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

by Neale Donald Walsch

The word “renunciate” holds such wrongful meaning. In truth, you can not renounce anything—because what you resist persists. The true renunciate does not renounce, but simply chooses differently. This is an act of moving toward something, not away from something.

The point of life is not to get anywhere—it is to notice that you are, and have always been, already there. You are, always and forever, in the moment of pure creation. The point of life is therefore to create—who and what you are, and then to experience that.

A practicing Master does not speak of suffering simply because a Master practicing clearly understands the power of the Word—and so chooses to simply not say a word about it. We make real that to which we pay attention. The Master knows this. The Master places himself at choice with regard to that which she chooses to make real.

believe nothing I say. Simply live it. Experience it. Then live whatever other paradigm you want to construct. Afterward, look to your experience to find your truth.

You have not been “at this spiritual game” for 20 years, you have been barely skirting the edges of it. (This is not a “spanking,” by the way, this is just a statement of the truth.) I’ll concede that for two decades you’ve been looking at it; flirting with it; experimenting now and then…but I haven’t felt your true—your truest—commitment to the game until just recently. Let’s be clear that “being at the spiritual game” means dedicating your whole mind, your whole body, your whole soul to the process of creating Self in the image and likeness of God. This is the process of Self realization about which Eastern mystics have written. It is the process of salvation to which much Western theology has devoted itself. This is a day-to-day, hour-to-hour, moment-to-moment act of supreme consciousness. It is a choosing and a re-choosing every instant. It is ongoing creation. Conscious creation. Creation with a purpose. It is using the tools of creation we have discussed, and using them with awareness and sublime intention. That is “playing this spiritual game.” Now, how long have you been at this?

Now in this present instance you see yourself as the victim of the situation in the losing of your job. Yet the truth is that you no longer chose that job. You stopped getting up in the morning in anticipation, and began getting up with dread. You stopped feeling happy about your work and began feeling resentment. You even began fantasizing doing something else. You think these things mean nothing? You misunderstand your power. I tell you this: Your Life proceeds out of your intentions for it.

Relationships are constantly challenging; constantly calling you to create, express, and experience higher and higher aspects of yourself, grander and grander visions of yourself, ever more magnificent versions of yourself. Nowhere can you do this more immediately, impactfully, and immaculately than in relationships. In fact, without relationships, you cannot do it at all.

You only are what you are relative to another thing that is not. That is how it is in the world of the relative, as opposed to the world of the absolute—where I reside. Once you clearly understand this, once you deeply grasp it, then you intuitively bless each and every experience, all human encounter, and especially personal human relationships, for you see them as constructive, in the highest sense. You see that they can be used, must be used, are being used (whether you want them to be or not) to construct Who You Really Are. That construction can be a magnificent creation of your own conscious design, or a strictly happenstance configuration. You can choose to be a person who has resulted simply from what has happened, or from what you’ve chosen to be and do about what has happened.

Most people enter into relationships with an eye toward what they can get out of them, rather than what they can put into them. The purpose of a relationship is to decide what part of yourself you’d like to see “show up,” not what part of another you can capture and hold. There can be only one purpose for relationships—and for all of life: to be and to decide Who You Really Are.

The Master understands that it doesn’t matter what the other is being, doing, having, saying, wanting, demanding. It doesn’t matter what the other is thinking, expecting, planning. It only matters what you are being in relationship to that. The most loving person is the person who is Self-centered.

The Master is one who has lived through enough such experiences to know in advance what her final choices are. She does not need to “try out” anything. She’s worn these clothes before and knows they do not fit; they are not “her.” And since a Master’s life is devoted to the constant realization of Self as one knows oneself to be, such ill-fitting feelings would never be entertained.

On your way to mastery—when all possibility of hurt, damage, and loss is eliminated—it would be well to recognize hurt, damage, and loss as part of your experience, and decide Who You Are in relationship to it. Yes, the things that others think, say, or do will sometimes hurt you—until they do not anymore. What will get you from here to there most quickly is total honesty—being willing to assert, acknowledge, and declare exactly how you feel about a thing. Say your truth—kindly, but fully and completely. Live your truth, gently, but totally and consistently. Change your truth easily and quickly when your experience brings you new clarity.

Try not to confuse longevity with a job well done.

That’s the problem with truth. The truth is relentless. It won’t leave you alone. It keeps creeping up on you from every side, showing you what’s really so.

people tend to see in themselves what we see in them. The grander our vision, the grander their willingness to access and display the part of them we have shown them.

Do the deed that you want to have the new thought about. Then say the words that you want to have your new thought about. Do this often enough and you’ll train the mind to think a new way.

Affirmations do not work if they are merely statements of what you want to be true. Affirmations work only when they are statements of something you already know to be true.

do something that pleases you—that speaks of Who You Are. Then at least you can stay out of resentment and anger toward those you imagine are keeping you from your joy.