Hi,

reading Alan's 'Creation' essay on this board reminded of the first time I read 'Conversations With God' by Neale Donald Walsch (subject matter if not style) .I was wondering what other people had read which had inspired them in this area (apart from Bruce's books of course !).

:)

Dave

My mind is like a clean swept room. When I awake it is generally my own repetitive voice which I hear in my ear, until the world bursts in. I occasionally pick up a book, and turn a few pages. I am surrounded by them. But, like I said, I am continually clearing off my table, and my room is swept clean. That way, I can walk around with no shoes on. So, you can see what is important to me.

Conversations with God, Book One literally changed my life when I realized I was having the God experience all the time I was looking so hard for it. Sort of the same with the out of body thing-- once I "learned" how to do it at Monroe and at Bruce's workshops, I realized I had been having them all along.

I have also very much enjoyed Drunvalo Melchizedek's "Ancient Secret of the Flower of Life" books, and "Living in the Heart."

And, at the risk of provoking the usual bru-ha-ha, I am a student of "A Course In Miracles" and have been for many years now.

I have a friend who actually brags that he has NEVER finished a book. I cannot imagine  being proud of it. I often am reading several at any time, and also listen to recorded books (Audible.com) while driving.

Thomas

Hi Thomas,

I thought Melchizedek was an angel.  Do you have any biographical info on him?

Bets

Numerous near death experiences, the gospels,  and portions of Robert Monroe's Ultimate Journey. I also found Howard Storm's youtube videos inspirational.

I can't say I feel the same about Conversations with God (?) and ACIM. I especially believe this is so when it comes to ACIM. Numerous things have told me it is a course that has been set up so it will deceive people if they allow it to do so. This fact doesn't go away, simply because there are people who won't take the time to discriminate it. People defend all kinds of things.

You know how there are skeptics who won't consider positive evidence, such people only hear what they want to hear? There are also skeptics who won't consider what some people have to say about ACIM, they only hear what they want to hear, and then share their confusion with other people.

Why would somebody want to be involved with a course that fraudulently claims to come from Christ, when they can receive guidance from Christ himself?

No I'm not a fundamentalist who is opposed to anything outside of the Bible. Please notice that I mentioned NDEs and Robert Monroe's book. However, fortunately, I took the time to find out what ACIM is about, rather being taken in by repetitive pithy statements.

I believe what's important is that regardless of what source we read, we should make certain it assists us rather than define us.

If I sound a  bit blunt, all I can say is that I can't tell you how upsetting I find it that people try to push ACIM on other people, when they haven't made a serious effort to discriminate it. A day will come when they will find that they misled people, no matter how unwilling they are to admit it today. Everything we do either positive or negative, will eventually be revealed to us.

I love the way you said this:

"I believe what's important is that regardless of what source we read, we should make certain it assists us rather than define us."

If that is not the boldest truth I have ever heard come out of your...er...uhm....keyboard, I don't know what it would be.

Regarding ACIM and others, well, I just think you need to take it up with the authors concerned. I'm sure they'd love to have a little conversation with you. :)

Helen Schuchman would probably tell me thank you. Regarding the being who whispered the words into her ear, I don't know what it would say. I can't say I care.



wrote on Oct 9^th, 2009 at 8:00pm:

I love the way you said this: "I believe what's important is that regardless of what source we read, we should make certain it assists us rather than define us." If that is not the boldest truth I have ever heard come out of your...er...uhm....keyboard, I don't know what it would be. Regarding ACIM and others, well, I just think you need to take it up with the authors concerned. I'm sure they'd love to have a little conversation with you. :)

Well, if you did care, you would know. So the feeling must be mutual.

Absolutely, there is credible evidence that that channeled material was gathered by her own subconscious mind.

So, believe it, or not.

I haven't read ACIM, partly because nothing I've read about it has inspired me to pick it up.  However, I do believe that each of us, if we are open to it, encounters the right material when we need it.  And it may not have been right at another time and won't be right for others.  Since my "one thing led to another" encounter with the Monroe and Moen books (actually, a re-encounter with Monroe since I read his first book in the '70s), I feel this is the right material and information for me now.  Some years ago, probably I would have passed it by.

....when the student is ready the teacher will appear.

I must admit I own a copy of ACIM but it never really captured my imagination like CWG because I felt more engaged in the dialogue; Walsch asking questions I would ask God. I also liked its philosophical elegance using one absolute truth i.e. we are all one, to derive subsequent truths.

I would also say I'm less interested in the messenger than the message (I don't regard Walsch to be a guru and to be fair he does'nt claim to be one).Basically all that matters is that the message makes sense to one personally based on their own experiences and world view.This is a strong point Bruce often makes in his books i.e. don't take my word for it go find out for yourself.This is a strength also of the Monroe Institute philosophy.

Dave

heisenberg69 wrote on Oct 9^th, 2009 at 7:59am:

Hi, reading Alan's 'Creation' essay on this board reminded of the first time I read 'Conversations With God' by Neale Donald Walsch (subject matter if not style) .I was wondering what other people had read which had inspired them in this area (apart from Bruce's books of course !). :) Dave

Neal Donald Walsch claims he is Dialoguing and debating with God on a sort of buddy buddy peer peer relationship. So according to him he actually hears the very voice of the most hight god

I make no such claim my creation essay and others by myself are the result of of deep introspection, meditation and thing about the reason of existence. I don't see myself as a separate entity from god only a part of him that must remember what I have forgotten and write it down

Alan

'I don't see myself as a separate entity from god only a part of him that must remember what I have forgotten and write it down'

Alan- thats just what Walsch would say and I agree with it.

Dave

ACIM is channeled material falsely attributed to Jesus Christ's dication through atheist-psychologist Helen Schucman.  The contradictions between ACIM and the real Jesus are widely reported and too obvious too mention.  Only the biblically illiterate are gullible enough to believe this this drivel is really channeled by Jesus. 

Helen Schucman's channeling soon led to what her friend Dr. Benedict Groeschel describes as "the blackest psychotic depression I have ever seen."  Groeschel should know: he was so close to Helen that he was asked to offer her funeral eulogy.  He usually disparages alleged cases of demonic possession, but considers it a good possibility that the psychotic depression that led to Schucman's death was demonic.  Even Schucman herself later blasphemed against ACIM in the foulest language.   

Only the hopelessly naive would uncritically accept anyone's claim that their books are based on dictated words from God.  Neale Donald Walsch is now discredited by a provable charge of plagiarism of the work of Candy Chand.  Even more damning is Walsch's claim that he "vividly remembered" the plaigiarized story in question.   Of course, factual errors in his books also discredit his claim that God is his source.  Those who claim that they "find value" in his books should ask themselves iif it is wise to eat fruit from a Poison Tree and soul contemplate the real Jesus' criteria for detecting spiritual counterfeits, one of which reads "By their fruits you shall know tham."

Don   

betson wrote on Oct 9^th, 2009 at 11:17am:

Hi Thomas, I thought Melchizedek was an angel.  Do you have any biographical info on him? Bets

Hi bets,

Melchizedek is a strange person maybe a prophet Abraham of the bible met on his travels Melchizedek means king of peace. The bible says he had no mother of father no genealogy, endless life no beginning or end eternal, the only one I know who fits this awesome description is God

Love

Alan

Thank you, Alan,

I knew he was special but couldn't recall how/why.

Are these current publications from some 'lost' books of his, Thomas or Alan?

Bets

Alan said: "Neal Donald Walsch claims he is Dialoguing and debating with God on a sort of buddy buddy peer peer relationship. So according to him he actually hears the very voice of the most hight god

I make no such claim my creation essay and others by myself are the result of of deep introspection, meditation and thing about the reason of existence. I don't see myself as a separate entity from god only a part of him that must remember what I have forgotten and write it down."

Recoverer responds: "I believe that what Alan stated is an important point.

When a person claims to present words that come from God himself, there is the possibility that a reader will assume that the words are always true, even when the words contradict what a person believes to be true. A person might make the mistake of believing according to what a person like Walsch says, rather than trusting their own judgment and intuition.

I've seen this sort of thing happen so much with people who follow gurus. Some gurus make the claim in one way or the other that when you speak to them you speak to God. People who follow such gurus often put the guru's words before their own discrimination. This can be a big mistake for various reasons.

Regarding what Walsch says, perhaps he says some good things at times, but I've also found that he says things that are false. Therefore, I don't believe it is correct for him to claim that his words come from God.

If he actually receives words from God, he should be able to sit in front of a panel of experts from different fields of knowledge, and answer all of their questions in an accurate manner. I doubt that he could do such a thing.

Therefore, perhaps he should call his books "Conversations with Myself," even if this would affect how much his books sell.

Recoverer- you make a fair point and personally I feel that Walsch would have been better served to use another word than God. But I believe that the word 'God' is so vague anyway meaning all things to all people that it loses something.For example there is the archetypal image of a white-bearded man on a cloud dispensing lightning justice, the uninvolved deist God of the physicist best seller to the loving God of the Christian and all variations in between.However, closer inspection of the CWG text soon reveals the way Walsch uses the term.It becomes clear that Walsch does'nt claim to have a monopoly of the truth (he tells us God has spoken throughout the ages to many people)- indeed our truth changes as we evolve that the words of his books are not to be taken as the 'last word' (spiritual teaching necessarily come through a human filter ); according to Walsch we are always changing our mind and that is how it should be. If that were'nt true we would still be executing homosexuals and adulterers.

As for whether you believe Walsch's words to be 'true' or 'false' - if his words don't serve you and where you wish to go then use your free-will and reject it - but don't worry unlike some countries in the world you won't be stoned for being a heretic.

p.s. given that according to Walsch 'we are all one ' I think you may have guessed the title of his next book !

Don- I agree 'only the hopelessly naive would uncritically accept anyone's claim that their books are based on dictated words from God' but I would extend that to any written material whether its 'New Age' best sellers or biblical text.
'The contradictions between ACIM and the real Jesus are widely reported and too obvious too mention.' I'm intrigued by this because as far as I understood it although there is a general academic consensus that the the historical figure of Jesus existed there is considerable academic debate about the 'real Jesus' and his teachings. As a theologian are you now able to state that a consensus has been reached ?

Dave

heisenberg69:

I believe that the man Jesus Christ lived because I had spiritual experiences and received spiritual messages stating that he did live as the man the Bible speaks about.

One night I had what I refer to as my night in heaven experience. I've spoken of this before on this forum, I'll describe it in a different way. I'll limit the discussion to the part that related to Jesus.

"I'm in space, but not physical space. In a manner that is much clearer and certain than I usually understand, I know that the Bible's story of Jesus is true. I'm really surprised that this is so, because I'm an atheist (remember, this is past tense). I don't see Jesus and nobody tells me about him, the knowledge of his reality exists in a manner that is way beyond how I ordinarilly understand something. This knowledge doesn't feel repressive. In fact, it feels quite wonderful and is connected to an understanding that lets me know that not only does the afterlife exist, I completely understand how it is possible for the afterlife to exist without having to think about it. It is just that I forgot about the afterlife while living in this World. Life in this realm of spirit is what my existence is truly about. The problems of the World are gone. The happiness level in this realm is absolutely wonderful."

This experience didn't inform me on a verse by verse basis, which verses in the gospels are accurate. The feeling I had was that the overall story of Jesus is accurate.

When it comes to what different people have wrote about Jesus, I figure people could work an argument one way or the other. I believe I'll have to stick to what my experiences have told me. I'm not the only person to have a non-physical experience that involved the spirit of Jesus. Because of my experiences, I'm open to considering what they say, rather than concluding that they had some sort of interpretive error.

I agree with the approach Recoverer made on Jesus, which is more or less "go and find out for yourself".

However, when there is spoken of "the real Jesus", referring to a safely indentified historical person, I must say this is not scientific at all. We don't have any hard scientific informations about Jesus as a real person. We have scripture which can be evaluated by many factors, but finally, after this long time, the corpus of scripture in it's entirety is far less credible and precise as, for example, what we have in scripture about Plato and Aristotle.

Spooky

Spooky,

After Constantine te availability of books by classical authors is generally due to Christian scribes.  So the Gospels are far more abundantly attested in the early manuscript tradition than Plato, Aristototle, or for that matter, Julius Caesar.  Also, we have far more information about Jesus' LIFE than the LIVES of either philosopher!  By the way, why do you believe there ever was a teacher named "Buddha" (Siddartha Gautama)?  Lives of the Buddha cannot be found until about 600 years after his death!  At least, the New Testament Gospels can be connected with eyewitness testimony and can be dated to the century in which He lived.

Don

Recoverer-

your experiences have great meaning for you, thanks for sharing.

Spooky-

I don't think you would find many academics to doubt that the historical figure of Jesus lived in Palestine about 2000 years ago (even noted atheist Richard Dawkins accepts this), my point is that I was sceptical that anyone could point to a definitive objective 'real Jesus' as Don seemed to be suggesting. I believe this uncertainty comes from (amongst other things) translational error, debate over which texts should be part of the official canon (e.g 'apocryphal' gospels) and alleged plagiarism (ironically something which Don says Walsch is discredited for !).

Recoverer's personal experience of Christ i'm not sceptical about.

Dave

The words that are attributed to the Buddha don't all sound the same.  For example, the Dhammapada (a Theravadin scripture) sounds quite different than some of the Mahayanist scriptures that are attributed to Buddha. I can't say one way or the other if a man known as Buddha existed, because I haven't taken the time to figure it out. I figure Buddhist teachings were started by somebody, and throughout the years evolved into different forms.

For example, Zen Buddhism (a form of Mahayana Buddhism) has a historical connection to Chan Buddhism, but is different in some ways.

Tibetan Buddhism (also a form of Mahayana Buddhism), even though it shares some of the same principles as Chan Buddhism, is quite different in some ways.

It seems as if the local culture has had a big affect on how Buddhism has evolved. Different teachers have come up with their own protocols. For example, Bankei's approach is quite different than the approach of the Tibetan teacher who first had people do thousands of prostrations each day.