Contents  
Acknowledgments  ................................ ...........  4 
Introduction  ................................ ...................  11 
Chapter 1  ................................ .......................  20 
Chapter 2  ................................ .....................  166 
Chapter 3  ................................ .....................  193 
Chapter 4  ................................ .....................  234 
Chapter 5  ................................ .....................  248 
Ten Commitments  ................................ .... 252 
Chapter 6  ................................ .....................  275 
Chapter 7  ................................ .....................  285 
Chapter 8  ................................ .....................  311 
Chapter 9  ................................ .....................  376 
Chapter 10  ................................ ...................  402 
Chapter 11  ................................ ...................  403 Chapter 12  ................................ ...................  424 
Chapter 13  ................................ ...................  465 
Chapter 14  ................................ ...................  500 
In Closing  ................................ .....................  520 
About the Author  ................................ ........  523 
 
  Acknowledgments  
First, last, and always, I want to 
acknowledge the Source of everything that 
is in this book,  everything that is life —and 
of life itself. Second, I want to thank my spiritual 
teachers, who include the saints and sages 
of all  religions. Third, it is clear to me that all of us could 
produce a list of people who have touched 
our lives  in ways so meaningful and so 
profoundly as to defy categorization or 
description; people  who have shared with 
us their wisd om, told us their truth, suffered 
us our faults and our  foibles in their infinite 
patience, and who have seen us through all 
of it; seeing the best in us  there was to see. People who, in their acceptance of us, as well as their refusal to accept the  parts of 
us they knew we really didn’t choose, 
caused us to grow; to get bigger somehow. The people, in addition to my parents, who 
have been there for me in that way include  
Samantha Gorski, Tara -Jenelle Walsch, 
Wayne Davis, Bryan Walsch, Martha 
Wright, the  late Ben Wills, Jr., Roland 
Chambers, Dan Higgs, C. Berry Carter II, 
Ellen Moyer, Anne  Blackwell, Dawn 
Dancing Free, Ed Keller, Lyman W. (Bill) 
Griswold, Elisabeth Kübler -Ross,  and dear, 
dear Terry Cole - Whittaker. I want to include in this group my former 
mates, whose privacy I wish to respect by 
not naming them here, but whose 
contributions to my life are deeply grasped 
and appreciated. And as gratitude for the gifts I have 
received from all these wonderful people 
swells my  heart, I am especially wa rmed by 
the thought of my helpmate, spouse, and 
partner, Nancy  Fleming Walsch, a woman 
of extraordinary wisdom, compassion and 
love, who has shown  me that my highest 
thoughts about human relationships do not 
have to remain fantasies, but  can be 
dreams come  true. Fourth and finally, I want to recognize some 
people I have never met, but whose lives 
and work have impacted me with such 
force that I cannot let this moment pass 
without thanking  them from the depth of my 
being for the moments of exquisite 
pleasure , insight into the  human condition, 
and pure, simple Lifegefeelkin (I made up 
that word!) they have given me. You know what it is like when someone has 
given you a taste, a glorious moment, of 
what is  really true about life? For me, most 
of these have been  creative or performing 
artists,  because it is from art that I receive 
inspiration, to which I retreat in moments of 
reflection,  and in which I find that which we 
call God most beautifully expressed. And so I want to thank...John Denver, 
whose songs touch my soul and fill it with 
new hope  about how life could be; Richard 
Bach, whose writings reach into my life as 
if they were my  own, describing so much of 
what has been my experience; Barbra 
Streisand, whose  directing, acting, and 
musical artistry grips my h eart time and 
time again, causing it to feel  what is true, 
not merely know it; and the late Robert 
Heinlein, whose visionary literature has  raised questions and posed answers in 
ways no one else has dared even 
approach. For 
ANNE M. WALSCH  
Who not only ta ught me that God exists,  
but opened my mind to the wondrous truth  
that God is my best friend;  
and who was far more than a mother to 
me, 
but gave birth in me  
to a longing for and a love of God,  
and all that is good. Mom was  
my first meeting  
with an angel. And for  
ALEX M. WALSCH  
Who told me repeatedly throughout my 
life, 
“There’s nothing to it,”  
“You don’t have to take No for an answer,”  
“You make your own luck,”  
and 
“There’s more where that came from.”  
Dad was  
my first experience  
of fearlessness. Introduction  
You are about to have an extraordinary 
experience. You are about to have a 
conversation  with God. Yes, yes. I 
know...that’s not possible. You probably 
think (or have been taught)  that’s not 
possible. One can talk to God, sure, but not 
with Go d. I mean, God is not going to  talk 
back, right? At least not in the form of a 
regular, everyday kind of conversation! That’s what I thought, too. Then this book 
happened to me. And I mean that literally. This book was not written by me, it 
happened to me. And in your reading of it, 
it will happen to  you, for we are all led to the 
truth for which we are ready. My life would probably be much easier if I 
had kept all of this quiet. Yet that wasn’t the  reason it happened to me. And whatever 
inconveniences the book may cause me 
(such as  being called a blasphemer, a 
fraud, a hypocrite for not having lived these 
truths in the past,  or—perhaps worse —a 
holy man), it is not possible for me to stop 
the process now. Nor do I  wish to. I have 
had my chances to step away from this 
whole thing, and I haven’t taken them. I’ve 
decided to stick with what my instincts are 
telling me, rather than what much of the 
world  will tell me, about the material here. Those instincts say this book is not 
nonsense, the overworking of a frus trated 
spiritual  imagination, or simply the self -
justification of a man seeking vindication 
from a life misled. Oh, I’ve thought of all of 
those things —every one of them. So I gave 
this material to a few  people to read while it was still in manuscript form . They were 
moved. And they cried. And  they laughed 
for the joy and the humor in it. And their 
lives, they said, changed. They were  
transfixed. They were empowered. Many said they were transformed. That’s when I knew this book was for 
everyone, and that it  had to be published; 
for it is a  wonderful gift to all those who truly 
want answers and who truly care about the 
questions; for  all those who have embarked 
upon quests for truth with sincerity of heart, 
longing of soul,  and openness of mind. And 
that’s pretty much all of us. This book addresses most, if not all, of the 
questions we have ever asked about life 
and love, purpose and function, people and 
relationships, good and evil, guilt and sin,  forgiveness and redemption,  the path to 
God and the road to hell...everything. It 
directly  discusses sex, power, money, 
children, marriage, divorce, life work, 
health, the hereafter, the  before -
now...everything. It explores war and 
peace, knowing and not knowing, giving 
and taking, joy and sorrow. It looks at the 
concrete and the abstract, the visible and 
the invisible,  the truth and the untruth. You could say that this book is “God’s latest 
word on things,” although some people 
might  have a little trouble with that, 
particularly if they think that God stopped 
talking 2,000 years  ago or that, if God has 
continued communicating, it’s been only 
with holy men, medicine  women, or 
someone who has been meditating for 30 
years, or good for 20, or at least half -decent for 10 ( none of which categories includes 
me). The truth is, God talks to everybody. The 
good and the bad. The saint and the 
scoundrel. And certainly, all of us in 
between. Take you, for instance. God has 
come to you many ways  in your life, and 
this is another of them. How many times 
have you heard the old axiom:  When the 
student is ready, the teacher will appear? This book is our teacher. Shortly after this material began happening 
to me, I knew that I was talking with God. Directly, personally. Irrefutably. And t hat 
God was responding to my questions in 
direct  proportion to my ability to 
comprehend. That is, I was being 
answered in ways, and with  language, that 
God knew I would understand. This accounts for much of the colloquial style  of 
the writing and the occas ional references to 
material I’d gathered from other sources 
and prior experiences in my life. I know now 
that everything that has ever come to me in 
my life  has come to me from God, and it 
was now being drawn together, pulled 
together, in a  magnificent, c omplete 
response to every question I ever had. And somewhere along the way I realized a 
book was being produced —a book 
intended for  publication. Indeed, I was told 
specifically during the latter part of the 
dialogue (in February  1993) that three 
books woul d actually be produced, and 
that: 
1. The first would deal mainly with personal 
topics, focusing on an individual’s life 
challenges  and opportunities. 2. The second would deal with more global 
topics of geopolitical and metaphysical life 
on the  planet, and the challenges now 
facing the world. 3. The third would deal with universal truths 
of the highest order, and the challenges 
and opportunities of the soul. This is the first of those books, completed 
in February 1993. For clarity I should 
explain that,  as I transcribed this dialogue 
by hand, I underlined or circled words and 
sentences which  came to me with 
particular emphasis —as if God were 
booming them out —and these were  later 
placed in italics by the typesetter. I need now to say that I am —having read 
and reread the wisdom contained here —
deeply  embarrassed by my own life, which has been marked by continued mistakes 
and misdeeds,  some very shameful 
behaviors, and some choices and 
decisions which I’m certain others  consider 
hurtful and unforgivable. Though I have 
profound remorse that it was through  
others’ pain, I am unspeakably grateful for 
all that I have learned, and found that I 
have still  yet to learn, because of the 
people in my life. I apologize to everybody 
for the slowness of  that learning. Yet I am 
encouraged by God to grant myself 
forgiveness for my failings and  not to live in 
fear and guilt but to always keep trying —
keep on trying —to live a grander  vision. I know that’s what God wants for all of us. Neale Donald Walsch ,  
Central Point, Oregon  Christmas 1994  
  Chapter 1  
In the spring of 1992 —it was around Easter 
as I recall —an extraordinary phenomenon 
occurred in my life. God began talking with 
you. Through me. Let me explain. I was very unhappy during that period, 
personally, professionally, an d emotionally, 
and my  life was feeling like a failure on all 
levels. As I’d been in the habit for years of 
writing my  thoughts down in letters (which I 
usually never delivered), I picked up my 
trusty yellow legal  pad and began pouring 
out my feelings. This time, rather than another letter to 
another person I imagined to be victimizing 
me, I  thought I’d go straight to the source; straight to the greatest victimizer of them 
all. I decided  to write a letter to God. It was a spiteful, passionate letter, full of  
confusions, contortions, and 
condemnations. And a  pile of angry 
questions. Why wasn’t my life working? What would it take to get it to work? Why 
could I not find happiness in relationships? Was the experience of adequate money  
going to elude me forever? F inally —and 
most emphatically —What had I done to 
deserve a  life of such continuing struggle? To my surprise, as I scribbled out the last of 
my bitter, unanswerable questions and 
prepared  to toss my pen aside, my hand 
remained poised over the paper, as if he ld 
there by some  invisible force. Abruptly, the 
pen began moving on its own. I had no idea 
what I was about to  write, but an idea seemed to be coming, so I decided to flow 
with it. Out came...  
Do you really want an answer to all these 
questions, or are you  just venting? I blinked...and then my mind came up with 
a reply. I wrote that down, too. Both. I’m venting, sure, but if these 
questions have answers, I’d sure as hell 
like to hear  them! You are “sure as hell”...about a lot of things. But wouldn’t it be n ice to be “sure as  
Heaven”? And I wrote:  What is that supposed to 
mean? Before I knew it, I had begun a 
conversation...and I was not writing so 
much as taking  dictation. That dictation went on for three years, and 
at the time, I had no idea where it was 
going. The  answers to the questions I was 
putting on paper never came to me until the 
question was  completely written and I’d put 
my own thoughts away. Often the answers 
came faster than I  could write, and I found 
myself scribbling to keep up. When I 
becam e confused, or lost the  feeling that 
the words were coming from somewhere 
else, I put the pen down and walked  away 
from the dialogue until I again felt 
inspired —sorry, that’s the only word which 
truly fits —to return to the yellow legal pad 
and start transc ribing again. These conversations are still going on as I 
write this. And much of it is found on the 
pages  which follow...pages which contain 
an astounding dialogue which at first I disbelieved, then  assumed to be of 
personal value, but which I now underst and 
was meant for more than just  me. It was 
meant for you and everyone else who has 
come to this material. For my  questions are 
your questions. I want you to get into this dialogue as soon 
as you can, because what’s really 
important here  is not my story, b ut yours. It 
is your life story which brought you here. It 
is your personal  experience to which this 
material has relevance. Otherwise,  you 
would not be here, with it,  right now. So let’s enter the dialogue with a question I 
had been asking for a very long  time: How 
does  God talk, and to whom? When I asked 
this question, here’s the answer I received:  I talk to everyone. All the time. The question 
is not to whom do I talk, but who  listens? Intrigued, I asked God to expand on this 
subject. Here’s what God sai d: 
First, let’s exchange the word talk with the 
word communicate. It’s a much better  
word, a much fuller more accurate one. When we try to speak to each other —Me to  
you, you to Me, we are immediately 
constricted by the unbelievable limitation of  
words. For  this reason, I do not 
communicate by words alone. In fact, rarely 
do I do  so. My most common form of 
communication is through feeling. Feeling is the language of the soul. If you want to know what’s true for you 
about something, look to how you’re feeling  
about it. Feelings are sometimes difficult to 
discover —and often even more difficult to  
acknowledge. Yet hidden in your deepest 
feelings is your highest truth. The trick is to get to those feelings. I will 
show you how. Again. If you wish. I told God that  I did wish, but that right now 
I wished even more for a complete and full  
answer to my first question. Here’s what 
God said:  
I also communicate with thought. Thought 
and feelings are not the same, although  
they can occur at the same time. In 
communicating  with thought, I often use 
images  and pictures. For this reason, 
thoughts are more effective than mere 
words as tools  of communication. In addition to feelings and thoughts, I also 
use the vehicle of experience as a grand  
communicator. And finally, when feelings and thoughts and 
experience all fail, I use words. Words  are 
really the least effective communicator. They are most open to misinterpretation,  
most often misunderstood. And why is that? It is because of what 
words are. Words are merely uttera nces:  
noises that stand for feelings, thoughts, 
and experience. They are symbols. Signs. Insignias. They are not Truth. They are not 
the real thing. Words may help you understand 
something. Experience allows you to know. Yet there are some things you canno t 
experience. So I have given you other tools of knowing. And these are called feelings. And so too, thoughts. Now the supreme irony here is that you 
have all placed so much importance on the  
Word of God, and so little on the 
experience. In fact, you place  so little value 
on experience that when what you 
experience of God differs from what you’ve 
heard of  God, you automatically discard the 
experience and own the words, when it 
should  be just the other way around. Your experience and your feelings about a 
thing represent what you factually and  
intuitively know about that thing. Words can 
only seek to symbolize what you know,  and 
can often confuse what you know. These, then, are the tools with which I 
communicate, yet they are not the methods,  for not all feel ings, not all 
thoughts, not all experience, and not all 
words are from  Me. Many words have been uttered by others, 
in My name. Many thoughts and many  
feelings have been sponsored by causes 
not of My direct creation. Many  
experiences result from these. The challenge is one of discernment. The 
difficulty is knowing the difference  between 
messages from God and data from other 
sources. Discrimination is a  simple matter 
with the application of a basic rule:  
Mine is always your Highest Thought, your 
Clearest Word , your Grandest Feeling. Anything less is from another source. Now the task of differentiation becomes 
easy, for it should not be difficult even for  the beginning student to identify the 
Highest, the Clearest, and the Grandest. Yet will I give you these gu idelines:  
The Highest Thought is always that thought 
which contains joy. The Clearest Words  are 
those words which contain truth. The 
Grandest Feeling is that feeling which you  
call love. Joy, truth, love. These three are interchangeable, and one 
always leads to the other. It matters not  in 
which order they are placed. Having with these guidelines determined 
which messages are Mine and which have  
come from another source, the only 
question remaining is whether My 
messages will  be heeded. Most of My  messages are not. Some, 
because they seem too good to be true. Others, because they seem too difficult to 
follow. Many, because they are simply  
misunderstood. Most, because they are not 
received. My most powerful messenger is 
experience, and even this you  ignore. Especially  this you ignore. Your world would not be in its present 
condition were you to have simply listened 
to your experience. The result of your not 
listening to your experience is that you 
keep  re-living it, over and over again. For 
My purpos e will not be thwarted, nor My will 
be ignored. You will get the message. Sooner or later. I will not force you to, 
however. I  will never coerce you. For I have 
given you a free will —the power to do as you choose —and I will never take that 
away from you, e ver. And so , I will continue sending you the 
same messages over and over again,  
throughout the millennia and to whatever 
corner of the universe you occupy. Endlessly will I send you My messages, 
until you have received them and held them  
close, calling the m your own. My messages will come in a hundred 
forms, at a thousand moments, across a  
million years. You cannot miss them if you 
truly listen. You cannot ignore them once  
truly heard. Thus,  will our communication 
begin in earnest. For in the past,  you have  
only talked to Me, praying to Me, 
interceding with Me, beseeching Me. Yet 
now can I  talk back to you, even as I am 
doing here. How can I know this communication is from 
God? How do I know this is not my own  
imagination? What would be the differen ce? Do you not 
see that I could just as easily work  through 
your imagination as anything else? I will 
bring you the exact right thoughts,  words or 
feelings, at any given moment, suited 
precisely to the purpose at hand,  using one 
device, or several. You wil l know these words are from Me 
because you, of your own accord, have  
never spoken so clearly. Had you already 
spoken so clearly on these questions, you  
would not be asking them. To whom does God communicate? Are 
there special people? Are there special 
times? All people are special, and all moments are 
golden. There is no person and there is  no 
time one more special than another. Many 
people choose to believe that God  
communicates in special ways and only 
with special people. This removes the 
mass  of the peo ple from responsibility for 
hearing My message, much less receiving 
it (which is another matter ) and  allows them 
to take someone else’s word for  everything. You don’t have to listen to Me, for you’ve 
already decided that others  have heard 
from Me on every subject, and you have 
them to listen to. By listening to what other people think they 
heard Me say, you don’t have to think at  all. This is the biggest reason for most people 
turning from My messages on a personal  
level. If you acknowledge that you are receiving My messages directly, then you 
are responsible for interpreting them. It is 
far safer and much easier to accept the  
interpretation of others (even others who 
have lived 2,000 years ago) than seek to  
interpret the message you may very well be 
receivi ng in this moment now. Yet I invite you to a new form of 
communication with God. A two -way 
communication. In truth, it is you who have 
invited Me. For I have come to you, in  this 
form, right now, in answer to your call. Why do some people, take Christ, for  
example, seem to hear more of Your 
communication  than others? Because some people are willing to 
actually listen. They are willing to hear, and 
they are willing to remain open to the communication even when it seems scary, 
or crazy,  or downright wrong. We should listen to God even when what’s 
being said seems wrong? Especially when it seems wrong. If you 
think you are right about everything, who  
needs to talk with God? Go ahead and act on all that you know. But 
notice that you’ve all been doing th at since 
time began. And look at what shape the 
world is in. Clearly, you’ve missed  
something. Obviously, there is something 
you don’t understand. That which you do  
understand must seem right to you, 
because “right” is a term you use to 
designate  something  with which you agree. What you’ve missed will, therefore, appear 
at first  to be “wrong.”  The only way to move forward on this is to 
ask yourself, “What would happen if  
everything I thought was ‘wrong’ was 
actually ‘right’?” Every great scientist 
knows  about this. When what a scientist 
does is not working, a scientist sets aside 
all of the  assumptions and starts over. All 
great discoveries have been made from a  
willingness, and ability, to not be right. And 
that’s what’s needed here. You cannot know God unt il you’ve stopped 
telling yourself that you already know  God. You cannot hear God until you stop thinking 
that you’ve already heard God. I cannot tell you My Truth until you stop 
telling Me yours. But my truth about God comes from You. Who said so? Others. What others? Leaders. Ministers. Rabbis. Priests. Books. The Bible, for heaven’s sake! Those are not authoritative sources. They aren’t? No. Then what is? Listen to your feelings. Listen to your 
Highest Thoughts. Listen to your 
experience. Whenever any one of these 
differ from what you’ve been told by your 
teachers, or  read in your books, forget the 
words. Words are the least reliable 
purveyor of Truth. There is so much I want to say to You, so 
much I want to ask. I don’t know where to 
begin . For instance, why is it that You do not 
reveal Yourself? If there really is a God, 
and You are  It, why do You not reveal 
Yourself in a way we can all understand? I have done so, over and over. I am doing 
so again right now. No. I mean by a method of reve lation that 
is incontrovertible; that cannot be denied. Such as? Such as appearing right now before my 
eyes. I am doing so right now. Where? Everywhere you look. No, I mean in an incontrovertible way. In a 
way no man could deny. What way would that be? In what form or 
shape would you have Me appear? In the form or shape that you actually have. That would be impossible, for I have no 
form or shape you understand. I could 
adopt  a form or shape that you could 
understand, but then everyone would 
assume that  what they have seen is the 
one and only form and shape of God, rather 
than a form  or shape of God —one of many. People believe I am what they see Me as, 
rather than what they do not see. But I  am 
the Great Unseen, not what I cause Myself 
to be in any partic ular moment. In a  sense, 
I am what I am not. It is from the am -notness that I come, and to it I always  
return. Yet when I come in one particular form or 
another —a form in which I think people  can 
understand Me —people assign Me that 
form forevermore. And sh ould I come in  
any other form, to any other people, the first 
say I did not appear to the second,  because 
I did not look to the second as I did to the 
first, nor say the same things —so how 
could it have been Me? You see, then, it 
matters not in what form o r in what  manner 
I reveal Myself —whatever manner I 
choose and whatever form I take, none  will 
be incontrovertible. But if You did something that would 
evidence the truth of who You are beyond 
doubt or  question...  ...there are still those who would say, it is of 
the devil, or simply someone’s  imagination. Or any cause other than Me. If I revealed myself as God Almighty, King 
of Heaven and Earth, and moved  
mountains to prove it, there are those who 
would say, “It must have been Satan.”  
And such is as it shoul d be. For God does 
not reveal Godself to Godself from or  
through outward observation, but through 
inward experience. And when inward  
experience has revealed Godself, outward 
observation is not necessary. And if  
outward observation is necessary, inward 
expe rience is not possible. If then, revelation is requested, it cannot be 
had, for the act of asking is a statement  that 
it is not there; that nothing of God is now being revealed. Such a statement  
produces the experience. For your thought 
about something is creative, and your  word 
is productive, and your thought and your 
word together are magnificently  effective in 
giving birth to your reality. Therefore , shall 
you experience that God is not  now 
revealed, for if God were, you would not 
ask God to be. Does tha t mean I cannot ask for anything I 
want? Are You saying that praying for 
something  actually pushes it away from 
us? This is a question which has been asked 
through the Ages —and has been  
answered whenever it has been asked. Yet 
you have not heard the answer, or will  not 
believe it. The question is answered again, in today’s 
terms, and today’s language, thusly:  
You will not have that for which you ask, nor 
can you have anything you want. This  is 
because your very request is a statement 
of lack, and your saying you want a  thing 
only works to produce that precise 
experience —wanting —in your reality. The correct prayer is therefore never a 
prayer of supplication, but a prayer of  
gratitude. When you thank God in advance for that 
which you choose to experi ence in your  
reality, you, in effect, acknowledge that it is 
there...in effect. Thankfulness is thus  the 
most powerful statement to God; an 
affirmation that even before you ask, I have  
answered. Therefore,  never supplicate. Appreciate. But what if I am gra teful to God in advance 
for something, and it never shows up? That 
could  lead to disillusionment and 
bitterness. Gratitude cannot be used as a tool with 
which to manipulate God; a device with  
which to fool the universe. You cannot lie to 
yourself. Your min d knows the truth of  your 
thoughts. If you are saying “Thank you, 
God, for such and such,” all the while  being 
very clear that it isn’t there in your present 
reality, you can’t expect God to be  less 
clear than you, and so produce it for you. God knows what  you know, and what you 
know is what appears as your reality. But how then can I be truly grateful for 
something I know is not there ? Faith. If you have but the faith of a mustard 
seed, you shall move mountains. You  come 
to know it is there because I said it is there; 
because I said that, even before  you ask, I 
shall have answered; because I said, and 
have said to you in every  conceivable way, 
through every teacher you can name, that 
whatsoever you shall  choose, choosing it in 
My Name, so shall it be. Yet s o many people say that their prayers 
have gone unanswered. No prayer —and a prayer is nothing more 
than a fervent statement of what is so —
goes unanswered. Every prayer —every 
thought, every statement, every feeling —is 
creative. To the degree that it is ferve ntly 
held as truth, to that degree will it be made  
manifest in your experience. When it is said that a prayer has not been 
answered, what has in actuality happened  
is that the most fervently held thought, 
word, or feeling has become operative. Yet  
what you  must know —and here is the 
secret —is that always it is the thought 
behind  the thought —what might be called 
the Sponsoring Thought —that is the 
controlling  thought. If, therefore, you beg and supplicate, there 
seems a much smaller chance that you  will 
experi ence what you think you are 
choosing, because the Sponsoring 
Thought  behind every supplication is that 
you do not have now what you wish. That  
Sponsoring Thought becomes your reality. The only Sponsoring Thought which could 
override this thought is the tho ught held  in 
faith that God will grant whatever is asked, without fail. Some people have such  faith, 
but very few. The process of prayer becomes much 
easier when, rather than having to believe  
that God will always say “yes” to every 
request, one understands intuitively, that 
the request itself is not necessary. Then the 
prayer is a prayer of thanksgiving. It is not 
a request at all but a statement of gratitude 
for what is so. When you say that a prayer is a statement 
of what is so, are you saying that God does  
nothing; that everything which happens 
after a prayer is a result of the prayer’s 
action? If you believe that God is some omnipotent 
being who hears all prayers, says “yes”  to 
some, “no” to others, and “maybe, but not now” to the rest, you ar e mistaken. By  what 
rule of thumb would God decide? If you believe that God is the creator and 
decider of all things in your life, you are  
mistaken. God is the observer, not the creator. And 
God stands ready to assist you in living  
your life, but not in th e way you might 
expect. It is not God’s function to create, or 
uncreate, the circumstances or conditions 
of your life. God created you, in the image 
and likeness of God. You have created the  
rest, through the power God has given you. God created the proces s of life and life  
itself as you know it. Yet God gave you free 
choice, to do with life as you will. In this sense, your will for you is God’s will 
for you. You are living your life the way you are 
living your life, and I have no preference in  
the matter. This is the grand illusion in which you have 
engaged: that God cares one way or the  
other what you do. I do not care what you do, and that is hard 
for you to hear. Yet do you care what  your 
children do when you send them out to 
play? Is it a matter of cons equence to  you 
whether they play tag, or hide and seek, or 
pretend? No, it is not, because you  know 
they are perfectly safe. You have placed 
them in an environment which you  consider 
friendly and very okay. Of course, you will always hope that they 
do not hurt themselves. And if they do, you  
will be right there to help them, heal them, 
allow them to feel safe again, to be happy  
again, to go and play again another day. But whether they choose hide and seek or  
pretend will not matter to you the next day, 
either. You will tell them, of course, which games 
are dangerous to play. But you cannot  stop 
your children from doing dangerous things. Not always. Not forever. Not in  every 
moment from now until death. It is the wise 
parent who knows this. Yet the  parent 
never stops caring about the outcome. It is 
this dichotomy —not caring deeply  about 
the process but  caring deeply about the 
result —that comes close to  describing the 
dichotomy of God. Yet God, in a sense, does not even care 
about the outcome. Not the ultimate  
outcome. This is because the ultimate 
outcome is assured. And this is the second  
great illusion of man: that the outcome of 
life is in doubt. It is this doubt about ultimate outcome that 
has created your greatest enemy, which  is 
fear. For if you doubt outcome, then you 
must doubt Creator —you must doubt  God. And if you doubt God, you must live in fear 
and guilt all your life. If you doubt God’s intentions —and God’s 
ability to produce this ultimate result —then 
how can you ever relax? How can you ever 
truly find peace? Yet God has full power  to 
match intentions with results. You cannot 
and will not believe in this (even though  you 
claim that God is all -powerful), and so you have to create in your imagination a  power 
equal to God, in order that you may find a 
way for God’s will to be thwarted. And so 
you have created in your mythology the 
being you call “devil.” You have even  
imagined a God at war with this being 
(thinking that God solves problems the way  
you do). Finally, you have actually 
imagined that God could lose this war. All 
of this  violates everything you say you 
know about God, but this doesn’t matter. You live  your illusion, and thus feel your 
fear, all out of your decision to doubt God. But what if you made a new decision? What 
then would be the re sult? I tell you this:  you 
would live as the Buddha did. As Jesus did. As did every saint you have ever  idolized. Yet, as with most of those saints, people 
would not understand you. And when you  tried to explain your sense of peace, your 
joy in life, your inner ecstasy, they would  
listen to your words, but not hear them. They would try to repeat your words, but  
would add to them. They would wonder how you could have 
what they cannot find. And then they would  
grow jealous. Soon jealousy would turn to 
rage, a nd in their anger they would try to  
convince you that it is you who do not 
understand God. And if they were unsuccessful at tearing 
you from your joy, they would seek to harm  
you, so enormous would be their rage. And 
when you told them it does not matter,  that 
even death cannot interrupt your joy, nor 
change your truth, they would surely  kill 
you. Then, when they saw the peace with which you accepted death, they would  call 
you saint, and love you again. For it is the nature of people to love, then 
destroy, then love again that which they  
value most. But why? Why do we do that? All human actions are motivated at their 
deepest level by one of two emotions —fear 
or love. In truth there are only two 
emotions —only two words in the language  
of the  soul. These are t he opposite ends of 
the great polarity which I created when I  
produced the universe, and your world, as 
you know it today. These are the two points —the Alpha and 
the Omega —which allow the system you  
call “relativity” to be. Without these two points, withou t these two ideas about 
things,  no other idea could exist. Every human thought, and every human 
action, is based in either love or fear. There  
is no other human motivation, and all other 
ideas are but derivatives of these two. They 
are simply different ver sions —different 
twists on the same theme. Think on this deeply and you will see that it 
is true. This is what I have called the  
Sponsoring Thought. It is either a thought 
of love or fear. This is the thought behind  
the thought behind the thought. It is the  first 
thought. It is prime force. It is the raw  
energy that drives the engine of human 
experience. And here is how human behavior produces 
repeat experience after repeat  experience; it is why humans love, then destroy, then 
love again: always there is the  swing from 
one emotion to the other. Love sponsors 
fear sponsors love sponsors  fear...  
...And the reason is found in the first lie —
the lie which you hold as the truth about  
God—that God cannot be trusted; that 
God’s love cannot be depended upon; that  
God’s acceptance of you is conditional; that 
the ultimate outcome is thus in doubt. For if 
you cannot depend on God’s love to always 
be there, on whose love can you  depend? If God retreats and withdraws when you do 
not perform properly, will not  mere morta ls 
also? ...And so it is that in the moment you pledge 
your highest love, you greet your  greatest 
fear. For the first thing you worry about after 
saying “I love you” is whether you’ll hear it  
back. And if you hear it back, then you 
begin immediately to wor ry that the love 
you have just found, you will lose. And so 
all action becomes a reaction —defense  
against loss —even as you seek to defend 
yourself against the loss of God. Yet if you knew Who You Are —that you are 
the most magnificent, the most  remarkable, 
the most splendid being God has ever 
created —you would never fear. For who 
could reject such wondrous magnificence? Not even God could find fault in  such a 
being. But you do not know Who You Are, and you 
think you are a great deal less. And  where 
did you g et the idea of how much less than 
magnificent you are? From the  only people whose word you would take on everything. From your mother and your  father. These are the people who love you the 
most. Why would they lie to you? Yet have  
they not told you that yo u are too much of 
this, and not enough of that? Have they  not 
reminded you that you are to be seen and 
not heard? Have they not scolded you in some of the 
moments of your greatest exuberance? And, did they not encourage you to set 
aside some of your wildes t imagining? These are the messages you’ve received, 
and though they do not meet the criteria,  
and are thus not messages from God, they 
might as well have been, for they have  
come from the gods of your universe surely 
enough. It was your parents who taught  you that 
love is conditional —you have felt their  
conditions many times —and that is the 
experience you take into your own love  
relationships. It is also the experience you bring to Me. From this experience you draw your 
conclusions about Me. Within this 
framework  you speak your truth. “God is a 
loving God,” you say, “but if you break His  
commandments, He will punish you with 
eternal banishment and everlasting  
damnation.”  
For have you not experienced the 
banishment of your own parents? Do you 
not know the pa in of their damnation? How, 
then, could you imagine it to be any  
different with Me? You have forgotten what it was like to be 
loved without condition. You do not  
remember the experience of the love of 
God. And so you try to imagine what God’s  
love must be like, based on what you see 
of love in the world. You have projected the role of “parent” onto 
God, and have thus come up with a  God 
Who judges and rewards or punishes, 
based on how good He feels about what  
you’ve been up to. But this is a simplistic 
view of God, based on your mythology. It  
has nothing to do with Who I Am. Having thus created an entire thought 
system about God based on human  
experience rather than spiritual truths, you 
then create an entire reality around love. It 
is a fear -based reality, r ooted in the idea of 
a fearful, vengeful God. Its Sponsoring  Thought is wrong, but to deny that thought 
would be to disrupt your whole theology. And though the new theology which would 
replace it would truly be your salvation,  you 
cannot accept it, because  the idea of a God 
Who is not to be feared, Who will  not judge, 
and Who has no cause to punish is simply 
too magnificent to he  embraced within even 
your grandest notion of Who and What God 
is. This fear -based love reality dominates your 
experience of love; indeed, actually  creates 
it. For not only do you see yourself 
receiving love which is conditional, you  also 
watch yourself giving it in the same way. And even while you withhold and  retreat 
and set your conditions, a part of you 
knows t his is not what love really is. Still, 
you seem powerless to change the way you dispense it You’ve learned the  hard 
way, you tell yourself, and you’ll be damned 
if you’re going to leave yourself  vulnerable 
again. Yet the truth is, you’ll be damned if 
you don’t. [By your own (mistaken) thoughts about 
love do you damn yourself never to  
experience it purely. So, too, do you damn 
yourself never to know Me as I really am. Until you do. For you shall not be able to 
deny Me forever, and the moment will  come 
for our Reconciliation.] Every action taken by human beings is 
based in love or fear, not simply those  
dealing with relationships. Decisions 
affecting business, industry, politics, 
religion,  the education of your young, the 
social agenda of your nations, th e 
economic goals  of your society, choices involving war, peace, attack, defense, 
aggression,  submission; determinations to 
covet or give away, to save or to share, to 
unite or to  divide —every single free choice 
you ever undertake arises out of one of the 
only two  possible thoughts there are: a 
thought of love or a thought of fear. Fear is the energy which contracts, closes 
down, draws in, runs, hides, hoards,  
harms. Love is the energy which expands, opens 
up, sends out, stays, reveals, shares,  
heals. Fear w raps our bodies in clothing, love 
allows us to stand naked. Fear clings to 
and clutches all that we have, love gives all 
that we have away. Fear holds close, love  
holds dear. Fear grasps, love lets go. Fear rankles, love soothes. Fear attacks, love  
amends. Every human thought, word, or deed is 
based in one emotion or the other. You 
have  no choice about this, because there is 
nothing else from which to choose. But you  
have free choice about which of these to 
select. You make it sound so easy, and yet in the 
moment of decision fear wins more often 
than not. Why is that? You have been taught to live in fear. You 
have been told about the survival of the  
fittest and the victory of the strongest and 
the success of the cleverest. Precious  little 
is said about the g lory of the most loving. And so you strive to be the fittest, the  
strongest, the cleverest —in one way or another —and if you see yourself as  
something less than this in any situation, 
you fear loss, for you have been told that  to 
be less is to lose. And so of course you choose the action 
fear sponsors, for that is what you have  
been taught. Yet I teach you this: when you 
choose the action love sponsors, then  will 
you do more than survive, then will you do 
more than win, then will you do more  than 
succeed. Th en will you experience the full 
glory of Who You Really Are, and  who you 
can be. To do this you must turn aside the 
teachings of your well -meaning, but 
misinformed,  worldly tutors, and hear the 
teachings of those whose wisdom comes 
from another  source. There are many such teachers among you, 
as always there have been, for I will not  
leave you without those who would show 
you, teach you, guide you, and remind you  
of these truths. Yet the greatest reminder is 
not anyone outside you, but the voice  
within you. This is the first tool that I use, 
because it is the most accessible. The voice within is the loudest voice with 
which I speak, because it is the closest to  
you. It is the voice which tells you whether 
everything else is true or false, right or  
wrong,  good or bad as you have defined it. It is the radar that sets the course, steers  
the ship, guides the journey if you but let it. It is the voice which tells you right now 
whether the very words you are reading are  
words of love or words of fear. By this measure can you determine whether they 
are words to heed or words to ignore. You said that when I always choose the 
action that love sponsors, then I will 
experience the  full glory of who I am and 
who I can be. Will you expand on this 
please? There is only one purpose for all of life, and 
that is for you and all that lives to  
experience fullest glory. Everything else you say, think, or do is 
attendant to that function. There is nothing  
else for your soul to do, and nothing else 
your soul wants to do. The won der of this  
purpose is that it is never -ending. An 
ending is a limitation, and God’s purpose is  
without such a boundary. Should there 
come a moment in which you experience  yourself in your fullest glory, you will in that 
instant imagine an ever-greater  glory to  
fulfill. The more you are, the more you can 
become, and the more you can become,  
the more you can yet be. The deepest secret is that life is not a 
process of discovery, but a process of  
creation. You are not discovering yourself but  
creating yourself  anew. Seek, therefore, 
not to  find out Who You Are, seek to 
determine Who You Want to Be. There are those who say that life is a 
school, that we are here to learn specific 
lessons, that  once we “graduate” we can go 
on to larger pursuits, no longer shackled by 
the body. Is this  correct? It is another part of your mythology, based 
on human experience. Life is not a school? No. We are not here to learn lessons? No. Then why are we here? To remember, and recreate, Who You Are. I have told you, over and over again. You 
do not believe Me. Yet that is well as it  
should be. For truly, if you do not create 
yourself as Who You Are, that you cannot  
be. Okay, You’ve lost me. Let’s go back to this 
school bit. I’ve heard teacher after teacher 
tell us  that life  is a school. I’m frankly 
shocked to hear You deny that. School is a place you go if there is 
something you do not know that you want 
to know. It is not a place you go if you 
already know a thing and simply want to  
experience your knowingness. Life (as you  call it) is an opportunity for you 
to know experientially what you already  
know conceptually. You need learn nothing 
to do this. You need merely remember  what 
you already know, and act on it. I’m not sure I understand. Let’s start here. The soul —your soul —
knows all there is to know all the time. There’s nothing hidden to it, nothing 
unknown. Yet knowing is not enough. The 
soul seeks to experience. You can know yourself to be generous, but 
unless you do something which displays  generosity, you have nothing but a concept. You can know yourself to be kind, but  
unless you do someone a kindness, you 
have nothing but an idea about yourself. It is your soul’s only desire to turn its 
grandest concept about itself into its 
greatest  experience. Until concept 
becomes experience, all there is , is 
speculation. I have  been speculating about 
Myself for a long time. Longer than you and 
I could  collectively remember. Longer than 
the age of this universe times the age of the  
universe. You see, then, how young is —
how new is —My experience of Myself! You’ve lost me again. Your experience of 
Yourself? Yes. Let me explain it to you this way:  In the beginning, that which Is , is all there 
was, and there was nothing else. Yet All  
That Is could not know itself —because All 
That Is is al l there was, and there was  
nothing else. And so, All That Is...was not. For in the absence of something else,  All 
That Is, is not. This is the great Is/Not Is to which mystics 
have referred from the beginning of time. Now All That Is knew it was all there was—
but this was not enough, for it could only  
know its utter magnificence conceptually, 
not experientially. Yet the experience of  
itself is that for which it longed, for it wanted 
to know what it felt like to be so  
magnificent. Still, this was impossible,  
because the very term “magnificent” is a  
relative term. All That Is could not know 
what it felt like to be magnificent unless that  which is not showed up. In the absence of 
that which is not, that which IS, is not. Do you understand this? I think so. Keep going. Alright The one thing that All That Is knew 
is that there was nothing else. And so It  
could, and would, never know Itself from a 
reference point outside of Itself. Such a  
point did not exist. Only one reference point 
existed, and that was the s ingle place  
within. The “Is -Not Is.” The Am -Not Am. Still, the All of Everything chose to know 
Itself experientially. This energy —this pure, unseen, unheard, 
unobserved, and therefore unknown -by-
anyone -else energy —chose to experience  
Itself as the utter ma gnificence It was. In  order to do this, It realized It would have to 
use a reference point within. It reasoned, quite correctly, that any portion 
of Itself would necessarily have to be  less 
than the whole, and that if It thus simply 
divided Itself into por tions, each  portion, 
being less than the whole, could look back 
on the rest of Itself and see  magnificence. And so All That Is divided Itself —becoming, 
in one glorious moment, that which is  this, 
and that which is that. For the first time, this 
and that ex isted, quite apart from  each 
other. And still, both existed 
simultaneously. As did all that was neither. Thus, three elements suddenly existed: 
that which is here. That which is there. And  
that which is neither here nor there —but 
which must exist for here and there to exist. It is the nothing which holds the everything. It is the non -space which holds the  space. It is the all which holds the parts. Can you understand this? Are you following this? I think I am, actually. Believe it or not, you 
have used such  a clear illustration that I 
think I’m  actually understanding this. I’m going to go further. Now this nothing 
which holds the everything is what some  
people call God. Yet that is not accurate, 
either, for it suggests that there is  
something God is not —name ly, everything 
that is not “nothing.” But I am All Things —
seen and unseen —so this description of 
Me as the Great Unseen —the No -Thing,  or 
the Space Between, an essentially Eastern 
mystical definition of God, is no more  accurate than the essentially Western 
practical description of God as all that is 
seen. Those who believe that God is All 
That Is and All That Is Not, are those whose  
understanding is correct. Now in creating that which is “here” and 
that which is “there,” God made it possible  
for God to know Itself. In the moment of this 
great explosion from within, God  created 
relativity —the greatest gift God ever gave 
to Itself. Thus, relationship is the  greatest 
gift God ever gave to you, a point to be 
discussed in detail later. From the No -Thing thus spran g the 
Everything —a spiritual event entirely 
consistent,  incidentally, with what your 
scientists call The Big Bang theory. As the 
elements of  all raced forth, time was 
created, for a thing was first here, then it was there —and the period it took to get 
from here to there was measurable. Just as the parts of Itself which are seen 
began to define themselves, “relative” to  
each other, so, too, did the parts which are 
unseen. God knew that for love to exist —
and to know itself as pure love —its exact 
opposite had to exist as well. So God  
voluntarily created the great polarity —the 
absolute opposite of love —everything that  
love is not —what is now called fear. In the 
moment fear existed, love could exist as  a 
thing that could be experienced. It is this creation of duality between love 
and its opposite which humans refer to in  
their various mythologies as the birth of 
evil, the fall of Adam, the rebellion of Satan,  
and so forth. Just as you have chosen to personify pure 
love as the character you call  God, so  have 
you chosen to personify abject fear as the 
character you call the devil. Some on Earth have established rather 
elaborate mythologies around this event,  
complete with scenarios of battles and war, 
angelic soldiers and devilish warriors,  the 
forces of good and evil, of light and dark. This mythology has been mankind’s early 
attempt to understand, and tell others in a  
way they could understand, a cosmic 
occurrence of which the human soul is  
deeply  aware, but of which the mind can 
barely conceive. In rendering the universe as a divided 
version of Itself, God produced, from pure  
energy, all that now exists —both seen and unseen. In other words, not only was the  
physical universe thus created, but the 
metaphysical universe as well. The part of  
God whi ch forms the second half of the 
Am/Not Am equation also exploded into an  
infinite number of units smaller than the 
whole. These energy units you would call  
spirits. In some of your religious 
mythologies it is stated that “God the 
Father” had  many spirit ch ildren. This 
parallel to the human experiences of life 
multiplying Itself  seems to be the only way 
the masses could be made to hold in reality 
the idea of  the sudden appearance —the 
sudden existence —of countless spirits in 
the “Kingdom of Heaven.”  
In this i nstance, your mythical tales and 
stories are not so far from ultimate reality —
for the endless spirits comprising the totality of Me are, in a cosmic sense, My  
offspring. My divine purpose in dividing Me was to 
create sufficient parts of Me so that I could  
know Myself experientially. There is only 
one way for the Creator to know Itself  
experientially as the Creator, and that is to 
create. And so I gave to each of the  
countless parts of Me (to all of My spirit 
children) the same power to create which I  
have a s the whole. This is what your religions mean when they 
say that you were created in the “image  
and likeness of God.” This doesn’t mean, 
as some have suggested, that our  physical 
bodies look alike (although God can adopt 
whatever physical form God  chooses for a 
particular purpose). It does mean that our 
essence is the same. We  are composed of the same stuff. We ARE the “same stuff”! With all the same  properties and abilities —
including the ability to create physical 
reality out of thin air. My purpose in cre ating you, My spiritual 
offspring, was for Me to know Myself as  
God. I have no way to do that save through 
you. Thus , it can be said (and has been,  
many times) that My purpose for you is that 
you should know yourself as Me. This seems so amazingly simple, yet it 
becomes very complex —because there is  
only one way for you to know yourself as 
Me, and that is for you first to know  yourself 
as not Me. Now try to follow this —fight to keep up —
because this gets very subtle here. Are you  
ready? I think so. Good. Rem ember, you’ve asked for this 
explanation. You’ve waited for it for years. You’ve asked for it in layman’s terms, not 
theological doctrines or scientific theories. Yes—I know what I’ve asked. And having asked, so shall you receive. Now, to keep things simple, I’m going to 
use your children of God mythological  
model as a basis for discussion, because it 
is a model with which you are familiar —and 
in many ways it is not that far off. So let’s go back to how this process of self -
knowing must work. There is one way I could have caused all of 
My spiritual children to know themselves  as 
parts of Me —and that was simply to tell them. This I did. But you see, it was not  
enough for Spirit to simply know Itself as 
God, or part of God, or children of God, or  
inherito rs of the kingdom (or whatever 
mythology you want to use). As I’ve already explained, knowing 
something, and experiencing it, are two 
different  things. Spirit longed to know Itself 
experientially (just as I did!). Conceptual  
awareness was not enough for yo u. So I 
devised a plan. It is the most extraordinary  
idea in all the universe —and the most 
spectacular collaboration. I say 
collaboration  because all of you are in it 
with Me. Under the plan, you as pure spirit would 
enter the physical universe just create d. 
This is because physicality is the only way 
to know experientially what you know  conceptually. It is, in fact, the reason I 
created the physical cosmos to begin  
with—and the system of relativity which 
governs it, and all creation. Once in the physical u niverse, you, My 
spirit children, could experience what you  
know of yourself —but first, you had to 
come to know the opposite. To explain this  
simplistically, you cannot know yourself as 
tall unless and until you become aware of  
short. You cannot experience  the part of 
yourself that you call fat unless you also  
come to know thin. Taken to ultimate logic, you cannot 
experience yourself as what you are until 
you’ve  encountered what you are not. This 
is the purpose of the theory of relativity, and 
all physical life. It is by that which you are 
not that you yourself are defined. Now in the case of the ultimate knowing —
in the case of knowing yourself as the  
Creator —you cannot experience your Self 
as creator unless and until you create. And 
you cannot create yourse lf until you 
uncreate yourself. In a sense, you have to  
first “not be” in order to be. Do you follow? I think...  
Stay with it. Of course, there is no way for you to not be 
who and what you are —you simply are  that 
(pure, creative spirit), have been always, 
and always will be. So, you did the  next 
best thing. You caused yourself to forget 
Who You Really Are. Upon entering the physical universe, you 
relinquished your remembrance of  
yourself. This allows you to choose to be Who You Are, rather than simp ly wake up  
in the castle, so to speak. It is in the act of choosing to be, rather than 
simply being told that you are, a part of  God 
that you experience yourself as being at 
total choice, which is what, by  definition, 
God is. Yet how can you have a choice 
about something over which there  is no 
choice? You cannot not be My offspring no 
matter how hard you try —but you  can 
forget. You are, have always been, and will always 
be, a divine part of the divine whole, a  
member of the body. That is why the act of 
rejoining the whole, of returning to God,  is 
called remembrance. You actually choose 
to remember Who You Really Are, or to  join 
together with the various parts of you to experience the all of you —which is to  say, 
the All of Me. Your job on Earth, therefore, is  not to learn 
(because you already know), but to 
remember Who You Are. And to re -member 
who everyone else is. That is why a big  part 
of your job is to remind others (that is, to re -
mind them), so that they can remember 
also. All the wonderful spiritual tea chers ha ve 
been doing just that. It is your sole purpose. That is to say, your soul purpose. My God, this is so simple —and 
so...symmetrical. I mean, it all fits in! It all 
suddenly fits! I  see, now, a picture I have 
never quite put together before. Good. That is good. That is the purpose of 
this dialogue. You have asked Me for  answers. I have promised I would give 
them to you. You will make of this dialogue 
a book, and you will render My words 
accessible to many people. It is part of your  
work. Now, you have many questions, 
many inquiries to make about life. We have  
here placed the foundation. We have laid 
the groundwork for other understandings. Let us go to these other questions. And do 
not worry. If there is something about  what 
we’ve just gone thr ough you do not 
thoroughly understand, it will all be clear to  
you soon enough. There is so much I want to ask. There are 
so many questions. I suppose I should start 
with the big ones, the obvious ones. Like, 
why is the world in the shape it’s in? Of all t he questions man has asked of God, 
this is the one asked most often. From  the beginning of time man has asked it. From 
the first moment to this you have  wanted to 
know, why must it be like this? The classic posing of the question is 
usually something like:  If God is all -perfect 
and all-loving, why would God create 
pestilence and famine, war and disease,  
earthquakes and tornados and hurricanes 
and all manner of natural disaster, deep  
personal disappointment, and worldwide 
calamity? The answer to this questio n lies in the 
deeper mystery of the universe and the  
highest meaning of life. I do not show My goodness by creating 
only what you call perfection all around 
you. I do not demonstrate My love by not 
allowing you to demonstrate yours. As I have already expla ined, you cannot 
demonstrate love until you can 
demonstrate  not loving. A thing cannot 
exist without its opposite, except in the 
world of the  absolute. Yet the realm of the 
absolute was not sufficient for either you or 
Me. I  existed there, in the always, a nd it is 
from where you, too, have come. In the absolute there is no experience, only 
knowing. Knowing is a divine state, yet  the 
grandest joy is in being. Being is achieved 
only after experience. The evolution is  this: 
knowing, experiencing, being. This i s the 
Holy Trinity —the Triune that is God. God the Father is knowing —the parent of 
all understandings, the begetter of all  
experience, for you cannot experience that 
which you do not know. God the Son is experiencing —the 
embodiment, the acting out, of all that the 
Father  knows of Itself, for you cannot be 
that which you have not experienced. God the Holy Spirit is being —the 
disembodiment of all that the Son has 
experienced  of Itself; the simple, exquisite 
is-ness possible only through the memory 
of the  know ing and experiencing. This simple being is bliss. It is God -state, 
after knowing and experiencing Itself. It is  
that for which God yearned in the 
beginning. Of course, you are well past the 
point  where you must have it explained to 
you that the father -son descriptions of God  
have nothing to do with gender. I use here 
the picturesque speech of your most  recent 
scriptures. Much earlier holy writings 
placed this metaphor in a mother -daughter context. Neither is correct. Your mind can 
best hold the relationship  as: parent -
offspring. Or: that -which -gives -rise-to, and 
that-which -is-risen. Adding the  third part of 
the Trinity produces this relationship: That 
which gives rise to / That  which is risen / 
That which is. This Triune Reality is God’s 
signature. It is the  divine  pattern. The three - 
in-one is everywhere found in the realms of 
the sublime. You  cannot escape it in 
matters dealing with time and space, God 
and consciousness, or  any of the subtle 
relationships. On the other hand, you will 
not find the Triune Truth  in any of life’s 
gross relationships. The Triune Truth is recognized in life’s 
subtle relationships by everyone dealing 
with such relationships. Some of your 
religionists have described the Triune Truth as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Some of 
your psychiatrists use the terms  
superconscious, conscious and 
subconscious. Some of your spiritualists 
say mind,  body, and spirit. Some of your 
scientists see energy, matter, ether. Some 
of your  philosophers say a thing is not true 
for you until it is tru e in thought, word, and 
deed. When discussing time, you speak of 
three times only: past, present, future. Similarly,  there are three moments in your 
perception —before, now, and after. In 
terms of  spatial relationships, whether 
considering the points in the  universe, or 
various  points in your own room, you 
recognize here, there, and the space in 
between. In matters of gross relationships, you 
recognize no “in -between.” That is because  gross relationships are always dyads, 
whereas relationships of the higher realm 
are invariably triads. Hence, there is left -
right, up -down, big - small, fast -slow, hot -
cold,  and the greatest dyad ever created: 
male -female. There are no in -betweens in 
these  dyads. A thing is either one thing or 
the other, or some greater or lesser  version 
in relationship to one of these polarities. Within the realm of gross relationships, 
nothing conceptualized can exist without a  
conceptualization of its opposite. Most of 
your day -to-day experience is  found ed in 
this reality. Within the realm of s ublime relationships 
nothing which exists has an opposite. All Is  
One, and everything progresses from one 
to the other in a never -ending circle. Time is such a sublime realm, in which 
what you call past, present, and future exist  
inter-relationally. That i s, they are not 
opposites, but rather parts of the same 
whole;  progressions of the same idea; 
cycles of the same energy; aspects of the 
same  immutable Truth.
Conversations_with_God_Book_1_by_Neale_Donald_Walsch.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        Contents  
Acknowledgments. 4 
Introduction. 11 
Chapter 1. 20 
Chapter 2. 166 
Chapter 3. 193 
Chapter 4. 234 
Chapter 5. 248 
Ten Commitments. 252 
Chapter 6. 275 
Chapter 7. 285 
Chapter 8. 311 
Chapter 9. 376 
Chapter 10. 402 
Chapter 11. 403 Chapter 12. 424 
Chapter 13. 465 
Chapter 14. 500 
In Closing. 520 
About the Author. 523 
 
  Acknowledgments  
First, last, and always, I want to 
acknowledge the Source of everything that 
is in this book,  everything that is life —and 
of life itself. Second, I want to thank my spiritual 
teachers, who include the saints and sages 
of all  religions. Third, it is clear to me that all of us could 
produce a list of people who have touched 
our lives  in ways so meaningful and so 
profoundly as to defy categorization or 
description; people  who have shared with 
us their wisd om, told us their truth, suffered 
us our faults and our  foibles in their infinite 
patience, and who have seen us through all 
of it; seeing the best in us  there was to see. People who, in their acceptance of us, as well as their refusal to accept the  parts of 
us they knew we really didn’t choose, 
caused us to grow; to get bigger somehow. The people, in addition to my parents, who 
have been there for me in that way include  
Samantha Gorski, Tara -Jenelle Walsch, 
Wayne Davis, Bryan Walsch, Martha 
Wright, the  late Ben Wills, Jr. , Roland 
Chambers, Dan Higgs, C. Berry Carter II, 
Ellen Moyer, Anne  Blackwell, Dawn 
Dancing Free, Ed Keller, Lyman W. (Bill) 
Griswold, Elisabeth Kübler -Ross,  and dear, 
dear Terry Cole - Whittaker. I want to include in this group my former 
mates, whose privacy I wish to respect by 
not naming them here, but whose 
contributions to my life are deeply grasped 
and appreciated. And as gratitude for the gifts I have 
received from all these wonderful people 
swells my  heart, I am especially wa rmed by 
the thought of my helpmate, spouse, and 
partner, Nancy  Fleming Walsch, a woman 
of extraordinary wisdom, compassion and 
love, who has shown  me that my highest 
thoughts about human relationships do not 
have to remain fantasies, but  can be 
dreams come  true. Fourth and finally, I want to recognize some 
people I have never met, but whose lives 
and work have impacted me with such 
force that I cannot let this moment pass 
without thanking  them from the depth of my 
being for the moments of exquisite 
pleasure, insight into the  human condition, 
and pure, simple Lifegefeelkin (I made up 
that word. ) they have given me. You know what it is like when someone has 
given you a taste, a glorious moment, of 
what is  really true about life. For me, most 
of these have been  creative or performing 
artists,  because it is from art that I receive 
inspiration, to which I retreat in moments of 
reflection,  and in which I find that which we 
call God most beautifully expressed. And so I want to thank. John Denver, 
whose songs touch my soul and fill it with 
new hope  about how life could be; Richard 
Bach, whose writings reach into my life as 
if they were my  own, describing so much of 
what has been my experience; Barbra 
Streisand, whose  directing, acting, and 
musical artistry grips my h eart time and 
time again, causing it to feel  what is true, 
not merely know it; and the late Robert 
Heinlein, whose visionary literature has  raised questions and posed answers in 
ways no one else has dared even 
approach. For 
ANNE M. WALSCH  
Who not only ta ught me that God exists,  
but opened my mind to the wondrous truth  
that God is my best friend;  
and who was far more than a mother to 
me, 
but gave birth in me  
to a longing for and a love of God,  
and all that is good. Mom was  
my first meeting  
with an angel. And for  
ALEX M. WALSCH  
Who told me repeatedly throughout my 
life, 
“There’s nothing to it,”  
“You don’t have to take No for an answer,”  
“You make your own luck,”  
and 
“There’s more where that came from. ”  
Dad was  
my first experience  
of fearlessness. Introduction  
You are about to have an extraordinary 
experience. You are about to have a 
conversation  with God. Yes, yes. I 
know. that’s not possible. You probably 
think (or have been taught)  that’s not 
possible. One can talk to God, sure, but not 
with Go d. I mean, God is not going to  talk 
back, right. At least not in the form of a 
regular, everyday kind of conversation. That’s what I thought, too. Then this book 
happened to me. And I mean that literally. This book was not written by me, it 
happened to me. And in your reading of it, 
it will happen to  you, for we are all led to the 
truth for which we are ready. My life would probably be much easier if I 
had kept all of this quiet. Yet that wasn’t the  reason it happened to me. And whatever 
inconveniences the book may cause me 
(such as  being called a blasphemer, a 
fraud, a hypocrite for not having lived these 
truths in the past,  or—perhaps worse —a 
holy man), it is not possible for me to stop 
the process now. Nor do I  wish to. I have 
had my chances to step away from this 
whole thing, and I haven’t taken them. I’ve 
decided to stick with what my instincts are 
telling me, rather than what much of the 
world  will tell me, about the material here. Those instincts say this book is not 
nonsense, the overworking of a frus trated 
spiritual  imagination, or simply the self -
justification of a man seeking vindication 
from a life misled. Oh, I’ve thought of all of 
those things —every one of them. So I gave 
this material to a few  people to read while it was still in manuscript form. They were 
moved. And they cried. And  they laughed 
for the joy and the humor in it. And their 
lives, they said, changed. They were  
transfixed. They were empowered. Many said they were transformed. That’s when I knew this book was for 
everyone, and that it  had to be published; 
for it is a  wonderful gift to all those who truly 
want answers and who truly care about the 
questions; for  all those who have embarked 
upon quests for truth with sincerity of heart, 
longing of soul,  and openness of mind. And 
that’s pretty much all of us. This book addresses most, if not all, of the 
questions we have ever asked about life 
and love, purpose and function, people and 
relationships, good and evil, guilt and sin,  forgiveness and redemption,  the path to 
God and the road to hell. everything. It 
directly  discusses sex, power, money, 
children, marriage, divorce, life work, 
health, the hereafter, the  before -
now.
The author acknowledges the Source of everything, including life itself, first and last.
Who does the author acknowledge first and last?
The author's purpose is to share the truth about God and the nature of reality, and to help readers understand themselves and their relationship with God.
What is the author's purpose in writing this book?
The author's message is that God does not reveal Himself through words or physical forms, but rather through our inner feelings and experiences. God is not a distant, judging being, but a loving, guiding force that is always with us.
What is the author's message about the nature of God and humanity?
The author believes that God communicates with everyone, not just a select few, and that this communication is not limited to words or physical forms, but can be experienced through feelings, thoughts, and experiences.
What is the author's view on the concept of God's communication with humanity?
The author advises that we should not ask for specific things, but rather focus on gratitude and faith, and that our prayers should be based on love and not fear.
What is the author's advice on how to approach God and the concept of prayer?