I cannot know, and I cannot pretend to know, the soul -agenda of the people who die of 
starvation or are sexually abused or have suffered one loss after the other in their lives or 
who in some other way have live d lives of struggle, pain, and sadness. I can only keen for them, yearn for them to have their suffering end, notice the part of 
me that wants no one  to suffer and nothing  to be abused, and, as Mary O’Malley advises, let 
my heart break as I do —because as my heart breaks, my heart opens . I can only stand in 
honor of them and of their sacrifice and of their journey and of the soul choices they have 
made in order to take  their  journey. Then I can decide who I am  in relationship to them. Who am I, and who do I choose to be, in relationship to the starving children of the 
world? Who am I, and who do I choose to be, in relationship to the oppressed and the 
downtrodden? Who am I, a nd who do I choose to be, in relationship to the disaffected and 
the disadvantaged, the disavowed and the disconnected, the dispossessed and the 
disenfranchised? Who am I and who do I choose to be? That  is the question. That  is what life gives me an opport unity to decide. And likewise, 
who am I and who do I choose to be in relationship to my own incredibly good fortune, the 
gifts I have been given, the talents I have been allowed to nurture, the kindnesses I have 
been granted, the opportunities I have been offered, the intelligence I have been permitted 
to possess, the success I have been able to experience? What do I want to make of this life, and of my Sacred Self in relationship to it? That  is the 
question. That  is what life gives me an opportunity to dec ide. And my life lived  is my 
decision and my answer. You are faced with the same opportunity. And this much I know. The universe is 
conspiring in your favor. It is placing before you in every moment all of the right and 
perfect people, circumstances, and s ituations with which to answer life’s only question: 
Who am I? Have you decided yet? As I’m sure you know, there are two ways to decide anything. One way is to decide it, 
and the other way is to not decide it. Yet always remember: Not to decide is to decid e. 
The important thing is not to allow yourself to be defined by default. If you think you are 
making no decision by making no decision, you are making a mistake. If you are not careful, 
the biggest decision you will ever make could be the decision you nev er made. So let’s be clear: all of life is a deciding. You are deciding . . . with every truth you 
embrace, with every thought you birth, with every emotion you express, with every 
experience you produce . . . you are deciding Who You Are and Who You Choos e to Be. Every act is an act of self -definition. All the changes in the collective experience of humanity have been created through the 
collective experience of humanity —and all the changes in the singular experience of your 
life have been created though t he singular experience of your life. I said it before and I’ll say 
it again: Life is an energy that feeds off the energy of Life Itself. Life is self -nourishing and 
self-creative. Life informs life about life through the process of life itself. When a chan ge occurs in your life it is because something in your life was not working, 
and you sought to change that . You may not think that you did —you may not have any 
conscious awareness that you did —but you did, I promise you. You and those who co -
created with y ou. Let me give you just one example of how this can occur. A man comes home from work every day in a sour mood about life at the office. He has 
come to dislike his job, despise his boss, disrespect his co -workers, and disparage the 
whole company. He is a clever man, though, and since he does not yet have even the 
slightest prospect of another job, he manages to cover his true feelings very well. He says 
nothing untoward, offers no criticism, displays no antipathy, and is seen on the surface as 
nothing but a loyal, model employee. After months of this he is suddenly laid off. Downsized. Let go. He can’t figure it out. What did he do to deserve this? Nothing. The answer is, nothing. But he did do something to 
create  it. His negative energies, inward and hidde n as they were, created the energy field 
from which emerged the outcome with which he is abruptly faced. Do you believe this? Do you believe that this is the way something like this can happen? Trust me. This is exactly the way it happens. “As a man thinke th in his heart, so is he.” If he thinks day and night, “I hate this place —I 
wish I didn’t have to be here anymore,” his wish will come true —even if he never utters a 
word about it. Life is like a genie let out of the bottle: It says: Your wish is my comma nd. Now let’s take your own current situation. Unlike the man in the above little story who 
hated his work, what’s going on in your life right now is a change that you did not wish (in 
even in your most private thoughts) would happen. This all came down ag ainst your will. So how does that  work? Simple. You may not have wished that this change would take place, but at some level 
you must have known that it could, and even might. And this was not a small knowing. It 
was a big knowing, in your heart. It is your knowing that creates the strongest energy, not your wishing. In fact, knowing  
trumps wishing  every time. That’s because knowing has enormous power behind it. Wishing is wimpy, flimsy. “Knowing of a certainty” is the kind of faith that moves 
moun tains. Someone once said, “What you know is what is so.”  
You can wish to win the million -dollar lottery, but if you know  that you don’t stand much 
of a chance, then you won’t stand much of a chance. You can wish to get a date with the 
most desirable person  in the class, but if you know  that you don’t stand much of a chance, 
then you won’t stand much of a chance. You can wish to feel just fine about the huge change 
that is happening in your life, but if you know  that you don’t stand much of a chance, then 
you won’t stand much of a chance. Ah, yes . . . “if only wishing could make it so. . . .”  
Well, wishing is a good start. Jiminy Cricket was right about that. But in the end, you 
must turn that wish into an awareness that your wish will come true. You must know that it 
will. But what do you tell yourself then  if, after all is said and done, it just doesn’t happen? You must let yourself remember that you are always creating at three levels of creation: the 
subconscious level, the conscious level, and the super -conscious level. It is at the super -
conscious level that you join with all other souls in a collaboration of cosmic proportion 
that allows for the perfect conditions to exist, allowing the souls involved to evolve to the 
next highest level. So the reality that you have produced, the change that you are experiencing this minute, 
is not something that you created alone. The fact is that you created it in collaboration with 
others. All the other “players” in your Game of Life created it with you. You created t he 
outcome together. For reasons known very clearly by the lot of you. In a way that serves 
the agenda of all of you. This is just one more way of saying that everything happens for the best. Now when you know  that everything happens for the best, then everything that happens 
is okay with you. The irony of this is that when everything that happens is okay with you, you 
set up an energy field of such equanimity and harmony with the universe that the universal 
law of attraction draws more equanimity and harmony into your life. Your soul knows that the process of co -creation never impinges upon the individual will 
of anyone. Nothing can happen against your inner will. Not even your death. Especially  not 
your death. (For a thorough and inspiring exploration of this particular insight, see Home 
with God in a Life That Never Ends .) Given Who and What you are (Divinity Individuated), it is impossible for anything to 
take place that violates your highest desire. The inte rweavings of life are always in 
harmony with each other. You must, therefore, have at some level agreed with all that has 
occurred and is occurring. If it happened to you, it happened through  you. This is why the soul is never unhappy. Why would the soul b e unhappy when it is always 
getting what it wants? Why  it would want  what it is getting is another question. The answer: there is always a 
reason tied to the soul’s desire to evolve. Sometimes the soul evolves most rapidly by giving up what the mind wants,  in favor of what someone else may need, or what a 
situation may require. The mind might not always be okay with this, but the soul always is. So do not recriminate against yourself. Do not make yourself wrong or chastise or 
castigate yourself for any life  outcomes that you have generated, consciously or 
unconsciously, that you would call negative. Rather, have compassion with yourself if you 
do not understand the larger reason for these outcomes, then give praise to yourself for 
your ability to meet them h ead on, then congratulate the magnificent part of yourself that 
finds a way to move through them, and finally, celebrate that aspect of yourself that sees, in 
the final analysis, the benefit  that has come to you as a result of them. You will know that you have changed your idea about life when you come to the last 
conclusion first. You will see life and everything in life as an opportunity, not an 
obstruction; as good fortune, not misfortune; as a gift, not a gaff. And your attitude about 
life itself will recreate  itself in life itself. After you’ve changed your idea about life and its purpose, you are only one step away 
from changing your idea about yourself —from changing your very identity. Do this, and you will change everything. And that  is something you  may wish to  
Take time to ponder  
Only when you’re ready, pick up the chapter at . . . WALKING HOME  
William Shakespeare had it exactly right:  
There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your 
philosophy. The final change in our list of nine could very well be the first. If the entire human race 
ever made a wholesale shift to this new way of thinking, to this new way of holding the life 
experience itself, then every moment in every day in the life of every person in the world 
woul d be transformed forever. I now invite you to make this final change. I now invite you 
to . . . CHANGE #9:  
Change your identity  
When I was a child —indeed, from the time I was eight or nine until the time I left my 
family of origin —my father repeatedly aske d me the same question, usually about once 
every other week or so:  
Who do you think you are anyway . . . ? His question was borne of frustration, but if he thought he was frustrated, he should 
have lived in my reality! I had no idea who I was or what I was  doing here, nor did I have 
any concept at all about what life was, or why it was the way  it was. I couldn’t understand it, I didn’t agree with it, and I wanted no part of it. Yet getting out of it was not an attractive 
option. (Actually, there were times when I actually thought that it might be. I am so happy to say 
that I moved through those times without succumbing to the temptation to end the most 
magnificent experience a soul could ever have. My process was a little herky -jerky, for sure. A little bump y, no question. But I made it. Thank you, God!) I came to the hope that somewhere, somewhere , there was an answer to all of this; a 
reason for it all; a way that it all made some sense. I figured that there was just something 
that I didn’t understand, the understanding of which would change everything. After my conversations with God I knew that I would never find what that “something” 
was in the Past Data held by the mind. I knew that I would have to somehow connect with a 
larger source. I knew that I was going to have to commune on a regular basis with my soul. This I did in my own way. I’ve already said that there is more than one way to meditate. The meditation technique I described earlier is one way —and one very good way —to go 
about sil encing the mind and connecting with the soul. But it is not the only way, nor is it 
necessarily, for everyone, the best way. There are many people who find it extremely difficult to sit in silent meditation. For 
them, it may seem as if the “art of meditati on” is something that is lost to them. I felt this 
way for a long time, because I am an impatient person by nature and sitting in silent 
meditation was not a thing I tolerated well. Then someone introduced me to Walking 
Meditation, and everything changed f or me around the idea of “meditation.” Suddenly, it 
was something I could do. The first thing that happened when I learned about Walking Meditation is that my whole 
idea about what meditation is completely vanished, to be replaced by a much more clear 
and concise picture of what was going on. For me, meditation always meant “clearing the 
mind of everything,” leaving the space for “the emptiness” to appear, so that I could move 
in consciousness into “the nothingness that is The All . . . ,” or something like  that. What I was supposed to be trying to do, I thought, was “empty my mind.” I was supposed 
to try to sit in one place, close my eyes, and “think of nothing.” This made me crazy, because 
my mind never turns off! It is always thinking, thinking, thinking  of something . So I was 
never very good at sitting with my legs crossed, closing my eyes, and concentrating on The 
Nothing. Frustrated, I hardly ever meditated —and envied those who said they did 
(although I secretly wondered whether they really did, or simp ly went through the 
motions, doing no better than I was able to do). Then a master teacher in my life told me that I had entirely the wrong idea of what 
meditation was about. Meditation, she said, was not about emptiness , it was about focus . Instead of trying to sit still and think about nothing, she suggested that I do a “walking 
meditation” and move about, stopping to focus  on specific things that my eyes would light 
upon. “Consider a blade of grass,” she would say. “Consider it. Look at i t closely. Regard it 
intently. Consider every aspect of it. What does it look like? What are its specific 
characteristics? What does it feel like? What is its fragrance? What is its size, compared to 
you? Look at it closely. What does it tell you about Lif e?” Then, she said, “Experience the grass in its Completeness . Take off your shoes and socks 
and walk on the grass in your bare feet. Think of nothing else but your feet. Focus your 
attention on the bottom of your feet and consider immensely exactly what y ou are feeling 
there. Tell your mind to feel nothing else, just for that moment. Ignore all other incoming 
data except the data coming from the bottom of your feet. Close your eyes, if this helps. “Walk slowly and deliberately, allowing each slow and gentl e step to tell you about the 
grass. Then open your eyes and look at all of the grass around you. Ignore all other 
incoming data except the data about the grass, coming from your eyes and feet. “Now focus on your sense of smell, and see if you can smell the  grass. Ignore all other 
incoming data except the data about the grass coming from your nose, your eyes, and your 
feet. See if you can focus your attention in this way. If you can, you will experience the grass 
as you may never have experienced it before. You will know  more about grass than you 
ever knew before, at a deeper level. You will never experience it in the same way again. You 
will realize that you have been ignoring the grass  your whole life.”  
Then, my master teacher said, do the same thing with a  flower. “Consider it. Look at it 
closely. Regard it intently (that is, with intention ). Consider every aspect of it. What does it 
look like? What are its specific characteristics? What does it feel like? What is its fragrance? What is its size, compared t o you? Look at it closely. What does it tell you about Life?”  
Then, she said, “Experience the flower in its Completeness . Bring it to your nose and smell 
it once more. Think of nothing else but your nose. Focus your attention on your nose and 
consider imme nsely exactly what you are experiencing there. Tell your mind to experience 
nothing else, just for that moment. Ignore all other incoming data except the data coming 
from your nose. Close your eyes, if this helps. “Now focus on your sense of touch, and tou ch the flower carefully. Touch the flower at 
the same time as you smell the flower. Ignore all other incoming data except the data about 
the flower coming from your fingertips and your nose. Now, open your eyes and look 
closely at the flower. See if you ca n still smell the flower, now that it is far enough away for 
you to look at it and touch it. See if you can focus your attention in this way. If you can, you 
will experience the flower as you may never have experienced it before. You will know  
more about t he flower than you ever knew before, at a deeper level. You will never 
experience it in the same way again. You will realize that you have been ignoring the 
flowers  your whole life.”  
Then, she said, do the same thing with a tree. Walk over to a tree and co nsider it. “Look 
at it closely. Regard it intently. Consider every aspect of it. What does it look like? What are 
its specific characteristics? What does it feel like? What is its fragrance? What is its size, 
compared to you? Look at it closely. What does it tell you about Life?”  
And she said, “Experience the tree in its Completeness . Place you hands upon it and feel it 
totally. Think of nothing else but your hands. Focus your attention on your hands and 
consider immensely exactly what you are experiencing there. Tell your mind to experience 
nothing else, just for that moment. Ignore all other incoming data except the data coming 
from your hands. Close your eyes, if this helps. “Now focus on your sense of smell, and smell the tree. Continue touching the tree  at the 
same time as you smell the tree. Ignore all other incoming data except the data about the tree coming from your fingertips and your nose. Now, open your eyes and look closely at 
the tree. Look up at it, and see if you can climb in consciousness to its top. See if you can 
still smell the tree, now that it is far enough away for you to look at it. Keep touching it. See 
if you can focus your attention in this way. If you can, you will experience the tree as you 
may never have experienced it before. You  will know  more about the tree than you ever 
knew before, at a deeper level. You will never experience it in the same way again. You will 
realize that you have been ignoring the trees  your whole life. “Now, step away from the tree and lose all physical con tact with it. See if you can bring 
to your mind the experience of the tree as you stand and look at it from farther away. Experience it completely. Do not be surprised if you can smell the tree, even from a 
distance. Do not be surprised if you can, in a se nse, even ‘feel’ the tree from where you are. What has happened is that you have opened yourself  to the vibration of the tree. You are 
‘catching the vibe.’ See how far back you can step from the tree and still retain ‘contact.’ 
When you lose touch with the  experience of the tree, move closer in, move back to it. See if 
this helps you regain contact. “These exercises,” she said, “will help you develop your ability to focus your attention  on 
whatever you want to experience at a heightened level . “Now, walk. W alk wherever you live. In the country, in the city, it does not matter. Walk 
slowly, but deliberately. And look around you. Let your eyes fall where they may. As your 
eyes find something, focus the fullness of your attention upon it. It can be anything. A 
garbage truck. A stop sign. A crack in the sidewalk, a pebble by the road. Look at it closely, 
from right where you are. Regard it intently. Consider every aspect of it. What does it look 
like? What are its specific characteristics? What does it feel like,  from where you are? What 
is its fragrance? Can you sense that from where you are? What is its size, compared to you? Look at it closely. What does it tell you about Life? “Continue your walk. Pick out three things on your walk to consider in this way. Thi s 
walk should take you at least a half hour. You cannot consider three things fully in less 
time, at first. Later, you will be able to consider something fully in just a moment, in a 
nanosecond. But now, you are just practicing. “This is Walking Meditation , and what you are doing is training your mind to stop 
ignoring  everything you are experiencing. You are training your mind to focus  on a 
particular aspect of your experience, so that you may experience it completely.”  
Practice Walking Meditation in this w ay for three weeks, my master teacher told me, and 
“you will never experience life the same way again.” Then, take the final step in Walking 
Meditation. Walk outside —or inside, for that matter. You can actually walk anywhere. From the bedroom to the kitche n will do. There is plenty to see, plenty to touch, plenty to 
experience. You can spend three hours with the carpet alone —and this time, she said, “do 
not pick out any particular part of what you are seeing or encountering. Try to encounter 
all of it . Seek  to embrace all of it . Attempt to focus on all of it at the same time. “Take in the Big Picture. Close your eyes at first, if this helps. Smell what you are 
smelling, hear what you are hearing, feel whatever you are ‘feeling’ of the space around 
you. Then open your eyes and add sight. See everything you are seeing, and nothing in particular. See All Of It. Smell All Of It. Feel All Of It. If this begins to overwhelm you, refocus 
on a Part Of It, so that you do not lose your psychic balance. “With enough pra ctice, you will soon be able to walk into any space or place and begin to 
experience All Of It at some level. You will realize then that you have been literally walking 
home . You have heightened your Awareness. You have raised your consciousness. You have 
expanded your ability to be Present, fully, in the moment. “Now, do this with your eyes closed and while you are sitting down, and you have Silent 
Meditation. Boom. It is as simple as that.”  
With that my master teacher smiled at me. “Then try this with sex ,” she said. “Once you 
experience sex in this way, you will never want to experience it any other way again. You 
will realize that, all your life, you have been ignoring what is really going on.”  
And she laughed. Next I will tell you about Stopping Meditat ion. For now, just walk well. I never thought it 
was polite to say this, but it is! I am going to tell you now to  
Take a walk  
And only when you’re ready, continue at . . . STOPPING MEDITATION  
There are many ways to meditate, and it was a wonderful discovery when I learned this. One of the most powerful forms of meditation for me is what I have called Stopping 
Meditation. The reason this is so powerful for me is that it can be done anywhere, and it 
takes very little time. Therefore, it is perfect for  busy people “on the go.”  
Stopping Meditation means just that. It means we stop whatever we are doing for just a 
moment and pay attention to something about it. We dissect it in that moment and then 
look closely at one of its individual pieces. This is a little bit different from Walking Meditation in that it does not take a half hour or 
more, as Walking Meditation can take. In Walking Meditation we deliberately take a walk 
for the deliberate purpose of deliberately focusing on a deliberate exper ience. In Stopping 
Meditation we do not use nearly as much time, but we can accomplish the same thing: 
focus. Stopping Meditation can be used in the midst of a very busy day. Combined  with Sitting 
Meditation and Walking Meditation it can create a powerful Trio of Tools that can 
dramatically alter your reality and raise your consciousness within a very short period of 
time. Yet even if used as the only form of meditation, it can be transformative. Here is how Stopping Meditation works: decide that six times today (and every day) you 
will stop whatever you are doing for ten seconds and look closely and intently at one of its 
component pieces. Let’s say you are washing the dishes. Stop what you are doing for ten seconds —just stop  
in the middle of it —and peer de eply inside one aspect of what you are doing. Look, 
perhaps, at the water. See it splashing on the dishes. See if you can count the drops of water on the dish in your hand. Just count the water drops. I know it is an impossible task, but 
undertake to do it  anyway, just for ten seconds. Consider the wonder of the water. Look deeply into it. Peer inside. Go inside, in your 
consciousness. See what you experience there, see what you find. Just stop for a tiny 
moment and appreciate that moment in a singular way. Okay, now the ten seconds are up. Now pull yourself out of that highly focused reality 
and back into the larger space of your experience. Don’t get “lost” in it. Blink your eyes 
rapidly, or snap your finger, and literally snap out of it. Then, notice what  you experienced 
for that brief moment. Now go on with what you were doing. Yet don’t be surprised if it takes on a whole new 
quality. What you have done is truly appreciate something. To “appreciate” something is to make 
it larger, to increase it —as prope rty, for instance, appreciates in value. When you use 
Stopping Meditation, you increase the value of your life. And of life itself. It has been my 
experience that this inevitably returns me to a place of peace. In order to remind yourself to do this six ti mes a day you may wish to have a little timer 
with you, or set your watch to beep. Later, as you get used to doing this, your stopping will 
come automatically to you. You will do this without having to be reminded. Walking down the street, you will simply stop for a moment and select a portion of what 
you are seeing and see it again, in a deeper way. You will know what you already know 
about that, but you will know it in a deeper way. This is called “knowing again,” or re -
cognizing. The purpose of all of yo ur life is simply this: to know again, to recognize, what is 
true, and Who You Really Are. There are a thousand ways to do this. Maybe you catch a reflection of yourself in a store 
window. Maybe you see a bus going by. Perhaps you spy a dog on the street, or a pebble at 
your feet. It does not matter what you focus on for those ten seconds. Just stop for a tiny 
moment and appreciate that moment in a singular way. Experience this while making love. Stop what you are doing for ten seconds, separate the 
moment into its component parts, select one part of the moment and peer deeply into it. Maybe it is the look in your beloved’s eyes. Maybe it is a sensation you are feeling —or 
creating. Just stop for a tiny moment and appreciate that moment in a singular way. I have regular times when I do this, and making love is one of them. Standing in the 
shower is another. Eating food is another. Pick up a pea from the plate, or a kernel of corn. Consider it. Appreciate it. Taste it utterly and completely. Your meal times wil l never be the 
same. Your showers will never be the same. Your lovemaking will never be the same. You 
will never be the same. This is Stopping Meditation. It takes one minute a day. Sixty seconds, in six individual 
ten-second installments. Six moments with in which you may produce The Holy Experience. Today, stop what you are doing. Just stop . Look deeply into the moment. If nothing else, 
just close your eyes and focus on the sound of your own breath. Experience the pure energy 
of life moving into and throug h your body. Just for that moment, listen to yourself breathe. Watch yourself take deeper breaths. Just listening to yourself makes you want to go deeper 
into the experience —and so you begin to breathe more deeply. It is a wonderful thing, an extraordinary  thing. Just stopping  makes you go deeper. Deeper into your experience, 
deeper into the mind of God. Now here is a meditation program that I have recommended to many people: (1) 
Walking Meditation in the morning; (2) Stopping Meditation during the day, six  times; (3) 
Sitting Meditation at night. The purpose of all of these meditations is to create focus. It is about focusing your 
attention on your experience. The reason for focus: it allows you to be here now. Focusing 
on Now pulls you out of yesterday and out of tomorrow. You do not exist in those illusions. Your only reality is This Moment, right here, right now. Peace is found in such awareness. As is love. For peace and love are one and the same, 
and you become one and the same when you enter into The Ho ly Experience. Practice Stopping Meditation right now. It’s simple, and it takes ten seconds. Right now, 
just . . . Stop  
And, after ten seconds, continue at . . . WHO ARE YOU? I had another wonderful teacher who showed me the Who Meditation . It goes like t his. Whenever you are experiencing an emotion that you don’t want to experience, just say, 
“Who?”  
That’s right. Just say to yourself, “Who?” Ask yourself, “Who is this here right now? Who 
is this that is having this experience?”  
If you are alone, you can even turn this into a little chant. It can be very powerful. Just 
take a deep breath and, on the exhale, softly but powerfully chant: “Whooooooooo?” Extend 
the vowel sound until you are out of breath. Then inhale and do it again. Do it three times. You  will have slowed your vibration, and the invisible part of you will have a chance to 
“show up.”  
If you are not alone, but with another, or in some public place, you can do this little chant 
inside your head. Or you can just ask yourself the question I sug gested above . . . “Who is this that is having this experience?”  
You can, of course, identify with any one of the number of “yous” that populate your 
inner world. There is the Little You and the Big You, the Injured You and the Healed You, 
the Scared You a nd the Brave You, the Powerless You and the Powerful You, the Worried 
You and the Confident You. But what I am hoping will happen, now that we’ve had this 
conversation, is that when you do the Who Meditation , you will chant yourself right into an 
awareness  of your larger self, of your true  self. You are not a human being. You are not the person named John Smith or Mary Jones. You 
are not your body, you are not your mind, and you are not your soul. These are things that 
You have. The You that has these thing s—indeed, that has given  your Self these things —is 
far bigger than any of them, and even all of them put together. The You that you are is God, in Particular Form. You are Deity Individuated. You are an 
Aspect of Divinity. And so is everyone and everything  else. The whole realm in which you live and breathe and have your being is Heaven. The 
Kingdom of God is not something to which you are striving to return, but something within 
which you are living now. It is the place where you will be always, and all wa ys. That kingdom has three realms: the Realm of Knowing, the Realm of Experiencing, and 
the Realm of Being. Your present consciousness is now focused on the Realm of 
Experiencing —otherwise known as the Realm of the Physical, or the Realm of the Relative. While you are here, you have all the tools you will ever need to use this realm to experience 
what you came here to experience . . . which is Who You Really Are. You can not only experience it, you can recreate it anew as you go along, in the next 
grandest version of the greatest vision ever you held about that. That is the wonder of life 
and the glory of you. This is, I know, a change in the way you have thought of yourself. It is a change in the 
way you have experienced your life. It is a change that will change everything. Make this change permanent, not simply a temporarily held idea. Make it permanent 
now. For I tell you again . . . . . . it is a change that will change everything. “Go outside and play!”  
said God. “I have given you Universes as fields to run free in! And here —take this and wrap yourself in it — 
It’s called: LOVE  
and It will always, always  keep you warm. And stars! The sun and the moon and the stars! Look upon these often, for they will remind you of your own  
light! And eyes . . . oh, gaze into the eyes of every  Lover. Gaze into the eyes of every  other  
for they have given you their  Universes  
as fields to run free in. There. I have given you everything you need. Now go, go, go outside  
and 
play!”  
—‘Go Outside and Play’  © 2007 Em Clair e AFTERWORD  
Final Thoughts, but No Goodbye’s  
People who have read this material as an unpublished manuscript and others who have 
participated in workshops and spiritual renewal retreats where I have presented it 
verbally, have made a number of comments and  asked several questions that have 
motivated me to clarify a few points in the “model” I am presenting here. I hope these 
Addendum Considerations will help “close the gap” for you, too, if you are querying these 
same things. One question I have been asked is, “In the Line of Causality, what is the difference 
between ‘belief’ and ‘truth’?” That is a very good question. My answer is that there is no 
difference in structure, only in source. Both one’s “belief” and one’s “truth” are concepts . Yet 
in the model I  have been given to share, “belief” is understood to be a concept arising out of 
one’s perception , while “truth” is understood to be a concept arising out of one’s data. Data is information pulled only from a person’s past. It is information held in the mi nd. Perception is information pulled from a person’s total view of life, which, in turn, arises out 
of that’s person’s perspective. If the person takes the soul’s perspective —which includes 
information about the past, present, and future —rather than the mi nd’s perspective, then 
Perception will always offer a broader view than simple Past Data. I have also been asked how it can be said that “behavior” leads to “events” in every case 
in the life of people, as shown on my Line of Causality. “What about an elde rly couple that I 
know,” one lady challenged me at a workshop in Denver, “who was robbed at gunpoint in 
their own home and beaten badly by the men who broke in. How did this couple’s behavior 
produce that event in their life?”  
This has led me to further ex plore the Line of Causality and then explain it in deeper 
terms. As I have come to understand it, the Line of Causality has two wild cards in it. These are 
Behavior and Event. I call these wild cards because their content can be placed in the Line 
of Causa lity in the singular sense (that is, by one person) or in the plural sense  (that is, by 
the collective known as humanity). Everything having to do with Perspective, Perception, and Belief is stuff that we, 
ourselves, as individuals, adopt for reasons singu lar to us. Then come Behavior and Event, 
which flow to each of us from our own  Perspective, Perception, and Belief, as well as those 
of others. Here in the Line of Causality there is a “seep through” or a “bleed through” from the life 
encounter of everyone  in our environment. This bleed through plays a collective effect on 
the Behaviors and Events that we each individually encounter in life. This does not mean, 
however, that we do not control or create our experience and our reality. We still most 
certainly  do, for after an Event occurs, the mechanism of the mind becomes a singularly 
influenced device once again, reverting to an individual’s own Data, Truth, Thought, 
Emotion, and Experience, so to produce an individual’s own Reality. Thus it could be said th at nothing in the Behavior of, say, Ronald Cotton (mentioned 
earlier in this book as the man mistakenly identified as a rapist) produced the Event of his 
having been incarcerated for eleven years. It was something in the collective Behavior of 
others that produced this Event. Yet after the Event occurred, he returned to his own very 
singular Line of Causality to produce his own Reality, in which he forgave his accuser and 
became friends with her, writing a book together about their experience. I venture to say 
that his Reality was influenced heavily by the perspective that begins his Line of Causality, 
and which produces his own perception or view of the world. Having said that, I acknowledge that the model here is a work in progress. It is ever 
changing —which, of course, is not only incredibly appropriate for this book, but the very 
point of it . And it is not only the people in my Changing Everything workshops who offer me 
new insights and take me to new areas of inquiry. You, too, can do this —and I hope tha t 
you will. Online at www.ChangingChange.net , you can call up this book paragraph by paragraph, 
line by line, click on any word or phrase, and post a question or an observation about it. Others who have selected the same portion of the text may have already posted there, or 
may do so in the future, making for a lively online discussion. The idea is for this book to be living literature , not some stuck -in-concrete thesis that is 
presented and then goes unquestioned and unchallenged. I am excited about the 
Interactive Book concept, and hope that you are, too. Now, I have been asked by many people, “How can I make the changes you have been 
suggesting here?” They want to know, “Where do I start?” They earnestly ask, “What should 
I be doing right now?” They hear the message, they see the destination to w hich it seeks to 
take them, but they don’t know how to “get there from here.”  
To help you get going and keep moving on all this, we have developed the Changing 
Change Program. This is an extraordinary resource that will walk you through , step by step, 
the transformation of your own life. The very first section of this program —Getting Started —is powerful enough to make 
real change visible in your life very quickly. The program includes Here Is What You Can Do Now section; life -prodding questions; 
practical s uggestions; mental, spiritual, and emotional tools; sure -footed guidance; and 
even personal coaching  if you wish. PLUS . . . a way for you to turn what you’ve learned into 
learning for others. That is, a way for you to pass it on. Now let me be clear about  something. You do not need the Changing Change Program in 
order to implement the insights found in this text. This book gives you all the information 
you require to get started, explaining the Mechanics of the Mind and the System of the Soul 
and offering you an opportunity to experiment with them to see if they make sense and 
work for you. The Changing Change Program is a supplemental resource for those who 
really want to delve deeply into the kind of life this book describes, who really see all this —
as my  wife Em said at the outset —as a practice. With or without the Changing Change Program, there are five things that I believe a 
person must do to successfully and powerfully implement the Nine Changes That Can 
Change Everything:  1. Desire Absolutely  
2. Unde rstand Thoroughly  
3. Embrace Completely  
4. Enact Consistently  
5. Share Widely  
1. You have to desire to change your life, and the way you experience  your life, more than 
anything else in the world. Every creation of God begins with desire. The more powerful  
the desire, the more likely the outcome. Desire is an emotion —and emotion is the creative 
force of the universe . That it why it is so sad that so many people think that emotions are 
things over which they have no control. Deeply desire. That is the first step. 2. What is given to you here is a complete technology for altering your reality and 
changing the way you experience change —which means, of course, changing your life, 
because life is change and change is life. Study this book thoroughly. If there is any part of it 
you do not understand, go to www.ChangingChange.net  and use the resources that have 
been placed there to help  you understand it. The Changing Change Process discussed in this 
book is not the o nly way to dramatically and wonderfully change your life, but it is a way. Don’t throw this way away. 3. This is not about partial involvement here. I am reminded of the story of the chicken 
and the pig. They were walking down the road one day and they cam e upon a billboard that 
read: Ham and Eggs —America’s Favorite Breakfast! The chicken turned to the pig and 
exclaimed, “Look at that! Doesn’t that make you proud?” To which the pig replied, “Well, 
that’s easy for you to say. For you it’s partial involvement . For me, it’s total commitment.”  
This is about total commitment. This is not about embracing a few of these concepts; this 
is about embracing all of it . The thing is, there is a linkage here. One thing leads to another 
and depends on it for the whole to m ake sense. You can’t cafeteria -line your own 
transformation, taking a concept here and grabbing an idea there. This is the real meal deal. 4. Changing your life means changing your life; it does not mean deciding to change your 
life; it does not mean talki ng about changing your life or reading about changing your life. The Changing Change Process requires not only total embracing of the concepts here, but 
consistent and continual application of them, day in and day out, moment to moment. Now 
this could soun d like an arduous undertaking, but it need not be. It can be (and, indeed, 
always winds up being) a pure joy. Yet you must know what it involves. One day a guru was teaching his students, when a student said, “Master, you have been 
teaching us for months a nd none of us seem to be getting any closer to enlightenment. What does it take?”  
The guru smiled and said, “You must take a sieve to the ocean and fill it with water.”  
The students did not understand. They grumbled, “This is not a real guru. Everyone 
know s you cannot fill a sieve with water. It runs right out. That’s the problem with what he 
teaches, too. It sounds good, but it runs right out.” So his students deserted him. All but one. A young woman said, “Master, I know the problem is not in your teachin g, 
but in my understanding. Help me to understand.”  Filled with compassion, the guru replied, “Come with me.” He took her to a store and 
bought a sieve. Then he took her to the shore. “Here,” he instructed, “fill this sieve with 
water.”  
Eager to learn, she  went to the water’s edge and dipped the sieve into the water. But 
when she brought it to him, all the water had run out. He only smiled. “Fill the sieve with 
water,” he said quietly, and so she tried again, knowing that he would not ask her to do 
somethin g she could not do. But it was no use. She ran back to him as fast as she could with 
the sieve, but the water ran out. “Fill the sieve with water,” he said simply, and she tried once more, this time dipping the 
sieve and turning and running back to him so fast that she lost her breath. Still, no water 
remained in the sieve. “To hell with this!” she screamed then. “I’m done  with this! I’m done 
with this whole life  of being a spiritual student! ” She threw the sieve fiercely into the air and 
stomped away. “Wai t!” the guru called. “Look.”  
The young woman turned just in time to see the sieve riding the ocean waves . . . then 
sinking beneath the surface and disappearing. The guru approached the student. “You 
cannot just dip in here and dip in there. This is not ab out dipping and running. You have to 
throw yourself in. You have to be totally immersed.”  
And the student understood. 5. The way to make it easy to get where you want to go is to travel with others who are 
also going there. You do not have to “go it alone. ” First you can get help, then you can give  
help, by joining an online community of people from all over the world who are going 
where you are going —and helping each other get there. Em and I have created just such an online community. I have spoken about this several 
times in the text, and I will now mention it once again. It is the Changing Change Network, 
and it is located at www.Chan gingChange.net . Here you will find many resources that could serve you wonderfully in this moment and 
for a long time to come, including:  
• Question & Answer section, where you can post any question that came up for you 
as you moved through this text and g et an answer from members of the Changing 
Change Network. • Personal Interactive Area, your private “desk,” where you can move into a direct 
personal experience of this message through individual study online, tracking 
your encounter in your own online jou rnal. • Changing Change Message Board, where you can interact with others in the 
Changing Change Network, sharing comments and observations and both offering  
and receiving  suggestions and support during life -changing moments. • Video and audio clips from m e about many subjects relating to the Conversations 
with God series of books, from which this text has emerged. • An Additional Resource Section listing books, people, and organizations that can 
be of enormous assistance to those facing major changes in th eir lives. • Articles of interest posted periodically, relating to some facet of the information 
found here. • Schedule of all upcoming Changing Everything Workshops, and an opportunity to 
attend them at a discount as a member of the Changing Change Networ k. 
• Network Support Center, where anyone can ask for information, assistance, 
references of books, or people or organizations that could make a life transition 
easier. • Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) and Additional Explanation Area, where 
material in t his text is explored in even greater detail. • “How I Survived the Big Change in My Life” area, where members of the network 
can post their own stories. All of the above features are free. You may move into an even higher level of interaction 
by ordering t he Changing Change Workbook and Study Guide, available for purchase by 
Network members at the website, or, to get on the fast track, by enrolling in the fee -based 
Changing Change Personal Program —an eighteen -week online course which includes the 
Workbook a nd Study Guide, as well as other exercises, reading assignments, 
mental/spiritual projects to complete, daily life experiments, applications technologies, 
weekly questions to ponder (and answer), and inspirational excerpts from the 3,000 -plus 
pages of the Conversations with God material, all packaged into three six -week Units, 
focused on the Mental, Physical, and Spiritual aspects of personal transformation. The 
Network also offers opportunities to receive personal spiritual coaching on the phone or by 
emai l as a supplement to the Program. And, you can place into the Personal Program someone who is on the waiting list for a 
full scholarship by bringing them along with you through the I Want to Share project, the 
part of the Program that implements one of its  core teachings: What you wish to experience 
yourself, give to another. Here is what I know about all of this: We are all in this Moment of Change together. The 
work we are invited to do is our work, not just your work or mine. If we do this work of 
person al transformation together, we can transform not only ourselves, but the world 
entire. If we only  transform ourselves but not anyone else, we will not have moved very far 
in what we came here to do. For we are all one (the very first message of Conversatio ns with 
God). What we do for another we do for ourselves, and what we fail to do for another we 
fail to do for ourselves. I do not lift up the Self if I lift up only the single part of the Self that I call “me.” That is a 
start, and it is a good start, but  it is only the beginning. In the end, if no one else is uplifted, I 
have healed but one of more than six billion parts. That is like trying to heal your body by 
healing a cell at the tip of your finger. It’s a start. It certainly is that. But it is not th e end of 
things. That’s why I like to say: “It’s our work, or it won’t  work.”  
And now here’s the good news. Healing is exponential. Energy moves not in a 1 -2-3-4 
progression, but in a 2 -4-8-16-32 progression. Therefore, moving an entire culture to a new experience of itself is not only possible (and today, with the speed of communication, ever 
more so), but probable. That is, it is going to happen. The only question, then, is, what kind 
of culture will we move to? That is, what is the future we are creating ? Everything is already changing, and if we want it to change in the direction that we 
choose, we have to change everything. So start with yourself, then touch others. So here I’ve offered some final thoughts, but do not say goodbye. I sincerely hope you 
will use the many resources available to members of the Changing Change Network and 
that we can stay in touch. Just go to the website above and interact  with us! I also offer you here these additional resources:  
www.EmClairePoet.com  
The website of the poet whose works appear in this book  
www.MaryOMalley.com  
An amazing teacher and guide on the journey through life  
www.NealeDonaldWalsch.com  
The personal website of this book’s author  
www.cwg.org  
The website of the Conversations with God Foundation  
www.Free2BU.com  
The website of the global educational movement based on the messages of Conversations 
with God  
I will close with items that are usually placed by authors in the front of their books —my 
Acknowledgments and my Dedication. These have been moved to the back in this text so that you could get right into the 
conversation I wished to have with you, without wading through a lot of front matter. My 
placement of this material here does not, however, in any way indicate reduced importance 
to me. I so deeply appreciate all those I have ackno wledged here, and my book dedication is 
the sincere expression of a grateful heart. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS  
It is important to me that I publicly acknowledge the breathtaking and experience -
altering contributions that have been made to my life by those whose work and teachings I 
have studied deeply, some of whom I have had the honor of knowing personally. If any of 
the ideas found here are considered valuable, it is not because I am in any way brilliant, but 
rather, because I have been blessed to have been led to p eople of true wisdom, searing 
insight, and breathtaking clarity, and am standing on the shoulders of giants. These include . . . Alan Cohen  
Rev. Terry Cole -Whittaker  
Werner Erhard  
Lyman W. Griswold  
Jean Houston  
Barbara Marx Hubbard  
Gerald Jampolsky  
Byron K atie 
Ken Keyes, Jr.  
Dr. Elisabeth Kübler -Ross, MD  
Dr. Ilchi Lee  
Eckhart Tolle  
Dennis Weaver  
Marianne Williamson  
Now, having read this book, you have heard their words and their ideas flow to you, 
through me. It is impossible with so many teachers for me to  be able to say in every case 
from which one a concept, an idea, or an inspiration came to me. I owe them all so very 
much, and I am deeply, deeply grateful. I want to acknowledge as well, and in particular, Beth and Jerry Stark, my in -laws, who 
are two of  the finest people I have ever had the privilege to know. Conspicuous in their 
kindness, gentle, sensitive, and caring in their treatment of everyone whose lives they 
touch, generous in their patience, expansive in their understanding, unending in their 
forgiveness and acceptance, these two wonderful people have inspired me to be a better 
person, not by saying that I might, but by showing how we all might. That they have raised 
a daughter, my wife, who is herself all of these things magnified , is living tes timony to Who 
They Are. DEDICATION  
I know it is more or less de rigueur when books are being published for an author to 
acknowledge a life partner —but perhaps it is not so usual for an author to acknowledge 
every one of them. I must do so, because each of the ladies with whom I have been 
privileged to spend a goodly portion of this life has contributed enormously to my 
awareness, my understanding, and my growth. Even as I ask forgiveness for all of the 
errors that I made in their presence, I offer my profou nd thanks to each of them. You know 
who are you, and I would tell the world would it not unfairly invade your privacy. Thank 
you. For all you gave me, and for all you suffered as I tried so hard to grow up. And now, thanks Bigger Than Thanks to the extraor dinary woman who gives me the gift 
of her presence in my life…my wife and spiritual companion on this final leg of my journey. My Beloved, My Other, I cannot hope to adequately describe the wonder of you, the joy that 
you bring to so many moments, the heal ing of your touch, the gentleness of your being, the 
brilliance of your mind, the hugeness of your heart, and, most of all, the deep, deep wisdom of 
your soul. As I share intimate and loving companionship with you every day, I am aware of the 
unbelievable blessing that is mine. I dedicate this book to you  
EM CLAIRE  
for it is you who  
CHANGED EVERYTHING  THE WORKBOOK AND STUDY GUIDE  
The comprehensive Changing Change Workbook & Study Guide  mentioned in the 
Afterword is a highly recommended addendum to this text . The Guide  focuses on specific 
areas of life experience, offering exercises, experiments, assignments, study questions, and 
extended commentary. The intent of this supplementary book is to assist readers of this 
text in applying, functionally , the concept s explored here. A look at its Table of Contents 
provides a glimpse into how the Workbook & Study Guide  extends the reach of the material:  
Chapter 1: Changing Sadness into Happiness;  Chapter 2: Changing Reaction into Response;  
Chapter 3: Changing Fear into Excitement;  Chapter 4: Changing Expectation into 
Anticipation;  Chapter 5: Changing Resistance into Acceptance;  Chapter 6: Changing 
Disappointment into Detachment;  Chapter 7: Changing Enragement into Engagement;  
Chapter 8: Changing Addiction into Prefe rence;  Chapter 9: Changing Requirement into 
Contentment;  Chapter 10: Changing Judgment into Observation;  Chapter 11: Changing 
Worry into Wonder;  Chapter 12: Changing Thought into Presence;  Chapter 13: Changing a 
Time of Turmoil into a Time of Peace. The Changing Change Workbook & Study Guide  may be ordered at 
www.ChangingChange.net . ALSO BY  NEALE  DONALD  WALSCH  
Conversations with God, Book 1  
Conversations with God, Book 1 Guidebook  
Conversations with God, Book  2 
Meditations from Conversations with God, Book 2  
Conversations with God, Book 3  
Questions and Answers on Conversations with God  
Friendship with God  
Communion with God  
The Little Soul and the Sun  
The Little Soul and the Earth  
Happier Than God  
Conversation s with God Re -MINDer Cards  
Moments of Grace  
Neale Donald Walsch on Abundance and Right Livelihood  
Neale Donald Walsch on Holistic Living  
Neale Donald Walsch on Relationships  
Bringers of the Light  
ReCreating Your Self  
Conversations with God for Teens  
The Ne w Revelations: A Conversation with God  The Wedding Vows from Conversations with God  
(with Nancy Fleming -Walsch)
When_Everything_Changes_Change_Everything__In_A_Time_Of_Turmoil,_A_Pathway_To_Peace.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        I cannot know, and I cannot pretend to know, the soul -agenda of the people who die of 
starvation or are sexually abused or have suffered one loss after the other in their lives or 
who in some other way have live d lives of struggle, pain, and sadness. I can only keen for them, yearn for them to have their suffering end, notice the part of 
me that wants no one  to suffer and nothing  to be abused, and, as Mary O’Malley advises, let 
my heart break as I do —because as my heart breaks, my heart opens. I can only stand in 
honor of them and of their sacrifice and of their journey and of the soul choices they have 
made in order to take  their  journey. Then I can decide who I am  in relationship to them. Who am I, and who do I choose to be, in relationship to the starving children of the 
world. Who am I, and who do I choose to be, in relationship to the oppressed and the 
downtrodden. Who am I, a nd who do I choose to be, in relationship to the disaffected and 
the disadvantaged, the disavowed and the disconnected, the dispossessed and the 
disenfranchised. Who am I and who do I choose to be. That  is the question. That  is what life gives me an opport unity to decide. And likewise, 
who am I and who do I choose to be in relationship to my own incredibly good fortune, the 
gifts I have been given, the talents I have been allowed to nurture, the kindnesses I have 
been granted, the opportunities I have been offered, the intelligence I have been permitted 
to possess, the success I have been able to experience. What do I want to make of this life, and of my Sacred Self in relationship to it. That  is the 
question. That  is what life gives me an opportunity to dec ide. And my life lived  is my 
decision and my answer. You are faced with the same opportunity. And this much I know. The universe is 
conspiring in your favor. It is placing before you in every moment all of the right and 
perfect people, circumstances, and s ituations with which to answer life’s only question: 
Who am I. Have you decided yet. As I’m sure you know, there are two ways to decide anything. One way is to decide it, 
and the other way is to not decide it. Yet always remember: Not to decide is to decid e. The important thing is not to allow yourself to be defined by default. If you think you are 
making no decision by making no decision, you are making a mistake. If you are not careful, 
the biggest decision you will ever make could be the decision you nev er made. So let’s be clear: all of life is a deciding. You are deciding. with every truth you 
embrace, with every thought you birth, with every emotion you express, with every 
experience you produce. you are deciding Who You Are and Who You Choos e to Be. Every act is an act of self -definition. All the changes in the collective experience of humanity have been created through the 
collective experience of humanity —and all the changes in the singular experience of your 
life have been created though t he singular experience of your life. I said it before and I’ll say 
it again: Life is an energy that feeds off the energy of Life Itself. Life is self -nourishing and 
self-creative. Life informs life about life through the process of life itself. When a chan ge occurs in your life it is because something in your life was not working, 
and you sought to change that. You may not think that you did —you may not have any 
conscious awareness that you did —but you did, I promise you. You and those who co -
created with y ou. Let me give you just one example of how this can occur. A man comes home from work every day in a sour mood about life at the office. He has 
come to dislike his job, despise his boss, disrespect his co -workers, and disparage the 
whole company. He is a clever man, though, and since he does not yet have even the 
slightest prospect of another job, he manages to cover his true feelings very well. He says 
nothing untoward, offers no criticism, displays no antipathy, and is seen on the surface as 
nothing but a loyal, model employee. After months of this he is suddenly laid off. Downsized. Let go. He can’t figure it out. What did he do to deserve this. Nothing. The answer is, nothing. But he did do something to 
create  it. His negative energies, inward and hidde n as they were, created the energy field 
from which emerged the outcome with which he is abruptly faced. Do you believe this. Do you believe that this is the way something like this can happen. Trust me. This is exactly the way it happens. “As a man thinke th in his heart, so is he. ” If he thinks day and night, “I hate this place —I 
wish I didn’t have to be here anymore,” his wish will come true —even if he never utters a 
word about it. Life is like a genie let out of the bottle: It says: Your wish is my comma nd. Now let’s take your own current situation. Unlike the man in the above little story who 
hated his work, what’s going on in your life right now is a change that you did not wish (in 
even in your most private thoughts) would happen. This all came down ag ainst your will. So how does that  work. Simple. You may not have wished that this change would take place, but at some level 
you must have known that it could, and even might. And this was not a small knowing. It 
was a big knowing, in your heart. It is your knowing that creates the strongest energy, not your wishing. In fact, knowing  
trumps wishing  every time. That’s because knowing has enormous power behind it. Wishing is wimpy, flimsy. “Knowing of a certainty” is the kind of faith that moves 
moun tains. Someone once said, “What you know is what is so. ”  
You can wish to win the million -dollar lottery, but if you know  that you don’t stand much 
of a chance, then you won’t stand much of a chance. You can wish to get a date with the 
most desirable person  in the class, but if you know  that you don’t stand much of a chance, 
then you won’t stand much of a chance. You can wish to feel just fine about the huge change 
that is happening in your life, but if you know  that you don’t stand much of a chance, then 
you won’t stand much of a chance. Ah, yes. “if only wishing could make it so. ”  
Well, wishing is a good start. Jiminy Cricket was right about that. But in the end, you 
must turn that wish into an awareness that your wish will come true. You must know that it 
will. But what do you tell yourself then  if, after all is said and done, it just doesn’t happen. You must let yourself remember that you are always creating at three levels of creation: the 
subconscious level, the conscious level, and the super -conscious level. It is at the super -
conscious level that you join with all other souls in a collaboration of cosmic proportion 
that allows for the perfect conditions to exist, allowing the souls involved to evolve to the 
next highest level. So the reality that you have produced, the change that you are experiencing this minute, 
is not something that you created alone. The fact is that you created it in collaboration with 
others. All the other “players” in your Game of Life created it with you. You created t he 
outcome together. For reasons known very clearly by the lot of you. In a way that serves 
the agenda of all of you. This is just one more way of saying that everything happens for the best. Now when you know  that everything happens for the best, then everything that happens 
is okay with you. The irony of this is that when everything that happens is okay with you, you 
set up an energy field of such equanimity and harmony with the universe that the universal 
law of attraction draws more equanimity and harmony into your life. Your soul knows that the process of co -creation never impinges upon the individual will 
of anyone. Nothing can happen against your inner will. Not even your death. Especially  not 
your death. (For a thorough and inspiring exploration of this particular insight, see Home 
with God in a Life That Never Ends. ) Given Who and What you are (Divinity Individuated), it is impossible for anything to 
take place that violates your highest desire. The inte rweavings of life are always in 
harmony with each other. You must, therefore, have at some level agreed with all that has 
occurred and is occurring. If it happened to you, it happened through  you. This is why the soul is never unhappy. Why would the soul b e unhappy when it is always 
getting what it wants. Why  it would want  what it is getting is another question. The answer: there is always a 
reason tied to the soul’s desire to evolve. Sometimes the soul evolves most rapidly by giving up what the mind wants,  in favor of what someone else may need, or what a 
situation may require. The mind might not always be okay with this, but the soul always is. So do not recriminate against yourself. Do not make yourself wrong or chastise or 
castigate yourself for any life  outcomes that you have generated, consciously or 
unconsciously, that you would call negative. Rather, have compassion with yourself if you 
do not understand the larger reason for these outcomes, then give praise to yourself for 
your ability to meet them h ead on, then congratulate the magnificent part of yourself that 
finds a way to move through them, and finally, celebrate that aspect of yourself that sees, in 
the final analysis, the benefit  that has come to you as a result of them. You will know that you have changed your idea about life when you come to the last 
conclusion first. You will see life and everything in life as an opportunity, not an 
obstruction; as good fortune, not misfortune; as a gift, not a gaff. And your attitude about 
life itself will recreate  itself in life itself. After you’ve changed your idea about life and its purpose, you are only one step away 
from changing your idea about yourself —from changing your very identity. Do this, and you will change everything. And that  is something you  may wish to  
Take time to ponder  
Only when you’re ready, pick up the chapter at. WALKING HOME  
William Shakespeare had it exactly right:  
There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your 
philosophy. The final change in our list of nine could very well be the first. If the entire human race 
ever made a wholesale shift to this new way of thinking, to this new way of holding the life 
experience itself, then every moment in every day in the life of every person in the world 
woul d be transformed forever. I now invite you to make this final change. I now invite you 
to. CHANGE #9:  
Change your identity  
When I was a child —indeed, from the time I was eight or nine until the time I left my 
family of origin —my father repeatedly aske d me the same question, usually about once 
every other week or so:  
Who do you think you are anyway. His question was borne of frustration, but if he thought he was frustrated, he should 
have lived in my reality. I had no idea who I was or what I was  doing here, nor did I have 
any concept at all about what life was, or why it was the way  it was. I couldn’t understand it, I didn’t agree with it, and I wanted no part of it. Yet getting out of it was not an attractive 
option. (Actually, there were times when I actually thought that it might be. I am so happy to say 
that I moved through those times without succumbing to the temptation to end the most 
magnificent experience a soul could ever have. My process was a little herky -jerky, for sure. A little bump y, no question. But I made it. Thank you, God. ) I came to the hope that somewhere, somewhere, there was an answer to all of this; a 
reason for it all; a way that it all made some sense. I figured that there was just something 
that I didn’t understand, the understanding of which would change everything. After my conversations with God I knew that I would never find what that “something” 
was in the Past Data held by the mind. I knew that I would have to somehow connect with a 
larger source. I knew that I was going to have to commune on a regular basis with my soul. This I did in my own way. I’ve already said that there is more than one way to meditate. The meditation technique I described earlier is one way —and one very good way —to go 
about sil encing the mind and connecting with the soul. But it is not the only way, nor is it 
necessarily, for everyone, the best way. There are many people who find it extremely difficult to sit in silent meditation. For 
them, it may seem as if the “art of meditati on” is something that is lost to them. I felt this 
way for a long time, because I am an impatient person by nature and sitting in silent 
meditation was not a thing I tolerated well. Then someone introduced me to Walking 
Meditation, and everything changed f or me around the idea of “meditation. ” Suddenly, it 
was something I could do. The first thing that happened when I learned about Walking Meditation is that my whole 
idea about what meditation is completely vanished, to be replaced by a much more clear 
and concise picture of what was going on. For me, meditation always meant “clearing the 
mind of everything,” leaving the space for “the emptiness” to appear, so that I could move 
in consciousness into “the nothingness that is The All. ,” or something like  that. What I was supposed to be trying to do, I thought, was “empty my mind. ” I was supposed 
to try to sit in one place, close my eyes, and “think of nothing. ” This made me crazy, because 
my mind never turns off. It is always thinking, thinking, thinking  of something. So I was 
never very good at sitting with my legs crossed, closing my eyes, and concentrating on The 
Nothing. Frustrated, I hardly ever meditated —and envied those who said they did 
(although I secretly wondered whether they really did, or simp ly went through the 
motions, doing no better than I was able to do). Then a master teacher in my life told me that I had entirely the wrong idea of what 
meditation was about. Meditation, she said, was not about emptiness, it was about focus. Instead of trying to sit still and think about nothing, she suggested that I do a “walking 
meditation” and move about, stopping to focus  on specific things that my eyes would light 
upon. “Consider a blade of grass,” she would say. “Consider it. Look at i t closely. Regard it 
intently. Consider every aspect of it. What does it look like. What are its specific 
characteristics. What does it feel like. What is its fragrance. What is its size, compared to 
you. Look at it closely. What does it tell you about Lif e. ” Then, she said, “Experience the grass in its Completeness. Take off your shoes and socks 
and walk on the grass in your bare feet. Think of nothing else but your feet. Focus your 
attention on the bottom of your feet and consider immensely exactly what y ou are feeling 
there. Tell your mind to feel nothing else, just for that moment. Ignore all other incoming 
data except the data coming from the bottom of your feet. Close your eyes, if this helps. “Walk slowly and deliberately, allowing each slow and gentl e step to tell you about the 
grass. Then open your eyes and look at all of the grass around you. Ignore all other 
incoming data except the data about the grass, coming from your eyes and feet. “Now focus on your sense of smell, and see if you can smell the  grass. Ignore all other 
incoming data except the data about the grass coming from your nose, your eyes, and your 
feet. See if you can focus your attention in this way. If you can, you will experience the grass 
as you may never have experienced it before. You will know  more about grass than you 
ever knew before, at a deeper level. You will never experience it in the same way again. You 
will realize that you have been ignoring the grass  your whole life. ”  
Then, my master teacher said, do the same thing with a  flower.
The author acknowledges that they cannot truly understand the experiences of others who have gone through such struggles, but they can only empathize with them and hope for their suffering to end.
What is the author's perspective on the struggles of others, such as those who have suffered from abuse or starvation?
Stopping Meditation involves stopping what one is doing and focusing on a specific aspect of the experience, allowing for a deeper understanding and appreciation of the world.
What is the main idea behind the concept of "Stopping Meditation"?
The program is a resource to help individuals make the changes they desire in their lives, providing step-by-step guidance and support.
What is the purpose of the Changing Change Program?
The author emphasizes the importance of total commitment and consistency, stating that it is not about dipping in and out of the concepts, but about fully embracing and applying them.
What is the key to successfully implementing the concepts presented in the book?
The author emphasizes that "Who You Are" is not just about individual identity, but about embracing one's true self and aligning with the universe.
What is the author's perspective on the concept of "Who You Are"?