Conversations with God, An Uncommon Dialogue: Living in the World with Honesty, Courage, and Love - Volume 1

by Neale Donald Walsch

You know what it is when someone has given you a taste, a glorious moment, of what is really true about life? For me, most of these have been creative or performing artists, because it is from art that I receive inspiration, to which I retreat in moments of reflection, and in which I find that which we call God most beautifully expressed.

Mine is always your Highest Thought, your Clearest Word, your Grandest Feeling. Anything less is from another source. Now the task of differentiation becomes easy, for it should not be difficult even for the beginning student to identify the Highest, the Clearest, and the Grandest. Yet will I give you these guidelines: 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.

Your world would not be in its present condition were you to have simply listened to your experience. The result of your not listening to your experience is that you keep re-living it, over and over again. For My purpose will not be thwarted, nor My will be ignored. You will get the message. Sooner or later.

The only way to move forward on this is to ask yourself, “What would happen if everything I thought was ‘wrong’ was actually ‘right’?” Every great scientist knows about this. When what a scientist does is not working, a scientist sets aside all of the assumptions and starts over. All great discoveries have been made from a willingness, and ability, to not be right. And that’s what’s needed here.

You cannot know God until you’ve stopped telling yourself that you already know God. You cannot hear God until you stop thinking that you’ve already heard God. I cannot tell you My Truth until you stop telling Me yours.

The correct prayer is therefore never a prayer of supplication, but a prayer of gratitude.

Yet if you knew Who You Are—that you are the most magnificent, the most remarkable, the most splendid being God has ever created—you would never fear. For who could reject such wondrous magnificence? Not even God could find fault in such a being.

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. Every human thought, word, or deed is based in one emotion or the other. You have no choice about this, because there is nothing else from which to choose. But you have free choice about which of these to select.

There is only one purpose for all of life, and that is for you and all that lives to experience fullest glory. Everything else you say, think, or do is attendant to that function. There is nothing else for your soul to do, and nothing else your soul wants to do.

The deepest secret is that life is not a process of discovery, but a process of creation. You are not discovering yourself, but creating yourself anew. Seek, therefore, not to find out Who You Are, seek to determine Who You Want to Be.

School is a place you go if there is something you do not know that you want to know. It is not a place you go if you already know a thing and simply want to experience your knowingness. Life (as you call it) is an opportunity for you to know experientially what you already know conceptually. You need learn nothing to do this. You need merely remember what you already know, and act on it.

Do not condemn, therefore, all that you would call bad in the world. Rather, ask yourself, what about this have you judged bad, and what, if anything, you wish to do to change it. Inquire within, rather than without, asking: “What part of my Self do I wish to experience now in the face of this calamity? What aspect of being do I choose to call forth?” For all of life exists as a tool of your own creation, and all of its events merely present themselves as opportunities for you to decide, and be, Who You Are.

each circumstance is a gift, and in each experience is hidden a treasure.

Therefore, be a light unto the darkness, and curse it not. And forget not Who You Are in the moment of your encirclement by that which you are not. But do you praise to the creation, even as you seek to change it. And know that what you do in the time of your greatest trial can be your greatest triumph. For the experience you create is a statement of Who You Are—and Who You Want to Be.

You are always in the process of creating. Every moment. Every minute. Every day. How you can create we’ll go into later. For now, just take my word for it—you are a big creation machine, and you are turning out a new manifestation literally as fast as you can think.

Events, occurrences, happenings, conditions, circumstances—all are created out of consciousness. Individual consciousness is powerful enough. You can imagine what kind of creative energy is unleashed whenever two or more are gathered in My name. And mass consciousness? Why, that is so powerful it can create events and circumstances of worldwide import and planetary consequences.

So long as you entertain the notion that there is something or someone else out there “doing it” to you, you disempower yourself to do anything about it. Only when you say “I did this” can you find the power to change it. It is much easier to change what you are doing than to change what another is doing.

The first step in changing anything is to know and accept that you have chosen it to be what it is. If you can’t accept this on a personal level, agree to it through your understanding that We are all One. Seek then to create change not because a thing is wrong, but because it no longer makes an accurate statement of Who You Are. There is only one reason to do anything: as a statement to the universe of Who You Are.

If you wish to be accurately re-presented, you must work to change anything in your life which does not fit into the picture of you that you wish to project into eternity.

In the largest sense, all the “bad” things that happen are of your choosing. The mistake is not in choosing them, but in calling them bad. For in calling them bad, you call your Self bad, since you created them. This label you cannot accept, so rather than label your Self bad, you disown your own creations. It is this intellectual and spiritual dishonesty which lets you accept a world in which conditions are as they are. If you had to accept—or even felt a deep inner sense of—personal responsibility for the world, it would be a far different place.

You cannot change the outer event (for that has been created by the lot of you, and you are not grown enough in your consciousness to alter individually that which has been created collectively), so you must change the inner experience. This is the road to mastery in living. Nothing is painful in and of itself. Pain is a result of wrong thought. It is an error in thinking. A Master can disappear the most grievous pain. In this way, the Master heals. Pain results from a judgment you have made about a thing. Remove the judgment and the pain disappears.

Hell is the opposite of joy. It is unfulfillment. It is knowing Who and What You Are, and failing to experience that. It is being less. That is hell, and there is none greater for your soul.

I tell you there is no such experience after death as you have constructed in your fear-based theologies. Yet there is an experience of the soul so unhappy, so incomplete, so less than whole, so separated from God’s greatest joy, that to your soul this would be hell. But I tell you I do not send you there, nor do I cause this experience to be visited upon you. You, yourself, create the experience, whenever and however you separate your Self from your own highest thought about you. You, yourself, create the experience, whenever you deny your Self; whenever you reject Who and What You Really Are.

Then how can I know these laws? How can I learn them? It is not a question of learning, but of remembering. How can I remember them? Begin by being still. Quiet the outer world, so that the inner world might bring you sight. This in-sight is what you seek, yet you cannot have it while you are so deeply concerned with your outer reality. Seek, therefore, to go within as much as possible. And when you are not going within, come from within as you deal with the outside world. Remember this axiom: If you do not go within, you go without.

For thousands of years people have disbelieved the promises of God for the most extraordinary reason: they were too good to be true. So you have chosen a lesser promise—a lesser love. For the highest promise of God proceeds from the highest love. Yet you cannot conceive of a perfect love, and so a perfect promise is also inconceivable. As is a perfect person. Therefore you cannot believe even in your Self. Failing to believe in any of this means failure to believe in God. For belief in God produces belief in God’s greatest gift—unconditional love—and God’s greatest promise—unlimited potential.

I will do nothing for you that you will not do for your Self. That is the law and the prophets. The world is in the condition it is in because of you, and the choices you have made—or failed to make. (Not to decide is to decide.) The Earth is in the shape it’s in because of you, and the choices you have made—or failed to make. Your own life is the way it is because of you, and the choices you have made—or failed to make.

The First Law is that you can be, do, and have whatever you can imagine. The Second Law is that you attract what you fear.

The Laws are very simple. Thought is creative. Fear attracts like energy. Love is all there is.

Masters are those who have chosen only love. In every instance. In every moment. In every circumstance.

There are no coincidences in the universe. I have heard the crying of your heart. I have seen the searching of your soul. I know how deeply you have desired the Truth. In pain have you called out for it, and in joy. Unendingly have you beseeched Me. Show Myself. Explain Myself. Reveal Myself. I am doing so here, in terms so plain, you cannot misunderstand. In language so simple, you cannot be confused. In vocabulary so common, you cannot get lost in the verbiage.

Ask Me anything. Anything. I will contrive to bring you the answer. The whole universe will I use to do this. So be on the lookout. This book is far from My only tool. You may ask a question, then put this book down. 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.

Only you can know if you are happy. Only you can say of your life—“This is my creation (son), in which I am well pleased.” If your values serve you, hold to them. Argue for them. Fight to defend them. Yet seek to fight in a way which harms no one. Harm is not a necessary ingredient in healing.

If there were such a thing as sin, this would be it: to allow yourself to become what you are because of the experience of others.

And what is God’s desire? I desire first to know and experience Myself, in all My glory—to know Who I Am. Before I invented you—and all the worlds of the universe—it was impossible for Me to do so. Second, I desire that you shall know and experience Who You Really Are, through the power I have given you to create and experience yourself in whatever way you choose. Third, I desire for the whole life process to be an experience of constant joy, continuous creation, never-ending expansion, and total fulfillment in each moment of now.

Examine your values one by one. Hold them up to the light of public scrutiny. If you can tell the world who you are and what you believe without breaking stride or hesitating, you are happy with yourself. There is no reason to continue much further in this dialogue with Me, because you have created a Self—and a life for the Self—which needs no improvement. You have reached perfection. Put the book down.

Your thought about yourself is that you are not good enough, not wondrous enough, not sinless enough, to be a part of God, in partnership with God. You have denied for so long Who You Are that you have forgotten Who You Are. This has not occurred by coincidence; this is not happenstance. It is all part of the divine plan—for you could not claim, create, experience—Who You Are if you already were it. It was necessary first for you to release (deny, forget) your connection to Me in order to fully experience it by fully creating it—by calling it forth. For your grandest wish—and My grandest desire—was for you to experience yourself as the part of Me you are. You are therefore in the process of experiencing yourself by creating yourself anew in every single moment. As am I. Through you.

Life will “take off” for you, then, when you choose for it to. You have not so chosen as yet. You have procrastinated, prolonged, protracted, protested. Now it is time that you promulgated and produced what you have been promised. To do this, you must believe the promise, and live it. You must live the promise of God.

Do you want your life to truly “take off”? Then change your idea about it. About you. Think, speak, and act as the God You Are.

you are no longer concerned with the acceptance or approval of the world. You are no longer satisfied with what that has brought you. You are no longer pleased with what it has given others. You want the pain to stop, the suffering to stop, the illusion to end. You have had enough of this world as it presently is. You seek a newer world. Seek it no longer. Now, call it forth.

Co first to your Highest Thought about yourself. Imagine the you that you would be if you lived that thought every day. Imagine what you would think, do, and say, and how you would respond to what others do and say.

Excuse me, but wouldn’t this kind of non-stop editing of everything I think, say, and do “make Jack a dull boy”? Never. Different, yes. Dull, no. Was Jesus dull? I don’t think so. Was the Buddha boring to be around? People flocked, begged, to be in his presence. No one who has attained mastery is dull. Unusual, perhaps. Extraordinary, perhaps. But never dull.

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.

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.

Life is a creation, not a discovery. You do not live each day to discover what it holds for you, but to create it.

You get your life to “take off” by first becoming very clear in your thinking about it. Think about what you want to be, do, and have. Think about it often until you are very clear about this. Then, when you are very clear, think about nothing else. Imagine no other possibilities.

Throw all negative thoughts out of your mental constructions. Lose all pessimism. Release all doubts. Reject all fears. Discipline your mind to hold fast to the original creative thought. When your thoughts are clear and steadfast, begin to speak them as truths. Say them out loud. Use the great command that calls forth creative power: I am. Make I-am statements to others. “I am” is the strongest creative statement in the universe. Whatever you think, whatever you say, after the words “I am” sets into motion those experiences, calls them forth, brings them to you. There is no other way the universe knows how to work. There is no other route it knows to take. The universe responds to “I am” as would a genie in a bottle.

When you catch yourself thinking negative thoughts—thoughts that negate your highest idea about a thing—think again! I want you to do this, literally. If you think you are in a doldrum, in a pickle, and no good can come of this, think again. If you think the world is a bad place, filled with negative events, think again. If you think your life is falling apart, and it looks as if you’ll never get it back together again, think again. You can train yourself to do this. (Look how well you’ve trained yourself not to do it!)

Now it is one thing to be love—and quite another thing to do something loving. The soul longs to do something about what it is, in order that it might know itself in its own experience. So it will seek to realize its highest idea through action.

Passion is God wanting to say “hi.”

If you don’t want it, why think about it? Don’t give it a second thought.