Conversations

with God
Spiritual Mentoring Program
_________

Month #2: Mastering Happiness

Topic #16: Gods Role in All of This
This lesson written by Neale Donald Walsch
based on the information found in
Happier Than God

Discussion
So far we havent spoken much of Gods role in all of this. What part does God
play in the experience of your own happiness?
This is a fair question, I think, given that I wrote a series of books called
Conversations with God. I firmly believe in the existence of God, and I hope that
you do, too.
If you do, you may be wondering where God fits into all of this happiness
stuff. If you have ever asked yourself that question, let me start with (and
remind you of) a startling statement that appears in Happier Than God:
You dont need God.
You never needed God, and you dont need God now.
I hope that you will go around and tell everyone that. Tell everyone you
know. Because nothing has ever been more true. Make a point of being very
clear about this. You might even want to put this on your refrigerator or your
bathroom mirror:

I dont need God for anything.

This is a wonderful statement of absolute Knowingness. It goes past faith to

a place of Total Awareness. It is what I have called the Awareness of the Soul.
When we use the WECCE Technology, combining the Mechanics of the Mind
with the System of the Soul, we become deeply aware that we dont need God
for anything, precisely because the Soul knows that you dont need what you
already have. The Soul knows of the Presence of God. The Soul knows that the
Soul IS God, individualized in us, through us, as us.

2012M7
 You dont need wisdom, you already have wisdom within you.
You dont need insight, you already have insight within you.
You dont need clarity, you already have clarity within you.
You dont need patience, compassion, forgiveness, or understanding, you
already have patience, compassion, forgiveness, and understanding within you.
You dont need peace, you already have peace within you.
You dont need happiness and joy, contentment and connection, wholeness
or awareness, you already have happiness and joy, contentment and
connection, wholeness or awareness within you.
You dont need love, you already have love within you.
You already have these things because you are these things.

Let me repeat that. All these things (and more) you have, because all these
things (and more) you are. You are all these things because all these things are
what God is, and God is what you are. There is no difference between That
Which is Divine that That Which is You, except in size. You are as a drop is to the
ocean. No different from the ocean itself in make-up, character, or content; only
in size.
Of course, if you do not believe that you are divine, you will not experience
these things that Divinity Is, and therefore you will not be these things, even
though you are these things.
How can you not be what you already are? Thats easy. You do it all the time.
We all do.

Lifes greatest challenge; lifes biggest decision

The greatest challenge in life as I have experienced it is stepping into the
beingness of who and what we already are, in fullness. Most of us have been all
the things we are some of the time, some of us have been all the things we are
most of the time, but very, very few of us have been all the things we are all of
the time.
Those of us who have been that, we have called Masters. Avatars. Gurus.
Saints.
Our invitation in this life is to demonstrate our mastery---or, if you please,
our Divinity. This is not something we have to attain, it is something we already
are. We need merely choose to demonstrate it.
As Ive said, there are times when we have all demonstrated patience,
compassion, forgiveness, understanding, wisdom, insight, clarity, peace and
love at a level of total mastery. Every one of us has done that. The question is
not whether we can do that, but whether we choose to do that all of the time.
For some the question is not even whether we choose to do that all of the time
(we do), but what is stopping us?
2012M7
 LESSON #16:
YOU DO NOT NEED GOD FOR ANYTHING.
NOTHING IS STOPPING YOU BUT YOU.
This is one of the hardest lessons in life. I want you to know that I know all of
this stuff---I am teaching it, for heaven sake---and I, too, get hung up on this one.
Not the truth of the lesson. No, that I get. But applying it. That I have found hard
to do.
I know that there is no one and nothing but me is stopping me from
expressing mastery in living and experiencing Divinity as who I Really Am. Still,
I have not been able, thus far, to stop the stopping nearly often enough. Once
in a while, yes, but not nearly often enough. And yet I know that this is exactly
what I am being invited to do now; it is the next assignment; it is the final
hurdle; it is the biggest opportunity.
I dont know how it has been with you, but in my own experience there were
several things inside of me that were stopping me. (A) I could not see myself as
divine in any way, but, in fact, very, very human---and furthermore, I felt that
it would be UNdivine to declare myself as divine (even to myself), being the
absolute height of hubris; (B) I felt that even if I could get over the first hurdle
and sincerely wanted to demonstrate divinity, it was out of my reach, I was in
way over my head, and I, with all my obvious faults and foibles, had no chance
whatsoever to reach such a place of pure being and should just settle for being a
reasonably nice person a reasonable amount of the time; (C) I knew that even if
I could get past the second obstacle, I didnt know how to demonstrate divinity,
having no idea what that was supposed to look like and having no tools.

Answering the objections, one by one

If you are anything like me, you have had some of the same thoughts. So I
want to take a moment here and answer these objections one by one.
(A) It is not UNdivine or ungodly to see yourself as Divine or Godly. In fact,
the reverse is true. It is godly to see yourself as godly, and UNgodly to see
yourself as ungodly. There is nothing Divine in seeing yourself as Undivine;
there is nothing blessed or sacred in seeing yourself as less than you are; there
is nothing holy in turning back Gods gifts by seeing yourself as unworthy of
them.
Every great religion teaches us its own version of the wisdom: You were
made in the image and likeness of God. You can choose to deny that truth, but
that does not make it any less true. It merely means that because it is true, you
have the power to experience it as not true. You cannot make it untrue, but you
can make it so that you do not experience it has true.
2012M7
 You may see yourself as only human, but that does not mean that you are
not, or cannot be, Divine. Humanity and Divinity are not mutually exclusive. Let
me repeat that:

Humanity and Divinity are not mutually exclusive.

I will admit, there is within many people (most people) a conflict between
what my friend Ilchi Lee calls Earth Human and Heavenly Human. Yet
embracing our Divinity is not the height of hubris, it is the height of humility.
Arrogance would be throwing Gods gifts back in Gods face.
But, we may ask, how can we close the experience gap between Earth Human
and Divine Human?
The first thing we have to do is get it out of our head that we are somehow
unable, unworthy, or unprepared to accept and assume, affirm and announce
our eternal connection with the Divine, our Dinvine Inheritance at One with the
Divine, our True Identity as an Individuation of Divinity.
By failing to do so, we take Gods incredible gift---a gift God intended for us to
receive and enjoy---and mark it Return to Sender.
Of course, there are many ways to experience God and Godliness in us and
through us, and our worlds many religions and spiritual movements have each
shown us some of those ways. CwG invites us to notice that another way is the
use of the WECCE Technology; a combining of the Mechanics of the Mind and
the System of the Soul.
All we are asked to remember as we undertake our own search, each in our
own way, is the 15-word New Gospel given to us in Conversations with God:
We are all One. Ours is not a better way, ours is merely another way.

(B) It is not out of your reach to achieve Divinity. Indeed, many of you have
already done so. I am going to say, all of you have. Every person reading this has
had moments when you came from your Highest Self, expressing and
experiencing that flowing through you, in you, as you. So we know that it is
possible. It is merely a matter of sustaining that experience if your Grandest
Self. Yes, What you can do for a minute, you can do for an hour. What you can do
for an hour, you can do for an day. What you can do for a day, you can do for a
week. What you can do for a week, you can do for a month. What you can do for
a month, you can do for a year. What you can do for a year, you can do for a
lifetime.
But lets get clear about what being divine looks like. If you think it looks
like never, ever making what you would call a mistake, if you think it looks

2012M7
like never, ever showing up in any moment as less than who you wish to be,
then you will be right: such a performance will be impossible.
Yet if you are clear that it is not what you do, but who you are, that counts;
that it is not your every action, but your every desire, that matters, now we are
talking a different story. There is no such thing as a mistake, any more than it
is accurately to call the first rung on any ladder an error. You must take the
first step to get to the second. It is not a mistake to take the first step, it is a
necessity.
Self-judgment, therefore, is not called for. Understanding and compassion is.
Offering ourselves (and all others) understanding and compassion is the way to
turn every moment and every action, even those you are sorely tempted to call
a mistake, into exactly what it is: a step into the wonder of who you are, taken
in purity and innocence, even as a child takes such steps.
I always tell the joke that even God makes mistakes. I mean, look at
asparagus. Consider the giraffe. Or for that matter, the Republican Party.
Now you see? That was a joke! Lighten up! About everything! Smile more.
Laugh a lot. Especially at yourself

(C) It is most important to understand that walking through life as if we
were divine does not have to look like you are any different, exteriorly, than
you are right now. It is not necessary to don saffron robes and sandals, change
what you do for a living, leave your home and live in a cave or a commune, or,
for that matter, alter anything in your exterior daily life.

Divinity is an inside job, having nothing to do with your outside

world. What it looks like to be divine is for you to (1) embrace
everything that is currently presenting itself in your experience as a gift
from Life, turning it to your benefit through the process of non-resistance
and joyful use of the condition or circumstance as an opportunity to
demonstrate who you are; (2) love yourself without condition, and love
everyone else in precisely the same way; (3) align every thought, word,
and action to be in harmony with all that supports Lifes highest vibration
(which vibration you will be able to sense in all situations when you open
yourself to doing so); (4) use every moment to bless every person, place,
or thing you touch (just how to do that will be made apparent to you in the
moment of your touching); (5) be completely authentic and totally honest
in everything you think, say, and do; (6) seek to hurt no one in any way for
the rest of your life, and make amends immediately if you find that, even
inadvertently, you have done so; (7) forgive every person every
transgression and move to a place where you clearly see that forgiveness
is not even necessary, only understanding; (8) uplift and inspire every
2012M7
person who crosses your path by easing their burden and showing them a
way to the place peace, harmony and happiness in which they so sincerely
and urgently wish (you can do this by reminding them of what is really so
and of who they really are)---and do the same for yourself; (9) make no
one wrong for the way they see the world, or for what they believe, but
rather, honor every persons personal experience as you would like them
to honor your own; (10) above all, stay positive, positive, positive even in
the face of the most negative energy, circumstance, or condition, obeying
the injunction to judge not by appearances.

The world exists the way it exists not because it is inherently bad and evil,
or even because it is going in the wrong direction or falling apart or in some
way imperfect. The world exists the way it is because the way it is is the way
we have created it---and not as a result of some huge mistake we are making,
but as an out-picturing of some huge process in which we are engaged. We have
created the world the way it is as a tool through which our entire species is
evolving. Humanity is seeking to remember and experience its true identity---
and then to recreate itself anew in the next grandest version of that image and
likeness.
The future is dark and bleak, with disaster and turmoil at every turn, or it is
as bright and beauteous and joyful as the glory of God, depending upon which
leg of EveryPath you wish to take.
EveryPath is open to us, now, always, and forever. EveryPath exists for us,
eternally. We can take any part of EveryPath that we wish. There is only One
Path and that is EveryPath. All roads on the One Path lead to the Exact, Same,
and Identical Ending; the Only Destination There Is: Divine, Perfect,
Unconditional and Unlimited Love. In short, the Embrace of God.
It is not true that there is absolutely no possibility of a wonderful tomorrow.
What is true is that there is absolutely no possibility if you do not see it. What is
true is that there can be no possibility if you do not join in creating it. All
Tomorrows exist. You may choose the Tomorrow you wish to experience. You
are choosing it, and creating it, every step along the way, in every Golden
Moment of Now.
There. I have laid it all out for you. It is as simple as that.

You call that simple?

Now you may say, Oh, is that all? Some of you may even say, I really
become annoyed when you try to make it sound so easy. Theres nothing easy
about it!
Well, youre right. I did not say that it is easy. I said that it is simple. Easy and
simple are two different things. For some it is both simple and easy. For others it
2012M7
is not. For some it was always easy (there are very few in this category), for
others it became easy, and for still others it is becoming easier, but is not yet
truly easy.
We are talking here about a process called growth; about an experience of
awakening. We are talking about Awakening into Awareness. And while such
awakening may all see now like a pretty tall order, like something that is not
easy, it is possible for you and for me.
Indeed, I believe that many people have been awakened. The challenge now
is to stop from falling back asleep. After practicing for a while, many people are
finding that it becomes easier and easier to stay awake longer and longer.
And now, in the wonderful Conversations with God books and in the CwG
cosmology texts Happier Than God and When Everything Changes, Change
Everything, we have been given the tools---quite specific tools, not a bunch of
general statements or pie-in-the-sky theories---with which to move rapidly
towards completion of my Souls Mission here.
I have literally given myself these tools. And you have done exactly the same.
You brought these tools to you; placed them directly in your lap. All you have to
do now---all either of us have to do---is use them.

__________________________________________________________________________________
TODAYS ASSIGNMENT:
1. You do not need God for anything because God is expressed in you, through
you, as you, in every moment, and you cannot need what you already have.
Today and tomorrow practice experiencing this. Begin by remembering a time
when these things were manifestly apparent to you.
A. Make a list of the moments in your life when you can remember
experiencing God in you, just as a quiet presence of Peace or Joy or Love.
B. For each such moment, write a descriptive paragraph or two, saying what
that was like.
C. Now make a list of the moments in your life when you can remember
experiencing God through you, as a word you spoke or an action you took.
D. For each such moment, write a descriptive paragraph or two, saying what
that was like.
E. Now make a list of the moments in your life when you can remember
experiencing God as you, in the form of a vastly expanded awareness and
consciousness and a simple, deep, full, rich Knowing.
F. For each such moment, write a descriptive paragraph or two, saying what
that was like.

2012M7
2. Next, seek to create more such moments, deliberately.
A. Later today, begin trying to create the experience of God in you. You may
wish to use meditation as a tool here---or any other technique (prayer,
simple silence, etc.)---with which to do this.
B. Tomorrow morning, seek to create the experience of God through you.
Decide on three things you will do during the morning that might
demonstrate Divinity flowing through you. Remember that this
demonstration is for yourself, not for others. Others may or may not even
know what you are doing.
C. Tomorrow late afternoon or evening, determine to create the experience
of God as you. Allow yourself to simply and purely Know what is so about this
whole experiment---and, for that matter, about the whole of your life. One
way you may wish to do this is by taking out your Notebook and writing a
short paper on the major events of your life, both positive and negative
(pick the four or five really Big Ones), allowing your Self to Know exactly
what God knows about each of those eventsexactly as you would if you
were experiencing God AS YOU.

3. Now look to see, what, if anything does all this tell you about you, and about
your life thus far? And, perhaps most important, what does this tell you are
about life in the future; about the days and weeks and months and years just
ahead?

Please Note
It is importantit is very importantto d o these assignments,
and to do them in a timely fashion. Each one is built upon
the other, and they are made to follow sequentially.
Failure to do this homework will reduce
significantly the benefit you receive from this program.

2012M7
 Conversations with God
Spiritual Mentoring Program
_________

Month #2: Mastering Happiness

Topic #17: Lifes Biggest Secret
This lesson written by Neale Donald Walsch
based on the information found in
Happier Than God

Discussion
Some people have come upon the title Happier Than God and scoffed, How
can a person be happier than God? Thats impossible.
My answer is that it is if you insist on thinking of God as someone or
something outside of you. Yet if you embrace fully the concept that God is
experiencing Godself in you, through you, as you, then you will see that being
happier than God is simply a matter of being happier than you ever were
before!
For instance, if you are smiling now and were not smiling just a moment ago,
then you are now happier than God.

What nobody tells you

But the real question is not whether you can be happier than God. The real
question is how to become happy, and sustain happiness, at any level.
There is a secret that most human beings do not know about---or, more
accurately, do not remember---that makes true happiness and real joy possible
in life. This is something that no school teaches, that no religion preaches, and
about which no one gives speeches.
There was a movie made a few years ago called The Secret that purported to
share this informationbut, alas, it, too, failed to mention it. The Secret, it turns
out, ignored THE SECRET.
Here is that secret now. I will give it to you, because after all this time of
searching and yearning, you deserve to know it
You cannot create anything.
That is right. You read that correctly. Write it in lipstick or soap on your
bathroom mirror

2012M7
 You cannot create anything.

This is blasphemy to the producers of that movie and the publishers of that
book. I was in that movie and that book, but I was disappointed when I saw the
final cut and realized that the word God was not even mentioned until the
final three or four minutes of a very long film (and then only once or twice).
Yet God---and who and what God IS---is the central element in the Process of
Personal Creation (or what others have called the Law of Attraction). And the
way in which God operates is the key aspect that we must truly understand if
we are to find lasting peace, joy, and happiness in our lives.
So let us review what we have been told in the Conversations with God
cosmology about all of this. Let us look at Who and What God is, the Nature of
Ultimate Reality, and at How Life (and Creation) Works.

Who and What God Is

God is not a great big Super Being in the sky, subject to all the annoyances
and challenges and emotional turmoil of human beings. God is not a simply A
Great Big US. God has no need for revenge and knows nothing of anger. God
needs nothing, for the simple reason that God Is Everything. There is nothing
that is not God.
Since God is Everything, seen and unseen, there is nothing which IS that God
could want. There is nothing that God could desire except more of Itself. That is
because there is nothing else TO desire. When there is nothing in existence but
You, there is nothing for you to desire save more of You.
This, then, is Gods desire: to express and experience More Of Itself.
Yet what IS this Self of which God wishes to experience more? Is God a
Great Big Human? Is God another kind of sentient being, sitting around
somewhere or existing somewhere, watching and overseeing human (and,
presumably, galactic) affairs?
No. According to my understanding, no. CwG says that God is a process. It
goes further. It says that God is the process called Life Itself. God is the
Intelligence behind Life, flowing through Life, and expressed by Life. God is both
the Expresser and the Expressed, the Creator and the Created, the Birther and
the Birthed.
God is the Pure Energy of Existence itself, if it could be put in that way. This
does not mean that God is an impersonal blob of undifferentiated energy,
without intelligence, purpose, or desire. Something like, say, electricity. Or
gravity. On the contrary, God is the sum total of all intelligence, every purpose,
and each desire. And every one of us, if we truly are miniaturizations of what

2012M7
God Is (and we are), is a smaller manifestation of this same energy. Even as a
drop of the ocean is a smaller manifestation of the ocean itself.

The Nature of Ultimate Reality

According to CwG there are three Realms in the Kingdom of God, the Realm
of the Spiritual, the Realm of the Physical, and the Realm of the Spirisical (the
first two combined). In the Realm of the Spiritual there is no such thing as Time
and Space. That is, it is always Right Here/Right Now.
Since there is no Time, everything that ever was, is now, and ever will be,
exists now. It the Realm of the Physical it is not that this is not so, it is simply
that we cannot see it; we do not experience it. That is because things exist here
in relative terms, whereas is the Spiritual Realm things exist in absolute terms.
In the Realm of the Physical, All That Is has been broken down into its
constituent parts. Therefore NOW looks like Before, Now, and After. HERE
looks like Here, There, and Everywhere In Between.

How Life Works

Because everything that ever was, is now, and ever will be Exists Now, it is
impossible to create anything. Everything that one might create has already
been created. What we call creation is actually the act of noticing the
existence of something for the first time. The fact that we did not previously
notice something does not mean that it did not exist before we noticed it.
And so we see that creation is simplyAwareness. The Act of Creating is
the Expanding of Awareness of the Already Existent Nature of the thing we
imagine ourselves to have created.

LESSON #17:
EVEN BEFORE YOU ASK, I WILL HAVE ANSWERED
Those are the words of God just above, yet I know all of this is all hard to
believe and difficult to understand and accept while we are living in the Realm
of the Physical, because it certainly looks as if we are building things and
producing things and creating things all the time. Yet if we can think of it as our
simply noticing ourselves acting out something that has already occurred, we
may be able to get a little closer in our conceptualizations to this Truth of
Ultimate Reality.
Perhaps an illustration might make this a bit easier to grasp

2012M7
Its all on the disc
Think of a chess game that you might play on a computer. The game comes
on a compact disc which is placed into a drawer on the computer and which
then loads its data onto the computer itself.
When the game begins, you make a move and the computer makes a move.
You may take a few minutes to ponder your next move, but no sooner do you
make it than the computer makes its next move instantly. Now you take even
longer to make your next move, but the computer takes no time at all to follow
your move with its own. It again makes its move instantly.
This goes on for as long as it takes you to play the game. You take your time
making your various moves, the computer makes its counter-moves
instantaneously. At the end of the game, you either win or lose. But how can the
computer make its moves so quickly? How does it know exactly what to do, in
the blink of an eye, following your every well-thought-out move?
The computer knows this because it has played this game before. In fact, not
only has it played this game, with all the exact same moves that this game
contained (all preprogrammed onto the disc), it has played every game you could
possibly play. Every game of chess that ever was, is now, and ever will be, is on
the disc.
To you it seems as if the game is being played for the first time, but to the
computer what you are doing is just a reenactment of a particular series of
moves out of all the possible moves that could be made! It knows about this
series of moves and it knows about every other series of moves that could
emerge through the repeated playing of the game. It is, therefore, impossible to
create.
You cannot create a move, you can only recreate a move that has already
been made by the programmers of the disc.
Nothing you can do is original.
Now if computer programmers that do something like that on a compact disc,
what do you think that God can do on a disc that you call the Galaxy???
Oh, by the wayat the end of our chess game the computer says,
Congratulations, you win. Or, Sorry, you lose. But it does not care either way.
The computer is not sad and it is not angry, it is not pleased and it is not happy.
It simply says, Want to play again?
There is a wonderful metaphor there and I hope you dont miss it

What this means to you

So if this is something close to the truth (and it is), what does it all mean to
you? It means that the act of creation is really the act of noticing something. In
practical, day-to-day terms, what this means is that if you wish to create
abundance for yourself, all you have to do is notice that you are already

2012M7
abundant. If you wish to create wisdom, notice that you already have wisdom. If
you wish to create love, notice that you already are love.
I find myself wanting to return now to something I said a little while ago
You dont need wisdom, you already have wisdom within you.
You dont need insight, you already have insight within you.
You dont need clarity, you already have clarity within you.
You dont need patience, compassion, forgiveness, or understanding, you
already have patience, compassion, forgiveness, and understanding within you.
You dont need peace, you already have peace within you.
You dont need happiness and joy, contentment and connection, wholeness
or awareness, you already have happiness and joy, contentment and
connection, wholeness or awareness within you.
You dont need love, you already have love within you.
You already have these things because you are these things. Yet it is one thing
to notice what you have and what you are, and quite another to experience
having and being it. So the question now becomesHow can you experience
what you desire?
Ah, but that is for our next lesson

__________________________________________________________________________________
TODAYS ASSIGNMENT:
1. Think of a time when Even before you ask, I will have answered has been part
of your experience. Have you ever had an experience of wanting something so
badly that you could taste it---only to find that it was already waiting for you,
and you simply did not know it? Please write about this in your CwG Spiritual
Mentoring Notebook. If you have had such an experience, write a short essay
about what it was and how it happened. If you have never had such an
experience, write about that; write about how it feels to have never had such an
experience.

2. Now were going to invite you to do something daring. Now that this
program is nearly six weeks old, were going to invite you to tell three friends or
relatives about it, and ask them if they would be willing to serve on a special
panel that will help you move through the second half of this program. Tell
three people that you would like to meet with them three times over the next
six weeks (it can be on a telephone conference call or in your home)---once
every other week---convening them as an Experience Circle.
What you want to do, you can explain to them, is explore the human
experience of others and compare it to your own. This will require them to be
totally open and completely honest with you and with everyone else in the
room, just as you will be with all of them. Explain that it is all part of the

2012M7
Spiritual Mentoring Program that you are now taking with the author of the
Conversations with God series of books.
Keep asking people until you find three people in your circle of relatives and
friends who will play. Now convene the Experience Circle for the first time (by
phone or in person) and ask its members the following questions:
A. Have you ever had the experience of wanting something to occur or desiring
something to be experienced in your life, only to find that it was already
there? (Explain that this is the Glasses on Your Head experience, where you
are looking for glasses or sunglasses that are on your head.)
B. Have you ever had the experience of wishing for something that was already
on its way, but you did not know it? (This is Its in the Mail experience, where
what you are waiting for has already been sent to you.
C. What role, if any, do you experience that God plays in bringing you the things
that you desire in your life?

3. Check the replies from your Experience Circle with your own experience, and
make an entry in your Notebook about what this tells you.

Please Note
It is importantit is very importantto d o these assignments,
and to do them in a timely fashion. Each one is built upon
the other, and they are made to follow sequentially.
Failure to do this homework will reduce
significantly the benefit you receive from this program.

2012M7
 Conversations with God
Spiritual Mentoring Program
_________

Month #2: Mastering Happiness

Topic #18: What You Really Desire
This lesson written by Neale Donald Walsch
based on the information found in
Happier Than God

Discussion
We have said here that the Act of Creation is really the Act of Noticing that
something already exists. This may be a foundational shift in your
understanding of the Universe and how it works. Give yourself some time to
wrap your Mind around this.
As we explore this idea together, lets take a closer look at what it is, exactly,
that each of us is trying to manifest.
I was deeply disappointed in the movie The Secret because it seemed to focus
primarily, if not exclusively, on the fulfillment of desire for exterior things. A
man was shown overjoyed because the car of his dreams suddenly appeared in
his driveway. A woman beamed after a diamond necklace popped onto her
bodice. Even a 9-year-old boy was used in one sequence, showing his utter
happiness when, just outside the front door, a brand new shiny bicycle showed
up.
What was sad about this movie is that it purported to teach that you can have
anything you want in life---fame, riches, power, or stuff---but it did not really
focus a great deal on the Soul and what it is doing heremuch less what it
desires.

Looking Deeper
Conversations with God tells us that we are 3-Part Beings, made up of Body,
Mind, and Soul. You are not your Body, it says. Your Body is something you
have, not something you are. You are not your Mind, it says. Your Mind is
something you have, not something you are. You are not even your Soul, it says.
Your Soul, likewise, is something you have, not something you are.
Then what are you?

2012M7
 In the ground-breaking book When Everything Changes, Change Everything
we are told that we are the combination of Body-Mind-Soul---for which there is
not yet a name in most human languages. So WECCE (the books acronym) calls
this The Totality Of Your Being.
Now lets take a close look at what the Total of Your Being desires. Do you
think it desires stuff? A new car? A nicer house? A perfect spouse? A
promotion? A bigger bank account? A better house? More sex? Do you think it
wants bigger-better-more?
Some of these things may seem like what you want, but none of them are
what you really want. So let us stop a bit and take a look at something quite
important: everything you really desire to create is an interior experience.

Everything you really desire to create is an interior

experience.

The outer world stuff is only a toy, a tool with which and through which you
hope to produce an inner world experiencethe experience of peace, of joy, of
happiness, of contentment, of wholeness, of awareness, of love, and, ultimately,
of The Divine. Because all of these things are The Divine, in its constituents
parts---and we know this. This is something we intuitively understand.

That Inner Urging

We all share an impulse toward the Divine. Every living thing does. Like a
flower or plant bending toward the sun, every sentient being bends toward God.
This is something we do whether we want to or not. It is instinctual. It is
cellular.
If we do not believe in God, we experience it as a yearning to be whole, or one
with another, or united with many others. We experience it as wanting to know
and understand our place in things. Where do we fit it? What part of All Of It are
we? We are aware that there is an All Of It, and whether we call that God or
not is hardly important. A rose by any other name is still a rose.
The Divine toward which we bend is a feeling. It is not part of our exterior
world, it is part of our interior world. That explains how Nelson Mandela could
be in jail for 27 years and come out and forgive his jailers. That explains how
Thomas Aquinas could spend most of his life in his mind and still express more
heartfelt love for life and for God than most human beings dream of. That
explains how Mother Theresa could spend most of her life in poverty and in
service to others and still be wondrously peaceful and happy, without a single
car or sex partner or bank account.
What is going on with these people?, we ask. What do they know they we do not
know?

2012M7
 What they know is that happiness is not produced by stuff. It is not
produced by physical activity; by doing things. Physical objects and activities
are merely tools that create nothing, but that can be used to call forth That
Which Already Is. Ultimately, physical objects and activities convert themselves
from Tools to Evidences. They do not call forth That Which Already Is, they give
evidence of its Already Thereness.
Let me give you an example of what I mean
At first, as we learn about the physical world in which we have placed
ourselves, we may use physical objects and activities as a means to an end. We
may decide that happiness, love, or power can be experienced by having a car,
having sex, or having a bank account (to use three simple examples). Yet later,
as we spiritually mature and become more and more aware of Who We Are and
What Is So, we may use the same physical objects and activities not to call forth
the experience of happiness, love, and power, but to demonstrate that
happiness, love, and power Already Exist inside of us.
In either event our happiness, love, and power has nothing to do with cars,
sex, or bank accounts. In both cases, these are merely Exterior World Devices
used to create or express Interior World Realities.
It is the Interior World Realities for which the Totality Of Your Being
yearns. It cares nothing about your Exterior World---any more than the
beautiful chest of drawers cares about the hammer and saw that made it.
The Totality of Your Being fully understands that your Exterior World is
necessary in order for your Interior Reality to be expressed and
experienced, so it honors your Exterior World---but it never, ever gets
confused and thinks that IT is THAT.
The above paragraph is all you will ever need to produce a happy, peaceful,
joyous life, filled with love.

Watch Yourself and You Will See That All of This is True
Again, I know that some of what is being said here may be difficult for you to
believe or embrace as your functioning truth. Yet I would invite you to know
that, at the deepest level, you are already doing so.
Watch what it is that moves you most in a really good film. Is it the scene in
which there is a beautiful car? Is it the scene in which there is a gorgeous
human half-clothed or fully naked? Is it the scene in which there is a pile of
money being thrown around? Is it the scene in which there is a lot of power
being exercised?
Such scenes may scintillate our senses, but do they move us? Are we touched
by them deeply in our hearts? Or is it the scene in which enormous compassion
is being displayed? Is it the scene in which a very real and deep love is being
felt and shared?
2012M7
 Of course it is the latter, and we can see this clearly. So, too, is it in real life.
And so we see that it is inner world realities we seek to create; it is happiness,
peace, love, joy, and other beingness experiences, for which we yearn. Indeed, it
is such experiences for which we have come here.
Now why is this so important? Why am I making such a point of this?
Because once we know what we are trying to do here, we are in a much better
position to be able to do it.
We are not trying to get stuff, we are trying to achieve the feeling that we
sometimes have when we do get stuff.

We are not trying to get stuff, we are trying to

achieve the feeling that we have when we do get
stuff.

This is important to understand, because it can change the entire outlook and
all of the priorities of our life. Suddenly the real question becomes, Is there a
way to have those feelings without having that stuff? With regard to our Inner
World Reality of peace and love, happiness and joy, oneness and connection,
safety and security, is there some way to call it forth without using Exterior
World effects or physical manifestations as the only means with which to do so?
The answer is yes.
Not surprisingly, the answer is yes.
We should use our Exterior World, of course. Thats what its there for. But
we use it best when we use it in the way that it was intended to be used---not as
a magnet, but as a mirror; not as a device to draw something to us, but as a tool
with which to reflect something in us.

LESSON #18:
EVERYTHING YOU DESIRE IS ALREADY YOURS
Now that we are clear about what it is that we really desire, we can see how
the above statement could be true. Once again, and now in this larger context, I
am inspired to make the follow statements
You dont need wisdom, you already have wisdom within you.
You dont need insight, you already have insight within you.
You dont need clarity, you already have clarity within you.
You dont need patience, compassion, forgiveness, or understanding, you
already have patience, compassion, forgiveness, and understanding within you.
You dont need peace, you already have peace within you.

2012M7
 You dont need happiness and joy, contentment and connection, wholeness
or awareness, you already have happiness and joy, contentment and
connection, wholeness or awareness within you.
You dont need love, you already have love within you.
Yet how can you know that these things are within you? That is the question.
And thats where were going next.

__________________________________________________________________________________
TODAYS ASSIGNMENT:
1. Go down to your local shopping center or to any public place where there is lots
of foot traffic and take another survey. Say: Hello, Im taking a survey of social
attitudes and values. May I ask you three questions? If they say yes, ask
A. What makes you happy? Please name three things that make you happy. I
realize that there are a lot more than three, but name your top three if you can,
as you think about it now.
B. What makes you peaceful? Please name three things that make you peaceful. I
realize that there are a lot more than three, but name your top three if you can,
as you think about it now.
C. Do you ever feel Divine? That is, do you ever have a sense of an experience of
Divinity flowing through you as you? What makes you feel Divine? Please name
three things that make you feel Divine. I realize that there may be a lot more
than three, but name your top three if you can, as you think about it now.
D. Do not end the survey until you have asked at last 10 people these questions.

2. Come home and run an analysis of the answers you received.
A. What percentage of the respondents said that cars, houses, their jobs, sex, or
money were among the three things that made them happy? What percentage
named one of these three first?
B. What percentage of the respondents said that cars, houses, their jobs, sex, or
money were among the three things that made them peaceful? What percentage
named one of these three first?
C. What percentage of the respondents said that cars, houses, their jobs, sex, or
money were among the three things that made them feel Divine? What
percentage named one of these three first?

3. What if anything does this tell you about what most people truly desire?

Please Note
It is importantit is very importantto do these assignments,
and to do them in a timely fashion. Each one is built upon
the other, and they are made to follow sequentially.
Failure to do this homework will reduce
significantly the benefit you receive from this program.

2012M7