Yet
God has full power to match intentions with results. You cannot and
will not believe in this (even though you claim that God is all-powerful),
and so you have to create in your imagination a power equal to God,
in order that you may find a way for God's will to be thwarted. And
so you have created in your mythology the being you call "devil." You have
even imagined a God at war with this being (thinking that God
solves problems the way you do). Finally, you have actually imagined that
God could lose this war.
All
of this violates everything you say you know about God, but this doesn't
matter. You live your illusion, and thus feel your fear, all out of your
decision to doubt God.
But
what if you made a new decision? What then would be the
result?
I
tell you this: you would live as the Buddha did. As Jesus did. As did
every saint you have ever idolized.
Yet,
as with most of those saints, people would not understand you. And when
you tried to explain your sense of peace, your joy in life, your inner
ecstasy, they would listen to your words, but not hear them. They would
try to repeat your words, but would add to them.
They
would wonder how you could have what they cannot find. And then they would
grow jealous. Soon jealousy would turn to rage, and in their anger they
would try to convince you that it is you who do not understand God.
And
if they were unsuccessful at tearing you from your joy, they would seek to
harm you, so enormous would be their rage. And when you told them it does
not matter, that even death cannot interrupt your joy, nor change your
truth, they would surely kill you. Then, when they saw the peace
with which you accepted death, they would call you saint, and love you
again.
For
it is the nature of people to
love, then destroy, then love again that which they value most.
But why? Why do we do
that?
All
human actions are motivated at their deepest level by one of two emotions-
fear or love. In truth there are only two emotions-only two words in the
language of the soul. These are the opposite ends of the great polarity
which I created when I produced the universe, and your world, as you know
it today.
These
are the two points- the Alpha and the Omega- which allow the system you
call "relativity" to be. Without these two points, without these two ideas
about things, no other idea could exist.
Every
human thought, and every human action, is based in either love or fear.
There is no other human motivation, and all other ideas are but
derivatives of these two. They are simply different versions- different
twists on the same theme.
Think
on this deeply and you will see that it is true. This is what I have
called the Sponsoring Thought. It is either a thought of love or fear.
This is the thought behind the thought behind the thought. It is
the first thought. It is prime force. It is the raw energy that drives the
engine of human experience.
And
here is how human behavior produces repeat experience after repeat
experience; it is why humans love, then destroy, then love again: always
there is the swing from one emotion to the other. Love sponsors fear
sponsors love sponsors fear...
And
the reason is found in the first lie- the lie which you hold as the truth
about God- that God cannot be trusted; that God's love cannot be depended
upon; that God's acceptance of you is conditional; that the ultimate
outcome is thus in doubt. For if you cannot depend on God's love to
always be there, on whose love can you depend? If God retreats and
withdraws when you do not perform properly, will not mere mortals also?
And
so it is that in the moment you pledge your highest love, you greet your
greatest fear.
For
the first thing you worry about after saying "l love you" is whether
you'll hear it back. And if you hear it back, then you begin immediately
to worry that the love you have just found, you will lose. And so all
action becomes a reaction- defense against loss- even as you seek to
defend yourself against the loss of God.
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.
But
you do not know Who You Are, and you think you are a great deal less. And
where did you get the idea of how much less than magnificent you are? From
the only people whose word you would take on everything. From your
mother and your father.
These
are the people who love you the most. Why would they lie to you? Yet have
they not told you that you are too much of this, and not enough of that?
Have they not reminded you that you are to be seen and not heard? Have
they not scolded you in some of the moments of your greatest exuberance?
And, did they not encourage you to set aside some of your wildest
imagining?
These
are the messages you've received, and though they do not meet the
criteria, and are thus not messages from God, they might as well have
been, for they have come from the gods of your universe surely
enough.
It
was your parents who taught you that love is conditional- you have felt
their conditions many times- and that is the experience you take into your
own love relationships.
It
is also the experience you bring to Me.
From
this experience you draw your conclusions about Me. Within this framework
you speak your truth. "God is a loving God," you say, "but if you break
His commandments, He will punish you with eternal banishment and
everlasting damnation."
For
have you not experienced the banishment of your own parents? Do you not
know the pain of their damnation? How, then, could you imagine it to be
any different with Me?
You
have forgotten what it was like to be loved without condition. You do not
remember the experience of the love of God. And so you try to imagine what
God's love must be like, based on what you see of love in the world.
You
have projected the role of "parent" onto God, and have thus come up with a
God Who judges and rewards or punishes, based on how good He feels about
what you've been up to. But this is a simplistic view of God, based on
your mythology. It has nothing to do with Who I Am.
Having
thus created an entire thought system about God based on human experience
rather than spiritual truths, you then create an entire reality around
love. It is a fear-based reality, rooted in the idea of a fearful,
vengeful God. Its Sponsoring Thought is wrong, but to deny that thought
would be to disrupt your whole theology. And though the new theology which
would replace it would truly be your salvation, you cannot accept
it, because the idea of a God Who is not to be feared, Who will
not judge, and Who has no cause to punish is simply too magnificent to be
embraced within even your grandest notion of Who and What God is.
This
fear-based love reality dominates your experience of love; indeed,
actually creates it. For not only do you see yourself receiving
love which is conditional, you also watch yourself giving it in
the same way. And even while you withhold and retreat and set your
conditions, a part of you knows this is not what love really is. Still,
you seem powerless to change the way you dispense it. You've learned the
hard way, you tell yourself, and you'll be damned if you're going to leave
yourself vulnerable again. Yet the truth is, you'll be damned if you
don't.
[By
your own (mistaken) thoughts about love do you damn yourself never to
experience it purely. So, too, do you damn yourself never to know Me as I
really am. Until you do. For you shall not be able to deny Me forever, and
the moment will come for our Reconciliation.]
Every
action taken by human beings is based in love or fear, not simply those
dealing with relationships. Decisions affecting business, industry,
politics, religion, the education of your young, the social agenda of your
nations, the economic goals of your society, choices involving war, peace,
attack, defense, aggression, submission; determinations to covet or give
away, to save or to share, to unite or to divide- 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.
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.
You make it sound so
easy, and yet in the moment of decision fear wins more often than not. Why
is that?
You
have been taught to live in fear. You have been told about the survival of
the fittest and the victory of the strongest and the success of the
cleverest. Precious little is said about the glory of the most loving. And
so you strive to be the fittest, the strongest, the cleverest- in one way
or another- and if you see yourself as something less than this in any
situation, you fear loss, for you have been told that to be less is to
lose.
And
so of course you choose the action fear sponsors, for that is what you
have been taught. Yet I teach you this: when you choose the action love
sponsors, then will you do more than survive, then will you do more than
win, then will you do more than succeed. Then will you experience the full
glory of Who You Really Are, and who you can be.
To
do this you must turn aside the teachings of your well-meaning, but
misinformed, worldly tutors, and hear the teachings of those whose
wisdom comes from another source.
There
are many such teachers among you, as always
there have been, for I wi I I not leave you without those who would show
you, teach you, guide you, and remind you of these truths. Yet the
greatest reminder is not anyone outside you, but the voice within you.
This is the first tool that I use, because it is the most accessible.
The
voice within is the loudest voice with which I speak, because it is the
closest to you. It is the voice which tells you whether everything else
is true or false, right or wrong, good or bad as you have defined it.
It is the radar that sets the course, steers the ship, guides the journey
if you but let it.
It
is the voice which tells you right now whether the very words you are
reading are words of love or words of fear. By this measure can you
determine whether they are words to heed or words to ignore.
You said that when I
always choose the action that love sponsors, then I will experience the
full glory of who I am and who I can be. Will you expand on this please?
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
wonder of this purpose is that it is never-ending. An ending is a
limitation, and God's purpose is without such a boundary. Should there
come a moment in which you experience yourself in your fullest glory, you
will in that instant imagine an ever greater glory to fulfill. The more
you are, the more you can become, and the more you can become, the more
you can yet be.
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.
There are those who
say that life is a school, that we are here to learn specific lessons,
that once we "graduate" we can go on to larger pursuits, no longer
shackled by the body. Is this correct?
It
is another part of your mythology, based on human experience.
Life is not a
school?
No.
We are not here to
learn lessons?
No.
Then why are we
here?
To
remember, and re-create, Who You Are.
I
have told you, over and over again. You do not believe Me. Yet that is
well as it should be. For truly, if you do not create yourself as
Who You Are, that you cannot be.
Okay, You've lost me.
Let's go back to this school bit. I've heard teacher after teacher tell us
that life is a school. I'm frankly shocked to hear You deny that.
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.
I'm not sure I
understand.
Let's
start here. The soul- your soul- knows all there is to know all the time.
There's nothing hidden to it, nothing unknown. Yet knowing is not enough.
The soul seeks to experience.
You
can know yourself to be generous, but unless you do something which
displays generosity, you have nothing but a concept. You can know
yourself to be kind, but unless you do someone a kindness, you have
nothing but an idea about yourself.
It
is your soul's only desire to turn its grandest concept about
itself into its greatest experience. Until concept becomes
experience, all there is is speculation. I have been speculating about
Myself for a long time. Longer than you and I could collectively remember.
Longer than the age of this universe times the age of the universe. You
see, then, how young is- how new is-My experience of Myself!
You've lost me again.
Your experience of Yourself?
Yes.
Let me explain it to you this way:
In
the beginning, that which Is is all there was, and there was
nothing else. Yet All That Is could not know itself- because All That Is
is all there was, and there was nothing else. And so, All That Is
... was not. For in the absence of something else, All That Is, is not.
This
is the great Is/Not Is to which mystics have referred from the beginning
of time.
Now
All That Is knew it was all there was- but this was not enough, for
it could only know its utter magnificence conceptually, not
experientially. Yet the experience of itself is that for
which it longed, for it wanted to know what it felt like to be so
magnificent. Still, this was impossible, because the very term
"magnificent" is a relative term. All That Is could not know what it felt
like to be magnificent unless that which is not showed up. In the
absence of that which is not, that which IS, is
not.
Do
you understand this?
I think so. Keep
going.
Alright.
The
one thing that All That Is knew is that there was nothing else. And
so It could, and would, never know Itself from a reference point
outside of Itself. Such a point did not exist. Only one reference point
existed, and that was the single place within. The "Is-Not Is." The Am-Not
Am.
Still,
the All of Everything chose to know Itself experientially.
This
energy- this pure, unseen, unheard, unobserved, and therefore
unknown-by-anyone-else energy- chose to experience Itself as the utter
magnificence It was. In order to do this, It realized It would have to use
a reference point within.
It
reasoned, quite correctly, that any portion of Itself would necessarily
have to be less than the whole, and that if It thus simply
divided Itself into portions, each portion, being less than the
whole, could look back on the rest of Itself and see magnificence.
And
so All That Is divided Itself- becoming, in one glorious moment, that
which is this, and that which is that. For the first time,
this and that existed, quite apart from each other. And
still, both existed simultaneously. As did all that was neither.
Thus,
three elements suddenly existed: that which is here. That
which is there. And that which is neither here nor there-but
which must exist for here and there to exist.
It
is the nothing which holds the everything. It is the non-space which holds
the space. It is the all which holds the parts.
Can
you understand this?
Are
you following this?
I think I am, actually.
Believe it or not, you have used such a clear illustration that I think
I'm actually understanding this.
I'm
going to go further. Now this nothing which holds the everything
is what some people call God. Yet that is not accurate, either, for it
suggests that there is something God is not- namely, everything
that is not "nothing." But I am All Things- seen and unseen- so
this description of Me as the Great Unseen- the No-Thing, or the Space
Between, an essentially Eastern mystical definition of God, is no more
accurate than the essentially Western practical descrip- tion of God as
all that is seen. Those who believe that God is All That Is and All
That Is Not, are those whose understanding is correct.
Now
in creating that which is "here" and that which is 'there," God made it
possible for God to know itself. In the moment of this great explosion
from within, God created relativity- the greatest gift God ever gave to
Itself. Thus, relationship is the greatest gift God ever gave to
you, a point to be discussed in detail later.
From
the No-Thing thus sprang the Everything- a spiritual event entirely
consistent, incidentally, with what your scientists call The Big Bang
theory.
As
the elements of alI raced forth, time was created, for a thing was
first here, then it was there- and the period it took to get
from here to there was measurable.
Just
as the parts of Itself which are seen began to define themselves,
"relative" to each other, so, too, did the parts which are unseen.
God
knew that for love to exist- and to know itself as pure love- its
exact opposite had to exist as well. So God voluntarily created the great
polarity- the absolute opposite of love- everything that love is not- what
is now called fear. In the moment fear existed, love could exist as a
thing that could be experienced.
It
is this creation of duality between love and its opposite which
humans refer to in their various mythologies as the birth of evil,
the fall of Adam, the rebellion of Satan, and so forth.
Just
as you have chosen to personify pure love as the character you call God,
so have you chosen to personify abject fear as the character you call the
devil.
Some
on Earth have established rather elaborate mythologies around this event,
complete with scenarios of battles and war, angelic soldiers and devilish
warriors, the forces of good and evil, of light and dark.
This
mythology has been mankind's early attempt to understand, and tell others
in a way they could understand, a cosmic occurrence of which the human
soul is deeply aware, but of which the mind can barely conceive.
In
rendering the universe as a divided version of Itself, God
produced, from pure energy, all that now exists- both seen and unseen.
In
other words, not only was the physical universe thus created, but the
metaphysical universe as well. The part of God which forms the second
half of the Am/Not Am equation also exploded into an infinite number of
units smaller than the whole. These energy units you would call spirits.
In
some of your religious mythologies it is stated that "God the Father" had
many spirit children. This parallel to the human experiences of life
multiplying itself seems to be the only way the masses could be made to
hold in reality the idea of the sudden appearance- the sudden existence-
of countless spirits in the "Kingdom of Heaven."
In
this instance, your mythical tales and stories are not so far from
ultimate reality- for the endless spirits comprising the totality of Me
are, in a cosmic sense, My offspring.
My
divine purpose in dividing Me was to create sufficient parts of Me so that
I could know Myself experientially. There is only one way for the
Creator to know Itself experientially as the Creator, and that is to
create. And so I gave to each of the countless parts of Me (to all of My
spirit children) the same power to create which I have as the whole.
This
is what your religions mean when they say that you were created in the
"image and likeness of God." This doesn't mean, as some have suggested,
that our physical bodies look alike (although God can adopt whatever
physical form God chooses for a particular purpose). It does mean that our
essence is the same. We are composed of the same stuff. We ARE the "same
stuf"'! With all the same properties and abilities- including the ability
to create physical reality out of thin air.
My
purpose in creating you, My spiritual offspring, was for Me to know Myself
as God. I have no way to do that save through you. Thus it can be
said (and has been, many times) that My purpose for you is that you should
know yourself as Me.
This
seems so amazingly simple, yet it becomes very complex- because there is
only one way for you to know yourself as Me, and that is for you first
to know yourself as not Me.
Now
try to follow this- fight to keep up- because this gets very subtle here.
Are you ready?
I think so.
Good.
Remember, you've asked for this explanation. You've waited for it for
years. You've asked for it in layman's terms, not theological doctrines or
scientific theories.
Yes- I know what I've
asked.
And
having asked, so shall you receive.
Now,
to keep things simple, I'm going to use your children of God mythological
model as a basis for discussion, because it is a model with which you are
familiar- and in many ways it is not that far off.
So
let's go back to how this process of self-knowing must
work.
There
is one way I could have caused all of My spiritual children to know
themselves as parts of Me- and that was simply to tell them. This I did.
But you see, it was not enough for Spirit to simply know Itself as God, or
part of God, or children of God, or inheritors of the kingdom (or whatever
mythology you want to use).
As
I've already explained, knowing something, and experiencing it, are
two different things. Spirit longed to know Itself experientially (just as
I did!). Conceptual awareness was not enough for you. So I devised
a plan. It is the most extraordinary idea in all the universe- and the
most spectacular collaboration. I say collaboration because all of you
are in it with Me.
Under
the plan, you as pure spirit would enter the physical universe just
created. This is because physicality is the only way to know
experientially what you know conceptually. It is, in fact, the reason I
created the physical cosmos to begin with- and the system of relativity
which governs it, and all creation.
Once
in the physical universe, you, My spirit children, could experience what
you know of yourself- but first, you had to come to know the opposite.
To explain this simplistically, you cannot know yourself as tall
unless and until you become aware of short. You cannot experience the part
of yourself that you call fat unless you also come to know thin.
Taken
to ultimate logic, you cannot experience yourself as what you are until
you've encountered what you are not. This is the purpose of the theory of
relativity, and all physical life. It is by that which you are not that
you yourself are defined.
Now
in the case of the ultimate knowing- in the case of knowing yourself as
the Creator- you cannot experience your Self as creator unless and
until you create. And you cannot create yourself until you un
create yourself. In a sense, you have to first "not be" in order to
be. Do you follow?
I think...
Stay
with it.
Of
course, there is no way for you to not be who and what you are- you simply
are that (pure, creative spirit), have been always, and always will be.
So, you did the next best thing. You caused yourself to forget Who
You Really Are.
Upon
entering the physical universe, you relinquished your remembrance of
yourself. This allows you to choose to be Who You Are, rather
than simply wake up in the castle, so to speak.
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. Yet how can you have a choice about
something over which there is no choice? You cannot not be
My offspring no matter how hard you try- but you can forget.
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.
All
the wonderful spiritual teachers have been doing just that. It is your
sole purpose. That is to say, your soul purpose.
My God, this is so
simple- and so ... symmetrical. I mean, it all fits in! It
all suddenly fits! I see, now, a picture I have never quite
put together before.
Good.
That is good. That is the purpose of this dialogue. You have asked Me for
answers. I have promised I would give them to you.
You
will make of this dialogue a book, and you will render My words accessible
to many people. It is part of your work. Now,
you have many questions, many inquiries to make about life. We have here
placed the foundation. We have laid the groundwork for other
understandings. Let us go to these other questions. And do not worry. If
there is something about what we've just gone through you do not
thoroughly understand, it will all be clear to you soon enough.
There is so much I want to ask. There are so many
questions. I suppose I should start with the big ones, the obvious ones.
Like, why is the world in the shape it's in?
Of
all the questions man has asked of God, this is the one asked most often.
From the beginning of time man has asked it. From the first moment to this
you have wanted to know, why must it be like this?
The
classic posing of the question is usually something like: If God is
all-perfect and all-loving, why would God create pestilence and famine,
war and disease, earthquakes and tornados and hurricanes and all manner of
natural disaster, deep personal disappointment, and worldwide calamity?
The
answer to this question lies in the deeper mystery of the universe and the
highest meaning of life.
I
do not show My goodness by creating only what you call perfection all
around you. I do not demonstrate My
love by not allowing you to demonstrate yours.
As
I have already explained, you cannot demonstrate love until you can
demonstrate not loving. A thing cannot exist without its opposite,
except in the world of the absolute. Yet the realm of the absolute was not
sufficient for either you or Me. I existed there, in the always, and it is
from where you, too, have come.
In
the absolute there is no experience, only knowing. Knowing is a divine
state, yet the grandestjoy is in being. Being is achieved only
after experience. The evolution is this: knowing, experiencing, being.
This is the Holy Trinity- the Triune that is God.
God
the Father is knowing- the parent of all understandings, the
begetter of all experience, for you cannot experience that which you do
not know.
God
the Son is experiencing- the embodiment, the acting out, of all
that the Father knows of Itself, for you cannot be that which you have not
experienced.
God
the Holy Spirit is being- the disembodiment of all that the
Son has experienced of Itself; the simple, exquisite is-ness possible only
through the memory of the knowing and experiencing.
This
simple being is bliss. It is God-state, after knowing and experiencing
Itself. It is that for which God yearned in the beginning.
Of
course, you are well past the point where you must have it explained to
you that the father-son descriptions of God have nothing to do with
gender. I use here the picturesque speech of your most recent scriptures.
Much earlier holy writings placed this metaphor in a mother-daughter
context. Neither is correct. Your mind can best hold the relationship as:
parent-offspring. Or: that-which-gives-rise-to, and that-which-is-risen.
Adding
the third part of the Trinity produces this relationship:
That
which gives rise to / That which is risen /,That which
is.
This
Triune Reality is God's signature. It is the divine pattern. The
three-in-one is everywhere found in the realms of the sublime. You cannot
escape it in matters dealing with time and space, God and consciousness,
or any of the subtle relationships. On the other hand, you will not
find the Triune Truth in any of life's gross relationships.
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