The Conversations with God (CwG) books are
transcripts of actual, mental conversations between the author and a spirit
claiming to be God. These books challenge traditional Christian theology and
present alternative metaphysical concepts. However, the purpose of this article
is to discuss only the basic premises - the foundational ideas, or core
concepts - of the CwG books. These concepts are spelled out for the reader in
Book 1. Many wonderful ideas for a better world are presented in Books 2 and 3,
and there is much food for thought in each of the CwG books, but only the
foundational ideas are discussed here.
Early in Book 1,
we are told that, in order for anything to exist, it must have an opposite;
that, in order for God (the unseen) to exist and also to know Itself, there has
to be something that is not God (the visible creation). Without relativity and
relationship - made possible by God's creation of the visible, physical world -
God can neither exist, nor know Itself except conceptually. These ideas are
presented on pages 22-26 (First Hardcover Edition, 1996).
I should mention
here that relativity and relationship belong to the physical world. They are
aspects of our experience of the world in terms of opposites, or dualities, and
contrasts: cold and hot, far and near, pleasure and pain, good and bad, the
observer and the observed, for example. We judge something as cold or far in
relation to their opposites, hot or near. Cold and hot, or far and near are not
absolutes; they exist only in relation to, or relative to, each other. In the
realm of eternal oneness, of God as the unchanging Absolute, Who exists
forever, relativity and opposites do not exist.
God is beyond
even our grandest concepts of "Him", and in order to really know Him,
one has to experience Him as infinite love and oneness, beyond duality. This
happens when, through His grace, generally after lifetimes of selfless service
and seeking, one merges with God (perhaps in deep meditation) and, in the state
of Christ Consciousness or Cosmic Consciousness, experiences God as the Supreme
Reality. But these states of consciousness, which far surpass our dualistic
experiences in the physical realm, are not discussed in
"Conversations". Those saints and mystics who have experienced
oneness with God as the Father (the Absolute, beyond all physical
manifestation) tell us that this state is so glorious it cannot be adequately
described in terms of human concepts. Enlightened masters, such as Jesus, teach
that to regain this lost paradise of bliss-consciousness - the Kingdom of God - is the ultimate destiny of every
human being. But awareness of our oneness with God only comes when
consciousness is developed and purified. Through virtue and self-discipline,
living in unconditional love, study of spiritual truth, and deep meditation,
one shakes off earthly attachments, ego, judgmental attitudes, hate, fear and
anger, and draws ever closer to blissful oneness with God.
There is a sharp
contrast between teachings that have come to us from enlightened beings, and
the core teachings in Conversations with God! The latter completely
reverse the teachings of enlightened beings by telling us that God's existence
depends on the existence of the physical universe (rather than the existence of
the universe depending on God's existence), and that God and souls can know
themselves in a real and meaningful way only in terms of human experiences of
relativities and dualities in the physical world (when, in fact, the reality of
God and souls can be truly known only by transcending physicality, relativity
and duality). On pages 22-23, the god of "Conversations" says that
God longed to know what it felt like to be magnificent and, for this reason,
created souls to experience Him in relative terms. For only through our human
experience of Him as magnificent could He experience His magnificence.
As an example of
the process of God knowing Himself through humans, the god of "Conversations"
says, on pages 25-27, that the only way God could know Himself experientially
as the Creator was to create sufficient parts of Himself (souls endowed with
free choice) and, through their creative actions in the physical world,
experience His own nature as Creator. But, even if it were true that God longed
to experience Himself through the experiences of humans, wouldn't one or two of
us have been sufficient in order for Him to have this experience?
"Conversations"
says that, without the world and the relative, dualistic, physical experiences
of souls, God was limited to conceptual knowing. Conceptual knowing is
imperfect and incomplete. A concept is just a symbol of something and falls far
short of the actual experience of the object, feeling, or reality that it
symbolizes. However, contrary to what CwG would have us believe, God's knowing
is not and never was conceptual. Enlightened masters tell us that
knowing, in God's realm, is direct; it is perfect because it is direct
experience in which - as yoga teaches when speaking of the state of oneness in
deep meditation - the knower, the process of knowing, and the object known
become one. Through oneness with something, you know all about it. In the
supreme state of oneness, one does not use words or mental images - symbols -
to know; one knows by being one with that which is known. Dualistic experiences
are subject to the limited scope of the human mind and senses; God's knowing is
all encompassing and infinite.
The
self-proclaimed god of CwG, spins a web of stories and philosophical sophistry
that gives supreme importance to the physical creation and the limited
perceptions of human beings for supposedly enabling God to exist and to know
Himself. None of the saints, mystics and masters of various cultures and times
have said that God needed a physical world in order to exist, and human
perceptions of Him so that He could know Himself. What they have said is that,
only in the state of oneness, beyond our perceptions of physicality,
relativity, and duality, can we know God as He truly is. Many of them have also
said that, eons ago, humans freely chose to think and act in ways that caused
them to lose their awareness of unity with God and all things, and as a
consequence, they and the physical world they lived in, fell from their
original glory and perfection (symbolized by the Garden of Eden allegory). They
lost the ability to know God directly and had to use concepts instead. However,
as we reconnect with God, by living in love and oneness, we (and, perhaps, the
world) will be restored to our original perfection and wholeness.
Another core
concept in "Conversations" that needs to be evaluated is the idea
that, without its opposite, love could not exist as something that could be
experienced (p. 24). According to CwG, God created fear as the absolute
opposite of love, so love could be experienced. However, teachings received
from Jesus in our time tell us that love has no opposites nor comparisons. In
other words, love is not something that is relative to something else. This
makes sense, because divine love comes from God, not from the physical plane.
It is the nature of what we are as spirit and simply needs to be called forth
by removing psychological obstructions, such as fear, which keep it from our
awareness.
Love is far more
than sympathy or human attraction; it encompasses and embraces everything. CwG
acknowledges the supremacy of love and even says love is the only true reality;
it is absolute, and is all there is (p. 56). How then, can love be experienced
as an opposite? According to CwG, the love we experience on earth is not real
love; it is an imitation of real love, which we accept as real because it seems
real (p. 57).
However, even if
human love is sometimes an imitation, we do experience real love on earth in
varying degrees when the heart is open. Fear does not help one to experience
it; fear only gets in the way. Fear shuts down the higher functions of the
heart, which enable us to experience blissful, joyous, divine love. Yet, when
we give and receive love, the heart is open and fear is gone. The most
wonderful ("one - full") experiences on earth are of love, bliss,
oneness, and divine light. Experiences of divine realities far transcend
experiences of the physical world. Physical relativities and dualities simply
cannot compare with, and do not help us, to experience divine realities. To
experience divine love, we need to step aside from fears, comparisons and
judgments. This opens the way for love to enter in. However it only comes when
the time is right. Perhaps guilt, fear, and other psychological obstructions
still remain - buried deep in the subconscious mind - to be patiently dissolved
through meditation, forgiveness, and wisdom.
The god of
"Conversations" speaks of love as the sum total of all feelings. He
says that the soul can experience perfect love only by experiencing every human
feeling, namely, fear, hatred, anger, etc.; and that the purpose of the human
soul is to experience all human emotions so that it can be all of them. He says
that accomplishing this takes many lifetimes (p. 83-84).
It is true that
humans have been incarnating over and over for many lifetimes, experiencing
fear, anger, hatred, lust, vengeance, greed, and so on, as well as wars,
personal vendettas, and endless miseries, caused by destructive emotions and
selfish desires. But is experiencing every human feeling the purpose of the
soul, a task we were sent here to accomplish? Certainly, we need to be
conscious of our negative thoughts and emotions and not shrink from recognizing
them, but we should refuse to act them out. Our purpose in coming here was to
experience the divinity in each other and in God's creation by living in love
and oneness, and to create only good by acting in accord with the will of God.
Fear, greed, anger, and all the other negative emotions cause us to reincarnate
over and over until we learn to tame them with wisdom and replace them with
love. They are not ingredients that, by being mixed together, create love.
Instead, they keep us from accepting, expressing and experiencing love.
By telling us
that we need to experience all aspects of life on earth, including desires and
unloving emotions that cause pain and suffering for ourselves and others, and
keep us from living in peace and joy, the god of "Conversations"
clearly demonstrates he isn't interested in our spiritual welfare. There is
not, and never was, a need to explore the endless caverns of human experience
in order to experience love. In order to experience divine love, we need to
give up the thoughts, feelings, and desires of the ego, which stem from the
idea that we are separate from each other and God. Love is our inmost
essence, and whenever we choose to leave selfish thoughts, feelings, and
desires behind and live in love, we begin to rise above the habits and
compulsions of our lower nature, and love begins to manifest in our life. The
god of "Conversations" wants to put one over on us by telling us we
need to experience every human feeling.
I've only
mentioned a few of the core concepts in the CwG books intended to mislead
people and hinder them from making the effort to get rid of habits and
compulsions that keep them earthbound. There are many other false teachings in
these books. And, of course, there also are many true teachings. It is as if
the god that presented these concepts wants us to keep on reincarnating over
and over, pursuing earthly desires and objectives, but also does not want us to
become so obsessed with fear, greed, hostility, and vengeance that we destroy
our physical forms, and the earth as well. So, not only do we find many
falsehoods in Conversations with God, but also much that is true,
especially in the books that came out after Book 1. And, keep in mind that not
many people would read these books unless, in addition to untruth, they also
contained truth and inspiration. By telling us many things that are true, they
give the impression that they really might be conversations with God, in which
case even the falsehoods would be accepted as true. Their teachings are
presented with great skill, intelligence, and cunning. When I first started
reading the CwG books, some of the teachings didn't quite add up but, like most
of us, I didn't take time to carefully examine and analyze everything. Then,
several years later, I decided to study the teachings more closely and
discovered inconsistencies and distortions of truth, such as those I'm
discussing here.
These books tell
us we are continuously creating the Self by the choices we make on the earth
plane (p. 113), but Self-realized masters tell us the Self was created by God,
that it was perfect right from the start and still is perfect, even though the
ego keeps us from experiencing the Self and knowing this. When we experience
the Self, we will know what it is, that it has never changed and has always
been the same. So, attaining Self-realization is not a process of creating the
Self; it is remembering who we are.
The Conversations
with God books make a pretense of guiding us toward Self-realization, but
actually do the opposite. Instead of telling us how to rise above earthly
thoughts and desires, in order to focus our mind on Spirit, they point us in
the direction of body-consciousness. Instead of explaining that the Self and
God are realized by learning to concentrate on divine realities - peace, love
and light, for instance - beyond the relativities and dualities of the physical
world, they say that the Self and God are created by our experiences of our
actions in this world in terms of relativity and duality. They make a true
statement that our purpose is to live our highest conception of ourselves and
that our highest purpose is to realize the Self (p. 129), but then tell us that
our mind, not God, creates the Self, and that the Self is experienced not by
becoming aware of the soul's perfection and oneness with God but through
physical experiences (p. 196). They even encourage us to explore and enjoy all
aspects of the physical realm. They say that, when we have had enough sex or
any of the other pleasures of earthly life, we will desire a higher life and
will naturally renounce these pleasures, in order to pursue a higher goal, a
greater version of life. But the relative world of dualities and physical
pleasures can be a trap. People have been seeking physical pleasures for eons,
yet rarely have they renounced them and become Self-realized. And those who
accomplished this did so by making a colossal, superhuman effort to rise above
the influence of dualities and body-consciousness.
In order to
realize the Self and God, it is important to control one's thoughts and
exercise restraint in enjoying the pleasures of eating, entertainment, sex, and
all the other earthly activities that otherwise take over a person's life and
leave little time for devotional communion with God. If we just wait passively
for these desires to dissipate, it may never happen. By making a determined
effort to spend more time in spiritual activities, such as meditation, we can
succeed in living a truly higher life... one of love and spiritual progress.
On pages 100-103,
we are told that, instead of resisting desires that do not serve us, we should
look at them, understanding and accepting them, then step aside from them, and
they will disappear. However, looking at our desires in this way hardly ever makes
them disappear. You might step aside from them - putting them out of your
awareness momentarily - but, like a magnetic imprint in your mind that is still
there, they come right back into your awareness. Also, thinking about sex,
food, or anything else that you desire usually increases your desire.
The same is true
for destructive habits of thinking, such as nursing grievances and condemning
or criticizing people. Just looking at destructive habits of thinking, while
understanding and accepting them, doesn't make them disappear.
After telling us
how to deal with desires that do not serve us, "Conversations"
mentions something that does work (p. 104). It is simply to turn toward God and
away from temptation. Turning toward God gives one inner strength and
motivation to naturally and successfully renounce (turn away from) desires one
wants to get rid of. If a desire comes to tempt you, don't think about it,
trying to understand it; or concentrate on it, trying to see through it; just
say No, and turn to God. If it resists, persist until it's dismissed.
On page 29,
"Conversations" says that only in the realm of the Absolute can
something exist without its opposite, but the realm of the Absolute did not
suffice for either God or ourselves, for in the Absolute there is no
experience, only knowing. However, as previously mentioned, God's knowing -
unlike dualistic, earthly experience - is not conceptual and limited. The realm
of the Absolute is the realm of the highest heaven - the supreme state of
all-encompassing love and oneness, known in divine, ecstatic communion and
meditation. It is beyond earthly dualities, inferior pleasures, pain and
suffering. In this infinite realm, God knows by being one with that which is
known. This kind of knowing is experiential in the highest sense of the word
and is the kind of knowing we had before we lost awareness of our oneness with
God. What does not suffice for either God or ourselves is earthly experience
and knowledge, not the blissful realm of the Absolute.
"Conversations"
then goes on to equate God the Father with conceptual knowing and God the Son
with dualistic experiencing. It says that God the Son is the acting out of
"all that the Father knows of Itself", for one can only be that which
one has experienced (p. 30). This is an attempt to make dualistic, earthly
experience seem more important than the infinite love and bliss that is God and
which God knows by direct experience. It even implies that the Father and Son
cannot exist, in other words, be, without earthly experience.
In terms of
linear cause and effect, common sense tells us the existence (being) of the
Creator (Father) comes first, before the existence (being) of the Creation (the
physical world and souls) and experiences of acting out the Father's concepts of
Himself. The experiences, according to CwG, are the Son, and being comes after
this. CwG says that being is the Holy Spirit - the disembodied memory of the
Son's experience on the physical plane (p. 30). What CwG says is untrue. God
the Father is being (God has to exist, in other words, be, in order to create),
God the Son is the oneness, love, and intelligence implanted in all Creation by
the Father, not the acting out of concepts, and God the Holy Spirit is a
creation (extension) of the Father, not a memory of earthly experiences. The
Father and the Son, as well as the Holy Spirit, have being, for to exist is to
be.
The state of
being of God the Father is often considered to be the supreme state of being,
and the physical creation as not true being. CwG agrees with this in saying
that love is the only true reality; it is absolute, and is all there is (p.
56). Therefore, in saying that "being is achieved only after
experience" (p. 30), CwG contradicts itself. CwG is full of contradictory
statements like this. It presents contradictory ideas as though they were
perfectly compatible. It agrees with many of its reader's beliefs, but presents
contradictory ideas that help to support the basic idea it wants us to accept:
that physical experiences are more important than God the Father. It tries to
make us believe that returning to this world is more important than returning
to the Father, and entices us to keep on being reborn in human embodiment, as
we have been doing for, perhaps, many thousands of lifetimes, drawn here by
unfulfilled physical desires and karma.
The god of
"Conversations" makes an interesting statement in Book 3 (copyright
1998, p. 185) by telling us that he is the source of A Course in Miracles,
a book first published in 1976, whose teachings and mental exercises help those
who study and practice them, to overcome the influence of the relativities and
illusions of the world, to "listen" to the voice of the Holy Spirit,
and to experience the light of Christ within. Since the Course directly contradicts
the core message of "Conversations", that divinity can only be
experienced in terms of relativities and illusions, one wonders why
"Conversations" would try to take credit for it. Perhaps, because A
Course in Miracles is very difficult to understand, the readers of
"Conversations" might not read the "Course" or might not
notice the contradictions.
Also, in Book 3,
Paramahansa Yogananda is mentioned as an example of a highly evolved being, a
master who lived in peace and serenity most of his life, and brought peace and
serenity to others (pp. 132, 324). Yogananda's Self-Realization Fellowship
(SRF) teachings help one to discover the peace, love, and joy of the soul - the
divinity within - through deep, daily meditation. By self-discipline, devotion,
breath control, and stilling the mind in deep meditation, one is able to
experience the light, love and bliss of Spirit. Yogananda taught meditation as
a means of transcending the dualities and relativities of the illusory
phenomenal world, in order to realize God. In his Autobiography of a Yogi
(Chapter 30, The Law of Miracles) and in many other writings, he discusses maya
- the cosmic, delusive force of relativity and duality, which tries to keep
humanity engrossed in the drama of the world, lifetime after lifetime. His
teachings show us how to overcome the influence of maya and penetrate
its illusions.
Though Conversations
with God professes to show us the way to enlightenment and freedom, it
actually serves the purpose of maya. It talks about meditation and God,
and even says that our reality is love, but tells us that God and love can only
be experienced in terms of relativity and duality. A Course in Miracles
teaches that love is all encompassing and can have no opposite.
"Conversations" says that, in order to experience love, one has to
experience its opposite and even tells us that, in order to experience love,
the soul has to experience all emotions, so it can "be all of it" -
feelings perceived as evil as well as those perceived as good (pp. 83, 84). But
we already are love. The reason we don't experience the blissful love at the
core of our being is that, long ago, after God created us, we began to be
influenced by dualities within the earth plane and, instead of remembering the
oneness of all things, we began to perceive pain and suffering as separate. This
inability to be at one with all aspects of creation led to a perceived
separation from, and diminished ability to commune with, The Divine. And the
chasm grew ever wider (Messages from Jesus, by Mary Ann Johnston,
Third Edition, 2009, p. 166). Because we allowed ourselves to be influenced by
dualities, we forgot the oneness of everything and, instead, perceived
separation. From separation came guilt, fear, and other negative emotions,
which greatly limited our ability to experience love and divinity.
So, trying to
find divine realities - the peace, bliss, oneness, love and light of God, for
example - by experiencing all emotions so we can be love, and by experiencing
all actions so we can know which ones to choose (p. 84) is a false path, one
that would increase material desires and attachments, create karma that would
cause us to reincarnate until we chose another path, and block our awareness of
divine realities. Readers of the CwG books are at a place where they don't need
to learn by trial and error what kinds of actions will help them grow
spiritually. If they want to know how to experience divine realities and attain
liberation, all they need to do is study and practice the teachings of enlightened
beings.
Finally, it's
important to remember that the god of "Conversations" tells us he is
not the Supreme Being. He says that, as we now understand God, he is God, but
that, even as we are his children, he is the child of another (Book 1, p. 197).
However, even if he isn't the Supreme Being, that doesn't matter to everyone.
He talks so eloquently, with such seeming authority and utter confidence, and
says so much that is true about the shortcomings of religion and the foibles
and failings of humankind, that many are inclined to believe everything he
says. The god of "Conversations" knows how to bait a trap.
