I’m not sure I know where this book is going. I’m not sure where to begin.
Let’s take time.
How much time do we need to take? It’s already taken me five months to get from the first chapter to this. I know that people read this and think it’s all put down in one even, uninterrupted flow. They don’t realize that 20 weeks separated the 32nd and 33rd paragraph of this book. They don’t under-stand that sometimes the moments of inspiration are half a year apart. How much time do we have to take
That’s not what I meant. I mean, let’s take “Time” as our first subject, as a place to begin.
Oh. Okay. But while we’re on the subject, why does it take months sometimes to complete a simple paragraph? Why are You so long between visits
My dear and wonderful son, I am not long between “visits.” I am never not with you. You are simply not always aware.
Why? Why am I not aware of You if You’re always here
Because your life gets caught up in other things. Let’s face it; you’ve had a pretty busy five months.
I have. Yes, I have. A lot’s been going on.
And you’ve made these things more important than Me.
That doesn’t feel like my truth.
I invite you to look at your actions. You’ve been deeply involved in your physical life. You’ve paid very little attention to your soul.
It’s been a challenging period.
Yes. All the more reason to have included your soul in the process. These past months would have all gone much more smoothly with My help. So may I suggest that you don’t lose contact
I try to stay close, but I seem to get lost—caught up, as You put it—in my own drama. And then, somehow, I don’t find time for You. I don’t meditate. I don’t pray. And I certainly don’t write.
I know. It’s an irony of life that when you need our connection the most, you step away from it.
How can I stop doing that
Stop doing that.
That’s what I just said. But how
You stop doing that by stopping doing that.
It’s not that simple.
It is that simple.
I wish it were.
Then it really will be, because what you wish is My command. Remember, My cherished one, your desires are My desires. Your will is My Will.
All right. Okay. Then I wish for this book to be finished by March. It’s October now. I wish for no more five-month gaps in the material coming.
So will it be.
Good.
Unless it’s not.
Oh, man. Do we have to play these games
No. But so far that’s how you’ve decided to live your Life. You keep changing your mind. Remember, life is an ongoing process of creation. You are creating your reality every minute. The decision you make today is often not the choice you make tomorrow. Yet here is a secret of all Masters: keep choosing the same thing.
Over and over again? Once is not enough
Over and over until your will is made manifest in your reality.
For some that could take years. For some, months. For others, weeks. For those approaching mastery, days, hours, or even minutes. For Masters, creation is instantaneous.
You can tell you are on your way to mastery when you see the gap closing between Willing and Experi-encing.
You said, “The decision you make today is often not the choice you make tomorrow.” So what? Are You saying we should never indulge in a change of mind
Change your mind all you want. Yet remember that with each change of mind comes a change in the direction of the whole universe.
When you “make up your mind” about something, you set the universe into motion. Forces beyond your ability to comprehend—far more subtle and complex than you could imagine—are engaged in a process, the intricate dynamics of which you are only just now beginning to understand.
These forces and this process are all part of the extraordinary web of interactive energies which com-prise the entirety of existence which you call life itself.
They are, in essence, Me.
So when I change my mind I’m making it difficult for You, is that it
Nothing is difficult for Me—but you might be mak-ing things very difficult for yourself. Therefore, be of one mind and of single purpose about a thing. And don’t take your mind off of it until you have produced it in reality. Keep focused. Stay centered.
This is what is meant by being single-minded. If you choose something, choose it with all your might, with all your heart. Don’t be faint-hearted. Keep going! Keep moving toward it. Be determined.
Don’t take no for an answer.
Exactly.
But what if no is the right answer? What if what we want is not for us—not for our own good, not in our best interests? Then you won’t give it to us, right
Wrong. I will “give” you whatever you call forth, whether it’s “good” for you or “bad” for you. Have you looked at your life lately
But I’ve been taught that we can’t always have what we desire—that God won’t give it to us if it’s not for our highest good.
That’s something people tell you when they want you not to be disappointed with a particular outcome.
First of all, let’s move back to clarity about our relationship. I don’t “give” you anything—you call it forth. Book 1 explains exactly how you do this, in considerable detail.
Secondly, I don’t make a judgment about what you call forth. I don’t call a thing “good” or “bad.” (You, too, would do well to not do so.
You are a creative being—made in the image and likeness of God. You may have whatever you choose. But you may not have anything you want. In fact, you’ll never get anything you want if you want it badly enough.
I know. You explained that in Book 1 as well. You said that the act of wanting a thing pushes it away from us.
Yes, and do you remember why
Because thoughts are creative, and the thought of wanting a thing is a statement to the universe—a declaration of a truth—which the universe then produces in my reality.
Precisely! Exactly! You have learned. You do under-stand. That’s great.
Yes, that’s how it works. The moment you say “I want” something, the universe says “Indeed you do” and gives you that precise experience—the experience of “wanting” it
Whatever you put after the word “I” becomes your creative command. The genie in the bottle—which I Am—exists but to obey.
I produce what you call forth! You call forth precisely what you think, feel, and say. It’s as simple as that.
So tell me again—why does it take so much time for me to create the reality I choose
For a number of reasons. Because you do not be-lieve you can have what you choose. Because you do not know what to choose. Because you keep trying to figure out what’s “best” for you. Because you want guarantees ahead of time that all your choices will be “good.” And because you keep changing your mind
Let me see if I understand. I shouldn’t try to figure Out what’s best for me
Best” is a relative term, depending on a hundred variables. That makes choices very difficult. There should be only one consideration when making any decision—Is this a statement of Who I Am? Is this an announcement of Who I Choose to Be
All of life should be such an announcement. In fact, all of life is. You can allow that announcement to be made by chance or by choice.
A life lived by choice is a life of conscious action. A life lived by chance is a life of unconscious reaction.
Reaction is just that—an action you have taken before. When you “re-act,” what you do is assess the incoming data, search your memory bank for the same or nearly the same experience, and act the way you did before. This is all the work of the mind, not of your soul.
Your soul would have you search its “memory” to see how you might create a truly genuine experience of You in the Now Moment. This is the experience of “soul searching” of which you have so often heard, but you have to be literally “out of your mind” to do it.
When you spend your time trying to figure out what’s “best” for you, you are doing just that: spending your time. Better to save your time than to spend it wastefully.
It is a great time-saver to be out of your mind. Decisions are reached quickly, choices are activated rapidly, because your soul creates out of present expe-rience only, without review, analysis, and criticism of past encounters.
Remember this: the soul creates, the mind reacts.
The soul knows in Its wisdom that the experience you are having in This Moment is an experience sent to you by God before you had any conscious awareness of it. This is what is meant by a “pre-sent” experience. It’s already on the way to you even as you are seeking it—for even before you ask, I shall have answered you. Every Now Moment is a glorious gift from God. That’s why it is called the present.
The soul intuitively seeks the perfect circumstance and situation now needed to heal wrong thought and bring you the rightful experience of Who You Really Are.
It is the soul’s desire to bring you back to God—to bring you home to Me.
It is the soul’s intention to know itself experien-tially—and thus to know Me. For the soul understands that You and I are One, even as the mind denies this truth and the body acts out this denial.
Therefore, in moments of great decision, be out of your mind, and do some soul searching instead.
The soul understands what the mind cannot con-ceive.
If you spend your time trying to figure out what’s “best” for you, your choices will be cautious, your decisions will take forever, and your journey will be launched on a sea of expectations.
If you are not careful, you will drown in your expec-tations.
Whew! That’s quite an answer! But how do I listen to my soul? How do I know what I’m hearing
The soul speaks to you in feelings. Listen to your feelings. Follow your feelings. Honor your feelings.
Why does it seem to me that honoring my feelings is precisely what has caused me to get into trouble in the first place
Because you have labeled growth “trouble,” and standing still “safe.
I tell you this: Your feelings will never get you into “trouble,” because your feelings are your truth.
If you want to live a life where you never follow your feelings, but where every feeling is filtered through the machinery of your Mind, go right ahead. Make your decisions based on your Mind’s analysis of the situation. But don’t look for joy in such machinations, nor for celebration of Who You Truly Are.
Remember this: True celebration is mindless.
If you listen to your soul you will know what is “best” for you, because what is best for you is what is true for you.
When you act only out of what is true for you, you speed your way down the path. When you create an experience based on your “now truth” rather than react to an experience based on a “past truth,” you produce a “new you.
Why does it take so much time to create the reality you choose? This is why: because you have not been living your truth.
Know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.
Yet once you come to know your truth, don’t keep changing your mind about it. This is your mind trying to figure out what’s “best.” Stop it! Get out of your mind. Get back to your senses
That is what is meant by “getting back to your senses.” It is a returning to how you feel, not how you think. Your thoughts are just that—thoughts. Mental constructions. “Made up” creations of your mind. But your feelings—now they are real.
Feelings are the language of the soul. And your soul is your truth.
There. Now does that tie it all together for you
Does this mean we are to express any feeling—no matter how negative or destructive
Feelings are neither negative nor destructive. They are simply truths. How you express your truth is what matters.
When you express your truth with love, negative and damaging results rarely occur, and, when they do, it is usually because someone else has chosen to expe-rience your truth in a negative or damaging way. In such a case, there is probably nothing you can do to avoid the outcome.
Certainly, failing to express your truth would hardly be appropriate. Yet people do this all the time. So afraid are they to cause or to face possible unpleasantness that they hide their truth altogether.
Remember this: It is not nearly so important how well a message is received as how well it is sent.
You cannot take responsibility for how well another accepts your truth; you can only ensure how well it is communicated. And by how well, I don’t mean merely how clearly; I mean how lovingly, how compassion-ately, how sensitively, how courageously, and how completely.
This leaves no room for half truths, the “brutal truth,” or even the “plain truth.” It does mean the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God.
It’s the “so help you God” part that brings in the Godly qualities of love and compassion—for I will help you communicate in this way always, if you will ask Me.
So yes, express what you call your most “negative” feelings, but not destructively.
Failure to express (i.e. push out) negative feelings does not make them go away; it keeps them in. Nega-tivity “kept in” harms the body and burdens the soul.
But if another person hears every negative thought you have about that person, it would have to affect the relationship, no matter how lovingly those thoughts were delivered.
I said to express (push out, get rid of) your negative feelings—I did not say how, or to whom.
All negativity need not be shared with the person about whom it is felt. It is only necessary to communi-cate these feelings to the other when failure to do so would compromise your integrity or cause another to believe an untruth.
Negativity is never a sign of ultimate truth, even if it
seems like your truth at the moment. It may arise out of an unhealed part of you. In fact, always it does.
That is why it is so important to get these negativities out, to release them. Only by letting go of them—put-ting them out there, placing them in front of you—can you see them clearly enough to know whether you really believe them.
You have all said things—ugly things—only to dis-cover that, once having been said, they no longer feel “true.
You have all expressed feelings—from fear to anger to rage—only to discover that, once having been ex-pressed, they no longer reveal how you really feel.
In this way, feelings can be tricky. Feelings are the language of the soul, but you must make sure you are listening to your true feelings and not some counterfeit model constructed in your mind.
Oh, man, so now I can’t even trust my feelings. Great! I thought that was the way to truth! I thought that was what You were teaching me.
It is. I am. But listen, because it is more complex than you now understand. Some feelings are true feel-ings—that is, feelings born in the soul—and some feel-ings are counterfeit feelings. These are constructed in your mind.
In other words, they are not “feelings” at all—they are thoughts. Thoughts masquerading as feelings.
These thoughts are based on your previous experi-ence and on the observed experience of others. You see someone grimace when having a tooth pulled, you grimace when having your tooth pulled. It may not even hurt, but you grimace anyway. Your reaction has nothing to do with reality, only how you perceive reality, based on the experience of others or on something that’s happened to you in the past.
The greatest challenge as human beings is to Be Here Now, to stop making things up! Stop creating thoughts about a pre-sent moment (a moment you “sent” yourself before you had a thought about it). Be in the moment. Remember, you sent your Self this moment as a gift. The moment contained the seed of a tremendous truth. It is a truth you wished to remem-ber. Yet when the moment arrived, you immediately began constructing thoughts about it. Instead of being in the moment, you stood outside the moment and judged it. Then you re-acted. That is, you acted as you did once before.
Now look at these two words
REACTIVE
CREATIVE
Notice they are the same word. Only the “C” has been moved! When you “C” things correctly, you become Creative, rather than Reactive.
That’s very clever.
Well, God is like that.
But, you see, the point I am trying to make is that when you come to each moment cleanly, without a previous thought about it, you can create who you are, rather than re-enact who you once were.
Life is a process of creation, and you keep living it as if it were a process of re-enactment
But how can any rational human being ignore one’s previous experience in the moment something occurs? Isn’t it normal to call up everything you know on the subject and respond from that
It may be normal, but it is not natural. “Normal” means something usually done. “Natural” is how you are when you’re not trying to be “normal
Natural and normal are not the same thing. In any given moment you can do what you normally do, or you can do what comes naturally.
I tell you this: Nothing is more natural than love.
If you act lovingly, you will be acting naturally. If you react fearfully, resentfully, angrily, you may be acting normally, but you will never be acting naturally.
How can I act with love when all my previous experience is screaming at me that a particular “moment” is likely to be painful
Ignore your previous experience and go into the moment. Be Here Now. See what there is to work with right now in creating yourself anew.
Remember, this is what you are doing here.
You have come to this world in this way, at this time, in this place, to Know Who You Are—and to create Who You Wish to Be.
This is the purpose of all of life. Life is an ongoing, never-ending process of re-creation. You keep recreat-ing your selves in the image of your next highest idea about yourselves.
But isn’t that rather like the man who jumped off the highest building, sure that he could fly? He ignored his “previous experience” and the “observed experience of others” and jumped off the building, all the while declaring, “I am God!” That doesn’t seem very smart.
And I tell you this: Men have achieved results much greater than flying. Men have healed sickness. Men have raised the dead.
One man has.
You think only one man has been granted such powers over the physical universe
Only one man has demonstrated them.
Not so. Who parted the Red Sea
God.
Indeed, but who called upon God to do that
Moses.
Exactly. And who called upon Me to heal the sick, and raise the dead
Jesus.
Yes. Now, do you think that what Moses and Jesus did, you cannot do
But they didn’t do it! They asked You to! That’s a different thing.
Okay. We’ll go with your construction for now. And do you think that you cannot ask Me these same miraculous things
I suppose I could.
And would I grant them
I don’t know.
That’s the difference between you and Moses! That’s what separates you from Jesus
Many people believe if they ask in Jesus’ name, You will grant their request.
Yes, many people do believe that. They believe they have no power, but they have seen (or believe others who had seen) the power of Jesus, so they ask in his name. Even though he said, “Why are you so amazed? These things, and more, shall you also do.” Yet the people could not believe it. Many do not to this day.
You all imagine you are unworthy. So you ask in the name of Jesus. Or the Blessed Virgin Mary. Or the “patron saint” of this or that. Or the Sun God. Or the spirit of the East. You’ll use anybody’s name—any-body’s—but your own
Yet I tell you this—Ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you.
Jump off the building and you shall fly.
There have been people who have levitated. Do you believe this
Well, I’ve heard of it.
And people who have walked through walls. And even left their bodies.
Yes, yes. But I’ve never seen anybody walk through walls—and I don’t suggest anyone try it. Nor do I think we should jump off buildings. That’s probably not good for your health.
That man fell to his death not because he could not have flown if he were coming from the right state of Being but because he could never have demonstrated Godliness by trying to show himself as separate from you.
Please explain.
The man on the building lived in a world of self-de-lusion in which he imagined himself to be other than the rest of you. By declaring “I am God,” he began his demonstration with a lie. He hoped to make himself separate. Larger. More powerful.
It was an act of the ego.
Ego—that which is separate, individual—can never duplicate or demonstrate that which is One.
By seeking to demonstrate that he was God, the man on the building demonstrated only his separate-ness, not his unity, with all things. Thus, he sought to demonstrate Godliness by demonstrating Ungodliness, and failed.
Jesus, on the other hand, demonstrated Godliness by demonstrating Unity—and seeing Unity and Wholeness wherever (and upon whomever) he looked. In this his consciousness and My consciousness were One, and, in such a state, whatever he called forth was made manifest in his Divine Reality in that Holy Moment.
I see. So all it takes is “Christ Consciousness” to perform miracles! Well, that should make things simple . . ..
Actually, it does. More simple than you think. And many have achieved such consciousness. Many have been Christed, not just Jesus of Nazareth.
You can be Christed, too.
How
By seeking to be. By choosing to be. But it is a choice you must make every day, every minute. It must be-come the very purpose of your life.
It is the purpose of your life—you simply do not know it. And even if you know it, even if you remember the exquisite reason for your very existence, you do not seem to know how to get there from where you are.
Yes, that is the case. So how can I get from where I am to where I want to be
I tell you this-again: Seek and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you.
I’ve been “seeking” and “knocking” for 35 years. You’ll pardon me if I’m a little bored with that line.
If not to say, disillusioned, yes? But really, while I have to give you good grades for trying—an “A for effort,” so to speak—I can’t say, I can’t agree with you, that you’ve been seeking and knocking for 35 years.
Let’s agree that you’ve been seeking and knocking on and off for 35 years—mostly off.
In the past, when you were very young, you came to Me only when you were in trouble, when you needed something. As you grew older and matured, you realized that was probably not a right relationship with God, and sought to create something more mean-ingful. Even then, I was hardly more than a sometimes thing.
Still later, as you came to understand that union with God can be achieved only through communion with God, you undertook the practices and behaviors that could achieve communion, yet even these you engaged sporadically, inconsistently.
You meditated, you held ritual, you called Me forth in prayer and chant, you evoked the Spirit of Me in you, but only when it suited you, only when you felt inspired to.
And, glorious as your experience of Me was even on these occasions, still you’ve spent 95 percent of your life caught up in the illusion of separateness, and only flickering moments here and there in the realization of ultimate reality.
You still think your life is about car repairs and telephone bills and what you want out of relationships, that it’s about the dramas you’ve created, rather than the creator of those dramas.
You have yet to learn why you keep creating your dramas. You’re too busy playing them out.
You say you understand the meaning of life, but you do not live your understandings. You say you know the way toward communion with God, but you do not take that way. You claim you are on the path, but you do not walk it.
Then you come to Me and say you’ve been seeking and knocking for 35 years.
I hate to be the one to disillusion you, but...
It’s time you stopped being disillusioned in Me and started seeing you as you really are.
Now—I tell you this: You want to be “Christed”? Act like Christ, every minute of every day. (It’s not that you don’t know how. He has shown you the way.) Be like Christ in every circumstance. (It’s not that you can’t. He has left you instructions.
You are not without help in this, should you seek it. I am giving you guidance every minute of every day. I Am the still small voice within which knows which way to turn, which path to take, which answer to give, which action to implement, which word to say—which reality to create if you truly seek communion and unity with Me.
Just listen to Me.
I guess I don’t know how to do that.
Oh, nonsense! You’re doing it right now! Simply do it all the time.
I can’t walk around with a yellow legal pad every minute of the day. I can’t stop everything and start writing notes to You, hoping You’ll be there with one of Your brilliant answers.
Thank you. They are brilliant! And here’s another one: Yes, you can
I mean, if someone told you that you could have a direct Connection with God—a direct link, a direct line—and all you had to do was make sure you had paper and pen handy at all times, would you do it
Well, yes, of course.
Yet you just said you wouldn’t. Or “can’t.” So what’s the matter with you? What are you saying? What is your truth
Now the Good News is that you don’t even need a pad and pen. I am with you always. I don’t live in the pen. I live in you.
That is true, isn’t it... I mean, I can really believe that, can’t I
Of course you can believe it. It’s what I’ve been asking you to believe from the beginning. It’s what every Master, including Jesus, has said to you. It is the central teaching. It is the ultimate truth.
I am with you always, even unto the end of time.
Do you believe this
Yes, now I do. More than ever, I mean.
Good. Then use Me. If it works for you to take out a pad and a pen (and, I must say, that seems to work pretty well for you), then take out a pad and a pen. More often. Every day. Every hour, if you have to.
Get close to Me. Get close to Me! Do what you can. Do what you have to. Do what it takes.
Say a rosary. Kiss a stone. Bow to the East. Chant a chant. Swing a pendulum. Test a muscle.
Or write a book.
Do what it takes.
Each of you has your own construction. Each of you has understood Me-created Me—in your own way.
To some of you I am a man. To some of you I am a woman. To some, I am both. To some, I am neither.
To some of you I am pure energy. To some, the ultimate feeling, which you call love. And some of you have no idea what I am. You simply know that I AM.
And so it is.
I AM.
I am the wind which rustles your hair. I am the sun which warms your body. I am the rain which dances on your face. I am the smell of flowers in the air, and I am the flowers which send their fragrance upward. lam the air which carries the fragrance.
I am the beginning of your first thought. I am the end of your last. I am the idea which sparked your most brilliant moment. I am the glory of its fulfillment. I am the feeling which fueled the most loving thing you ever did. I am the part of you which yearns for that feeling again and again.
Whatever works for you, whatever makes it hap-pen—whatever ritual, ceremony, demonstration, meditation, thought, song, word, or action it takes for you to “reconnect”—do this.
Do this in remembrance of Me.