Conversations with God

by Neale Donald Walsch

Mom was my first meeting with an angel.

Now the supreme irony here is that you have all placed so much importance on the Word of God, and so little on the experience. In fact, you place so little value on experience that when what you experience of God differs from what you’ve heard of God, you automatically discard the experience and own the words, when it should be just the other way around.

The Highest Thought is always that thought which contains joy. The Clearest Words are those words which contain truth. The Grandest Feeling is that feeling which you call love. Joy, truth, love.

The correct prayer is therefore never a prayer of supplication, but a prayer of gratitude. When you thank God in advance for that which you choose to experience in your reality, you, in effect, acknowledge that it is there … in effect.

every single free choice you ever undertake arises out of one of the only two possible thoughts there are: a thought of love or a thought of fear. Fear is the energy which contracts, closes down, draws in, runs, hides, hoards, harms. Love is the energy which expands, opens up, sends out, stays, reveals, shares, heals. Fear wraps our bodies in clothing, love allows us to stand naked. Fear clings to and clutches all that we have, love gives all that we have away. Fear holds close, love holds dear. Fear grasps, love lets go. Fear rankles, love soothes. Fear attacks, love amends.

It is in the act of choosing to be, rather than simply being told that you are, a part of God that you experience yourself as being at total choice, which is what, by definition, God is.

You are, have always been, and will always be, a divine part of the divine whole, a member of the body. That is why the act of rejoining the whole, of returning to God, is called remembrance. You actually choose to re-member Who You Really Are, or to join together with the various parts of you to experience the all of you—which is to say, the All of Me.

Your job on Earth, therefore, is not to learn (because you already know), but to re-member Who You Are. And to re-member who everyone else is. That is why a big part of your job is to remind others (that is, to re-mind them), so that they can re-member also.

There are those who say that I have given you free will, yet these same people claim that if you do not obey Me, I will send you to hell. What kind of free will is that? Does this not make a mockery of God—to say nothing of any sort of true relationship between us?

If I do not go within I go without

There is no such thing as the devil, and hell does not exist. You are saving yourself from the oblivion of non-realization. You cannot lose in this battle. You cannot fail. Thus it is not a battle at all, but simply a process. Yet if you do not know this, you will see it as a constant struggle. You may even believe in the struggle long enough to create a whole religion around it. This religion will teach that struggle is the point of it all. This is a false teaching. It is in not struggling that the process proceeds. It is in surrendering that the victory is won.

You are filled with fear—and your biggest fear is that My biggest promise might be life’s biggest lie. And so you create the biggest fantasy you can to defend yourself against this: You claim that any promise which gives you the power, and guarantees you the love, of God must be the false promise of the devil. God would never make such a promise, you tell yourself, only the devil would—to tempt you into denying God’s true identity as the fearsome, judgmental, jealous, vengeful, and punishing entity of entities.

But watch. Listen. The words to the next song you hear. The information in the next article you read. The story line of the next movie you watch. The chance utterance of the next person you meet. Or the whisper of the next river, the next ocean, the next breeze that caresses your ear—all these devices are Mine; all these avenues are open to Me. I will speak to you if you will listen. I will come to you if you will invite Me. I will show you then that I have always been there. All ways.

If you think God looks only one way or sounds only one way or is only one way, you’re going to look right past Me night and day. You’ll spend your whole life looking for God and not finding Her. Because you’re looking for a Him.

So—do you want your life to ‘take off’? Begin at once to imagine it the way you want it to be—and move into that. Check every thought, word, and action that does not fall into harmony with that. Move away from those.

Have you ever noticed how many people wait until the room is empty before they die? Some even have to tell their loved ones—‘No, really, go. Get a bite to eat.’ Or ‘Go, get some sleep. I’m fine. I’ll see you in the morning.’ And then, when the loyal guard leaves, so does the soul from the body of the guarded.

You are goodness and mercy and compassion and understanding. You are peace and joy and light. You are forgiveness and patience, strength and courage, a helper in time of need, a comforter in time of sorrow, a healer in time of injury, a teacher in times of confusion. You are the deepest wisdom and the highest truth; the greatest peace and the grandest love. You are these things. And in moments of your life you have known yourself as these things. Choose now to know yourself as these things always.

I mean you can’t lose in this game. You can’t go wrong. It’s not part of the plan. There’s no way not to get where you are going. There’s no way to miss your destination. If God is your target, you’re in luck, because God is so big, you can’t miss.

There is no such thing as ‘getting to heaven.’ There is only a knowing that you are already there. There is an accepting, an understanding, not a working for or a striving. You cannot go to where you already are. To do that, you would have to leave where you are, and that would defeat the whole purpose of the journey. The irony is that most people think they have to leave where they are to get to where they want to be. And so they leave heaven in order to get to heaven—and go through hell.

Heaven—as you call it—is nowhere. Let’s just put some space between the w and the h in that word and you’ll see that heaven is now … here.

You must first see your Self as worthy before you can see another as worthy. You must first see your Self as blessed before you can see another as blessed. You must first know your Self to be holy before you can acknowledge holiness in another. If you put the cart before the horse—as most religions ask you to do—and acknowledge another as holy before you acknowledge yourself, you will one day resent it.

Go ahead and do what you really love to do! Do nothing else! You have so little time. How can you think of wasting a moment doing something for a living you don’t like to do? What kind of a living is that? That is not a living, that is a dying!

My Truth is in the whisper of the wind, the babble of the brook, the crack of the thunder, the tap of the rain. It is the feel of the earth, the fragrance of the lily, the warmth of the sun, the pull of the moon. My Truth—and your surest help in time of need—is as awesome as the night sky, and as simply, incontrovertibly, trustful as a baby’s gurgle. It is as loud as a pounding heartbeat—and as quiet as a breath taken in unity with Me. I will not leave you, I cannot leave you, for you are My creation and My product, My daughter and My son, My purpose and My … Self. Call on Me, therefore, wherever and whenever you are separate from the peace that I am. I will be there. With Truth. And Light. And Love.