Friends of CwG Discussion Board

Last edited by islove on Thu Mar 04, 2004 4:46 am; edited 1 time in total

this is one book I'm really looking forward to reading! It's the same excitement as I felt in bks 1, 2 and 3! I didn't feel it for Friendship ~ and Communion I never felt like reading! But Tomorrow's God I want to! Even more I remember a few months' back I'd voted for the name "Tomorrow's God" for the new book!

anyhows, here's an except from it thanks to Sachin! that is to say he shared the link and I wanted to post it here for all you guys too!

enjoy ~

Towards the end of Neale Donald Walsch's wonderful new book, Tomorrow's God, God says to Neale:

Our conversation on the topic of Tomorrow's God is now over in its present form. For the length of this dialogue I have allowed you to ask the questions and to receive my answers as if I was the one with all the insight and you were the one who lacked awareness. This is not what is true about you, and this continuing dialogue is not modelling what is true about anyone. The truth about all of you is that you have deep insights and extraordinary wisdom, and all you have to do to experience that is open up to it and call it forth. ... From this point on, you are the one with the answers and I am the one with the questions. So here is the biggest, most important question in the entire conversation that we’ve been having. What is the way to enlightenment? What will the New Spirituality, what will Tomorrow's God, have to say about that?

You know, I've already looked at that. I even did a sharing about that with a small group of about a dozen people recently. ... And I am going to say something daring. I am going to tell you that one day I, too, could be enlightened.

You may think I’m joking, but I’m not. I could be an enlightened master, and so could everyone. And do you know how I will know I'm enlightened? When I find peace and joy and love in every moment. I, too, like the Buddha, like Jesus the Christ, like Paramahansa Yogananda, like Maharishi, Like Ilchi Seung Heun Lee, choose to seek enlightenment.

On my own particular path I have tried everything. First I tried orthodox religion. I said my rosary faithfully every day, because there was this formula that you could use to have God answer your prayers. There was a litany, there was a process.

I also tried fasting. I tried meditation. I tried reading every book I could get my hands on. I took est. I learned Transcendental Meditation. I learned transactional analysis. I walked down many paths, many, many paths.

And then one day I had an out-of-body experience. Now that was interesting, because I wasn’t trying to do this. I was trying to produce outcomes with my fasting. I was trying to produce outcomes with my meditation, I was trying to produce outcomes with my rosary and with my disciplines, but those were not bringing me where I wanted to go.

Now here I was, just simply trying to get some sleep. I just fell asleep. But in that moment I flew out of my body quite involuntarily. Just left. And I knew that I left. It was a conscious awareness. I was not in my body, and I knew I was not.

I won’t take time here to explain to you or describe for you my experience, although I can tell you it was very real – it is very real to me to this very day. I’ve had three such experiences in my life, two since the original one. And every one of those experiences brought me to the same place: a space of absolute – capital ‘A’ – awareness. Kind of like an AA meeting: Absolute Awareness. And when I returned from my very first out-of-body experience, I was left with two words that blew my mind. Would you like to know what they were?

I'm all ears.

‘Nothing matters.’

Nothing matters. What an amazing message for my soul to receive from the unified soul that is all of Life. Nothing matters? And yet, like the est training, like Transcendental Meditation, like my venturing into the work of Paramahansa Yogananda, it changed my life. And here’s the message behind the message:

If nothing matters intrinsically, then I am free to declare what I choose to have matter to me. But if something matters intrinsically, that is to say, if something matters to, shall we say, God, then I had darned well better figure out what that is, because if I don't figure out what it is, I will be the thing called condemned, or at the very least, unenlightened.

But a voice in my out-of-body experience said to me, ‘Nothing matters.’ I knew then that we are free to make matter what we choose to make matter in our lives. And I mean that in two ways: not only to make matter, but to make something into matter, to manifest in physical reality something out of invisible energy. To turn it into, to turn energy into, matter.

So here is what I would share with people who ask about enlightenment.

If you think there is a path to enlightenment that is the only path, the best path, the fastest path, the one that everyone has to know about by ten o'clock tomorrow morning, you will suddenly find yourself feeling pressure, stress, upset, and your ego will be deeply involved in convincing as many people as you can that that’s what’s so.

Suddenly you will start acting not like a master at all, but like someone who is under a terrific amount of pressure and stress, because it will suddenly matter to you whether I ‘get’ what you are trying to tell me.

If you are not careful, you even start having quotas or goals. You'll have to get a certain number of other people to agree with you every week, or every month, or every year. And if you don't meet those goals, you will think that you have not done a good job.

And yet you have done a good job if you simply love without expectation, without requirement, without needing anything in return.

Enlightenment, when it is all said and done, has nothing to do with what you do with your body or your mind. It has to do with what you do with your soul.

Now that’s a wonderful insight. Just the way you put that opens up the space for clarity. Nice.

Thank you. I want to share that if you simply love everyone whose life you touch endlessly, unconditionally, with nothing needed or wanted in return, you have become enlightened and you have shown everyone how they may be enlightened as well. As fast as any other system that exists, like that.

As fast as Transcendental Meditation, like that. As fast as joining the Self-Realization Fellowship, like that. As fast as taking est, or now, the Forum, like that. And if you learn to love yourself unconditionally, as well as everyone else, you heal your entire self without lifting a finger.

Now I want to discuss this thing called health, because many people believe that you are not enlightened unless you are in good health.

You are really on a roll here, aren’t you?

You opened a door. I walked through it.

Go on. I want to hear what you have to say about this.

Is enlightenment being in good health? And what is good health anyway? Is good health having a body that has nothing wrong with it? Is good health living until you are 90 or 100 or 200 or 500?

Is good health having no pain and nothing wrong with your physical form? Is good health the absence of anything that is not perfect in your physical experience? Or is good health being okay and in a place of joy and peace no matter how things are?

What is health, what is optimum health, if it is not happiness?

I know people who exercise every day, lifting weights and running and working out, and their bodies are in great health, but their hearts and their minds and their souls are desperately sad.

And I know people who are hardly able to lift a toothpick, they are so ... their bodies are in such bad shape ... but their hearts and their minds and their souls are bright, and they are happy.

I know such a man, whose name is Ram Dass. Ram Dass is a master, and I am vastly privileged to have met him personally. He has taught many people for many years. He wrote a book called Be Here Now, among others.

About two and a half or three years ago Ram Dass had a stroke. He was a young man; he was only sixty-three or something like that.

I met with Ram Dass after his stroke, in a hotel room in Denver, and I want to tell you something. I've never met a healthier man.

I sat in that room with a master. I said, ‘Ram Dass, how are you?’ And he sat there in his wheelchair and said very slowly and very carefully, ‘I am won-der-ful.’

Now that’s health ... that’s health. That’s peace. That's joy.

Then Ram Dass sat there, and we talked. I asked him many questions, because I wanted to hear, right from his wonderful mind, how he felt and what he’d experienced of this life. And he had great patience with me. He must have heard my questions a hundred times before. Nay, a thousand times before. But he listened intently, as if he was hearing them for the first time.

He did not rush his answers, either. I got the impression that he was thinking deeply about each one, going within to see, not how he’d answered that question before, but what his experience was now.

It was a moment of incredible giving. He was just giving to me.

Now, when you have so much happiness, peace, wisdom, and joy that you spend your life sharing it with everyone else, no matter what your predicament, that's enlightenment. You have become a master.

When your life is no longer about you, has nothing to do with you, but is about everyone else whose life you touch, you have become a master.

In the end, that is why you came here. You did not come here to somehow ‘get better,’ or to ‘work on your stuff.’ Consider the possibility that all the work you will ever need to do is finished. All you have to do now is know that.

So set yourself free today. Stop working so hard on yourself that you don't even enjoy it anymore. Do what works for you, but make sure it brings you joy.

Now here is what I know will bring you joy. Decide that the rest of your life – every day, every moment, every word – is something that you will share with everyone whose life you touch in a way that ensures that they will know there is nothing they have to do, nowhere they have to go, and no way they have to be, in order to be loved by you right now. Let them know that they are perfect just as they are, just as they are standing there.

Spend the rest of your life giving people back to themselves, that they might love themselves. And show them by how you are with them that you know there is nothing they are lacking, nothing they are missing, nothing they need, nothing they are not.

You want to know the fastest way for anyone to experience that they are enlightened?

Yes, can you tell me? Can you really tell me?

The fastest way of all for anyone to experience that they are enlightened is to cause another to know that THEY are.

That is the message of Tomorrow's God. That will become the teaching of the New Spirituality. That is why Namaste has become such a powerful tool, such a meaningful and special exchange of energy:

‘The God in me sees and honours the God in you.’

There’s nothing more to be done if we really mean that. Of course, if we are saying that because it sounds good, then there is a great deal more to be done. But if we really mean that – if, when we say that, we really mean that – then the struggle is finished, the search is over, and enlightenment is ours at last.

From Tomorrow’s God, copyright 2004 by Neale Donald Walsch, published in the UK by Hodder Mobius.

http://www.cygnus-books.co.uk/features/tomorrows_god_neale_donald_walsh.htm

Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2004 4:40 am Post subject:

Oh God, I so needed to hear this right now. This absolutely goes hand in hand with what I've been exploring in my little diary thread.

A thousand times - thank you for bringing this here today!

I Love you!

Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2004 4:45 am Post subject:

Okay God, i'm moved. You convinced me, i'll buy it allready! Laughing

Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2004 4:52 am Post subject:

WOW

Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2004 5:10 am Post subject:

-dance of joy!-

I decided to do a search on "Tomorrow's God" using Google, just to see if there were other exerpts, etc.

And guess what?

Neale is going to be a few miles from me, signing books, on March 16th! The book signing isn't listed on the CWG page, but it's on the website for the Church he'll be at. -Renaissance Unity-

WooHoo! I just want to give him a huge hug and thank him for being Our Voice!

Ok, I'm totally hyped up now. LOL

Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2004 5:15 am Post subject:

dearest beautiful people, thank you. You warm my heart, you make me so glad that I followed my theeling, the prompting, and shared it here with y'all too. and thanks to Sachin who shared the link with me in the first place!

much hugs, love and laughter to us all ~

Juhi

P.S. LOL HeartFyr!!! Feeling your excitement and JOY!!!!!!

Love YOU!!! ~hugs~

Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2004 7:33 am Post subject:

Wow… Heartfry I have two tickets to the March 18 event. Unity North Church. East Cob. Are you still in Atlanta? Because I would love for us to meet, and be inspired by Neale even, and most of all give each other a great big hug. I don’t know this is all so surreal…

Tonia

Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2004 7:59 am Post subject:

Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2004 8:27 am Post subject:

ugh, next time I am sure.

Tonia

Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2004 6:01 pm Post subject:

Hi Islove!

Namaste.

"Consider the possibility that all the work you will ever need to do is finished. All you have to do now is know that". Mmmm-m-m...Beautiful!

Bless you Islove, for your willingness to open up to the wisdom that lies within you and the courage to share it with us.

Bless you Islove, for your bravery in declaring your belief that you too
may someday become a master. You open the door for others.

LOVE, angel

Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2004 11:10 pm Post subject: oh my god

just by observing this forum topic conversation, i feel a lot of energy in my circumference of my body, i just wonder, its the magnanimity of "isolve" to spread the message, i bow to her intent to share it to the multitude,
i am thankfull , feel like if i think i gave the link to isolve, i feel individual , a single being seperate from all, but when i see the divine plan including me in this spreading game, i feel a kind of group, or say a united effort , a group funtioning. - might be this is what it is pointing towards...
h a h ha
this is a really a thunderous game by universe, hey man u r really surprising,,,
sachin

Posted: Fri Mar 05, 2004 1:49 am Post subject:

Thanks Islove and Sachin for sharing this.

It spoke to me and helped me.

I've ordered Tomorrow's God from Amazon, but this excerpt was timely for me.

Namaste
Christina

Posted: Fri Mar 05, 2004 7:37 am Post subject:

thank you Juhi, that was wonderful gift you gave.

Namaste (hmm second time using this word)

Mirror Image

Posted: Fri Mar 05, 2004 8:25 am Post subject:

Wow, so resonating with you Sachin, and Mirror Image I didn’t use the word as much but today I am signing everything with it.

Namaste
Tonia

Posted: Fri Mar 05, 2004 1:23 pm Post subject:

Thank you. I can hardly wait for the book! That sounds wonderful.