{"id":286,"date":"2008-04-27T06:14:24","date_gmt":"2008-04-27T06:14:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/conversationswithgod\/2008\/04\/an-interview-with-ndw.html"},"modified":"2008-04-27T06:14:24","modified_gmt":"2008-04-27T06:14:24","slug":"an-interview-with-ndw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/2008\/04\/an-interview-with-ndw.html","title":{"rendered":"An interview with NDW"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nSunday is Message Day on the blog. Monday through Friday we look at contemporary events and day-to-day occurrences at the intersection of Life and the New Spirituality\u2026but on Sunday, we reserve this space for a specific teaching derived from the material in Conversations with God<\/em>
\nThrough the years I have given hundreds of talks and written scores of articles revolving around this material. Every seven days we will present in this space a transcript or reprint of one of those presentations. We invite you to Copy and Save each one of them, creating a personal collection of contemporary and uplifting spiritual thought which you may reference at any time. We hope you will find this a constant source of insight and inspiration.
\nThis week\u2019s offering: As above, so below<\/strong><\/em>
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\nThis week, an Internet Radio Interview with Neale Donald Walsch by SpiritualGrowthMonthly.com
\nMatt: Welcome, everyone.
\nThis is Matt Clarkson of SpiritualGrowthMonthly.com. With me today is someone we might call a modern-day prophet. He\u2019s a best-selling author; in fact, his books have been translated into many languages and sold all over the world.
\nThey\u2019re actually about to bring out an up-and coming film, which we\u2019re all really looking forward to. He\u2019s literally helping to redefine the world\u2019s understanding of God and spirituality. So without any more mystery, let me introduce our guest today, Neale Donald Walsch, author of Conversations with God. Welcome, Neale.
\nNeale: Thank you, Matt, and let me correct you right at the top of the show. I would not be called a \u201cmodern-day spiritual prophet,\u201d and I hope that no one ever, ever, ever uses that label.
\nI think I would be called a modern-day spiritual messenger, and I think that there\u2019s a huge nuance of difference between the word \u201cmessenger\u201d and the word \u201cprophet.\u201d
\nThe word \u201cprophet\u201d is largely understood to be applied to people who somehow know about the future or have some kind of insight, awareness or wisdom that is greater than anyone else. That would be the opposite of who I am.
\nOn the other hand, a messenger is simply someone who walks into the room and hands you a telegram. Often, the message is not even written by him, but he carries a message from someone else.
\nThat far more aptly and accurately describes who I am in the world, so let\u2019s not say \u201cNeale Donald Walsch, the prophet,\u201d but I\u2019m really fine with saying \u201cNeale Donald Walsch, the messenger.\u201d
\nMatt: Okay, \u201cthe messenger\u201d you are. How did you end up having a conversation with God and writing a book about it? Can you tell that story, for anyone who hasn\u2019t heard it?
\nNeale: Well, I ran into a period of time in my life when nothing was going well. My life was falling apart at every level\u2014my health was going rapidly downhill, I had lost my employment and all hope for immediate employment.
\nI had lost my relationship with my significant other. Nothing was working in my life, so I
\nturned to God, as often we do in moments of sheer desperation. I called out, in the middle of the night, one day when I was awake at four o\u2019clock in the morning.
\nI was walking around, pacing really, in the larger part of my house, in the darkness, and I
\ncalled out in my mind, \u201cWhat does it take to make life work? What have I done to deserve a life of such continuing struggle?
\nSomebody, help me! Give me some rules\u2014tell me the rules of the game here. I\u2019ll play; I just need to have the rulebook.\u201d It was at that point that I found a yellow legal pad on the coffee table in front of me.
\nI sat down on the couch, and by the moonlight, just picked up the yellow legal pad and began writing a very angry letter to God. Then I heard a voice\u2014it was as simple as that\u2014over my right shoulder, that said, \u201cNeale, do you really want answers to all of these questions or are you just venting?\u201d
\nWith that, I began what has resulted in a 14-year conversation with God. That\u2019s what I\u2019ve chosen to call it. It\u2019s an experience of communion, I think, with the place of higher wisdom that lies within all of us, and it is accessible by and available to all of us.
\nI have simply written down what I\u2019ve experienced in my mind as a result of those connections and conversations, and put them in what has turned out to be a series of books that have caught the attention of apparently a large number of people in the world.
\nOver seven million people have read the Conversations with God books. They\u2019ve been
\ntranslated into 34 languages.
\nMatt: So when you were going through this process, how did God communicate with you?
\nNeale: As I indicated, it was a voice that I heard, first in the room, and then in my mind. It comes to me as the voice of my own thoughts, if you please, and that\u2019s really how that communication takes place. I will simply have a thought of my own, I\u2019ll ask a question or look deeply into a topic, and suddenly, thoughts and words will come to me, and if I get them down on paper fast enough, they begin to make sense and have some consistency.
\nNow there have been 10 books produced by that method, which have an amazing continuity and consistency from the first book to the last. The most recent, and final, of those books is Home with God: In a Life That Never Ends.
\nMatt: I noticed in your second book you were talking about the process of engaging with God, and how sometimes, it can take quite a long time for the answers to come. Is this something where you sat at your desk and communicated with God, or is it something that comes to you all the time? I\u2019m just curious to learn more about how that process of
\ncommunication works.
\nNeale: The process, for me, does not take a long time, although there may be gaps or pauses in the process. If I ask a question and I really feel deeply connected with eternal wisdom, the answer comes immediately, like lightning. So it does not take a long time for the answer to come, but I have experienced that there have been, in my life, huge gaps in the process itself. That is, there may be times when I simply do not feel connected with eternal wisdom, with the Divine, if you will, and when I\u2019m lacking that connection, then the process simply does not work. I have done two things in my life. One, I\u2019ve done
\nwhatever I can to stay connected with that source of divine wisdom. Number two, I\u2019ve used that connection to continue to ask the kinds of questions that I think would most benefit the largest number of people.
\nMatt: Obviously, there are a lot of people in the world who claim to be in communication with God, and they\u2019ve put forth various systems and theologies. It seems like there\u2019s this view and that view of God. How do we actually discern what is really God\u2019s communication from communication that comes from some other source?
\nNeale: By going within. The ultimate truth lies within, and all great spiritual teachers will tell us that. Only lesser spiritual teachers, including false teachers, will tell us that the truth lies outside of ourselves. Only false teachers will say, \u201cUltimately, listen to what I\u2019m saying.\u201d The true teachers will say, \u201cListen to what your Self \u2013 capital \u2018S\u2019 — is saying to the self. You may want to consider some of the words I have said, but ultimately, look inside and see if they ring true for you. If they don\u2019t, then reject them.\u201d
\nI tell everyone that, both in my books, and when I\u2019m speaking about my books. If anything I\u2019ve written does not feel true to you, then reject it quickly and out of hand.
\nOn the other hand, if something I\u2019ve said rings true to you and feels that it is in harmony with your own, deepest, inner truth, then embrace it at the next level; that is, fully embrace it and allow yourself to live it as fully as well.
\nMatt: Does that imply that we experience God in a relativistic kind of way, and that God doesn\u2019t have any kind of objective reality, that there is no right and wrong?
\nNeale: There is no such thing as objective reality. Everything is subjective; that is, everything is experienced through you and nothing is experienced objectively, outside of you. Quantum physics is now making that very clear and has been making that clear for the past 25 or 30 years.
\nIt is quantum physics, not new spirituality, that says, \u201cNothing that is observed is unaffected by the observer.\u201d That is, everything that exists is affected and impacted by the person who is looking at it, depending on the way they\u2019re looking at it, the angle from which they\u2019re viewing it, the perspective they hold.
\nThat is profoundly true and it is true in this case as well, but it\u2019s not a spiritual truth
\nsolely or exclusively; it\u2019s a scientific truth as well.
\nMatt: One of the big questions you talk about in your book is: \u201cIf I am really talking to God, why don\u2019t you prove yourself in some irrefutable way\u201d\u2026
\nNeale: Well, you see, there are no irrefutable ways. That\u2019s the whole point of what I\u2019ve just said. There are no irrefutable ways because there is no such thing as objectivity; that is, complete objectivity. Once again, everything that\u2019s experienced is experienced by you, and you may experience it any way you wish because it is experienced through the filter that is you. You may experience it differently from the way I\u2019m experiencing it, therefore,
\neverything I say is refutable by someone else.
\nEven if God came down, God would ask the question, \u201cWhat way would you find irrefutable? I\u2019ve already come down, I\u2019ve already made my presence known, I\u2019ve already made my reality (the reality of God) known in a million ways,\u201d but there are a million people who would disagree with each of those ways and claim that it is not the truth.
\nSo it looks as if you have to find your own way, which is, of course, what I\u2019ve been telling you from the beginning!
\nMatt: You\u2019re saying that God is constantly speaking to us, but we don\u2019t listen.
\nNeale: Unless we do.
\nMatt: Unless we do!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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