| Tomorrow's God The EDGE Interview with Neale Donald Walsch Author introduces new book, will support benefit in Kansas City for South African orphans by Doug Crandall In May 1995, a single soft-cover book changed our world. Conversations With God, released then by Hampton Roads Publishing and reissued a year later as a hard cover by G.P. Putnam's Sons, found its way to the New York Times best-sellers list, where it remained for 137 weeks. All of its sequels, including Book 2, Book 3, Friendship With God and Communion With God, also made that list. The newest book by the author, Neale Donald Walsch, is Tomorrow's God: Our Greatest Spiritual Challenge, and it will be out in stores on March 1. Purporting to be the dictation of a direct conversation with God, it predicts that our species will create a new God in the very near future that abandons requirements and commandments, judgments and punishments. Its only emotion is total love for humanity and all life. He spoke by phone with The EDGE about this bold prediction. It says in the introduction to your new book, "Tomorrow's God: Our Greatest Spiritual Challenge," that humanity is at the edge, and have gone as far as we can go in the direction we have been taking. Can you expand on what this means for humanity? Walsch: Well sure, as we stand on this edge, Tomorrow's God talks in terms of that edge, and talks in terms of that place humanity has put itself, quite deliberately in the largest metaphysical sense. It isn't by accident that we're here. I think that our species, in a metaphysical, higher-purpose kind of sense, has created this moment quite deliberately, with intention, by the little self. We either choose big life or little life. We either choose big god or little god. That's the choice, that's where we are. We are going to create a new God. The book makes the prediction that, in fact, we are going to conceive of God in a brand new way. Out of that will come a new understanding of who and what life is, and from that will emerge a new way to experience and to express life between us. It's not so much about changing the world, which we've been trying to do for thousands of years. The human race has begun to lose patience with itself and we are now going to go about it from the top down, which is how we should have done it from the beginning. Starting with Source, starting with God, and then changing our ideas, our fundamental constructs around the creation, around the expression, around the experience of what we call divinity. From that place, which is the first place in the scheme of things, it's the first space on the board, if you please. From that place, changing our relationship with God automatically will change the world. The problem with humanity in the past has been that we have been trying to first change the world, and change the conditions on the world. It seems almost as if it's been inevitable that this point would come. Walsch: Yes, that's my point precisely. It is inevitable. In fact, it comes in the life of every civilization across the universe. There are hundreds, or thousands of planets. In fact, these times come every several thousand years or so, every few millennia. The book Tomorrow's God predicts with regard to the experience called God what's going to happen. For some, this may seem somewhat idealistic and out of reach for the world today, and for humanity today, yet the book says that things are changing even now -- that all we have to do is choose, and once a critical mass is reached, like a domino effect we can bring a new understanding of God and of who we are into being perhaps within 30 years. What needs to begin happening now for this critical mass to be reached? Walsch: For the longest time humanity has been making individual proclamations, such as "I want to change my life," or "I want to change the world." We want to bring peace, we want to bring love, we want bring harmony. We want to bring a deeper understanding of all these things, and a deeper experience of them. Collectively, we've been doing just the opposite. I'm dubbing 2004: The Year We Prove We Mean It, which is finally the year we put our money where are mouth is, so to speak, and place ourselves into action in order to actually put on the ground choices and decisions that announce and declare and demonstrate that which we've been saying for a long time, that we want to change ourselves and change the world, that we really mean it. What that means simply is that we organize. We get together as a group. We no longer walk our individual path and imagine that that's enough. The problem with the world today is quite simple. The problem is that the civil are not organized, and the organized are not civil. That's good. Being that this is an election year, how important do you feel it is for American's to get involved in the political process? Walsch: I think they should get involved in all the processes of our collective creation. From politics to playing a much deeper and larger role in our economics, to our religions, and our spiritual direction in our schools and in our education, which is of primary importance, and in all the other ways that we interact collectively as a species. We need now to get involved, but not anymore as individuals. The time for individual action is over and the time for collective action has come. Those who understand this deeply have been impacting the world massively in the past eight or 10 years. None the least of whom are the folks who belong to Al Quaeda, as they understand that collective action has a power far greater and far mightier and far more impactful than one individual here and one individual there. Now it is our turn to organize around the principles of life that we hold most sacred and in which we have our highest belief, and to create our own anti-terrorist cells, which would construct and run the world. Keeping on the theme of politics for a moment, the book also mentions, and I quote, "In the days of the New Spirituality the idea that politics and spirituality do not mix will be abandoned forever." Can you summarize for us what this means? Perhaps to clarify for those of us who still believe in the separation of church and state? Walsch: The separation of church and state, and the separation of politics and spirituality, are not at all the same thing. Church is an institution, as is the state. So the principle of keeping those two institutions, the institution of our government and the institution of our religions, separate is a principle we will always keep in place and always should. Those two institutions have no business interlacing with each other. Because they embrace belief systems that are at in many cases at cross purposes, they should be held apart and separate from each other. Now we're talking about the introduction, or the interlacing of spirituality and politics. Those two are the same thing. Politics should be our spirituality demonstrated. The action that we take through politics is what puts our state and our government in place. It's what puts the people that create the institution of government and puts that government in place, but it is not the government itself. Politics is merely a process. Spirituality is merely a process. Religion, on the other hand, Church, is an institution, as in the Roman Catholic Church, or the Presbyterian Church, or whatever other church or religion you may want to talk about. So the separation of the institutions of church and state will always be necessary. But the merging of politics and spirituality is now required if either is to survive. If our political process and our political choices and decisions turn out not to be a reflection of our highest spiritual values, then they are, of course, bankrupt. Dr. Wayne Dyer talks about there being a spiritual solution to every problem, so in the same sense, that merging of spirituality with the political process itself would solve the myriad of problems facing us today? Walsch: Yes, and in fact right now our politics are a reflection of our highest spiritual values, and that's not saying very much. Our economics are a reflection of our highest spiritual truth. So too is every other aspect of life as we know it on this planet. We cannot help that. Everything we do is a reflection of our belief about life and about ourselves and about God and about all of it. So what we need to do now is notice that our beliefs are being reflected in all these institutions, and if we are not happy with how life is going, it is probably because of what we believe. So in the future what we are going to see is an emerging on the planet of what I'm calling in the book The New Spirituality. Tomorrow's God, and a belief in a brand new kind of God, and the creation of a brand new kind of spirituality, will change all of this, and it will reform our political, economic, social and educational decisions in such a way as to change life forever on the Earth. In your view is there one presidential candidate who stands out as being a strong contender for helping us to lead the way towards peace throughout the world, and leading to a New Spirituality? Not to put you on the spot or anything. Walsch: You can put me on the spot if you want. I've already publicly endorsed Dennis Kucinich. It is sad, though, that the political system and the political thinking in this country do not allow a candidate like Dennis Kucinich to get more than one percent of the popular vote, because it is another demonstration that we are not ready to make politics the highest statement of our spirituality. But Dennis Kucinich is a candidate who comes closest to articulating the grandest spiritual truth that millions of people hold in common through the political process and in the political arena. The new book also talks about Life's secret formula. What is this secret? Walsch: It's about putting life first. The whole process of pre-serving is a process in which we put life first, and that which serves life, first and foremost and primary in our considerations as we make the choices and decisions which form our day-to-day experience. That's not something that people are doing by and large these days. We are not pre-serving life, and we are not putting life at the top of our agenda. If we did that, we wouldn't do 9/10ths of the things that we are doing on the planet politically, socially or economically. Most of what we do in life through our political systems, in our economic institutions, even in our schools, to say nothing of our religions, most of what we do in life collectively does not serve life at all but, in fact, it dis-serves life and produces damage. So the New Spirituality will invite us to pre-serve life, thus preserving it in the form that we most desire. I would say that refers to every aspect of life itself. Walsch: Yes, politically, socially, economically, spiritually, and in every other way we can imagine that we interact together. I'm not sure that's what the book meant by the secret formula for life, but these comments are true. We have not used life as what I call the prime value. If Life, with a capital L, were the prime value and the prime determinant of what we choose to be, do and have, collectively and individually, if that were so we would have an entirely different kind of life on this planet and an entirely different quality of life on this planet. We are not seeing that. So the New Spirituality has been created to bring people to this point. What would be a good way for people to start that from an individual or personal basis so that it can begin expanding, so that domino effect can begin to take hold? Walsch: Tell the truth. You can pre-serve life by telling the truth about everyone to every thing. That's a tough one for a lot of folks. Walsch: That's right, but once we do that we wind up pre-serving life. We serve life first. Then live your authentic response in the moment and don't think yourself or talk yourself out of it, like the example used in the book of the woman who jumps into the pool to save a drowning child, even though she herself can't swim. Or like the man who runs into a burning building in New York City, a building that's been attacked by airplanes from the air, to save people without any thought towards his own life, and loses his life in the process but saves 10 people before he does. Those kinds of decisions are decisions that raise humanity to its highest expression of itself, and cause us to know again, in action, through our own day-to-day experience, who we really are. That is the highest expression of the highest aspect of divinity that resides within us. And divinity, of course, or God, if you please, is just another word for life. The words Life and God, Love and Freedom, and Joy, are interchangeable. Those kinds of decisions can be made by human beings, and when you ask where to begin, we begin by searching for, finding, and living our own truth. Then speaking it to everyone about every thing, and expressing it as authentically as we know how to do in everything we think, say and do. Earlier you had mentioned that people are losing patience with things. On a personal level, and from my own perspective, I seem to feel a very deep and intense desire for change on this planet. I am so weary of all the death and destruction around the world, of suicide bombers, of nuclear tension, of Americans off in foreign lands fighting wars, of poverty, of homelessness, of starvation, of lies and untruths, of illusions, of not trusting our own government on many issues. It is almost as if I feel something physical building inside that is leading up to an eruption in which I will scream at the world to Wake up. Stop the killing, stop the atrocities, stop the greed, and just stop the negativity in our news and our radio talk shows. Just stop. And finally let us give peace a chance. Let us give forgiveness a chance and let us give hope a chance. These feelings get so intense that they are palpable. So my questions is twofold, could this be part of the collective domino effect referred to in the book in that more and more of us on this planet are simply getting fed up with all the craziness? Is it almost inevitable that we have come to this point in our planet's history? Walsch: Yes, and that's the point made by the book. The only question is not its inevitability, but the timing of it. The only issue is: Will this New Spirituality come about because of the world's greatest desire, or will it come about as a result of the world's greatest calamity? I hold out great hope that we will do it not as a result of that calamity, but before we allow that calamity to be experienced. That's what the work of Humanity's Team will strive to help emerge upon the earth. I saw the link for Humanity's Team on your website. Could you tell us a little bit about what it is? Walsch: It's a worldwide, grassroots movement in towns, cities and villages across the globe, where local Humanity's Team members give educational opportunities, offer study groups, classes, week-long programs, 75-week and three-year programs, retreats, workshops, and really educational activities of every kind, allowing people the opportunity to explore the New Spirituality, to see if there isn't another way to do politics, and another way to do economics, and another way to do education, another way to do parenting, and another way to do sexuality. They will invite the world community to find another way to do all the things that we do collectively as a society, with and for each other -- another way that could create outcomes other than the outcomes we keep on repeating consistently, to our own sadness. And which we have repeated for the past several thousand years. Humanity's Team is an organization with worldwide outreach. It has more than 10,000 members. Its purpose is to create the space of possibility for a new spirituality to emerge upon the earth. Your readers can join Humanity's Team and find out what they can do on the ground, at the action level in their community, by going to www.humanitysteam.com and there they will learn all about what it is we are up to and how we seek to alter our collective reality. One of the favorite passages I read in the book is, "In the days of the New Spirituality, the message of freedom will inspire the experience of freedom itself." This rings so true for me personally because it mirrors my own experiences. Can you touch on how this internal message of freedom can and will lead the world to grasping on to the New Spirituality? It might even inspire people to join Humanity's Team, no less. Walsch: Yes, you see, freedom experienced is freedom demonstrated, and freedom is another one word definition for the soul. If we had to find a single word that could define what the human soul is at the level of essence, it would be freedom. We have denied ourselves that experience in a thousand ways. We've denied ourselves the experience of sexual freedom, of religious freedom, of political freedom, of economic freedom for sure. Of freedoms of health worries and concerns. Really, we've denied ourselves the experience of freedom in just about every way that we would desire to have the experience, and the movement back to a free expression of the life that flows through us, as us, is at the core of the New Spirituality movement. Any time we express freedom authentically, in that moment we express the New Spirituality and we begin to experience the essence of the teachings of Tomorrow's God. You've written so many books now, each of which on its own has helped so many people, leading to a certain celebrity statue for yourself in the eyes of many. How do you maintain a sense of humility from it all while still knowing and recognizing the great things that are being shared with the world? Walsch: I don't see myself as that, as a celebrity, or in any way separate from or special. I simply see myself as a person who has had an experience that is really no different than the experience of other people. Everyone is having a conversation with God all the time. All I've done, in a sense, is go public with my experience and encourage other people to do the same, and then to reference that experience in moments when they seek to come to a place of grander wisdom. So maintaining humility in this regards has been easy in that I don't see myself as any type of celebrity and reject any attempt by others to put me there. When you find yourself in a negative state of mind or in a moment of doubt, what helps you return to a state of balance? Walsch: The day that I have no doubts is the day I become dangerous, and I have no intentions of becoming dangerous. That is part of the process of my being human. What I do is pick up my own books and re-read them. How many times have you read them? Walsch: Oh, my God, I've probably read each of those books at least a hundred times. I read them every day. Are there any more books in the "Conversations With God" series coming in the future? Walsch: There will be one more, as I see it, and the book will be called Dying With God. It will be the last of the Conversations With God books. In closing, is there anything you'd like to say about your upcoming book? Walsch: I think it's the most profound spiritual statement that's ever come through the "Conversations With God" series. It is the most striking spiritual statement of the first quarter of the 21st century. Its prediction is sensational, and its descriptions of how that prediction will come about is extremely profound. For more information on Neale Donald Walsch, his books and Humanity's Team, visit www.cwg.org Doug Crandall is manager of The EDGE Newspaper in the Heartland, as well as an advertising sales consultant. Contact him at toll-free 1 (877) 776-5244 or e-mail doug@edgenews.com Copyright © 2004 Doug Crandall |
||
|
March 2004 |
|
