Neale Donald Walsch Religious Quotations

The new spirituality will also base itself on a third very large spiritual understanding, which is that life is eternal. Most religious people claim to believe that, but very few people actually live as if that were true.

... if you repeat a thought, or say a word, over and over again-not once, not twice, but dozens, hundreds, thousands of times-do you have any idea of the creative power of that? A thought or a word expressed and expressed and expressed becomes just that-expressed. That is, pushed out. It becomes outwardly realized. It becomes your physical reality.

What you do for your Self, you do for another. What you do for another, you do for the Self. This is because you and the other are one. And this is because...there is naught but You.

No obligation. Nor any restriction or limitation, nor any guidelines or rules. Nor are you bound by any circumstances or situations, nor constrained by any Code or law. Nor are you punishable for any offense, nor capable of any-for there is no such thing as being "offensive" in the eyes of God.

Try not to confuse longevity with a job well done.

For most people, love is a response to need fulfillment. Everyone has needs. You need this, another needs that. You both see in each other a chance for need fulfillment. So you agree-tacitly-to a trade. I'll trade you what I've got if you'll give me what you've got. It's a transaction. But you don't tell the truth about it. You don't say, "I trade you very much." You say, "I love you very much," and then the disappointment begins.

Know and understand that there will be challenges and difficult times. Don't try to avoid them. Welcome them. Gratefully.

You don't have to do anything! If you enjoy life at this level, if you feel this is the ultimate for you, you can have this experience over and over and over again!

There's nothing "wrong" with anything. "Wrong" is a relative term, indicating the opposite of that which you call "right." Yet, what is "right"? Can you be truly objective in these matters? Or are "right" and "wrong" simply descriptions overlaid on events and circumstances by you, out of your decision about them?

Thinking is hard. Making value judgments is difficult. It places you at pure creation, because there are so many times you'll have to say, "I don't know. I just don't know." Yet still you'll have to decide. And so you'll have to choose. You'll have to make an arbitrary choice. Such a choice-a decision coming from no previous personal knowledge-is called pure creation. And the individual is aware, deeply aware, that in the making of such decisions is the Self created.

The more you remember, the more you are able to experience, the more you know, so to speak. And the more you know, the more you remember. It is a circle...But remember, none of it has been exactly a drudge. I mean, you've loved all of it! Every last minute! Oh, it's delicious, this thing called life! It's a scrumptious experience, no?

Obedience is not creation, and thus can never produce salvation. Obedience is a response, while creation is pure choice, undictated, unrequired. Pure choice produces salvation through the pure creation of highest idea in this moment now.

Right now, in this moment, your soul has again created opportunity for you to be, do, and have what it takes to know Who You Really Are. Your soul has brought you to the words you are reading right now-as it has brought you to words of wisdom and truth before. What will you do now? What will you choose to be? Your soul waits, and watches with interest, as it has many times before.

You can choose to be a person who has resulted simply from what has happened, or from what you've chosen to be and do about what has happened.

There's only what you choose, and how you can have it. If you choose peace and joy and love, you won't get much of it through what you're doing. If you choose happiness and contentment, you'll find little of that on the path of doingness. If you choose reunion with God, supreme knowing, deep understanding, endless compassion, total awareness, absolute fulfillment, you won't achieve much of that out of what you're doing.

Doing is a function of the body. Being is a function of the soul. The body is always doing something. Every minute of every day it's up to something. It never stops, it never rests, it's constantly doing something.

If "man who supports his family, at all costs, even his own happiness" is Who You Are, then love your work, because it is facilitating your creation of a living statement of Self. If "woman who works at job she hates in order to meet responsibilities as she sees them" is Who You Are, then love, love, love your job, for it totally supports your Self image, your Self concept. Everyone can love everything the moment they understand what they are doing, and why. No one does anything he doesn't want to do.

Worry is just about the worst form of mental activity there is-next to hate, which is deeply self destructive. Worry is pointless. It is wasted mental energy. It also creates bio-chemical reactions which harm the body, producing everything from indigestion to coronary arrest, and a multitude of things in between.

... humans have such a need to break everything down into right and wrong. It never occurs to you that you've made those labels up to help you define the material-and your Self.

The soul conceives, the mind creates, the body experiences. The circle is complete.

Now I will explain to you the ultimate mystery: your exact and true relationship to Me. You are my body. As your body is to your mind and soul, so, too, are you to My mind and soul. Therefore: Everything I experience, I experience through you.

I am telling you that your perception of ultimate reality is more limited than you thought, and that Truth is more unlimited than you can imagine.

So much of your present experience is based on your previous thought. Thought leads to experience, which leads to thought, which leads to experience. This can produce constant joy when the Sponsoring Thought is joyous. It can, and does, produce continual hell when the Sponsoring Thought is hellatious.

Let each person in relationship worry about Self-what Self is being, doing, and having; what Self is wanting, asking, giving; what Self is seeking, creating, experiencing, and all relationships would magnificently serve their purpose-and their participants!

And so I tell you this: be now and forever centered upon your Self. Look to see what you are being, doing, and having in any given moment, not what's going on with another.

The first question in any interactive process with another is: now Who Am I, and Who Do I Want to Be, in relationship to that?

The most rapid way to change a root thought, or sponsoring idea, is to reverse the thought-word-deed process. Do the deed that you want to have the new thought about. Then say the words that you want to have your new thought about. Do this often enough and you'll train the mind to think a new way.

I truly want what you truly want-nothing different and nothing more. Don't you see that is My greatest gift to you? If I wanted for you something other than what you want for you, and then went so far as to cause you to have it, where is your free choice? How can you be a creative being if I am dictating what you shall be, do, and have? My joy is in your freedom, not your compliance.

Forever is longer than you know. Eternal is longer than Forever. God is more than you imagine. God is the energy you call imagination. God is creation. God is first thought. And God is last experience. And God is everything in between.

... all of it is God, and there is nothing else.

I will not leave you, I cannot leave you, for you are My creation and My product, My daughter and My son, My purpose and My... Self. Call on Me, therefore, wherever and whenever you are separate from the peace that I am. I will be there. With Truth. And Light. And Love.

I have not said your values are wrong. But neither are they right. They are simply judgments. Assessments. Decisions. For the most part, they are decisions made not by you, but by someone else. Your parents, perhaps. Your religion. Your teachers, historians, politicians.

We make real that to which we pay attention. The Master knows this. The Master places himself at choice with regard to that which she chooses to make real.

The promise of God is that you are His son. Her offspring. Its likeness. His equal. Ah...here is where you get hung up. You can accept "His son," "offspring," "likeness," but you recoil at being called "His equal." It is too much to accept. Too much bigness, too much wonderment-too much responsibility. For if you are God's equal, that means nothing is being done to you-and all things are created by you. There can be no more victims and no more villains-only outcomes of your thought about a thing.

All creation begins with thought ("Proceeds from the Father"). All creation then moves to word ("Ask and you shall receive, speak and it shall be done unto you"). All creation is fulfilled in deed ("And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us").

To live your life without expectation-without the need for specific results-that is freedom. That is Godliness.

A true Master does not "give up" something. A true Master simply sets it aside, as he would do with anything for which he no longer has any use.

And the reason is found in the first lie-the lie which you hold as the truth about God-that God cannot be trusted; that God's love cannot be depended upon; that God's acceptance of you is conditional; that the ultimate outcome is thus in doubt. For if you cannot depend on God's love to always be there, on whose love can you depend? If God retreats and withdraws when you do not perform properly, will not mere mortals also?

You claim that any promise which gives you the power, and guarantees you the love of God must be the false promise of the devil.

If you think God looks only one way or sounds only one way or is only one way, you're going to look right past Me night and day. You'll spend your whole life looking for God and not finding Her. Because you're looking for a Him.

And every Master has likewise had the same message: What I am, you are. What I can do, you can do. These things, and more, shall you also do.

Yet if I told you you are born of God-that you are pure Gods and Goddesses at birth-pure love-you would reject me.

You are therefore in the process of experiencing yourself by creating yourself anew in every single moment. As am I. Through you.

Is it your thought that I despise some of these, while I love the others? I tell you, I despise nothing. None of it is repulsive to Me. It is life, and life is the gift; the unspeakable treasure; the holy of holies.

The beginning is God. The end is action. Action is God creating-or God experienced.

I have established Laws in the universe that make it possible for you to have-to create-exactly what you choose. These Laws cannot be violated, nor can they be ignored. You are following these Laws right now, even as you read this. You cannot not follow the Law, for these are the ways things work. You cannot step aside from this; you cannot operate outside of it.

My child, everything in life is holy.

You cannot know, and become, that which you are, in the absence of that which you are not, as I have already explained to you.

Choose, but don't want.

This is the process of Self realization about which Eastern mystics have written. It is the process of salvation to which much Western theology has devoted itself. This is a day-to-day, hour-to-hour, moment-to-moment act of supreme consciousness. It is a choosing and a re-choosing every instant. It is ongoing creation. Conscious creation. Creation with a purpose. It is using the tools of creation we have discussed, and using them with awareness and sublime intention.

... for once you rise to a level of God consciousness you will understand that you are not responsible for any other human soul, and that while it is commendable to wish every soul to live in comfort, each soul must choose-is choosing-its own destiny this instant.

Then "wrong" is right, and "right" is wrong! Yet I'll tell you this, to help you out of your dilemma: believe nothing I say. Simply live it. Experience it. Then live whatever other paradigm you want to construct. Afterward, look to your experience to find your truth.

I tell you this: You always get what you create, and you are always creating. I do not make a judgment about the creations that you conjure, I simply empower you to conjure more-and more and more and more. If you don't like what you've just created, choose again. My job, as God, is to always give you that opportunity.

I tell you this: Your Life proceeds out of your intentions for it.

Your Life is always a result of your thoughts about it-including your obviously creative thought that you seldom get what you choose.

Yet never resist anything. If you think that by your resistance you will eliminate it, think again. You only plant it more firmly in place. Have I not told you all thought is creative?

The soul is forever being. It is being what it is being, regardless of what the body is doing, not because of what it's doing. If you think your life is about doingness, you do not understand what you are about.

Your soul is Me, and it knows it. What it is doing, is trying to experience that. And what it is remembering is that the best way to have this experience is by not doing anything. There is nothing to do but to be.

To change your reality, simply stop thinking like that.

In this case, instead of thinking "I want success," think "I have success."

... think a thought you can accept. "My success is coming to me now," or "all things lead to my success."

Yet, know this if you understand nothing else: You have a right to your joy; children or no children; spouse or no spouse. Seek it! Find it! And you will have a joyful family, no matter how much money you make or don't make. And if they aren't joyful, and they get up and leave you, then release them with love to seek their joy.

There is nothing you cannot be, there is nothing you cannot do. There is nothing you cannot have.

I do not care what you do, and that is hard for you to hear. Yet do you care what your children do when you send them out to play? Is it a matter of consequence to you whether they play tag, or hide and seek, or pretend? No, it is not, because you know they are perfectly safe. You have placed them in an environment which you consider friendly and very okay.

Worry is the activity of a mind which does not understand its connection with Me.

The usual method of creation for most human beings is a three-step process involving thought, word, and deed or action. First comes thought; the formative idea; the initial concept. Then comes the word. Most thoughts ultimately form themselves into words, which are often then written or spoken. This gives added energy to the thought, pushing it out into the world, where it can be noticed by others. Finally, in some cases words are put into action, and you have what you call a result; a physical world manifestation of what all started with a thought.

Worry, hate, fear-together with their offshoots: anxiety, bitterness, impatience, avarice, unkindness, judgmentalness, and condemnation-all attack the body at the cellular level. It is impossible to have a healthy body under these conditions.

The only way to move forward on this is to ask yourself, "What would happen if everything I thought was 'wrong' was actually 'right'?"

And so then, keep on growing, My son. Keep on becoming. And keep on deciding what you want to become in the next highest version of your Self. Keep on working toward that. Keep on! Keep on! This is God Work we're up to, you and I. So keep on!

If you want guarantees in life, then you don't want life. You want rehearsals for a script that's already been written. Life by its nature cannot have guarantees, or its whole purpose is thwarted.

Life (as you call it) is an opportunity for you to know experientially what you already know conceptually. You need learn nothing to do this. You need merely remember what you already know, and act on it.

Enlightenment is understanding that there is nowhere to go, nothing to do, and nobody you have to be except exactly who you're being right now.

Cultivate the technique of seeing all problems as opportunities. Opportunities to...be, and decide, Who You Really Are.

Religious traditions hold enormous value, extraordinary wisdom, breathtaking insights into the human experience, but they are limited to the degree that there has not been a new theological idea expressed by any of the major religions for thousands of years.

A thing is only right or wrong because you say it is. A thing is not right or wrong intrinsically.

Say your truth-kindly, but fully and completely. Live your truth, gently, but totally and consistently. Change your truth easily and quickly when your experience brings you new clarity.

Look at the history of civil laws in our world and the source from which they emerged, and you will see that the vast majority of them arose directly from, or where based in principle on, Roman Canon Law, or the laws of other religious origin. Sharia is another notable example.