Your role as a spiritual helper. By Neale Donald Walsch.
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The second step in becoming a spiritual helper is to:
2. AGREE WITH OURSELVES ABOUT EACH OTHER
It is important that we come to a new and larger understanding about each other. We are not each other’s enemies. We are not each other’s obstacles. We are not even each other’s competitors. We are each other.
Did you hear that? Did you understand the implication of that?
Don’t be offended by these questions. Every day I have to act as if I never heard that before. Every day I seek to bring myself to a new understanding of what all of that means. Sometimes I can hear something and “not hear it,” know what I mean? I mean it goes in one ear and out the other. I’ve heard it so often it’s like I’ve never heard it at all. So I have to bring myself to it as if it were brand new.
So let me ask you again, did you hear that?
What I SAID was…we are each other.
The implication of that is enormous. Because if we see each other, if we can finally come to a place where we can really see each other, as simply Another Version Of Us, we will suddenly understand many things—not the least of which is our unlimited potential to create anything we choose on this planet.
A neat trick if we can do it
I have to believe that most of the people reading this booklet right now would agree with the above statement, conceptually. The idea that We Are All One comprises the core of the CwG message. Indeed, it is the earliest message of Conversations with God-Book 1, it is the central focus of the latest book, What God Wants, and it is the through-line of all the other books in between.
Having said that, I notice that even readers of CwG have a challenging time living that truth. I do, too. All people do. Except when they don’t. What makes it less challenging to live the truth of our Oneness, to see ourselves as each other, is under- standing.
Without deep understanding, it is not going to be easy to overcome the Illusion of Disunity.
This idea of disunity is very powerful in our experience. It emerged from the first two Illusions of Humans, the Illusion of Need and the Illusion of Failure. These Illusions are explained in wonderfully illuminating detail in the astonishing book Communion with God, which outlines the mental cosmology of life as we know it.
“Disunity” proceeds directly out of the idea off “failure,” just as “failure” proceeds directly out of the idea of “need.” These are the first three Illusions. There are ten in all.
As Communion with God explains it:
Our species reasoned that if creations were separate from the Creator, and if the Creator allowed the creations to do whatever they pleased, it would then be possible for the creations to do something that the Creator did not want them to do. Under these circumstances, the Will of the Creator could be thwarted. God could want something, but not get it. Failure could exist.
Disunity produces the possibility of Failure, and Failure is only possible if Need exists. One illusion depends upon another.
The idea that Disunity Exists has proven to have extraordinary impact on human affairs. The feeling of separation from God makes it extremely difficult for people to relate to God in any meaningful way. They either misunderstand God, or fear God, or they supplicate
with God, begging for God’s help – or they deny God altogether.
In so doing, humans have missed a glorious opportunity to use the most powerful force in the Universe, subjecting themselves to lives over which they imagine that they have no control, under conditions they think that they cannot change, producing experiences and
outcomes they believe they cannot escape.
The feeling of separation from God does not allow humans to use God, to call upon God, to have a friendship with God, to harness the full potential of God’s creative and healing power, either to end suffering, or for any other purpose.
The feeling of separation from each other allows humans to do all manner of things to each other that they would never do to themselves. By failing to see that they are doing it to themselves, they produce and reproduce unwelcome results in their daily lives and in their planetary experience, over and over again.
The most significant outcome is that your belief in separation leads to your idea that there is “not enough.”
When there was only One Thing, and you knew that you were that One Thing, there was never a question of there not being “enough.” There was always “enough of You.” But when you decided that there was more than One Thing, then (and only then) it could appear that there was not enough of “the other thing.”
This “other thing” that you think that there is, is the stuff of Life. Yet you are Life, and that which Life IS —which is God, Itself.
Still, so long as you imagine that you are separate from God, you will imagine that you are something other than what God is—which is Life Itself. You may think that you are that which lives, but you will not imagine yourself to be Life Itself.
This separation OF Itself FROM Itself is what you have called, in one of your mythologies, the casting out from the Garden of Eden. Suddenly, where once there was eternal life, now there is death. Suddenly, where once there was abundance, now there is “not enough.”
Suddenly, it seems that there are many Aspects of Life competing for Life Itself. This is impossible in Ultimate Reality, but not in your imagination.
You can even imagine that you are in competition. With the birds, with the bees, with every other living thing, and with all other human beings.
You can create a nightmare in which all that supports your life seems not to support your life at all, but to limit it. Thus, you will actually attempt to subdue that which supports you.
There is a way that we can get over this Illusion of Disunity and the idea of Separation. There is a way that we can agree with ourselves about each other—that we can see and experience ourselves and each other as Who We Really Are. The path to that experience is the path of comprehension and awareness.
Deeply understanding, deeply changing
When we really comprehend, when we deeply understand, not only the nature of life’s cosmology, but the reasons for it, we can make deep changes in our experiences of ourselves and of life.
If we created everything (and CwG, of course, says that we did, and do), then we created the Illusion of Disunity, the idea of separation. But why? Why would we do such a thing? The mind begs to know this, otherwise it cannot believe that the separation it sees all around itself is not real.
Again from Communion with God…
If everything is experienced as unified, then nothing can be experienced as unified, because “unity” does not exist as a discreet experience. It is not something that can be known.
Yet it is Our wish to know Ourselves as Who We Really Are. Thus, we must first create the experience of Who We Are Not. Since we cannot create this experience in Ultimate Reality (reality is what reality is), we must do so through Illusion.
In this way, we can rejoice in what is Really So, and know it. In this way we can experience Who We Really Are.
The All of It.
The One and Only.
We are The Collective, the Single Reality in Multiple Form — having taken Multiple Form that we might notice and experience the glory of our Single Reality.
This is a simple explanation of the purpose of relativity, that has been given you now many times in the CwG dialogue. It is repeated here, so that you may understand it thoroughly; so that you may awaken from your dream.
Until you awaken from your dream, the Illusion of separation from Life will create the perceived need to “survive.” Before separation, your survival was never questioned. You simply “were,” and it never occurred to you that you would not always “be.” Only when you stepped away from Life (God), and imagined yourself as separate from it, did Life itself become that of which there was “not enough.” You began to make decisions about what you felt you had to do to “survive” – to have more “Life.”
This became your primary goal, and your new basic instinct. You even began to think that the reason you coupled with others was to guarantee your survival as a species. You lost sight of the fact that you coupled in response to the only real instinct, which is love.
You have called your new basic instinct “The Survival Instinct,” out of your idea that you might not survive. This idea is false, for your survival is guaranteed, forever, and even forevermore. Yet you do not remember this, and so do not think there is “enough life,” given
that there are so many aspects of life competing for it.
And, indeed, that is how you see it. You imagine that you are in competition with all the other “stuff of life” for Life Itself. You are competing with your very Self for more of your Self, but you do not know it.
Your belief in insufficiency has even led you to conclude that there is not enough God.
Not only is there not enough life (which you translate into a belief in death), not only is there not enough of the stuff of life (which you translate into a belief in lack), there is not even enough of That Which Created Life (which you translate into a belief in a limited God).
Because all of these things are limited, you must compete for them – this is your belief, and you are destroying your planet and yourselves because of this belief.
You are even destroying yourself in your competitions for God, which you call religions. You have been killing yourselves, and seeking to annihilate entire civilizations, in your insane competition for God.
You do not admit that you are doing these things, because to admit it would be to acknowledge that there may be something inaccurate about the way you view life and the world – and particularly about the way you view God – and this you have not been able to do.
Such an admission would require enormous humility, and humility is not presently a large part of your planet’s philosophy or theology.
= = = = = = = = =
I have already told you this secret, but I did not identify it as “the secret,” and so, you may not have understood that this insight is the key to everything.
Here is the insight again. Here is the secret.
Disunity does not exist.
This insight can change your entire experience of life. This insight translates into a simple statement that, if it was lived as your day-to-day reality, would turn your world upside down:
We Are All One.
What this would really do is turn your world right side up! For when you realize that there is One Thing, and only One Thing, One Reality and only One Reality, One Being and only One Being, then you comprehend that, at some level, the One Being is – and must be – always getting Its way.
In other words, Failure does not exist.
And when you reach this level of clarity, you see clearly, too, that, in the absence of failure, the One Being is without nothing.
Therefore, Need does not exist.
Suddenly, with enlightenment, the dominoes fall backward. The construction of your illusions caves in upon itself. It is not the Illusions themselves that crumble, but the constructions they support. That is, the Cultural Stories upon which you build your life.
These stories, from the story of what you imagine it takes to make your life work right here and right now, to the story of how you imagine that it all began, have all been myths, having nothing to do with Ultimate Reality.
For you to now advance in your evolution as a species, there must be a disconnect from these stories.
Now you understand. And now you know what it will take to truly become a spiritual helper. It will take you, setting aside your cultural stories. If we continue living inside of these stories, we can never agree with ourselves about each other. For our ancient cultural stories tell us myths about each other, give us ideas about each other, that are not true. Chiefly, the idea that there even IS someone called “the other.”
Once we have established through our myths that there is something out there other than “us,” we begin to delineate what that “other” thing is by describing it in ways that differ from “us.” The next step on this dangerous path is to imagine that the “other” is not only different from “us,” but “less” than “us.”
In other words, we are “better.”
This idea of “betterness” thrives on, and can only have its being in, the idea of “disunity” or “separation.” Obviously, a thing cannot be superior to itself. And so, the idea of superiority (another of the Ten Illusions of Humans) emerges from the idea of separation.
It’s all very simple when you understand it.
Some practical ways to take Step Two
Taking this second step in becoming a spiritual helper is as simple as A-B-C.
A. Learn about the Ten Illusions of Humans. This is a breathtakingly clear outline of the mental cosmology of human life. Once you understand these illusions, you can play with them, as a magician plays with his own tricks. You can become a spiritual helper because you can help people understand the spiritual nature of things, and the illusions of physicality.
B. Begin to heal your thoughts of separation. It can be done, but it takes commitment and a real determination to begin seeing the world around you in a new way.
C. Talk to each other. This may be the most courageous thing you have ever done. It involves something stunning in its impact: telling the truth.
Now let’s take a look at how you can do this.
As mentioned before, the Ten Illusions are described eloquently and discussed fully in Communion with God, a book that is must reading for anyone seeking to fully comprehend the entire message of the CwG body of work.
If you have not read this book, add it to your library immediately. If you have read it, read it again—and this time take notes. If you took notes the first time, go over those notes again, and take notes on your notes.
In other words, become thoroughly familiar with this deeply insightful material. There has never been anything quite like it placed before the human race. It explains everything with such exquisite clarity that it is worth reading at least twice a year, or however often you find it necessary in order to pull the mind out of its illusory state—and keep it out of there.
More practical suggestions
Look at each other, smile at each other, touch each other.
In the lectures that I present around the world I talk about three simple tools that can break down the barriers between us, helping us to begin to heal our thoughts of separation and to agree with ourselves about each other.
We have to, we absolutely must, come to a new understanding of Who We Really Are, and of Who Everyone Else Is, if we are going to become spiritual helpers.
Tool #1: Look at each other.
This is not always easy to do. In fact, our human cultures train us not to look at each other. We are not to catch anyone’s eyes and hold that connection for more than a second or two. In some places on our earth we are told that we are not to catch anyone’s eyes at all—especially if we are women. We are to look downward when another approaches. We are not to make eye contact.
Because we are trained not to look at each other, we go through our entire lives without ever really being seen. All we want is to see and be seen, to love and be loved, yet this is the very thing that is denied us. Our cultures tell us not to make this connection.
In the lectures, I give my audience an exercise. At the intermission, practice encountering people in the lobby or the back of the hall and look them straight in the eye. Hold that eye contact for more than a count of “1”. Give yourself permission to actual “be with” another person’s eyes for a breath or two more. Feel the deeper connection that looking into someone’s eyes immediately creates.
Do you know why the simple act of looking into someone’s eyes creates this connection? Because the eyes are the windows unto the soul. When we look deeply into someone’s eyes we see past the exterior of things, peering deeply into the interior of being. At this deep interior level of being we find nothing but truth. We find our “other”. And, we find love.
That is why the act of simply looking someone in the eye is an act of bravery. It is when the soul becomes naked. It is when all differences and separations disappear. It is when everything is seen, and everything is seen to be the same.
Tool #2: Smile at each other.
If you think that looking took courage, imagine the courage that it will take to smile. Yet do it anyway. Look at another, and smile.
Smile for no good reason. Smile simply because the other exists. Smile at the beauty and the wonder of Life Expressed in this extraordinary way, in the form of the person before you.
Why smile? Because a smile will make both you and the person at whom you are looking feel great. A smile signals to the other person that you are feeling good about what you are seeing. And a smile signals to your self that you are feeling good, period.
In fact, the very act of smiling can make you feel good. Smiling is the medicine of the soul. It actually produces physiological changes in the body that, through the release of endorphins, produces better health! Did you know that?
Thich Nhat Hanh, the wonderful Buddhist monk, says that you can brighten your spirits and actually bring yourself better physical health if you smile five times a day for no particular reason. And when you smile at another, it improves the mental and physical and spiritual health of all who see
that smile and, by extension, of the world entire. A smile sends a vibe, and a vibe sends a message. It is very hard to become angry with someone, or to remain angry with someone, if you are looking them right in the eye for more than a single breath, and smiling. That is why, when you are having an argument with someone, you have to look away. And that is why, when you are making love, you look at each other and smile. (At least I hope you do!)
So make love now to the whole human race. Look at each other, and smile.
Tool #3: Touch each other.
Everyone wants to touch and be touched. It is natural. It is instinctual. Because touching literally puts us in touch with our own existence, our own reality, confirming for us that the world exists and so do we. And that we are not alone.
Some people have gone years without being touched in a gentle or loving way. They yearn for a gentle loving touch, and they never receive it.
You can touch others in ways that are entirely appropriate and socially acceptable. You do not have to worry that you are going to cross a line or break a boundary. A simple, but really sincere, handshake can mean everything. A non-intrusive, gentle light touch on the arm or the shoulder can mean the world to someone.
I remember when I met one of the most unforgettable people in my life, former U.S. President Bill Clinton. I was attending a private reception with about 25 other people, and the former president walked into the room in which we were waiting. My heart jumped. I can actually say that I was truly impressed with the simple appearance of another human being in my space.
I suspect that no matter what your politics, no matter what your thoughts about his presidency might be, it would be hard for most people not to be at least a little impressed in the presence of someone who has been that famous and that powerful.
But here is what impressed me the most about meeting and talking with Bill Clinton. As he was being introduced to me he stopped the man offering the introduction short, saying, “Oh, you don’t have to tell me who this is. I know exactly who this is.” Then he looked me directly in the eye and said, “I’ve read your books.” With that he smiled very sincerely and did something that astonished me. He put his arm around my shoulder as we posed for a photograph and he began talking to me earnestly—which gets us to our next point. But before I go there, I want, I just want to express to you how incredibly impacted I was by the president’s actions. He knew exactly how to open the moment to every possibility. He looked. He smiled. He touched. And the impact was electric.
Some final practical ideas
Item “C” above seems almost too simple to be worth dwelling on. It says that one very practical thing that we can do to take Step Two of the Ten Steps to Becoming a Spiritual Healer is to talk to each other.
Now that seems pretty obvious, doesn’t it? I mean, isn’t that what everybody does?
No.
In fact, more often than not people brush past each other in this life without saying a word. And, when they do say a word, rarely is it a completely, utterly truthful and honest one.
If we not learned to be honest with each other. In fact, our world has trained us to lie. We have been trained to lie (either by omission or by commission, for a “lie” can be something that is said or that is left unsaid…) by learning that if we tell the truth, very often we are not rewarded, but, in fact, we are punished by life.
The result is that many people go through life weighing every word, silently assessing each situation, looking at every moment and at what it seems to require, and trying to figure out how we can say what we need to say and get what we want to get in order to survive with our happiness intact. We try to do this without compromising our integrity too terribly much, but most of us will give up our integrity if we think that our survival—or something that we really, really want—is at stake.
So when I say here that one practical way that we can take Step Two—agree with ourselves about each other—is to talk to each other, I am not referring to the simple exchange of words from one or two of humanity’s languages. I am talking about truth telling, from deep within the human heart.
This is not the kind of talking we are used to. This is not the kind of communication that most people
would call normal. It is the kind of communication that most of us wish we could engage in, but most of us are
afraid to do so. And so we don’t do it very often, and we don’t do it with very many people at all.
CwG says that there are Five Levels of Truth Telling.
Level 1: Tell the truth to yourself about yourself
Level 2: Tell the truth to yourself about another.
Level 3: Tell the truth about yourself to another.
Level 4: Tell the truth about another to that other.
Level 5: Tell the truth to everyone about everything.
I’m not going to get into a huge discussion and description of these Five Levels of Truth telling, because I think that for the persons reading this booklet that list speaks for itself. (If you do want a more detailed look at all this you’ll find a wonderful overview in Conversations with God-Book 2.)
What I have discovered about total truth telling—or what my friend Brad Blanton calls radical honesty (he has written a book by the same name which is well worth your reading)—is that it rarely produces the outcomes we fear, which are rejection, loss and non-acceptance.
In the moments when I have gathered the courage to actually tell the truth and the whole truth to someone, either about myself or about them or about the two of us, I have almost always been met with an amazing moment of release and self-acceptance, and an almost always present willingness on the part of the other to accept me as I am, and forgive me whatever foibles I may have deliberately or inadvertently exposed.
I am telling you that truth-telling works. And it is only when two people can sit down and speak their truth to each other that they can ever hope to get to a place where they can come to an agreement about each other—that the other person is not really so bad…and is, in fact, quite a bit like us.
The last word on Step Two
We must find a way to agree with ourselves about each other. If I am going to be any kind of a spiritual helper on this planet I have to be willing to suspend judgment about others. I have to understand at a very deep level the message in Conversations with God that even Hitler went to heaven.
I have to look closely again at all the teachings I have ever heard about redemption and forgiveness and salvation. I have to think once more, perhaps more deeply than ever before, about What God Wants. And I have to search as honestly as I can within the inside of me, to see if I can truly find any sin that has been committed by another that I, myself, have not committed, at least in some form.
I have to agree with myself that I am a part of God, that I am Divinity being expressed right here, right now, in the Life Form that is “me,” and that every other person is likewise an aspect and an expression of Divinity.
I believe it was Robert Heinlein, the wonderful science-fiction writer and author of A Stranger in a Strange Land, who had the characters in his book greet each other with a three-word salutation upon every meeting: “Thou art God.”
Yes, yes, there are those who use the Sanskrit term Namaste in the same way, but Namaste means, literally, I bow to you. And, loosely, it has been translated to mean The light in me recognizes the light in you, or God in me recognizes and honors God in you.
None of these meanings, however, carry for me the impact of saying, in simple, direct terms, in one’s own language, “Thou art God.”
Imagine if you said that as you met, or before you talked to, anyone. Do you think that might change the emotional and spiritual context of your very next interaction?
And even if you can’t say it, if custom or some sense of social awkwardness will not allow it, there is nothing that says you can’t think it. So give yourself permission to think this thought—“Thou art God”—prior to every encounter or conversation with another. Make this a part of your inner discipline. See if it changes the tone and the nuance and the content of your next experience with that other person—whoever it is.
I am betting it will.
* End of chapter 2 *
Copyright © 2005 Neale Donald Walsch. Published here by Gil Dekel with Neale’s permission. 30 December 2016.
Published in 2005 by Spiritual Legacies, Ashland, OR, USA. All rights reserved.
Go to: >Preface. >Introduction. >Chapter 1. >Chapter 2. >Chapter 3. >Chapter 4. >Chapter 5. >Chapter 6. >Chapter 7. >Chapter 8. >Chapter 9. >Chapter 10. >Afterword. >Books That Have Inspired Me.