My Dear Friends,

We've just completed our Emotional Independence retreat which began on the 4th of July. What a wonderful way to begin a retreat.watching fireworks together!

The forefathers who inspired the American Declaration of Independence could have been talking about the same thing as Emotional Independence.life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; life freedom and joy; all interchangeable words for God.

And indeed, when we realize that we are all God godding, there is a freedom in one's heart that we can celebrate in every moment of now.

Many blessings,

Neale

P.S. Now let's see what else is in this week's bulletin!


- Desire or Need?

- Question of the Week from a CwG Reader
"Dealing with depression."

- The Product of the Week: a special selection from our CwG Store
offered, for this week only, at a discount price.

- Getting to Know God


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Desire or Need.

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The striking statements about "right" and "wrong" in Conversations with God could cause some people to abandon their personal value systems. Yet CwG says you will probably not benefit from doing this.
"Your ideas about right and wrong are just that -- ideas," the text asserts. Yet they form the structure of your life, "and to lose them would be to unravel the fabric of your experience."
The book suggests that you may benefit from examining your values one by one. "Do not dismantle the house, but look at each brick, and replace those which appear broken, which no longer support the structure."

If you truly wish to render the wisdom in Conversations with God functional in your daily life, take a moment during the next few days and undertake a thorough examination of your present value system. See whether the bricks of the house you have built still support the structure. See whether your values -- to which you most often respond automatically, without thinking -- are continuing to serve you in every area.

If there is an area where a previously held value no longer supports your sense of Who You Are (much less Who You Choose To Be), see what it would take to change it, and explore what you think would happen if you did.

The question of "right" and "wrong" drives to the heart of a larger inquiry. Does God have needs? For if there is an objective RIGHT and WRONG in the Universe, who would have created it? Who would have decided what they should be? And why?

Logic tells us that the only Being in the Universe capable of making such choices and conjuring such creations would be God Herself. Yet if God made those decisions, that would seem to indicate that God has a preference in the matter; that God somehow has needs which must be met, or desires which must be fulfilled, and that this is accomplished by the creation of RIGHT and WRONG, and by the commandment by God to His subjects that they had better do what is RIGHT and avoid what is WRONG, or else.

The final paragraph on pg. 64 of CwG, Book 1 says, however, that such demands are counterfeit, having nothing to do with God. "Deity has no needs," the text proclaims, "All That Is, is exactly that: all that is. It therefore wants, or lacks, nothing -- by definition."

Yet because God has no needs, and wants nothing, does that mean God has no desires? It does not, for desires and needs are not the same thing -- though many people have made them so in their lifetime.
How about you? Are you clear about the difference between Desires and Needs?

Let's explore what it takes for you to be happy. Let's see how you've "set it up," how you've constructed it in your reality. Make a list of the things you feel you need in order to be happy, safe, and secure in your life. Then make a check next to those things you feel you really need, as opposed to those things you simply desire -- which is another matter altogether. Look to see what this tells you.

Changing what you imagine to be needs into what you experience as desires is the first step on the road to mastery. While God has no needs, God does have desires:

"No my children, please let Me assure you again, through this writing, that I am without needs. I require nothing.

This does not mean I am without desires. Desires and needs are not the same thing (although many of you have made them so in your present lifetime).

Desire is the beginning of all creation. It is first thought. It is a grand feeling within the soul. It is God, choosing what next to create.

And what is God's desire?

I desire first to know and experience Myself, in all My glory-to know Who I Am. Before I invented you-and all the worlds of the universe-it was impossible for Me to do so.

Second, I desire that you shall know and experience Who You Really Are, through the power I have given you to create and experience yourself in whatever way you choose.

Third, I desire for the whole life process to be an experience of constant joy, continuous creation, never-ending expansion, and total fulfillment in each moment of now.

I have established a perfect system whereby these desires may be realized. They are being realized now-in this very moment. The only difference between you and Me is that I know this.

In the moment of your total knowing (which moment could come upon you at anytime), you, too, will feel as I do always: totally joyful, loving, accepting, blessings, and grateful."

- CwG, Book 1, page 65



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Question of the Week from a CwG Reader
"Dealing with depression."
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Dear Neale,

I am sure you must have received a zillion letters like mine since your wonderful With God series was published.but here's another! Thank you, thank you, thank you. .Having read your books, Neale, I know that I am God (on a good day)! However, on a not-so-good day I am back down there with the amoebas in the laboratory! Some days, I feel so close to being the Enlightened Being I know I am, and other days, I feel I have slipped right down the evolutionary scale and will never be an Angel! Although I have to work really hard on being non-judgmental, I prefer to think I am being an Observer, rather than a judge!

I have a question which I don't seem able to get the answer to right now, maybe because I'm too close to the question myself! It's about mental illness and depression. All my life I seem to have been around this condition with family and friends alike (not too difficult, given today's ethics!) and in the end, I found myself undergoing years of various therapies in order to deal with my own emotional and mental distress.

I don't much care for doctors and orthodox methods and prefer the 'self-help' approach, but lately a kind of black despair has set in and I don't know how to get out of it. It almost feels like I have no control whatever over this cloud that descends, and that's the bit I hate the most. If I could ask God a question it would be this: "What is mental illness and depression, and how can we cure/treat it successfully?", and is the answer the same for everyone, or is it more individualized than that, given that we are, in the end, all One!

It seems to be one of the biggest destroyers of the human being there is.so I would like to know if it is a chemical/hormonal thing, or if, just by Being Happy, you can eliminate it. Believe me, I've tried everything I know, including prayer, which does help, but sometimes in the short term only. Sometimes it's so easy to get that connection with God, and other times, no matter how many times one asks or prays, the connection just seems lost.I am still not really sure why that is. You see, I used to think that if one was in a bad or distressing situation, it was because one had to learn from it, and then do something about it. This morning on the way to work, I realized that sometimes a bad situation is only there while you accept it! It doesn't mean you have to actually do anything at all. You can just move away from it if it doesn't serve you! I wish I'd known this years ago (could have saved myself a lot of pain).

Thanks again. Julie, UK


My Dear Julie,

Mental illness and depression are caused by a wide variety of factors, some of which you suggest in your letter, including biochemical imbalances in the human body. I am not going to sit here and pretend that I know all about this, or try to give you an easy answer as to how such conditions can be "cured," but I do know that there is not a situation in life that God cannot make better, if that is the desire and the intention of the human soul.

Remember, all souls come to Earth in the manner and in the form and in the circumstance and situation of their choosing, all toward the end that they may find themselves with the perfect people, places and conditions to express and experience a particular aspect of who they are.

In other words, Julie, nothing happens in life by chance. I trust God on that one implicitly.

Now you say that sometimes it is easy to connect with God, and other times, no matter how hard you try, you find it difficult.."the connections just seems lost." Well, Julie, I have the exact same experience! But that's okay with me. I understand that I may not always be able to establish this sense of deep connection with the Divine (unless, of course, I become able to do so!), and that while I am working towards this level of spiritual Mastery, it is okay for me to have some challenge with this from time to time, and entirely to be expected.

Still, I know that God is always with me, walking there right beside me-is, actually, a part of me-and that because of this, I am never alone, and I can always use my own inner wisdom during those times when my sense of "connection" with God may be lost.

It is your own inner wisdom which brought you to the understandings that came to you on your way to work, Julie. These are grand understandings, indeed, and some people wait entire lifetimes to reach them. Many never do. That is because they have failed to listen to themselves, to tune into their inner awareness of what is so, as you have clearly done, my friend. I am inspired by you!

Blessings, Neale



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Getting to Know God
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How does one get to "know God" when God is only a concept and not an experience?

CwG points out that most people only come to "know" about a thing when and if that particular thing is experienced. What enlightenment asks us to do, the book says, is to "know" a thing first, and thus experience it!

For instance, if you know that life will always work out, it probably always will. If you know that the world is a friendly place, it will usually show up that way. If you know God, you will experience Him. And if you just know that your prayer will be answered. it will be.

One way to get to "know" God is to take some time each day to meditate quietly. This may, of course, lead to nothing. And so, if you are attached to results you may soon become discouraged and disappointed. Only if you are detached, only if results are not the point of it all, will your meditation be serene. And it is in the serenity that God will be found.

A second way to get to know God is to cause another to know God. The experience you encourage in another you encourage in yourself. That is because there is no one else out there.

So don't spend your days and times wondering how you can come to know God. Spend your days and times wondering how you might be an instrument through whom others come to know God.

For what you bring to others, you bring to yourself. And that is a great truth.