296. God Talk: Wisdom on Connecting with the Divine - Neale Donald Walsch

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Kara Goodwin: Hello, and welcome to the Meditation Conversation, the podcast to support your spiritual revolution. I'm your host, Kara Goodwin, and today I'm so honored to be joined by Neale Donald Walsch. He needs no introduction, but he is the New York Times bestselling 

Neale Donald Walsch: author. Wait a minute. You don't need to introduce me.

You just said I need no introduction. Just 

Kara Goodwin: in case. Just in case. 

Neale Donald Walsch: In case there are two people out there who don't have any idea who I 

Kara Goodwin: am. That's right. I don't want to leave anybody 

Neale Donald Walsch: out. Okay, go ahead. Okay, folks, here's the introduction that's not needed. 

Kara Goodwin: Oh, well, he's the New York Times bestselling author of the legendary [00:01:00] Conversations with God series, which was foundational to my own spiritual awakening.

And I've talked about that the two other times that Neale has joined on the Meditation Conversation. Thanks. His books are written with a down to earth language that's clear and witty, and he's here to talk about his new release, which is God Talk. This is his 40th book, and it's being released on November 14th, 2023.

I was so excited for this third conversation with Neale, Donald Walsch. If you haven't yet heard his previous two episodes, check out 185 and 279. And this episode, we dive into his new book. God talk. And all of the wisdom contained within it. I love how he breaks life, spiritual lessons down so easily and practically. A theme of this episode is how is whatever that is showing up in life right now, serving my spiritual development. And this is a great question to help us step back at any moment and [00:02:00] assess things from a higher level. So you're going to get so many gems throughout this episode. So we'll dive in just as soon as I mentioned that I have a wonderful retreat coming up in January, and I would love to see you there. We'll be utilizing the sacred grounds of the Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist cultural center in beautiful Bloomington Indiana. There'll be meditation workshops to strengthen your connection to your higher self. Sound experiences, beautiful. Like-hearted souls and so much more. This is going to be deeply enriching . So go to karagoodwin.com and select retreats to find out more. And now enjoy this episode.

Kara Goodwin: So welcome, Neale. I'm so happy to have you here today. 

Neale Donald Walsch: Thank you, Kara. It's lovely to be back here with you as well, and I appreciate the opportunity to share this time with you. 

Kara Goodwin: I was telling you before we started recording that I was so touched by God Talk. It's such a [00:03:00] beautiful and moving book, and I shed so many tears while reading the stories.

Can you tell us a little bit about what sets this book apart from your other works? 

Neale Donald Walsch: Yes,I'll do the best I can. A God talk is reading a response, to a request that I received. most authors, myself included, maybe have an idea to write a book, And then they send it to a couple of publishers or to a literary agent to see if they can find a publisher.

And that's how all of my other books have been published. The other 39. But this is the first time a publisher actually called me. 

Kara Goodwin: This is the first time that a publisher has called Neal Donald 

Neale Donald Walsch: Walsh. And asked me to pub to write a book. Really? I 

Kara Goodwin: can't believe that 

Neale Donald Walsch: you have no, publishers don't routinely call authors and say, would you write a book on a particular topic.

Oh, 

Kara Goodwin: interesting. I figured you get those requests all the time. This is how little I know. Yeah, no, 

Neale Donald Walsch: no. Usually authors have an idea for a book. They write the [00:04:00] book, and then maybe they send it to their agent. The agent calls some publishers. Publishers decide if they want to publish it or not, but it doesn't usually,the idea doesn't usually originate with a publisher.

But in this case, my phone rang about a year ago or so, and, Actually, less than a year ago, and then there was the publisher and they said, would you be willing to write a book that answers a question that we hear a lot, which is, and everybody have their own conversation with God. And if so,how would that work?

I said,there's a little process that I use. They said, Oh, wow. Tell us what that is. Write about that. So I said, okay, fair enough. So I produced a very short little book. It's not a big lengthy book. It's a short little one of those. Oh, I can read this on the airplane books. So it's a very short book that you can read in a weekend easily, but it does tell people what a conversation with God is really all about and how they can [00:05:00] have their own experience.

Or at least attempt to have that experience. It gives them, a six step process. And it also includes, because I thought the publisher was very clever, the publishing company on their website invited people other than myself, who feel that they have had their own interaction with the divine. they asked a simple question.

Do you feel that God has ever intervened in your life in a direct way? And a lot of people said, Oh, yeah. And so they wrote to the publisher, their story, and the publisher picked out six or seven of the most compelling stories and included those in this book, which we then decided to call The title of the book is God Talk, and it's about, how God talks to all of us all the time, how God is talking to everybody all the time.

We're simply calling it something else. We might, because we don't want to be, ridiculed or possibly marginalized. So nobody walks around saying, yeah, God told me this [00:06:00] morning that I should so and so. So the average person doesn't speak in those terms. The average person might say,I had an epiphany.

Or I had a sudden insight. Or I had a great idea when I woke up this morning. Or, or women's intuition. Some people call it women's intuition. We'll find whatever words we can use to describe what really is a conversation with God. So in short, that's really what the book is about, how you can have your own experience like that, and how we can put it to practical use.

In our day to day life. 

Kara Goodwin: Yeah, so needed. And such a worthwhile topic. how do people, how can people distinguish between their thoughts and God's speaking to 

Neale Donald Walsch: them? I think that, there are three characteristics of,what I call God talk or messages from the divine. Number one, they're always joyful.[00:07:00] 

Number two, they always speak of freedom. And number three, they're always full of love. That is, they're never, there's never any fear. No apprehension, no fear, nothing about don't worry or stop worrying or anything. So there's no, never any negative energy of any kind. I know that the messages that I'm receiving come from the divine when they're joyful, fearless, and full of freedom.

Freedom to express any aspect of divinity. And it feels good for me to bring through in my life, whereas most of my thoughts, frankly, Kara, most of the thoughts that come from my mind, rather than the thoughts that come from the divine. are often filled with apprehension, fear, or if not fear, at least, caution.

And, I need to be aware, I've got to make sure I'm making the right move, got to make sure I'm not hurting anyone, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I can tell [00:08:00] those thoughts are much different from the thoughts that I receive, the impulses that I get from the God of my understanding. 

Kara Goodwin: That's beautiful.

Is there anything beyond the thoughts or the words that you, that come to you? do you have a felt sense at all when that feeling comes 

Neale Donald Walsch: in?

Well, sometimes I had to think about my answer there because there's no one size fits all answer to that question. But sometimes, yeah, sometimes I have a feeling come over me even before any thoughts come in, a feeling of serenity. Deep peacefulness, a feeling of almost letting go, but not every time.

Sometimes, the messages from God just hit me like a thunderbolt, just like I give you one really good example in which you read about in the book when I was coming upon that stop sign.

People who haven't read the book don't know what [00:09:00] we're talking about, so I'll explain it to them. I was driving home from a party one night. It was 2. o'clock in the morning. I was going home from a party, and I came upon a stop sign. Now there's nobody on the road. there was hardly anybody. It was 2 30 in the morning.

There's nobody on the road. But I did stop obediently for the stop sign. Then I stepped on the gas to, to go through the intersection. Out of the blue, I heard in my head, stop, just one word screaming at me, just stop. And, intuitively and automatically, I, my foot hit slammed on the brake.

I was not quite up to the intersection. I was bit by the stop sign. I had not quite made it to the intersection. I slammed on the brake and coming across the intersection left to right in front of me was, it had to be a young man. When I caught a glimpse of him in the car, he couldn't have been older than 17 or 18 years old, some [00:10:00] young kid driving so fast that when I first got to the stop sign and looked left and right, there was nobody there.

he must have made a quick turn on one of the side streets and then just slammed on the accelerator because he wasn't there literally 30 seconds earlier. But for no apparent reason, no, no logical reason. I heard the word stop and I stopped. And then he drove through the intersection.

If I had not been told to stop, I wouldn't be here to tell you this story. Wow. So sometimes messages come like that. And sometimes they come with a for foretelling a feeling of peacefulness or serenity, as I mentioned earlier. But it's not always the same way every single time messages from the divine I think come to us at different times in different ways.

That's been at least my experience. [00:11:00] 

Kara Goodwin: Yeah, that's one of the things I love so much about the stories in this book is, and we were talking about this again before we started recording but there's such diversity in the examples of the way that the divine has communicated to. people. So some of the stories are really mystical and shamanic even, and some are very practical, very grounded.

And it's this beautiful array of the different kinds of examples that we're getting these messages from the divine. 

Neale Donald Walsch: Yeah. Sometimes God talks to us through other people. Like one of the stories in the book, I think is about a mother who heard her 10 year old son, gave her gave his mother. This 10 year old boy gave his mother some advice, that she was very clear in the aftermath that it came to her directly from God, simply using her son as a vehicle through which to speak.

So sometimes, God is talking to [00:12:00] us through other people. And I think that's frankly what happens more often than we might know. So I often say to people, Who don't believe that God speaks directly to us? How do you know that she's not talking to you right now? Through this vehicle. That you're watching this podcast that you're watching right now, how do you know this is not God saying, Oh, I think I'll use Kara today.

She looks a lot like me so I should be able to just talk.

Kara Goodwin: Oh yes, I mean that it's so true and you do that in the book to where it's oh maybe you're just reading a book and it's, and the messages are being delivered right through that vehicle right there and I love that to have just. Thank you so much. You know, what is in front of you? You talk about like the container of this human experience being all of it is part of God's,[00:13:00] it's part of God's tool kit.

Everything within your life is part of the divine experience and all of it can be used at any given point to try to drive home a message to you. And I just, I loved that. I loved the feeling of that container, the life container and it's beautiful. 

Neale Donald Walsch: I'm glad that it affected you in that way.

That was my intention. Yeah. People would really get that message that God is talking to all of us all the time. 

Kara Goodwin: I, and I love that, because we can talk about life and death things like the, the car example where, you were, you avoided an accident because you listened to God's strong instruction.

And then we have these little things just throughout our day that we can pick up on that. We may even think of as coincidences, but like I was watching a webinar. This today, while I was having lunch, I just turned on 10 minutes of some talk that I wanted to catch up on. [00:14:00] And this woman was talking about using a ring.

she's you can use a ring and then you can use it to help train your brain in a certain way. And you can like close one eye and look through it and then close the other eye. And eventually you can. Keep doing this specific exercise and then you can see where they intersect and like practice on focusing on both rings at the same time.

I'm probably not explain this very well. But anyway, so I'm eating my lunch and I'm like, Oh, where can I get a ring? Some kind of little ring that I can use this exercise once I'm finished. Eating lunch. I've got to find a ring. And she's going, and it can be anything. It can be a Mason jar ring or something.

And that's the only example that she gave, except for the thing that she was holding. And the only thing anywhere near me was this little Mason jar that I had gotten out of my fridge that had been almost empty in my fridge for months. And I'd finally gotten it out yesterday and I cleaned it to give it to my step [00:15:00] mom tonight.

And it was the only thing on the table was a Mason jar. And I'm like, Oh. isn't that something that the one example that this presenter gives is the one thing that is sitting right next to me that I don't have to go and get so I could practice my little exercise while I had lunch. It was like what a gift that is, you 

Neale Donald Walsch: know, I have only one question about that.

Do you have to be a member of the Masons to use the job

Kara Goodwin: is the Mason bottling company is that part of the Mason. Group? 

Neale Donald Walsch: No. I think masons. They're 

Kara Goodwin: freemasons, aren't they? Yeah. 

Neale Donald Walsch: Yeah. Freemasons. 

Kara Goodwin: But it's interesting because it's geometry. Oh, that's interesting. I don't know. It all comes together. Yeah. It's 

Neale Donald Walsch: all related. Everything is a circle. All of life is a circle.

Kara Goodwin: Exactly. Yes. I love that. one of the things too that you emphasize is the gifts in the present moment. And there's the story of [00:16:00] the turtle dove and you say after that story, neither mourn nor miss what is going on right in front of you look for its profound purpose in moving you forward in your own evolution.

So I wonder if you can talk a little bit about the present moment and the gifts that we have in when we actually let ourself be in the present moment. 

Neale Donald Walsch: Yeah, I'll do the best I can, Kara, because my experience in life has been, at least for me, I can't speak for anybody else, but I can tell you in my own life, Kara, I can't even count the number of present moments that I was not present for.

In the earlier part of my life, up until around 30 years ago or 30, 25 years ago, I was just letting life go right by me, right and left, and I simply wasn't available to, I wasn't open to what was going on [00:17:00] right in front of my face, both the events that I might have mourned, and that I might have celebrated, either one, because what I've come to understand since my conversations with God is that Everything that's happening to me.

It's a benefit to me, but it was a hard one for me to grapple with, really, until I saw it from God's point of view. I've come here to evolve. That is, I've come to the realm of the physical. I'm a spiritual entity, not, this is not who I am. This is just a piece of equipment. My body is just a tool.

My mind is not who I am either. My mind is just a tool, a sophisticated tool for sure, but it's not my identity. I see that my true identity is that I'm a spiritual entity, having a body and having a mind and using these tools in [00:18:00] order to complete the agenda of the soul. The agenda of the soul is to provide myself with the experience.

Through the demonstration thereof, the experience of who I really am as an individuation of divinity. That is, to put it in simple language, Kara, I choose to simply, I want to know myself experientially. I don't want to just know myself conceptually. And the example I like to use in the book and whenever I talk to people is, it's one thing for me to say I'm a generous person.

Okay. I know myself as Neil, the generous guy. I'm a generous guy. I say that. And I really think that's true of myself. But it's one thing to know that about myself. It's a totally different thing to actually be able to experience it through the demonstration of it. So if I want to really experience myself as [00:19:00] Neil, the generous, then I will see every moment in life as an opportunity to be generous with my time, with my talents, with my gifts.

Yes, with my money, with my patience, with my understanding, and with my love. To be generous, and not just generous in the obvious ways, but sometimes in ways that are not quite as obvious, going out and hugging a tree. That's what I call being generous with my love. The other day, my, my sweetheart, my lovely wife, brought in a whole basket full of, apples from the apple tree out back.

They were so delicious, so sweet, unbelievably good apples. And I was, I just felt so good about the apple I was eating. I finally put it down on the countertop and I said, I'll be back in a minute. I went out to the backyard and I literally gave the tree a hug. I know it sounds like a wacko thing to do.[00:20:00] 

Kara Goodwin: No, that sounds amazing. 

Neale Donald Walsch: But in my heart, I didn't feel wacko. It felt just something I wanted to do. Because I know the tree is a living entity and I'm a living entity. So I just ran out there and give it a little hug. And I said, thank you for this wonderful bounty. Thank you for these beautiful apples.

Thank you for gifting us with the fruit. Of who you are. and so I gave, I just gave it a big hug and I actually kissed the tree. And I walked back into the house. I'm sure if one of the neighbors saw me, they'd say, Oh, Neil has lost it again. but that's how I noticed. I call notice the moment.

N T M. Notice the moment. Just notice what's going on in your life. Good, bad, or indifferent. Doesn't have to be a positive experience. It could be what you would call an unwelcome event. But see the gift in every event in life. Because ultimately, even the so called unwelcome events I've learned in [00:21:00] my life have served me in the sense that it's moved me forward in the process that I call my own evolution.

That is, I've learned something, remembered something from almost all the events of my life, including those events that I would call unwelcome or not necessarily positive. I was told in conversations with God, Neil, there's no such thing as a coincidence. There are no coincidences. Nothing happens by chance.

And once you understand that, then you realize, ah, there's more going on here than meets the eye. Or as my friend Bill would have said, Bill put it a little more poetically in one of his plays. He said, there are more things in heaven and earth for ratio that are tripped up in your philosophy.

Kara Goodwin: Your friend, William Shakespeare. [00:22:00] Yeah, 

Neale Donald Walsch: he was a great metaphysician. People don't really often see him as a metaphysical teacher. But who else but a metaphysical teacher would say, to be or not to be? That is the question. Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to rise up against a sea of troubles, and by opposing to end them, to die, to sleep, to sleep perchance to dream, and there still, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come.

A friend of mine actually wrote a directed and produced a movie titled What Dreams May Come. Oh, that's your friend? Stephen Simon directed and produced that film. Yeah, Stephen and I are very close friends. We're like brothers. 

Kara Goodwin: Is that with Robin Williams? [00:23:00] Yes, absolutely. That's an amazing film. Yes, it is.

That's a very medical, metaphysical film. And 

Neale Donald Walsch: I met Robin, when he was at the opening of that movie, because I know Stephen well. Stephen, of course, invited me down to Hollywood for the opening of that film. Yeah. So Stephen, Simon, and I have known each other for 25 years. Yeah, but that's another example of how God works in our life.

Nothing happens by chance.

Kara Goodwin: That's incredible. There's so much there. that movie is incredible. If anybody's listening and they haven't watched that movie, that's a very mind expanding 

Neale Donald Walsch: movie. And then Stephen wrote a book at my urging. I said, Steve, I want you to write a book because his wife, God bless her. Passed on, but now about seven or eight years ago, he, she said, I'm going to sleep in late today.

I'm feeling a little drowsy. So he said, okay, honey, and he went down [00:24:00] to his office to go to work. And then he, but he realized that at nine or nine or 930, she still wasn't up. So he went to her, to their bedroom and said, honey, are you going to be getting up? How late are you sleeping? And she was gone. She simply wasn't alive anymore.

Wow. And, of course he was devastated and naturally when I found out about it, I joined him. I immediately flew to his side and spent the next five days with him because we were very close. So I stayed with him for five days and helped him move through his grief. But I told the story for a reason.

She's, she wrote a book with him after she left. Oh my God. She joined him. She joined him. And he said to me one day, I'm hearing from her, I'm hearing from her, all the time, every day I hear, she's talking to me all the time, I said, Stephen, you got to take down what she's saying and write a book together, and you're going to [00:25:00] call the book, What Dreams Have Come.

Kara Goodwin: Oh. Yeah. I have chills. That's so amazing. 

Neale Donald Walsch: So he's written a book, and it's been out now a couple of years, called What Dreams Have Come, all the messages he's received from her, from V. Fantastic book. Fantastic book. What dreams have come. How about 

Kara Goodwin: that? That's incredible. I'm gonna have to check that one out too.

Yes. My goodness. Wow. Yeah. when, you also talk about God's, how God's messages might be unexpected, and then we might miss them because we're not expecting them where we get them. So there's a, another story in there called wear skirts. And after that story, you say, when we ask God directly for help, it's important to pay attention to what happens next.

Look [00:26:00] closely at everything. And I mean, Everything that comes your way in the moments that follow a plea to the divine. So can you expand a little bit on that of how are the expectations may make us miss what the response 

Neale Donald Walsch: is? that's exactly, you've said it perfectly. We're expecting, if we even expect a response.

Many people don't think that God really answers us directly. But even if we are expecting a response, we sometimes have it set up in our mind that it's going to look a certain way. And so we look right past. What's actually happening, what's actually going on. I don't, if I ask God for help of any kind, boy, I pay attention to everything.

Everything that's going on. What the mailman said to me when I met him at the post office, what I just heard on the radio, the song that I just heard on the car radio by non coincidence, the lyrics of which happened to be directly associated with what I'm going through right now,[00:27:00] or whatever.

So I, I make sure that I really, if I'm going to ask God for help, God is going to say to me, okay, pal, I'll give you some help. But you got to look at everything that's going on for the next 48 hours because otherwise you might miss the messages that I'm sending you that will come in a thousand different ways across a hundred different moments in the next two days or in the foreseeable future.

So I've learned to pay attention to things that seemingly are not associated or directly related to the request for help. That I've made. And, but you know what, Kara, actually, I don't ask God for help anymore in a traditional sense. I've changed in the past several years because of my conversations with God experience.

I've changed the [00:28:00] way I relate to the divine. Now I don't ask God for help. Now I thank God for the help I've already been given. In fact, my favorite prayer, I've often shared this with people in my lectures and so forth, but my favorite prayer has become, thank you God for helping me to understand. That this problem has already been solved for me.

I love that. Thank you for helping me to understand that this problem has already been solved for me. And then I start looking for it, therefore I can recognize, that is, I can recognize, that is, I can know again, to recognize, to know again. Then I can recognize that the solution has already occurred. Now don't let it just fly right past me.

[00:29:00] Oh, that's right. It's already happened. This problem has already been solved, and I still think the problem is ahead of me, waiting for me to bring a solution. or, my second favorite prayer, sometimes I've shared with other people, thank you God for helping me to know that all that I need right now is on its way to me now.

Everything I need is on its way to me right now. And you know what's funny? It's a magnet, because as soon as I declare it, It occurs what you say as powerful, powerful intention, not just powerful intention, powerful, how would I put it, results. I remember the guy who was following. Jesus down the street one day he was [00:30:00] following him on his knees, actually, 'cause he couldn't walk.

Where he had, you some serious problems with his body. And he reached up and grabbed Jesus' robe and he said, or tried to anyway, but Jesus' disciples or pushing him away. Leave him alone. Leave alone. And Jesus turned around and he said, what? What's, what are you doing? Don't tell him to, don't push him away.

How can I help you? He said to the guy, in, the guy on his knees, he said, if I could just touch your garment, if I could just touch your robe, my body would be healed, because you're a master and I see that.

And Jesus looked at the man and he said, Do you believe that? And the man said, Yes, I do. And Jesus said, As you speak it, so shall [00:31:00] it be done unto you. And put his robe into the man's hand. And the man stood up for the first time in 25 years and walked away. And his disciples said to Jesus, Oh, how are they?

How did you do that? It's a miracle to which Jesus is known to have replied. Why are you so amazed? These things and more shall you do also.

Kara Goodwin: So mute. So moving. So beautiful. And the power of words, the power of belief as well is, is profound. And it's very interesting from my own perspective. And I just highlight this because I [00:32:00] wonder how many of the listeners may experience the same thing, but there are so many things that you bring up that I'm relating.

Oh, I dreamt about That I dreamt or, and, oh, that's like a conversation I had two days ago, or all these little things in my own world, like light up of how you're like pointing with your words. And it, like you say, just that, that divinity that speaks through you, that then lights up those data points in our own lives.

That's yes, there's one thing that's happening here. 

Neale Donald Walsch: If we live our lives as metaphysical beings rather than physical beings, we are physical beings, but we're also metaphysical beings, meta meaning larger than. So we're larger than physical beings, we are metaphysical entities, spiritual beings, having a physical experience.

Once I began moving through life as a metaphysical being. [00:33:00] and not just a physical being. Then my focus changed. I wasn't so concerned only with matters of the body or ideas in the mind. I didn't discard all of those, but they weren't my main point of focus. My main point of focus is what's my soul up to now?

What is the spirit that I am up to now? There's something that I'm being invited to be, do, or have. Something I'm being invited to experience or to demonstrate in order to complete, in this moment, the agenda of the soul. And the agenda of the soul has nothing to do with, what I thought it was my agenda when I was a younger guy, I thought, get the girl, get the car, not necessarily in that order, get the car, get the girl, get the job, get the wife, get the kids.

Get the better job, get the better house, get the better car, get the office in your, in the [00:34:00] corner with your name on the door, get the building on the corner with your name on the building, and then, get the cruise tickets, and then get the illness, get the gray hair, get the grandchildren, get the worst sickness, and then get the hell out.

And that's what I honestly, Cara, that's what I thought life was about when I was 42 years old. That's really what I thought was going on.

And I just trying to make the best of it. I didn't ask to come here. I didn't, I don't recall asking to come here. I just showed up one day. Here I am. Who asked for this? And then just trying to make the best of it. And then God said to me in my conversation with God, Oh sweetie, sweetie, sweetie, you have no idea what's going on here, do you?

You really think this is the sum and substance of it? [00:35:00] Wow, so we had a long talk. And then God said to me, There's more going on here than meets the eye.

Which is, by the way, what's interesting, what every great master, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, bless his holy name,

Baha'u'llah,

Buddha, Catherine of Genoa, Julian of Norwich, Mother Mary, Joan of Arc, all the great masters, Male and female through the years have said the exact same thing, each in their own words, but the message has been the same. folks, there's more going on here than meets the eye. [00:36:00] You think this is the sum and substance of it?

You literally don't know the half of it. You're living half your life, and it might be okay. You'll get through it, and you'll die, but when you're, if you're lucky enough to die that kind of a death, where your head is on your pillow on your deathbed, and you're looking up to your loved ones, if you're lucky enough to be in that situation, thinking to yourself, was that it?

was that really it? So all there is, then you get to the other side and go, of course, can I have another chance? And you will reincarnate and you will reincarnate and you will reincarnate over and over again until finally you use one of your lifetimes to, I hate to use such a hackneyed phrase, but you then use one of your lifetimes to [00:37:00] wake up

to use this physical experience for the purpose for which it was originally intended. That you could announce and declare, express and fulfill, become and experience who you really are. Oh, and by the way, the fastest way to experience that's supposed to be your next question. Neil, what is the fastest way to experience that?

What 

Kara Goodwin: is the fastest way to experience that? 

Neale Donald Walsch: Strange you should ask. 

Kara Goodwin: It's almost like I read your mind. 

Neale Donald Walsch: The fastest way to experience who you really are. is to cause another to experience who they really are. Conversations with God made it very clear to me. [00:38:00] I said, God, okay, what is it that I don't understand?

Obviously, there's something I don't understand here about life, the understanding of which would change everything. And God said, oh, sweetheart, it's so simple. You think your life is about you, and your life has nothing to do with you. Your life is about everyone whose life you touch and the way in which you touch it, because you're much bigger than you think you are.

I know you think that you're that body sitting over there, but you and everyone else are one.

the opportunity in your life is to demonstrate. Whatever you wish to experience in your own life, be the source of it in the life of another, and I'll never forget when God said this to me, she said, Neil, I know you think it's very stylish. It's [00:39:00] really makes you feel good to say that you're a seeker.

I am a seeker, and you number yourself among the seekers of the world, you're seeking truth, you're seeking understanding, you're seeking divinity, you're seeking wisdom, you're seeking clarity, you're seeking all those positive aspects of life. You are a seeker. But Neo, stop seeking. You are not a seeker.

You are the source of all those things. What, do you think I sent you down there without giving you those gifts already? You think I just sent you down there? This is the God you believe in? Who says, good luck, have a good time, I hope you can learn enough fast enough, because if not, you're going to be pretty miserable.

Is that how, the kind of God you think I am? Neo, is there a tree outside your window? He said, yeah, there is actually, as it happens, a beautiful oak tree right [00:40:00] outside my window. She said, is it a really tall tree? I said, yeah, it's probably 25, 30 feet tall, beautiful canopy. God said to me, what has the tree learned since it was a seed no bigger than your fingernail?

And I said, it hasn't learned anything. It just grew into itself. God said, Neil, are you trying to tell me that I planted everything that the tree needed to know to be that beautiful tree outside your window? That I put all that information into the seed when it was no bigger than your fingernail? I said, I guess you could put it that way.

To which God replied, And if I so loved the tree, would I not all the more love you?

Therefore, stop seeking and start sourcing.[00:41:00] 

Whatever you think you want more of in your life. More patience, more understanding, more wisdom, more clarity, more of anything, more humor. Whatever you think you want more of in your life, be the source of it in the life of another. See it in them. Let them know that you see it in them. Don't mince words.

Tell them straight out. I see you. You know, there's a great movie. I don't know whether you saw this movie, Kara, a few years ago, but I forgot the name of it now. There's a great film in which the phrase is a wonderful love story, but the phrase I love you is never used in the entire story. No character ever said I love you to any other character, even though it was a love story, you know what they said to each other.

I see you. [00:42:00] I see you. The other one would say, I see you too.

No, God said to me, Neil, it's really very simple. Make sure that you are the source. Cause another person to see themselves because you have seen them as who they really are. Give people back to themselves. Be the source of what you want in your own life, in the life of another. Because what flows through you sticks to you, and what you give to another, you wind up giving to yourself.

Because guess what? There's only one of us in the room.[00:43:00] 

And there was a guy who put this much more plainly in a lot fewer words a few years ago. He simply said, Do unto others as you would have it done unto you.

Voila.

It's 

Kara Goodwin: beautiful. Beautiful. one more thing that I would love to talk about with you is this civil rights movement for the soul. You make the point in the book about what is needed on earth now as a civil rights movement for the soul, freeing humanity at last from the oppression of its beliefs in a violent, angry, and vindictive God.

So can you talk a little bit about this and the importance of talking about God? 

Neale Donald Walsch: Yes. See, the [00:44:00] problem we have in the world today is that we live in a reward and punishment world that is We, the largest number of people, by the way, on the earth believe in some sort of higher power. We may not all agree on who and what God is, or what God wants, or what our relationship with God should be, but 8 people, surveys have shown, I'm not making this number up, sociologists have taken surveys over the past 10 years, asking people all over the world a single question.

Do you believe in a higher power? And statistically, 8. 5 out of 10 people said yes. They believe in a higher power. So virtually 85 percent of the world's people believe in some kind of higher power. But what they believe about the higher power drives the engine of our experience. And most people who believe in a higher power believe in a God that is loving for sure, but also [00:45:00] judgmental, condemning, and punishing.

In other words, it's a my way or the highway kind of God. Either you do things my way or hit the highway. And it's going to be the road to hell, by the way, while you're at it. So you do things my way or I will punish you with everlasting damnation. And, it would be bad enough if we had that misunderstanding about God, which most people hold.

They hold God in that way. God is someone who loves us, for sure. But if you disobey God's commands or God's laws or God's, desires, then you'll go to hell. And virtually all the world's major religions, and most of its smaller religions, teach some version of that reward and punishment kind of universe.

Now, you might say, so what? it's just a belief system. But in fact, it drives the engine of our experience, because we believe that what's good enough for God is good enough for us. So we copy what we [00:46:00] understand God's behavior to be toward us. We copy that in our behavior toward each other. We therefore also judge, condemn, and punish each other when the other person or country or nation or party, when the other party does not give us what we think that we should have, what we deserve, and what we want.

And that reward and punishment scenario is being played out right now as we speak in Ukraine, and regrettably, On this very day in Gaza, in the Gaza Strip, and what happened in Israel just a few days ago. Because people believe in a reward and punishment universe. You did this to me, I'm going to do this to you.

You won't listen to me, I'll force you to listen to me. [00:47:00] And of course, there's also the self defense mechanism. I'm not taking sides here. I'm not making anybody right or wrong. But here's what, I was told, Neal, all attack is called a defense.

Even if it's just a simple argument you're having with your loved one across the kitchen. A disagreement you're having in your own home. All attack is called a defense.

So just realize that who you are does not have to defend itself.

What would we do if we simply decided that there must be a better way? Surely humanity can figure out a better way [00:48:00] to solve its disagreements. Then the way that we're using in Ukraine, for Israel, for Gaza, for that matter in our own kitchen.

And so I invite people to ask themselves a single question when they're confronted with anything in life. Whether they're reading on the internet or something that's happening around the world, or looking at something that's happening in their own kitchen. Life's powerful question. What does this have to do with the agenda of my soul?

The other day, my wife and I were not having the most pleasant moment. We love each other dearly, deeply, really deeply. when you live with somebody 24 hours a day, seven days a week, you're going to have a moment where things aren't going as well as you would like. It's as simple as that. So we were having just a, just a little bit of a difference [00:49:00] in our energies one, one moment.

But not so long ago, I stopped myself because the old me would have needed to justify and You'd be right about everything, because of course I am right about everything. So I said to myself, as I was ready to go on the attack with my wife verbally, I said to myself, wait, what does this have to do with the agenda of my soul?

My soul has come here to this planet to experience an aspect of who I am. What does what's going on right now, With the lady that I'm spending my life with. What does that have to do with the agenda of my soul? And the answer, if you ask yourself that question, is given to you immediately. That's what I call a conversation with God.

Because God will whisper in your [00:50:00] ear, Neil, this is an opportunity for you to demonstrate a particular aspect of who you really are. That which cannot be hurt, damaged, injured. upset or angered in any way.

 What if you chose to use this moment for that purpose?

Neale Donald Walsch: And then you get to walk across the kitchen and say to your wife as you hold her in your arms, I'm sorry, sweetheart, that we've had a moment of unpleasantness this morning. And what I want you to know is I love you more than anything and nothing that matters. It costs us to have a difference of opinion.

It's not important. What's important is I love. full [00:51:00] stop. I need nothing back from you. Continue loving you.

Kara Goodwin: What a different place this would be if we were all Embodying ourselves from that perspective. That would be a civil rights movement. 

Neale Donald Walsch: Freeing humanity at last from the oppression of its beliefs in a violent, angry, and vindictive species called humanity. 

Kara Goodwin: I love it. And I believe that we eventually can get there.

And like you mentioned, the setbacks that we've had the last year, 18 months or so, the newest ones being in Israel and Gaza. It's feels like we all need that reminder of how we could evolve what it could be like [00:52:00] eventually on this planet. 

Neale Donald Walsch: Let's hope. Thank you for this chance to spend this time with you, Cara.

Very much appreciated. And if people feel they'd like to learn more about how they can access messages from the divine, they might find it interesting to pick up a copy of the book titled God Talk. 

Kara Goodwin: And that's out November 14th, right? Wonderful. thank you so much, Neil. I really appreciate this time with you and all of your wisdom.

And, yeah, thank you so much. 

Neale Donald Walsch: Back at you. Thank you. It's very sweet of you to give me the opportunity to share this time with you. Blessed be. Thank you. [00:53:00]