February 2008 Archives

One of the most memorable books I have ever read is the topic of today's review. It is called Illusions, and it may affect you profoundly.

(NOTE: Friday is Book & Movie Day on the blog, when we take a look at texts and films – old and new -- that I highly recommend you not miss. This week’s recommendation: ILLUSIONS, by RICHARD BACH)

This is a book written back in the 70s, if I am right, and it is one of the most wonderful pieces of literature I have ever picked up. I love Richard Bach for writing this, al though I don't agree with every word in it.

Here, i an unforgettable follow-up to his phenomenal bestseller Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Richard Bach takes to the air to discover the ageless truths that give our souls wings: that people don't need airplanes to soar...that even the darkest clouds have meaning once we lift ourselves above them... and that messiahs can be found in the unlikeliest places--like hay fields, one-traffic-light mid-western towns, and most of all, deep within ourselves.

The inside flap of this book says..."In the cloud-washed airspace between the cornfields of Illinois and blue infinity, a man puts his faith in the propeller of his biplane. For disillusioned writer and itinerant barnstormer Richard Bach, belief is as real as a full tank of gas and sparks firing in the cylinders...until he meets Donald Shimoda--former mechanic and self-described messiah who can make wrenches fly and Richard's imagination soar...."

This is a fantasy piece (or is it??) that has captured the hearts of hundreds of thousands of readers. It will capture yours, too -- if it has not already done so. Even if you have read it, it is time to read it again.

I am not going to give away the plot here, nor any of its inner twists and turns. Just know that this is a book you want to read. It's a quick book -- just 144 pages.

I have just one disagreement with Richard's text. The book suggests that we are all disconnected, and that we have no spiritual or moral or even humane obligation toward each other. Well, I agree with the word "obligation" not applying here. Conversations with God tells us that there is no such thing as "obligation," only "opportunity." So that, I agree with. But in my own thought system, it feels as if we are all One. All interconnected.

That discussion aside, this book will fill you with warmth and wonder. I adore it.

NOW...on BOOK DAY...I would surely be remiss if I failed to mention that my own latest book has just been released. If you are a regular on this blog, you already know this, but allow me to drop in a quick mention if you have not heard about it.

The book is called Happier Than God and it is receiving wonderful reader reviews at Amazon. com. Perhaps you might find it interesting to simply bop over to Amazon and check it out. Just click on the book cover icon to the right of this blog.

And...make it a wonderful Friday!

Look for the signs. They are everywhere. Wherever we look. Wherever we are. Wherever we go. They are sending us messages is a language that every person can understand—for the wonder is that each person on earth receives his or her own set of “signs,” in a language and in a way that each person can comprehend.

(NOTE: This blog first appeared in this space for a little over two hours last Thursday. I posted a new blog about press fairness with John McCain soon after the day began, and few readers had a chance to see the material below, which is why I have chosen to "re-run" the blog today.)

Signs are posted along the path of life to give us directions, to show us which way we are going, and to indicate the places to which we may go if we choose.

“Signs” are just another word for “conversations with God.” They are the ways in which God converses with us, communicating vital information benefiting the Soul as it continues on its journey.

There is not a day that goes by that does not contain signs. There are many days that go by on which we do not see the signs. We move right past them as if they were not even there. So stay awake. There is always a question in your mind about something, and there is always an answer gift-wrapped in the moments of your life.

Conversations with God says that “life informs life about life through the process of life itself.” Traditional religious teaching tells us that God says, “Even before you ask, I will have answered.” Both of these statements are true. God will not put a question in our mind without providing an answer. Indeed, the purpose of the question is to lead us to the answer—that is, to lead us to the wisdom that the answer provides.

Conversations with God says that eternal wisdom lies within us. Some people have interpreted this to mean that we are “smarter than God.” Yet it is God who has placed the wisdom within us, and life is the process through which we remember the wisdom, by being shown it again, in many ways and in many forms.

Allow me now to give you an example.

For several weeks now I have been pondering a question about my future direction in life. Then, by “sheer coincidence,” I have had a number of people in the past 14 days simply dropping into their conversations with me—totally “out of the blue”—some comment relating to the future endeavors of all human beings, or their own next step (which “just happens” to speak directly to me), or a very direct, personal observation about what I might wish to do next.

I have been astonished that this has been happening with such precision and such regularity. It is almost as if the Universe has heard my question and is using every device possible to scream at me the response. Which is, of course, exactly what is happening.

Now the only question is, Will I listen to the response, or not?

Usually I do not. Like most people, I often miss these signs—and, when I do “catch” them, I go the other way anyway, because more often than not the signs I get are sending me in the direction that it would be most challenging for me to go.

There is a reason for this, of course. The “signs” that we receive from life are pointing us toward the experience that would be most beneficial for our soul’s evolution. That is the purpose of the signs to begin with. Indeed, it is the purpose of all of life. So it can be guaranteed that the signs that life sends us will be confrontive, challenging, and always pointing us to the place promising us our next most powerful opportunity for growth.

The world right now is telling us something about ourselves, about the direction in which we are going, and about the directions in which we can go in the future, should we choose to. All we have to do is read those signs and heed them. Unfortunately, as in our personal lives, most of humanity is collectively ignoring the signs that life is giving us.

We are seeing signs of our species’ very endangerment, and we are ignoring them.

We are seeing signs of our environment’s demise, and we are ignoring them.

We are seeing signs of our spiritual decay, and we are ignoring them.

We are seeing signs everywhere we turn, everywhere we look, and we are looking right through them, as if they didn’t exist. They are in the morning headlines. They are on the evening news. They are all over the Internet. And they are in publications and magazines just like the one you are now reading.

THIS is a sign, RIGHT HERE. This is a sign telling us to LOOK MORE CLOSELY AT THE SIGNS.

Will we heed this sign?

You, yourself, will answer that question in the days ahead.

Ever wonder how you could be happier than God? Do you think it is even possible? I do! I think that life was meant to be happy. It is not, of course, for a great many people a great deal of the time...but I do believe it was meant to be...

So what can "close the gap" between what was intended and what is actually happening? Ah, great question! Why, it could take a whole book to answer such a question! And we're in luck! Because today is the Big Day! Today is Release Day for Happier Than God, the latest book in the CwG cosmology.

I am so excited about this book! This is a TOOL BOX for all of those who have read Conversations with God. It takes the inspiring messages of CwG and renders them functional in our every day lives.

I call this book "A Master's Manual for Spiritual Awakening." It is a marvelously clear explanation of How Life Works, with a deep exploration of the Process of Personal Creation and the Mechanism of Manifestation.

Above all, it is a sweet revealing and a powerful unveiling of how we can partner with God -- and are already doing so without knowing it -- in producing the experiences of our day-to-day lives.

The book talks about how average, every day people (you don't have to be a guru or a saint) can work in direct collaboration with The Divine to turn ordinary lives into extraordinary experiences.

It is not a book of "spiritual theory." It provides a plan that can change lives. Included is a program that I call 17 Steps to being Happier Than God, an incremental approach that combines the best of the conceptual truths of the 9-book Conversations with God series with the clearest description yet of how to turn those concepts into practical tools for altering life for the better -- forever.

Check it out! If you liked the Conversations with God books, you're going to love this "Tool Box for CwG"! Simply look to the right of this blog and click on the HAPPIER THAN GOD icon.

This may be the most practical spiritual books you will ever read.

Here are a few "pull quotes" from the early Reader Reviews at Amazon.com (the book has been on advance sale for just over a week now, and a few purchasers have posted their reactions to the book online...)

"I read this book in a day and a half. I just could not put it down. I have been studying the law of attraction and positive thinking for a long time now, but always felt there was a piece of the puzzle missing. Neale Donald Walsch does an excellent job putting it all together and I was finally able to find the piece that was missing.

"I love the way he explains how the law of attraction works. Of all the books I have read in the subject I have never seen anyone explain it as clear. The author really makes everything make sense.

Buy the book, and read it. It is a very profound, very spiritual, to the point book." (by M. Alfonso)

* * * * * * * * *

"This book is amazing. This is my first review and I felt compelled to make sure others found out this book is not to be missed!

"I was still on the first chapter when I knew this book was a gem. This book is true spirituality, and it's not about how to conjure a dream home, a six-figure income, or an SUV. You can have that, nothing wrong with it, and the book will explain how and why. And that is why this book is sooo good.

"If you are curious about this book, it is not by chance." (by P. Vidal)

* * * * * * * * *

"I have to say, the title of this book, "Happier than God," kind of threw me at first. But it was written by Neale Donald Walsch, and I really liked his Conversations with God books, so I thought I'd give the book a chance. I'm glad I did!

"I still might have used a different title, but the points he makes are very good. He notes that what is missing from all the current talk about the Law of Attraction (due to the success of The Secret) is God. He explains that some people have misinterpreted the Law to mean you should put all your faith in yourself - in other words, you don't need God. All you've got to do is use the power of your thoughts to attract to you whatever you want.

"In this book, he explains God's role in the process of personal creation. He notes that the ability to create your reality is an expression of God. He says the process really has 3 parts: the first has to do with God, the second has to do with you, and the third with you and God together. He then expounds on how personal creation really works.

"He also indicates that the law of attraction works most effectively and creates greater happiness when you focus first on helping others and then on yourself. He notes this is true because when you focus on yourself, you limit the amount of energy you send out into the Universe, because there's only one of you. When you focus on others, you multiply the amount of energy you output by the number of others you focus on. And, since we are all connected, you benefit as well as the people you help.

"He concludes the book by providing 17 steps to being truly happy. A few examples are:

- Eliminate any thought of separation from God
- Decide that you are not your story
- Bypass the drama
- Drop all expectations

"This is a very powerful book that I would recommend to anyone wishing to experience happiness within a spiritual context!" (by Kara D. Lane, Author, Wake Up to Powerful Living)

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

I hope you feel encouraged to acquire this book today. Please consider doing so right now. Just click on the box over at the right, where you see the cover of the book. Thanks!

Love....Neale.

'Fairness' need not be "dead" as a human experience. We can return it to our public discourse, to our politics, and to our collective experience. But it will take a major overhaul of our mindset.

As you know if you're a regular reader here, I've been discussing in my recent blogs the question of basic fairness in our public discourse and in our collective life. Last Thursday and Friday I look a look at the New York Times' handling of a story about GOP presidential candidate John McCain. Yesterday I mentioned a lawsuit filed by Duke University lacrosse players against the school that canceled its entire season after what turned out to be false rape allegations against a handful of players.

The larger issue for me around all of this, and to me the impacting question, is: What would it take for fairness to return to our expressions of life on this planet?

For me the answer is obvious. We have to change our mindset about who we are in relationship to each other. We have to drop our idea that we are somehow separate from each other, and reshape our Separation Sociology.

Currently we live in a world in which the Cultural Story is that You are over there and I am over here. This derives from a larger story that says that God is "over there" and we are "over here." It is all part of what I call Separation Theology.

I have said before that a Separation Theology produces a Separation Cosmology. That is, a cosmological way of looking at all of Life which holds that everything is separate from everything else.

A Separation Cosmology produces a Separation Sociology. That is, a way of socializing the human species that separates every person from every other person by declaring their interests to be separate.

A Separation Sociology produces a Separation Pathology. That is, pathological behaviors of self-destruction – engaged in individually and collectively.

We can bring an end to all of this--and an end to the unfairness of life as we are collectively creating it--with one shift in our mindset. All we have to do is begin to see ourselves, each of us, as an integral part of a Whole. That is, we simply have to perceive that We Are All One.

Even as the fingers on our hand are different but not divided, so, too, are we all different from each other, but in no way divided or separate. Neither from each other, nor from God.

Now if we understood that, and, more than understanding it, made it part of our living reality, inserting it as more than a concept, but as an operational truth in our every day interactions, we could change the world over night.

And we would rarely be "unfair" with each other in any deliberate way, because we would experience directly that being unfair with each other was being unfair with ourselves. We would "do unto others" as we would have it done unto us.

Wow, now there's a novel idea...

Is fairness--basic fair play--simply no longer a part of human life? If we are all spiritual beings, why are we not acting in a spiritually enlightened way? What would it take for us to do so?

Last Thursday and Friday on this blog I asked some questions about basic fairness regarding Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz), who, as everyone in the world knows, is running for president of the United States as the presumptive GOP candidate.

(You may wish to go back and read those blogs to bring yourself up-to-date on my comments around all of this.)

It was on the day that I wrote that first of those two blog entries that I read a CNN report filed by television station WTVD in Durham, North Carolina that said "More than three dozen members of the 2006 Duke University men's lacrosse team and members of their families filed suit against Duke University, its President Richard Brodhead and other officials, Duke's medical center, and the City of Durham and city officials for emotional distress and other injuries in connection with false rape charges and a corrupt police investigation against team members in 2006."

The suit, CNN reported, "said University officials remained silent even though they possessed convincing evidence of the players' innocence and also "lent credibility to the rape allegations by capitulating to an angry mob's demands to condemn and punish the innocent players and their blameless coach."

This whole Durham lacrosse team thing has bothered me from the very beginning. It always felt to me like there was a rush to judgment, and to this day I have a queasy feeling in my stomach when I think about Durham County prosecutor Mike Nifong and how he seemed very much to have colored way, way outside the lines in pursuing the matter.

If you do not know what I am talking about here, just Google "Duke Lacrosse Players" and you'll find out in a hurry. I suspect this story will follow those players for the rest of their lives.

As you know, Nifong was later disbarred for his role in this fiasco. But now comes into question the role that Duke University played.

Now the entire lacrosse team is asking for fairness. Their whole season was canceled by the university in the wake of the charges, and all of the players were subject, at least, to ridicule, and in some cases to downright hostility.

If the university did indeed have "convincing evidence" that the players charged in the rape case did not wrong, and if it did, indeed, remain silent, then it deserves to "make it good" for all members of that team.

I, for one, don't want to believe that this particular suit has merit. I am hoping that officials at Duke did not have convincing evidence of the lacrosse players' innocence. I still want to believe in a world where basic rightness, basic fairness, and the courage to step forward as such fairness demands still exists.

Tell me that I am right about that.

Yet there is an even larger question here. If basic fairness IS gone from public discourse and our collective behavior these days, what would it take to bring it back?

I'll have one possible answer to that tomorrow.

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