One series of books that I was truly surprised to enjoy reading, and continues to be a source of wonderful insights for me, is Neale Donald Walsch’s Conversations with God. I have a feeling that is has gone too far in the commercial realm, with a movie adaptation (which I have not seen), workbooks and too many sequels. But I did read the first three ‘Conversations’ and especially appreciated the first two.
The basic premise of the books is another example of scriba deus (a scribe of God, like Dante was purported to have seen himself as a scriba Dei, a scribe of gods...), i.e. Neale wrote questions to God on a notepad and felt that God began to answer him. His books are the result of the 'dictation' he took down over the years (same story by the way for the origin of the Course in Miracles).
If you are not open to spiritual issues (yet), it could seem like a lot to digest, but it is one of those books that you can read slowly, bit by bit, 15 minutes a day, while reading other books. Chewing on it in small bits will probably help to really ‘get’ the different ideas, of which there are many. Also, I would suggest getting beyond the skepticism in regards to the form in order to test the content based on your own internal bullshit detector. Do the ideas make sense? Would you be a better person and would your life be better if you applied them? Regardless of what you might think of the how, it is hard to be skeptical about the what of these books…
An interesting insight about communication appears early in book 1. This is not even from the realm of the spiritual but an insight on human understanding. Here I am quoting Walsch who is quoting God:
When we try to speak to each other—Me to you, you to Me, we are immediately constricted by the unbelievable limitation of words. For this reason, I do not communicate by words alone. In fact, rarely do I do so. My most common form of communication is through feeling. Feeling is the language of the soul.
If you want to know what’s true about something, look to how you’re feeling about it. Feelings are sometimes difficult to discover—and often even more difficult to acknowledge. Yet hidden in your deepest feelings is your highest truth. […]
I also communicate with thought. Thought and feelings are not the same, although they can occur at the same time. In communicating with thought, I often use images and pictures. For this reason, thoughts are more effective than mere words as tools of communication.
In addition to feelings and thoughts, I also use the vehicle of experience as a grand communicator.
And finally, when feelings and thoughts and experience all fail, I use words. Words are really the least effective communicator. They are most open to misinterpretation, most often misunderstood.
And why is that? It is because of what words are. Words are merely utterances: noises that stand for feelings, thoughts, and experience. They are symbols. Signs. Insignias. They are not Truth. They are not the real thing. Words may help you understand something. Experience allows you to know. Yet there are some things you cannot experience. So I have given you other tools of knowing. And these are called feelings. And so too, thoughts.
Now the supreme irony here is that you have all placed so much importance on the Word of God, and so little on the experience. In fact, you place so little value on experience that when what you experience of God differs from what you’ve heard of God, you automatically discard the experience and own the words, when it should be just the other way around.
Another irony is me writing a blog in which I quote a phrase like "when feelings and thoughts and experience all fail, I use words." Then again, that is probably why I need to write about these topics...
(to be continued - I will finish this post tomorrow)
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