt that way about the writing.

But, all of that having been said, I begin looking at the body of work that had been produced by that process I had called “Conversations with God,” in the aftermath of September 11th, to see how I could integrate what was happening on the ground, in my life, and in the lives of all of us, with what was appearing in those books. Comments in the “with God” material like “See the perfection,” “There’s no such thing as right and wrong,” “We create our own reality,” and on and on.

And so I sat down with the God of my understanding, in the weeks after September 11th, and said “What? . . What? . . What? What is it yet. With all the writing that ALL the writers have done - with all the explorations that ALL the explorers have undertaken - with all the teachings that ALL the teachers have given us - with all the truths that ALL the religions have shared with us - what, what, what is it that we still don’t understand?

Why can’t we just get along?

Please, I said here. Please, God, please. Just tell us. Simply and directly. Don’t pull any punches anymore. Just say it, so we can GET it, and do something about it.

And God said to me - are you ready? Are you really ready for this? Because what I have to say is going to upset a lot of people - and it won’t be the first time (laughter). I said “Come on, come on, we’re upset already. Just say it.”

And God said, “Okay, get out your pen and here we go. I’m going to give you the ‘New Revelations,’ and you will call this particular writing by that title.”

Oh, whoa. First I write a book called, “Conversations with God,” and if that isn’t presumptuous enough, I’m back with a book called ” The New Revelations.” Thank you very much. (laughter)

But God said, “We are going to call these the New Revelations, for that is what they are, statements in which great truth will be revealed, and then the only thing remaining will be to see whether human beings embrace these truths - or whether they even can. Whether it’s even possible for human beings to expand their comprehension to include new, wondrous truths. Truths about God, and truths about life, the knowing of which could change everything.”

For God said, “Here’s the problem. The problem is - the reason the world is in the crisis it is now facing is - that human beings are holding on to, and living their lives by, sacred truths about God and about life, that are fallacies. Truths that are not truths at all, but that nonetheless fuel the engine of the human experience, and continue to re-create it. And what’s saddest about this,” said God to me, “is that not only is this what’s happening, but many people know its happening. That is, many people understand that the beliefs, the sacred beliefs of humanity as a whole, about God and about life, are not in fact accurate, but they are loathe to do anything serious about it, because human beings would rather live and die by their most sacred ancient beliefs, than adopt new ones.

We are loathe to make ourselves wrong, much less our elders, who gave us these beliefs to begin with, wrong. And so rather than make anybody wrong, we will simply do wrong to each other. Rather than violate our most sacred, fundamental, bedrock beliefs, we’ll violate each other - because we are going to hang on to these beliefs about God and about life, if it kills us.

And it is doing exactly that.

And I said to God, “Where have we come by these fallacious beliefs about God and about life (and I’ll outline them for you in just a moment, so you’ll know what I’m talking about). But first I said to God, “how have we come to this state of affairs - how have we come to this place - that we hold such truths, clearly mistaken, in such a sacred place.

And here’s what God said in the book, which may or may not be very popular. God said, “This condition has been caused, not completely, but largely, by exclusivist, punitive, organized religions. It is the exclusivist, punitive, organized religions of the world which have been promulgating, disseminating, and teaching these false beliefs, as if they were true and real. And encouraging, urging and instructing the followers of those religions to believe these truths, as if they were real, and to live their lives by them.

And so,” said God, “The problem in the world today is exclusivist organized religion.” Now here’s the difficulty that such a statement brings up: we’re not trying to solve that problem at that level. Most everyone agrees that humanity is facing a crisis. Even our political and religions leaders agree that humanity is now facing a moment of decision, and a moment of crisis. But we are not trying to approach that crisis at the level at which that crisis exists. That is, we are trying to solve the crisis with political means, or with economic means - economic sanctions, and so forth. Or even by military means, which we seem to be at least prepared and about to do.

But the problem is not political. And it’s not economic. And it’s not a military problem. So we’re trying to solve a problem at a level at which the problem doesn’t exist. Either because we don’t understand, or because we are ashamed, embarrassed and afraid to admit that the problem is a spiritual problem. The crisis is a spiritual crisis.

Humanity is facing a spiritual crisis of the first rank. And once we solve the problem at the level of belief, which is another word for spirituality - spirituality being the sum total of what people believe - unless we approach and solve the problem at the level of belief, the behavior of humanity will not change, but merely be modified and altered for a period of time.

And that’s, of course, our history. We modify and alter our behavior, as a human species. We are involved in this huge process of global behavior mod. People, or a county or nation - something happens and they do something and we try and get them to stop that. We say, “Cut it out!” By political, economic or military means, or all three. And in fact, sometimes they do. I mean, you can modify behavior that way. For a short period of time. But notice that the behavior continues to re-emerge. It bubbles up again, inside the human experience. And we wonder, for instance - to use one example - how they can be arguing about the state of being over and over again, and using the same means of trying to solve it, like between Israel and Palestine - for the past fifty years.

We wonder how it’s possible for North and South Korea to remain divided for a half century after the Korean war. We wonder how it is possible for Hindus and Muslims, on the India-Pakistan border, to continue a centuries-long debate that has nothing to do with geography. Or water rights. Or oil. Or any of the things we think that war is all about. It has to do, simply, with the fact that you’re a Muslim and you’re a Hindu. And we hate each other.

We wonder how it’s possible for ten or fifteen years of killing to go on in Northern Ireland, between two Christian sects! Catholics and Protestants who are not fighting each and not killing each other in the streets over water rights, or oil fields or any of the things we traditionally use as our rational for explaining the wars of humanity. They are killing each other, with real bullets, on the streets of Ireland, because one person’s a Protestant, and one person’s a Catholic. Hello . . .

What we are seeing, on this planet, is a series of culture wars. And what we are going to see in the future, if we’re not careful, are world-wide culture wars. Not wars so much of one nation against another nation, but one culture versus another culture. That’s what is going to make it the war to end all wars. That is what certain religious sects are trying to do now. Not a nation, just to use an example, versus the United States, but the nation of Islam - radical fundamentalists are calling for this - rising up of all members of the nation of Islam - wherever they live - including . . . California, Ohio, Canada. That’s the nation of Islam. And that’s an enemy you can’t fight, because they are not in just one location. You can’t just drop a bomb and modify behavior for another couple of years.

So it’s a whole culture that is creating the difficulty.

Do what you can to stay in the room. Do what you can to stay in the room. I know this is not what some of you expected to hear tonight. So already, fifteen minutes into the talk, some people are leaving.

Don’t leave because of your discomfort, for God’s sake! And don’t leave because you think I’m not a very good speaker, because I know better. (laughter and applause)

If you came here to be entertained tonight, you might be disappointed. If you came here to engage the question of what’s next for humanity, which I want to suggest to you at the soul level is what brought you into the room tonight, then notice you are in exactly the right place. And if you’re feeling a little bit uncomfortable, and really do want to say to your husband or your wife, “C’mon, let’s get out of here. I didn’t come here for this.” At least wait until the intermission. Because if I see you leaving beforehand, I will call you on it as you walk out the door. (laughter)

“There’s a person who doesn’t care enough about the human race to stay in the room. (laughter) Too boring a discussion - is that what it is? O-Kay . . .”

Help us out. Help us out! Because the human race needs your help now! YOUR HELP. NOW!

Not tomorrow. Not in ten years. Not in five years. The human race - humanity itself - needs the help of all of us - of me and of you - in this moment.

Because - because - truly - - if not now, when? And if not you - - who? Who? . . . Who? . . . . . .

If we can’t count on you . . . then who?

It’s us, now. It’s us. We’re all we have left. In case you didn’t notice, last September 11th, the front line has crumbled. It’s now down to us.

But that doesn’t mean that this war is over. And I’m not talking about the war against terrorists. I’m talking about the war for the human soul. For the soul of humanity. And that war is not a war against the devil. So this is not going to be a barn-burning, fundamentalist revival, either. Although I could do one. (laughter)

So, the problem is the stuff we’re believing. And that’s good news and bad news. The bad news is, we’re believing stuff that isn’t true, about God and about life. The good news is: we can change that! That’s a condition that we can turn around. That’s something we can do something about. You and I. Those of us in this room. We don’t need military generals in Washington or in Brussels or in NATO.

We don’t need political experts at the United Nations or in the White House. (Did I say political experts in the White House?) (laughter and applause) . . . Just kidding . . .

But this is something that we can do something about. See, changing the fundamental beliefs of society is something we can affect and work on, and create an outcome around. We can have a direct affect on that. Believe me! And that affect can begin tomorrow morning at 9 o’clock. And each of us can be the first domino in the process, by which we cause all the other dominoes to fall. Each of us can begin to play our role tomorrow morning at 9 o’clock at the family kitchen table, and then extending outward from there. To our places of business. To our churches and temples and synagogues and masques. To our communities. To our states. To our nations, and even to all the world.

Each of us can touch the whole world. There are only six degrees of separation. And each of us can touch Kevin Bacon. (laughter) I happen to know Kevin, and I want Kevin to call me in about three weeks, and say, “I don’t know what you’re doin’, but it’s workin’. (laughter) It’s comin’ back to me from eighteen different places.”

So before we leave tonight, I going to suggest a few things that you might do, and then I’m going to ask you to read this book, which will suggest a great many more (which we don’t have time to through all of these). Then I’m going to suggest that you do even more things, including make up some of your own solutions. But I’m going to suggest, most of all, that you enroll in the process. That you engage the process. That you become part of and, indeed, co-create the process by which we say to the world at large at last, “Stop the insanity. No more. No more. This is the end of it!

And we can do that. . . we can do that.

I’m telling you. If one human being of passion - however misguided that passion has been - can do it. If one man named Osama bin Laden can do it, so can we!

Let’s not concede this struggle to the Osamas of the world. And, so far, that’s what we’ve been doing. Allowing someone else to take care of it, when in fact the matter is in our hands.

So now let’s explore some of the things that we have been believing about God and about life, so we can have a sense of what’s actually occurring here, and where we can go from here.

All that I say tonight comes directly out of this text, by the way, and I truly hope that you will all read this and take it to heart. In “Conversations with God,” (how many of you have read one or more of the with God books? Fair enough . . . that’s good. That’s 99 % of you in the room, and as for the rest of you - tut, tut) (laughter)

But look, honest to goodness - if the Conversations with God books have touched your life in any way positively, pick up this book (The New Revelations) and read it. This is one of the most important books I’ve ever produced, because of what’s happening right now, at this time in our collective experience.

So here are the things that we are believing, about God and about life, that are no longer working. One: fallacy number one about God: this is believed by almost the whole of humanity at some level - with a few exceptions. And it is absolutely believed by virtually every one of our exclusionary, exclusivist, punitive organized religions. Fallacy about God number one: God needs something.

Now think about that. Just think about that for a second. Think about the philosophical construction that holds, as it’s major premise, that God is not happy, unless certain things happen or don’t happen. And the happening or not happening of certain things is what causes God to be happy or unhappy. And think further about a God who therefore can be made unhappy if certain things happen or don’t happen. And that if God is unhappy, he vents his rage, if you please, on us. Because we are the source of his unhappiness. Given that we have not supplied to God what we imagine God needs.

Just think about that construction for a little bit in your head. And what the human race would do if it really believed that.

Now I know that there’s a good chance that not all of you in this room believe that. In fact there’s a good chance that many of you do not believe that. But go out into the world, and talk to the antheorists, and the followers of the world’s major exclusivist, punitive organized religions. And we’re talking, by the way, of multi-millions if not billions of people. And ask them if they believe that God needs something.

Now, where did this belief begin? In the primitive times of man, in the earliest years of our experience on this planet, we did not have a great deal of sophistication in our thought process. We kind of walked around . . . and we noticed, as we begin to form the human experience as Homo-sapiens, that things were occurring in our environment. There was thunder and there was lightening, there were wind storms and rain storms. There were times of great drought, when the sun beat down - ten thousand degrees for sixty days and nights, and like that.

And we wondered what causes these things, these floods, and, for that matter, what causes all the other terrible things in life, and we couldn’t understand what it was. But we knew that whatever it was, it was more powerful than us. Whatever it was, it was bigger than us, because we couldn’t control it.

So we assumed that there was something out there - somewhere - maybe more than one thing - maybe a whole collection of things - and we ultimately wound up calling our mythologies Gods. A whole collection of Gods who were causing these things to happen. But we couldn’t understand why.

Even primitive human beings started to ask themselves, “well why would God do that?” Or why would the Gods cause these things to happen. So we naturally assumed, given our limited narrow understanding, that God must be unhappy about something, because that’s why human beings did bad things to each other. We thought that God must do the same things to us for the same reasons.

So we pondered. What could God be unhappy about, that he would cause a flood to visit us, or a bad growing season, or whatever it is. And we couldn’t quite figure out what it was that caused God to be unhappy, so we begin to try to figure out some way that we could mollify the Gods. And we did all kinds of dances - rain dances and rituals. We burned animals on pyres of fire. We even burned our own children. Our first born, in some cases, on pyres of fire, in order to convince the Gods, in a desperate attempt to convince the Gods, that we would do anything, including burning our own children - just be nice to us!

Promising. What do you want? What do you need? My first borne? Light the match. (uneasy laughter) What do you need? I’ll sacrifice my son. My own son. I’ll sacrifice my only begotten son.

And out of that early primitive mythological understanding, entire belief systems emerged, including entire religions, which suggested that God did exactly the same thing - sacrificed HIS only begotten son.

And then continued the sacrifice, right down to this very day, where we get to drink the blood, and eat the body, in an active, extraordinary acceptance of a centuries-old mythology, that says that such sacrifice is the only thing that will mollify God.

But, the sacrifice, having been made, God is mollified. And we must now not dishonor that sacrifice. After all, God gave up his only begotten son, and we must not dishonor that. And so we undertook the 200 years of the Christian crusades - two hundred years - of the Christian crusades. I didn’t say ten, or fifteen or a hundred. I said two centuries, during which Christians murdered everyone else who refused to accept the story I’ve just told you as the truth of God, and how it works.

And now, we have others who believe other things, who feel equally justified in their wars of culture. All out of an idea, a root thought, a basic concept, that God needs something. God, who is the source of all power, all understanding, all wisdom, all everything - God, who could desire or need or want nothing, in a sense because God is the all in all, the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, the here and the there, the before and the after, the all in the all of it.

Nevertheless, this thing which is the all of it, has something it needs, the lacking of which would cause him to be upset with us. How upset? How upset??

The old testament - read it carefully tonight when you get home (laughter) - the old testament records over one million deaths at the hand of God, who smoked human beings with whom he was upset.

But that is not the only belief we have given to each other, through our holy scriptures. Please, if you will just allow me for a moment tonight, I would like to read to you from the holy scriptures of the human race. A few selections.

We will begin tonight tonight’s reading (laughter) - - (this is not a good way to begin) (more laughter) - - from the book of Deuteronomy, which says that if a man marries a woman, and finds that she is not a virgin, and if her family cannot prove that she was virgin before her marriage, she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house, and there the men of her town shall stone her to death.

Continuing from the Torah: “if found to be in an adulterous relationship, both the man and the woman are to be taken to the city gates and also stoned to death.”

And I was also concerned about other real life matters as well - apparel, for instance. “A woman must not wear men’s clothing, for the Lord your God detests anyone who does this.” Quoting directly from the bible.

Also, the bible says, “do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together.”

Then, too, only certain people are welcome in God’s house of worship. If you happen to be a child borne out of wedlock, you may not go there. Because the bible says, and I quote, “No illegitimate child, not any of his descendents may enter the assembly of the Lord, even down to the tenth generation.”

Also, if a certain part of your body is injured, in an accident, or as the result of war, you may not join with other worshipers of the Lord. For the bible says, and I quote the bible, ” If a man’s testicles are crushed,” (laughter) - laugh if you might (more laughter) - I quote directly from holy scripture, and I quote, “If a man’s testicles are crushed, or his penis is cut off, he may not be included in the assembly of the Lord.” Deuteronomy, Chapter 23, Verses 1-2: New Lineage Translation.

Now you might say, “Oh - one of those fancy modern bibles.” That’s right. The King James version has it this way: “He that is wounded in the stones, (much laughter), or hath his pretty member cut off, (yet more laughter) shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord.

I also have some startling news for women, who take some of those self-defense classes that you’ve all heard about. They can find themselves in a bunch of trouble. For the bible says, and I quote to you tonight directly from scripture - I’m not making this up. Quote: “If two men (cough - I’m sorry, I get choked up just thinking about it) (laughter) . . . If two men are fighting, and the wife of one of them comes to the rescue of her husband from his assailant, and if she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand.” Show her no pity!

Oh, and, by the way, the bible - the holy bible - our sacred scripture of this society, also has some interesting thought on what to do about children who disobey. According to the Torah: kill them. (laughter)

People normally do not like this portion of my lecture and start walking out - some have left already, because berating and having fun . . . see - I want you to get something. You think I’m making fun of the bible here? I’m reading the bible! I’m not making fun of anything. I’m reading the bible.

You remember what Harry Truman, of all places around here you know what Harry Truman used to do. They’d say, “Give ‘em hell, Harry.” And he’d say, “I don’t have to give ‘em hell, I just tell them the truth - it just sounds like hell.” (laughter)

The Torah says, and I quote: “If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son, who does not obey his father and mother, and who will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him, and bring him to the elders of the gate of the town. They shall say, to the elders, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey us.’ Then all the men on the town shall stone him to death. You shall purge the evil from among you.”

Now, I know what some people might be thinking. Neale, unfair, out of bounds. Everyone knows that none of those verses and passages apply to life today. Everyone knows that. No one would ever use these scriptures, because today we realize that they make no sense at all. As if they made sense that day in biblical time. (laughter)

And so to use updated and outmoded scriptures is unfair. Except that, last week, they announced that they were going to stone a woman to death. In . . what was the country . . somebody saw the article? (from the audience - Nigeria) They were going to stone her to death because she had illegitimate sex with a man. Apparently she gave birth to a child out of wedlock. So they allowed as how they would not stone her to death until after the child was weaned. They are going to breast feed the child, and then they are going to bury her in stones up to her neck, and then they will throw stones at her face until she dies.

So you see, my friends, some people take this stuff very seriously. And that’s the problem. Lest you think I’m making fun.

And the Qur’an. And the Bhagavad-Gita, as well, makes it very clear that we are being confronted by an angry, angry God. A God who is so angry that he says things like this at Serah 17, Verse 58 of the Qur’an - this is God speaking and being quoted directly by Mohammed: “there is not a habitation we shall not destroy before the day of resurrection. Nor not inflict severe punishment upon it, not the habitation on the earth. This is in accordance with the law of God. But,” says the Qur’an, “we do give warning.’ (I’m quoting, now, from the Qur’an verbatim) “When we do decide to destroy a population” . . . Did you hear the word of God? The word of God said, “When we decide to destroy a population, we first set a definite order to those among them who are given the good things of this life, and yet transgress. So if the word is proved against them, then we destroy them utterly.”

You see, the problem is, as unreasonable as you and I might think these verses from the bible and the Qur’an - I’ve got more from the Bhagavad-Gita and all the other holy scriptures to read to you, because they’re all the same, only different in verbiage. As unreasonable as you and I might agree that these verses are, a lot of people use these very verses, and others I have not quoted, to justify and to authorize their actions against each other, and against us.

And I don’t want you to think that it’s merely a case here and there. As I said before and I’ll say it to you again: a careful reading of the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Numbers, Amos, Kings, Chronicles, Ester and Joan, to name a few, will produce a tally of no less that one million people in old testament history alone, who were smoked by God’s hand.

This is the God we believe in. And I’ll close with this reading from the book of Mormon, so you can know how widespread this is. Here is from the book of Mormon: “Howl, ye, for the day of the Lord is at hand. It shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.”

I’ll read more about it in a minute, but I just thought I’d ask a piercing question. When we say that the day of the Lord is at hand, why are we talking about the destruction of humanity in the same breath? Can we imagine that God is so furious with us, because of the misunderstandings that promote our mistakes, that God would destroy humanity? And do we use that as justification for destroying each other? Do you think that we actually use that in some cases as our justification? Pick - up - tomorrow’s - paper.

“Howl, ye, for the day of the Lord is at hand. It shall come as destruction from the Almighty. Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and with fierce anger, to lay the land desolate. And he shall destroy the sinners thereon out of it. And I will punish the world for evil, and will whip them for their inequity. Every one that is proud shall be trust through. Yea, everyone that is joined to the wicked shall fall by the sword.”

But wait, there’s more. Not satisfied with punishing the evil doers? The evil men of the earth? The Lord God Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, also goes after innocent children, and spouses as well. According to the book of Mormon, and I quote directly: “And their children shall also be dashed to pieces before their eyes, their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished.”

The time has come for us to admit and acknowledge that we have told ourselves, in many of our holy scriptures, that God himself kills people who offend him, and the God wants us to go out and kill for him, too.

And I won’t bother you with more of these. I’ve got dozens more, and they’re in this book - I’m quoting to you from this book - this is really a publisher’s author’s pre-publication proof, but it’s the same book. It’s all in here. And the reason I put those in here, is that I want the human race to examine itself; it’s time to declare that emperor is wearing no clothes! (applause)

Well, let me conclude in my description of the problem, and then I’ll go to the solution. This final description, so that you know just how deep into our society it goes - some of you have heard about this, and perhaps you know all about it. For those of you who haven’t, stand by to be aghast. That is to say . . . aghast!

On the 23rd of September last year, twelve days after the horrific events of September 11th, in order to heal the city, and to bring humanity back together again, in the city of New York, and inter-faith service was held in Yankee Stadium. Seventy thousand people came to this inter-faith service. And there, on the stage in the infield, representatives of all of the city’s faiths, traditions and cultures prayed together. Ulamas and priests and rabbis and ministers stood on that stage and sent a prayer to God - each in their own tradition - asking God to bring peace to the earth, and tolerance and understanding to people everywhere.

And great healing took place that night. Many wounds were healed, and people reached out across the aisles to each other - blacks and whites, young and old, male and female, Hindu and Muslim, Christian and Jew - standing together as one humanity in that stadium that night, saying with one voice: “Let us prove that our differences do not have to produce divisions. We can live together - whatever we believe.

Two weeks later, the Rev. David Benke - a Lutheran minister, and one of two that happened to be there that night - was brought up on charges by a committee of the Lutheran Church of the Missouri Synod. And he was charged with the sin of syncretism. Syncretism means creating the appearance that all religions are equal. The committee of ministers of the Lutheran Church of the Missouri Synod, declared it was filing charges that Rev. Benke, by praying with what they called in their charges “heretics,” such as the Rabbi, the Catholic priest, and the Lutheran minister of another Lutheran denomination . . . that his willingness to pray there, in the inter-faith service amounted to, and I quote the Lutheran Church, quote: “an egregious offence against the love of Christ.” Close quote.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is right in this back yard. Right HERE!

Can you imagine any church declaring that there’s a wrong time and a wrong place to pray? Can you imagine? Let me just ask you this. Even if you accept the logic that they’re praying with heretics, even if we say, “you’re right, he was praying with a bunch of heretics,” - what better place to pray?? (laughter) What am I missing here? (applause) No, pray only to the already converted. (laughter) Preach to the choir. Don’t go out among the heathen.

This insidious disease-filled approach to God is killing us, and we’ve got to stop it. And to the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod I stand here, tonight in this place, and say, “Shame, shame, shame on you.” (applause)

At a time when humanity is reaching out to itself, at a time when people of every stripe and color, reaches across the divisions between us and says, “heal us of those divisions. Bring us to a place of understanding and tolerance,” we discover that organized religion prohibits us from doing so.

(hand clap) Wake up! Wake up. Time to wake up to what’s happening. Time to call a spade a spade. It’s time now. There is a secret ingredient that I talk about wherever I go. This is the secret ingredient: Everybody knows what’s happening, but shhhh, don’t say anything out loud.

And so, here’s the solution. We have to say something out loud. We should be flooding the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church with letters. With telephone calls. How could you do that? By what rhyme or reason can you believe that God would make that minister wrong for praying, even among heathens?

What is it? What to you mean? Get off it! And help us to heal each other of this terrible disease of righteousness.

So here’s what I’m doing. I’m going around the country asking people if they would begin to be looking at the five steps to peace, which have been given to us in “The New Revelations.” And I’m asking people if they will consider the five steps to peace as their action plan for this next portion of their life.

Here are the five steps to peace, that are finding these statements almost innocuous they’re so simple, and yet how difficult for humanity to accept it. Step to peace number one. If every organized religion, every political leader, and indeed every human being, were to take this step - overnight (hand-clap) - much would change. Step number one, to create peace and harmony on the planet. We would have to acknowledge that some of our old beliefs about God and about life are not working.

This book does not call for us to reject religion. I want to say that again, so you are all very clear. This book does not call for us to reject our organized religions. It does not call for us to abandon them; it does not call for us to make them wrong. It calls for us to simply say, “Perhaps the understandings of our organized religions are simply incomplete.” Simply incomplete. Maybe there’s more to know on this subject, and that’s the second step to peace. The first step: I acknowledge that some of my beliefs about God and about life are not working. Step number two: I acknowledge that there may be something I don’t understand, about God and about life, the understanding of which would change everything.

Step number three: I am willing now for a new understanding of God and life, to be brought forth in this day and time - an understanding which could truly light the world.

Now that’s a huge step, do you understand? We’re asking the human race to take a huge step - to announce that it’s possible, in this day and time, for some new understanding, about God and about life to be brought forth.

You understand, of course, that most organized religion holds that all the understandings about God and life have already been given to us. And, by the way, they were given to us by human beings. God spoke to human beings, and through human beings, and by that process we came to our understandings. But then God had the terrible case of celestial laryngitis, (laughter) and has refused to talk to human beings ever since. (more laughter) So, no new revelation could possibly hold, even something worth exploring, much less embracing. Not even worth the exploration, because, by definition, since it’s new, it must be blasphemy. It must be heresy. It must be apostasy.

Why? Because it’s new. And God doesn’t talk to human beings in this day and age. There is one thing upon which most exclusivist religions agree. You know, exclusivist religions don’t agree, between each other, on much, but they agree on this: if truth had been brought to the human race, and placed in a book, it must be a very old book. (laughter) Couldn’t be a new one. Not possible. Not possible. It must be the Bible, or the Qur’an, the Bhagavad-Gita, or . . . the Book of Mormon . . . I don’t know. It’s very new.

But what if it were true that God speaks to all of us, all the time. What if it were true that God talks to you. And God did not stop talking to humanity when Moses came down from the mountain, or when Christ descended into heaven, or when Mohammed left the planet.

What if God talks to us right to this very day; and what if a few of us put it down in a book. Is it worth at least discussing? Discussing?

A man from Pakistan, two months ago, brought up this very question in front of a Muslim audience. He said, “Do you suppose it’s possible - just possible - that maybe one of the passages in the Qur’an might be not entirely correct in its interpretation. That man was brought up on charges by a religious tribunal, and sentenced to . . . altogether now . . . death.

Because you see, we’ve created a culture where it’s not okay to question.

Here’s what’s happening. In our medical science, we’ve moved forward with breathtaking speed. In our technology, we’ve moved forward so fast it’s a blur. In every area of human endeavor - even in our political and social sciences - we’ve made some progress.

Look at the Soviet Union and all the rest. In every area of human endeavor, except the most important endeavor of all, theology, we’ve made enormous progress. But in our theologies, we’re not supposed to make progress. NO NEW THOUGHTS, thank you. NO NEW IDEAS. And don’t you dare publish a book called “The New Revelations.” And who do you think you are?? NOTHING NEW. Please - only the old stuff, will be considered.

Yet, if we don’t consider something new pretty soon, there won’t be anything to consider at all.

So the third step to peace is to be willing to consider the possibility that a new understanding about God and about Life could now be brought forth - and understanding that could change our reality forever.

The fourth step to peace: to be willing to explore whatever new understandings have been brought forth from whatever source, from you, and you, and you, and you. Not from me, but from all of us collectively exploring the question. And to see if we could be in agreement with those new understandings, and if we are in agreement with some of those new understandings, to enlarge our belief system to embrace them.

And step number five - here comes the big one - to be willing, as a humanity, as a whole, as individuals, to be willing to live our lives as demonstrations of our highest thoughts about God, not as denials of them.

These five steps to peace lead us into the nine new revelations contained in that book. And for those of you who haven’t grown weary of me already, and many of you I suspect have, at the end of our intermission, I will invite you back to hear the nine new revelations, not because I think they are the inherent word of God, but because I believe they provide us a wonderful starting point for expanded discussion, that’s going to allow us to ultimately create a new spirituality on the planet. A spirituality that can change everything, and produce churches of openness and tolerance and inclusively. Churches that seek to unify the human spirit, and not just separate it.

Churches not unlike the one in which you find yourself sitting tonight. That’s why this church is called “Unity,” because it doesn’t teach of an exclusivist, punitive God.

So, here’s the challenge tonight. We will have to individually and collectively give up our idea of a God who is exclusive and punitive. But more than that, we’re going to have to commit, before the evening is over, to do something revolutionary. That is, to take part in the creation of what I call, “humanity’s team.”

To join in a unified effort to see if we can’t cause, by the living of our life, and the things we do within that context, the first domino to fall. And other people, other than the already converted, to also see the benefit and the value of finding a new way, to express and explore our belief in God, and our love of life.

And that’s the opportunity that stands before us. And after our intermission, I want to share with you the nine new revelations could that form the basis of further discussion about the creation of a new spirituality. And then answer any questions that some of you may have. And also tell you, before we say goodnight, of a program in which we can all become spiritual activists. I was almost going to say, “spiritual subversives.” People who are willing to be activists in the creation of a new spirituality.

Because I do not understate the case. If we do not alter the fundamental belief systems that inform our behaviors, our behaviors will not change. We can bomb Iraq to smithereens. And it’s only a matter of time before the behavior reemerges. If we haven’t learned that by now, we have learned nothing at all. Yet if we change the basic beliefs of humanity around our ideas concerning God and life, we will then have no more people flying airplanes into buildings, saying, “Allah is great.” Nor will we ever re-create the Christian crusades, nor will we ever re-create the hatred-filled actions of people who act in the name of God.

That’s our chance. That’s our opportunity. That’s our calling. That’s the invitation to you tonight. If you can be up to it, come back to the room, and let’s see if we can stop this insanity.

Ten minute intermission. See you in a bit. (applause)

So . . . there is a story in Shakespeare, about St. Christens Day, where the king fans his army on one side of the battlefield, on the night before the battle. And the army notices that it is greatly outnumbered, by three to one. And so, the members of the king’s army begin to desert, because they don’t want to be massacred in battle the next morning. And the king says - he gathers all the troops who have not yet deserted, and said, “if there’s any of you who want to leave, you may go, with my blessing. You don’t have to skulk out of camp, you may just simply leave. In fact, we’ll even give you money to go on your way safely back home. Because we don’t want people to be remaining here, if they’re afraid. So if you’re that afraid that you feel that you have to desert, then don’t desert - leave with our blessing. We only want the few who are brave enough to conduct this battle on the morrow, which is St. Christens Day.”

And so the rest who wanted to leave did so, leaving only a very few, to fight the battle the next morning. And as the story in Shakespeare goes, those few won the day. Now outnumbered five to one, they won the victory. They came back to the king’s castle, whereupon he knighted them. And all the noblemen in the country asked the king how he could do such a thing. “How could you knight these ruffians who were in that battle, and make them noblemen just like us?” And the king said, “because these few, these hearty few, this hearty band of brothers - these were with me on St Christens Day.”

Well . . . it’s St. Christens Day. And I notice that there are fewer of you in the room now, than there were before the intermission. And that’s terrific. For we only want those to return who are ready now to take on what could be the most important challenge of our collective experience on this earth.

I do not have time tonight to go through all ten of the fallacies that we hold to be true about God and about life. I began with the first fallacy which is the foundational fallacy - that God needs something. The rest, of course, are in the book, and I hope that you will read them, and seek to deeply understand them. And not only to understand the fallacies, but see how those fallacies have played their effect in human affairs in such a way that they have created the circumstance we have been discussing all night.

And again, please, may I just backtrack for one minute, and say once more tonight, if you think that I’m exaggerating with regard to the impact that these beliefs have on the world’s political and military scene, please look again to the places of conflict - both historically and contemporarily - on this planet. At the India-Pakistan border, what you are seeing is a conflict between Hindus and Muslims. And like all the rest I’ve described, this is essentially a clash of cultures - a clash of belief systems. People who believe one thing, and people who believe another thing.

I want to run through just a little something that the Ayatollah Khomani left for us, because he has a lot to say to people who believe that Islam is not a religion that condones violence. And there are those who also believe the same is true of the other of the world’s great religions as well. But there have been some apologists, who have come forward in recent days in the past year of so, who have said that it is not true that Islam, or Christianity, or any of the other of the world’s great religions, really encourage fighting a war.

Well, here is a statement from the Ayatollah Khomani made a few years ago, but nonetheless contemporary - we’re not talking about 2000 years ago, but four of five years ago. And he says, and I quote now verbatim, “Islam makes it incumbent on all adult males, provided they are not disabled and incapacitated, to prepare themselves for the conquest of countries, so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country of the world. But those who study Islamic holy war, will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world. Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam councils against war. Those who say this are witless. Islam says, ‘kill all the unbelievers, just as they would kill you all.’ Does this mean that Muslims should sit back until they are devoured?” (By the way, it is the question that is being asked in Iraq tonight.) “Islam says, ‘kill them. Put them to the sword and scatter them.’ Islam says, ‘kill in the service of Allah, those who may want to kill you.’ (By the way, that’s the consideration in Iraq on this very evening.)

I’ll repeat that sentence, “Islam says, ‘kill in the service of Allah, those who may want to kill you.’ Islam says, ‘Whatever good there is exists, thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword. People cannot be made obedient except with the sword. The sword is the key to paradise, which can be opened only for holy warriors. There are hundreds of other psalms and habiths, urging Muslims to value war, and to fight. Does all this mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.”

Those are the words of the supreme religious leader of Iran.

And so we see the nature of the problem. And we see that the problem is, in fact, relating more than simple philosophical differences between people. If is were simply limited to that, this lecture would have no need to be at all. We’ve had philosophical differences from the beginning of time. I think that we can amply show that philosophical differences are destroying us now, and that we can no longer afford these kinds of differences between us.

We’ve got to find a way to over come this stuff.

And so God said, after outlining the problem in detail, “Here are five steps to peace that you can take.”

But still I said, “What would these new beliefs be, that one might include in open discussions, around which we could ultimately create a new spirituality on the planet?”

And God gave us, in this wonderful book, and you know that I can say that because I am very clear that I did not write this book. I hope that you’ll forgive how arrogant it might sound for me to call this book a wonderful book, but I’m clear I didn’t write it, but merely took dictation.

And so here are the nine new revelations. I’ll read them to you relatively quickly, so you can see if there’s even the beginning of a glimmer of agreement, or disagreement, or at least the foundation for a fruitful discussion. New Revelation Number One. And by the way, may I precede this by saying that to many of you in this room, these may not seem like new revelations, but try to consider them, please, if you would be so kind. Try to consider them in the context of millions of the world’s people, who are currently existing within the framework of an exclusivist, punitive, organized religion. And imagine that these would seem like new revelations to them.

Number one. How would the world change if the world embraced this new revelation? “God has never stopped communicating directly with human beings. God has been communicating with and through human beings from the beginning of time, and God does so today.”

Number two. How would the world change, if at all, if the following statement were true? “Every human being is as special as every other human being who has ever lived, lives now, or ever will live.” You are all messengers. Every one of you. You are carrying the message to life about life - every hour, every minute, every day. Every human being is as special as every other human being who has ever lived, lives now, or ever will live. That means that you are as special as Christ. You’re as special as Mohammed. You’re as special as Moses. And no human being is less special than anyone else. What would happen if we decided to operate as if that were true?

Number three. Whoa - listen to this. How would the world change, if at all, if we decided to embrace this revelation? “No path to God is more direct than any other path. No religion is the one true religion, no people are the chosen people, and no prophet is the greatest prophet.” (applause) And in that one statement - forget all the rest - throw the rest away - forget ‘em - burn ‘em. If that one statement were read from the lecterns and the pulpits, and the dais of every church, mosque, temple and synagogue in the world, (finger snap) two thirds of it goes away over night.

Number four. In what way, if at all, would the world change if we thought that the following statement were true? “God needs nothing. God requires nothing in order to be happy. God is happiness itself. Therefore God requires nothing of any one or any thing in the universe.”

Can we imagine a God who needs nothing from us? You know the outfall of that, of course, is that if God needs nothing from us, God has no reason to be angry with us. And if God has no reason to be angry with us, God has no reason for us to be angry with each other, and to encourage us to kill each other, which God does consistently throughout all the scriptures. I haven’t read those passages, but they’re in the book. When you get it, check those passages out as well - where God directly invites and commands human beings to slaughter and kill each other.

Number five. “God is not a singular Super Being, living somewhere in the Universe or outside of it, having the same emotional needs and subject to the same emotional turmoils as humans. That Which Is God cannot be hurt or damaged in any way, and so, has no need to seek revenge or impose punishment.”

New revelation number six. “All things are one thing. There is only one thing, and all things are part of the one thing that is.” That one, taken alone - forget all the rest - if embraced as a functional truth, rather than as a conceptualization - that is, if we lived our lives according to that simple statement - (finger snap) two thirds of it would go away. Two thirds of the stuff that’s killing us right now, and created this situation.

Number seven. Oh man, here’s a tough one. Stand by. “There is no such thing as right and wrong. There is only what works and what does not work, depending on what it is that you seek to be, do, or have.” In other words, a thing is either functional, or it is dysfunctional.

Now, when I get on the radio, I . . I must say, it was really a brave thing for them to do. It was a Christian radio station in Milwaukee that put me on the air yesterday. WCY . . Christian Youth . . whatever. It was really a rather nice interview. They sincerely wanted to know how could I say that there’s no such thing as right and wrong.

They said, “What about killing?”

I said, “There is no such thing as right and wrong, there’s only what works and what does not work depending on what it is you are trying to do.”

And they said, “Surely, what about killing.”

I said, “What about killing? Is killing right or is killing wrong?”

Well, turns out killing is right except when it’s not. (laughter) And killing is wrong except when it isn’t. Turns out, and here comes that terrible, terrible word, relativism. It turns out that killing is not okay, except if you say it’s okay. And then what causes you to say it’s okay? Is it okay, for instance, for me to say, “I’m going to kill you, if I think you’re going to kill me first?” That okay? The Ayatollah Khomani says that Islam councils that - you heard the quote - Islam says, “Kill them before they kill you.”

So, apparently, our government now agrees with Islam. (laughter and applause)

But is that okay? See, is that right - that make it right?

By the way, I’m making no political judgement here. I’m not saying that I agree or disagree with President Bush. That’s not the point of this discussion. The point of this discussion is to cause you all to notice that, in fact, killing is right, except when it’s not. And killing is wrong, except when it isn’t.

And that’s true of every value beneath that, if that’s the highest value. Life is the highest value, and every other value system beneath that is also relative, whether you want to believe that or not. So if you believe in absolutism - absolutism meaning it’s absolutely this way or that way - then you believe in something that is out of touch with the way we live our lives on this planet, because we live our lives - all of us do - based on a relativistic view of life. Even those who (coughing obliterates recording)

So here’s how we manage that neat little trick. You simply call all attack a defense. It’s very simple. You simply construct a system of morals that allows you to do what you would call immoral, by giving it a moral justification. And the way to do that is to call all attack a defense. You will notice, by the way, throughout all of human history, that not one single time, in the course of human history, has any country, or any leader of any country, ever declared that they are going to attack another country, for the purpose of attacking that country. They’ve all declared that their attack was a defense. That’s true in every instance.

And so, we justify all of our attacks as defenses. By the way, we do that at the kitchen table as well. (laughter)

And by this means, we can give ourselves moral cover. And that’s the problem with morality. Morality is, as Hemmingway would have put it, a moveable feast.

On the other hand, if you use a non-moralistic measuring stick, but a very practical measuring stick: does it work, or does it not work? See if that becomes how you decide what you want to do or what you don’t want to do - is it functional or is it dysfunctional?. That is, does it produce the intended result, or does it not. If that becomes your yardstick, rather than calling a thing right or wrong, you’ll call it functional or dysfunctional. You will say that either it works or it does not work.

Now, based on that value system, does attacking another country before it attacks you work in order to produce the thing called peace and harmony among human beings? That’s a question we all get to ask here. Maybe some of you think it does. Fair enough. Maybe some of you think it doesn’t. Fair enough. But let’s use that as the yardstick.

And perhaps we maybe ought to use human history as our backdrop, to see what history has taught us about that question. In the past, has it worked for us to use killing and violence and war to bring peace?

Or, for that matter, does the death penalty reduce crime? See, if the stated objective is to reduce violent crime, and then we get to look at not whether the death penalty is right or wrong, whatever those words mean, but whether it works or does not work given the objective. It’s as simple as that. And that can be determined by just putting in the numbers. Just look at the statistics. Is crime down, or is it up? Do we have more crime in the United States, which sends more people to the death chamber, or what?

Same thing with gun control, and all the rest.

We say, in this country, that we don’t want to . . . that gun control is, we say, wrong. It violates the Constitution, and blah, blah, blah. So it’s wrong. On the other hand, does not having gun control produce the desired outcome? I leave it up to you to decide. Take a look at the countries of the world, where there are strict gun control laws, and at countries where there are none, and see which countries have the highest rate, per capita, of violent crime. Just a simple measure. It takes it out of the realm of morals - out of the realm of right and wrongness, and right into the realm of does it work or does it not work. It’s as simple as that.

But, you see, on this planet, we say one thing, and do another. So such practical arguments as “does it work or not” are irrelevant to those discussions. Which makes me a very unpopular fellow. (laughter) ‘Cause I keep saying, “Why don’t we do something that works for a change.

You know what the definition of insanity is, don’t you? Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting to get a different result. (laughter)

New Revelation number eight: “You are not your body. Who you think you are, is not who you are. Who you are is limitless and without end.”

Now the problem is that we think that we are our body, and therefore we act, in our individual affairs and in our international affairs, as if we are this encasement, this body. And we do whatever it takes to protect and preserve this body. Even if it means destroying our soul.

And finally number nine: “You cannot die, and will never be condemned to eternal damnation.” I said, “You will never be condemned to eternal damnation.” Now, would God do that, or would God bite its nose to spite its face? Because you were a bad boy? Because you were a bad person? Because you did not obey the law of God? By whoever was laying down the law in that particular century or that particular time.

And what is the law of God anyway? Is it the law of God that was expressed in Salem, Massachusetts, a couple of hundred years ago, when they were burning witches, and hanging them? Or is it the law of God in Salem, Massachusetts today, which says it’s not okay to do that? Which law of God are we referring to here? Because if it’s the inherent and inviolate law of God, how come that keeps changing from hour to hour? What’s that about?

So you’ve got to help me understand, because as I remember it, when they were hanging those witches in Salem, they were holding up the same book that they are holding up now to tell them not to do that. Same book! Somebody help me out.

So here, now, is what we have to do. We have to decide that we’re going to call the game. That it’s over. That we’re going to say it like it is. That we’re going to become part of Humanity’s Team. That we’re going to take up God, and all of God’s imitations, to stand in now for what works - for what we know works. Not what we know is right, but what we know is functional, because we can no longer afford the dysfunctionality we’ve seen in human affairs. Our tolerance for that is over. It can’t go on.

So I’ve come here tonight to lay the case - to ask for you involvement and your participation as members of Humanity’s Team. Humanity’s Team is not just a nice turn of phrase. It is, in fact, a program that the Conversations With God Foundation has decided to undertake. There’s a website, called Humanitysteam.com, which will be up in about two weeks. It’s not up yet. And on that website, you’ll find many suggestions that we hope you will take to help us in our “inspire the world” campaign.

I asked God, “What can we do?” And God said, among other things - many individual suggestions - Listen to what God said: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” And do that by changing the way you live your individual lives in such a way that, as you walk through life, you can become a living, breathing re-presentation - a living, breathing representation of how life could and should be if we all cherish the same outcomes as our desired reality.

And so each of us are invited tonight to inspire the world. And that website is up, if you choose to go and visit it, at inspiretheworld.com. Because the inspire the world campaign is the first activity of Humanity’s Team. Humanity’s Team is calling on its members to join together and inspire the world. And to do what it takes.

Now here’s what people are suggesting to people as a practical matter. If you agree that, not based on my talk tonight, but give the book a good read, if you’d be so kind. Read the book thoroughly and then decide if you agree with the five steps to peace. And if you do, tear them out of the book. Or re-write them on a piece of paper, and nail them to the church house doors. (laughter)

I am literally asking tonight, for you to join me in becoming spiritual subversives. I am asking you tonight to become modern day Martin Luthers. I am asking you tonight to start the second great reformation of religion on this planet. And to take these five steps to peace, which really don’t say that much you know. And notice that I didn’t ask you to take the nine revelations, because those are statements that I don’t know whether they are true or not - they’re just the opening for discussions.

But the five steps to peace are not things we are asking you to believe. The five steps to peace are simply: can we acknowledge that some of our present beliefs are no longer working? Can we acknowledge that there are some things we may not understand about God and about life, the understanding of which could change everything? Can we acknowledge that we are ready now for new understandings to be brought into this space? Can we have the courage to explore these new understandings, just to see whether we agree with them or not? And can we decide to live our lives as demonstrations of our highest and grandest truths, rather than denials of them.

Five very innocuous statements, that will nevertheless challenge people at the highest level. And what I’m asking people to do - and I’m being serious about this, it’s not a joke - we’ve done it in New York, in Detroit, in Minneapolis, Chicago and Milwaukee, and it’s already starting to happen. I said to them, “Take these five steps to peace, and like Martin Luther did in Littenburg in 1517, nail them to the church house doors. And the doors of every Mosque, Temple and Synagogue in your community as well. And when they get torn down, go back three nights later and nail them up again. And when they tear them down, go back five nights later and nail them up again. And keep posting them on the church house doors until finally it becomes clear in this community, as it has started to become clear in others - something’s afoot. Something’s afoot.

The people are no longer willing to allow its religions institutions to say such things as, “Praying together at an interfaith service is an egregious offence against the love of Christ.”

The people are saying, “Time out. Excuse me . . . hello . . .hello.” And the people have decided to end their silent agreement, and to step into spiritual activism. And to actually do something to wake up humanity. To create a new human, and a new human society, so that we can shift the basis of our belief systems and in that way, change human behavior. Because in that way, human behavior will change for good, rather than merely temporarily.

And there are other things that you can do, as well. You can take those five steps to peace, and send letters to the editor, to every newspaper, not just the major ones, but the weeklies and the little journals, and so forth, that are around town. And you can send them over and over again, until they publish them. You can post them in your public library, and on bulletin boards all over the place. You can put them in parking lots, like they do the flyers to get you to go to the car washes. You can, in other ways, promote the five steps to peace.

You can form five steps to peace dialog groups in your community, and have those kinds of group. And invite every member of every religions tradition - even if their parent churches don’t allow it - to sit down together, and to begin to discuss ways in which we can explore ideas that could cause us to create a new spirituality on the earth.

Not a new religion. Somebody asked me, “Are you trying to convert people to a new religion? Are you trying to create a new religion, in which you are the Pope?” No. (laughter)

I wouldn’t mind being called Saint, but Pope . . . (laughter) Just kidding around . . . just kidding around.

No, we’re not trying to form a new religion. Because religion is an organization that tells you what to believe, but spirituality is an experience that causes you to know what’s true for you in your soul.

And so the last thing the world needs is yet one more religion. What the world needs now is a new form of spirituality, a new way to express our love of the divine, which is inherent in all of us. A new way to express our love of life which, of course, is basic to the experience of living itself. And a new way to express our love of each other, which is natural to us, except when we’re taught that it ought not be.

And so I’m asking for you to begin five steps to peace dialog groups, look closely at the new revelations, and then check out inspiretheworld.com, to see if there are other ways that you might join together, on St. Christens Day, to change the convenient reality.

You know, how you live your life in the next seven days will have more impact on the world around you than you might ever imagine. People watch you - your children, your grand children, your friends, your neighbors, strangers on the street. I mean, watch each other, don’t you know, to pick up cues, from life, about life itself. And if we can now act in a way, in every day and every hour and every moment, that we would have the rest of the world act, especially with regard to this question of intolerance and lack of acceptance, and so forth. If we can act in new ways around those questions, you will amaze yourselves at the number of people you will impact. Some will even come to you and say, “What’s up with you? I mean, you’ve kind of changed. What’s going on with you?”

Some might even say, “By whose authority are you acting like this?” (laughter)

Please don’t miss the call. Look to your own life. See what, if anything, even small, can change. But most importantly, decide what you choose to create, in terms of action in your life. Will you write a letter to the editor? Will you send a mild letter of protest to the Lutheran Church of the Missouri Synod, and say, “What . . . what . . . what was that all about?” Will you take the five steps to peace and form a five steps to peace dialog group in your community? Will you at least read the book? Will you allow yourself to become engaged and involved at a level of action, rather than at a passive level of observer. Like you go home tonight and observe the election results in which only forty percent of us voted.

They’re talking today, on CNN, about how the early returns are in, and it looks as if around forty to forty-three percent of Americans bothered to vote today. A higher percentage than that is going to watch the results on CNN tonight. (laughter)

So we get to decide whether we want to cast a vote for humanity, or whether we want to be observers of the process of our own dismemberment.

And that’s a choice that only you can make.

Thank you very much.

Your friend…

Neal Donald Walsh

The “I believe God wants you to know” text is a message sent to signed up members at the Conversations with God website.

On this day of your life, I believe God wants you to know…

….that peace cannot come to this world until you are

convinced that violence will never produce it.

Hurt does not heal hurt. Violence will not bring an end

to violence. Help the world to understand this by

reacting differently, responding newly, when anger and

a need to hurt you is sent your way.

You will have such an opportunity in your life. And

probably, more than once. Do not miss the chance

to humbly send a message of love.

Love, Your Friend….

Neal Donald Walsh

The “I believe God wants you to know” text is a message sent to signed up members at the Conversations with God website.