Introduction

Introduction


Welcome to this book.

I would like you to consider something extraordinary.

I would like you to consider the possibility that this book was created just for you
If you can accept that construction, I believe you are about to have one of the most powerful experiences of your life.

Now I would like you to consider something even more extraordinary.

I would like you to consider the possibility that this book was created for you by you.

If you can imagine a world in which nothing is happening to you, and everything is happening through you, you will have gotten the message that you intended to send to yourself here within seven sentences.

You can’t ask a book to deliver faster than that.

…


Welcome to this moment,

You are “well come” here, for this moment was designed by to bring you to the blessed experience you are about to have.

You have sought the answers to life’s most meaningful questions, and you have sought them repeatedly, earnestly, and sincerely, or you would not be here.

This search has been going on inside of you, whether you have made it a major part of your exterior life or not; it is what has caused you to pick up this book.
With your understanding of that, you have unraveled one of life’s biggest mysteries: why things happen the way they do.

All of this in fourteen sentences.

Welcome to this meeting with the Creator.

It is a meeting which you could not have avoided. All people meet with the Creator.

It is not a question of whether but of when.

People of earnestness, seeking truth, experience the meeting sooner rather than later. Honesty is a magnet. It attracts Life. And Life is just another word of God.
The person who honestly seeks, honestly receives. Life will not lie to itself.

That is how it has come to pass that you have arrived here, in front of these words. You have placed yourself here, and it has not been by accident. Carefully consider how you got here and you will see that.

Do you believe in the process of Divine Inspiration? I do. I believe in it for you, and I believe in it for me.

Some people don’t like it when another says that they’ve been inspired by God. As I see it, there are several reasons for this.

First, most people don’t think they have ever been inspired by God, at least not in the most immediate way—that is, through direct communication—and therefore anyone who makes such a claim is immediately suspect.

Second, claiming that God is one’s inspiration appears to be a bit arrogant, implying that the inspiration may not be argued with, nor found lacking in anyway, given it’s origin.

Third, many of those who have claimed Divine Inspiration have not been the easiest people to live with—witness Mozart, Rembrandt, Michelangelo, or any of a number popes, as well as countless others who have done some pretty crazy things in the name of God.

Finally, we have made those whom we do believe have been directly inspired by God into such holy men and women that we don’t quite know how to deal with them, or how to interact with them in a normal way. Simply put, as wonderful as they are, they can make us uncomfortable.

So we’re pretty skittish about this God-is-my-source thing. And, perhaps rightly, we should be. We don’t want to swallow whole everything that others tell us, simply because they claim to carry message from the Most High.

But how can we know for sure what is Divine Inspiration and what is not? How can we be certain who is speaking eternal truth?

Ah, that is the great question. But here is the great secret. We don’t have to know. All we have to know is our truth, not someone else’s. When we understand this, we understand everything. We understand that what others are saying doesn’t have to be the Truth; it only has to lead us to our own. And it will do that. It cannot help but do that, eventually. All things lead us to our innermost truth. That is their purpose.

Indeed, that is the purpose of Life itself.

Life is truth, revealing Itself to Itself.

God is Life, revealing Itself to Itself.

You could not stop this process if you wanted to. But you can speed it up.

That is what you doing here.

That is why you have brought yourself to this book.

This book does not claim to be The Truth. It is intended to guide you to your own innermost wisdom. It is not necessary for you to agree with its contents for it to do that. In fact, agreeing or not agreeing will be irrelevant. If you agree, it will be because you see this book your own wisdom. If you disagree, it will be because you do not see your own wisdom. In either case, you will have been led back to your own wisdom.

So thank yourself for this book, because it has already brought you back to clarity about one major point: The highest authority lies within you
This is so because each of us has direct connection to the Divine.

Each of us has the ability to access eternal wisdom. Indeed, I believe that God is inspiring all of us, all of the time. And while all of us have had this experience, some of us have chosen to call it something else:

Serendipity.
Coincidence.
Luck.
Accident.
Freak experience.
Chance encounter.
Perhaps even Divine Intervention.

We seem to be willing to acknowledge that God intervenes in our lives but unable to embrace the idea that God may actually directly inspire us to think, to write, to say, or to do a particular thing. That seems to be going too far.

I’m going to go too far.

I’m going to say that I believe God has inspired me to write this book and you to pick it up. Now let’s test this idea against some of the reasons you might have to be skittish about that.

First, I’m clear, as I have just said above, that all of us are being inspired by God all the time. It is not my thought that you and I are unique, or that God has bestowed upon us a singular power, or granted us some special dispensation allowing us to commune with the Divine. I believe that everyone is in a state of such continual communion, and that we may consciously experience this whenever we choose. Indeed, as I understand it, this is the promise of many of the world’s religion.
Second, I do not believe that because one is experiencing a moment of open contact with the Divine that one’s utterances, actions, or writings are rendered infallible. With all due respect to any religion or movement that claims its founder or its present leader to be infallible, I believe that it is possible for divinely inspired people to make errors. And I believe it, in fact, that they make them routinely. I do not, therefore, believe that every word of the Bible or Bhagavad-Gita or the Qur’an is literally true, that every utterance of the pope when speaking ex cathedra is correct, or that every action ever taken by Mother Teresa was right and perfect action for that moment in time. I do believe that Mother Teresa was divinely inspired, but being divinely inspired and being infallible are two different things.
Third, I can very difficult to live with (nobody knows this more than those who have lived with me), and while I do not claim imperfections for you, I do not think that my own imperfections disqualify me from receiving God’s help and direct guidance. In fact, I believe the opposite is true.

Finally, I don’t believe that I am in any danger of becoming “holy” to the point of making anyone uncomfortable. Actually, again the opposite may be true. If people are uncomfortable with me at all, it is probably because I am not holy enough. It is a challenge to walk my talk. I can write very inspiring things, I can say very inspiring things, but I sometimes catch myself doing these things that aren’t very inspiring.

I am on a path, and I have by no means reach my destinations. Nor, would it appear, am I even getting close. All that is really different between the me of now and the me of yesteryear is that now I have at least found the path. Yet for me that is a great advance. I’ve spent most of my life not even knowing where I was going, then wondering why I wasn’t getting here.

Now I know where I am going. I am going Home, back to the full awareness and experience of my communion with God. And nothing can stop me from getting there. God has promised. And I believe this promise, at last.

God has also shown the way. Actually, not the way, but a way. For God’s greatest truth is that there is not one way only but many ways Home. There are a thousand paths to God, and every one will get you there.

Indeed, all paths lead to God. This is because there is no other place to go.
This book talks about that. It talks about how to go Home. It discusses the experience of Oneness with the Divine, or what I call communion with God. It describes a path to that experience, a pathway through our illusions, to the Ultimate Reality.

This book speaks with one voice. I believe it to be the voice of God, the inspiration of God, the presence of God, moving through me, and through you. If I did not believe that God’s voice, God’s inspiration, and God’s presence could move through all of us. I would have to give up my faith that God could inspire all of the world’s religions.

I am not willing to do that. I believe that on this score, religions have it right: God does come into our lives, in real and present ways, and we don’t have to be saints or sages for it to happen.

I don’t need you to join me in this belief, nor to believe any of the words on these pages. Indeed, I would be happiest if you did not. Do not believe anything you find here.

Know.

Simply know.

Know if any of this truth. If it is, it will ring true—for you will have been reunited with your innermost wisdom. If it is not, you will know that, too—once again from having been reunited with your innermost wisdom. In either event, you will have benefited enormously, for you will have experienced, in that moment of reunification, your own communion with God.

And that was what you intended when you came here.

To these pages.

And to this planet.


Blessed be.
Neale Donald Walsch
Ashland, Oregon
July 2000