From my Journal. Conversations With God Book 1 Chapter 1

This is from my journal and open to comments here if any wish to comment of what I have written.

Do you agree with my premises or not.
If not why do you not agree?
Give me specifics as to why you do not agree.
Do not tell me you are wrong.
Tell me how I am wrong, and give me the reasons you think I am wrong.
If you agree, why do you agree?
Also give me the specifics as to why you agree.

Thank you.

Here is the post from my journal.

Self-Study: Conversations With God Book 1 Chapter 1
Written on November 23, 2013
(1) Source Material: Conversations With God Book 1 Chapter 1
(2) Source Material: God Wants You Dead by: SEAN HASTINGS and PAUL ROSENBERG
Section 0 Executive Summary – 0.2 Higher Powers

The book starts explaining the author’s back story, and certain questions that he had been asking about life in general. The author’s statements about the conversations were that they were from GOD. He also stated in his book, that even if they are not from GOD, that one should actually take a look at what is being said instead of closing one’s mind. So my goal is to give a general idea of what is presented in the book. Like the author makes a distinction between his words and “god’s” words so will I.

Remember the author claims to have had these conversations with God. Everything I will write is a paraphrase of what is said to simplify it.

God talks to everyone most commonly by feelings, and rarely by word. God talks to everyone also through thoughts, (images and pictures). God talks to use through experience. When these three, (feeling, thoughts, and experience,) fail God then uses words. The problem with words is that they are too often open to misunderstanding and too often to misinterpretation. The reason being is that words simply stand for the feelings, thoughts and experience.

So how can one know whether or not that their feelings, thoughts, or experiences are from God?

“(1) Whatever is of your grandest thought, highest hope, clearest word, highest feeling is from God.
The Highest Thought is always that thought which contains joy. The Clearest Words are those words which contain truth. The Grandest Feeling is that feeling which you call love. Joy, truth, love. These three are interchangeable, and one always leads to the other. It matters not in which order they are placed. (1)”

So how can one know God then? The book explains it this way,

“(1) You cannot know God until you’ve stopped telling yourself that you already know God. You cannot hear God until you stop thinking that you’ve already heard God. I cannot tell you My Truth until you stop telling Me yours. (1)”

I find this statement quite interesting. I was raised Baptist and told that God loves me and that Jesus loves me all my childhood. There is even a song, “Jesus Loves Me.” One part of the song gives the person a question, “if you ask me how I know,” with the answer being, “because the bible tells me so.”

This of course leads some to think and say things such as, “just because the bible says so. Well, that book has become the backbone of some of the worst atrocities ever committed in human history, not counting all of the atrocities that are in the bible itself, such as, “having a spirit of death kill all the first born of Egypt, because one person is stubborn?””

In this book it claims that God says that an authoritative source is to,

“(1) Listen to your feelings. Listen to your Highest Thoughts. Listen to your experience. Whenever any one of these differ from what you’ve been told by your teachers, or read in your books, forget the words. Words are the least reliable purveyor of Truth.(1)”

This statement made me think about when I was a child and told not to touch a hot stove or you will get burnt. I had no experience of what being burnt was, and therefore did not have any reason why I should not touch that red hot burner, so what did I do, I touched it and had an experience of being burnt and hurt. I think it is the same way with God, you cannot know God till you have had some experience with God. Once you have had an experience with God you will never again doubt that there is a God.

So how does one experience God? One experiences God within oneself. Once one experiences God within, there is no outward observation needed. One simply knows from their experience that there is a God and that God can be found by searching within. This of course is what Joseph Campbell is talks about, is the inward journey, or the hero’s journey. The finding out of something that transcends all feeling, all thought, all experience, and all words.

In my post journal about the first storytellers I wrote,

“The shaman was one who had and elite experience. They were the ones who had turned inward. Many of them having had: a death experience, a deep dream, or a mystical encounter. They were the functionary of their own direct experience unlike the priest of now.” “Myth became the teachings of how to live life in accord and in harmony with all that was around you.”

http://www.templeofthejediorder.org/forum/47-Journals/65989-scott-s-journal?limit=10&limitstart=0&start=30#67014

This experience of God will awaken you to the world around you. An experience with God transforms you from feeling that you do not matter, to knowing that you do matter. An experience with God lets you know the truth behind your thoughts, actions, and feelings. You begin to understand that there is no division, and that all things are one.


In my journal on Sacrifice and bliss I wrote.

In the text Campbell says, “If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a land of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Wherever you are – if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time.”

Campbell talks about having a sacred place. Your sacred place is somewhere you can experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. It is a place of incubation of the creative imagination.

He goes on to say that if this place is used, even though nothing is happening at first, through use of your sacred place something will happen.

Entering into your sacred place is however you choose to enter. If there is some music that you love, play it. If there is a book that you love, read it. If there is a dance that you love, dance it. If there is some exercise that you love, then do it. But above all is to do that which you love to do. To follow your bliss.

Campbell then goes on to discuss perceptions. Like the pygmy who was terrified of the open plains our perceptions mislead us too. Many people project their idea of God on the world. Campbell says in the text, “The god idea was always culturally conditioned. And even when a missionary brings what the thinks is God... that god is transformed in terms of what the people are able to think of as a divinity.

Then in my journal on higher powers from the book, “God wants you Dead,” I wrote,

““The book defines a higher power as, “Icons to which people grant greater authority than they would to any individual human being.” (2) These higher powers can be such things as a god, ancestors, founding fathers, law of the land, voice of the nation, Mother Nature, or even a corporation. (2)””

Further on in the chapter it talks about life circumstances. What is said, is that God does not decide our life, but God is the observer of our life. Everything in our life we have created in our life, and for many they simply cannot believe this. I do not know about everyone else but there have been many times in my life when I have felt like I was looking through a window and not my eyes. During these times I get a feeling as though my eyes are not really my eyes, but simply something that the real me is viewing the world. During this disassociation with my eyes I am also disassociated with all of me, I do not feel that my hands are “my hands,” but that they are hands that the real me uses to do things with. I feel as though that the real me is something else within this body. Many traditions teach that this real me is the higher self, or the part of you that is God and not God at the same time.

Then there are traditions that teach that this type of thinking is evil and wrong and if you follow this type of belief then you will go to some place of punishment. This book says this,

“Fear is the energy which contracts, closes down, draws in, runs, hides, hoards, harms. Love is the energy which expands, opens up, sends out, stays, reveals, shares, heals. Fear wraps our bodies in clothing, love allows us to stand naked. Fear clings to and clutches all that we have, love gives all that we have away. Fear holds close, love holds dear. Fear grasps, love lets go. Fear rankles, love soothes. Fear attacks, love amends. Every’ human thought, word, or deed is based in one emotion or the other.”

Those traditions create fear in the mind. They close the mind to the inner mind and create in the mind doubt about what is going on within the mind. To many people have become so deluded by their own personal views about their own personal beliefs and traditions that they have become closed minded to all other views. Not only this, all other view are automatically wrong and evil in the eyes of a closed minded person. This type of person will not exam the reason behind what they believe and why they believe what they believe. I do not know who said this, “question everything.” But that is an excellent statement to live by. Question everything. Why does one believe there is no God? Why does one believe that there is a God? Those who say there is no God have not fully followed logic to its end.

I personally have no problem saying that both God and Evolution are real. I think that correct logic followed through to its end will only come to one conclusion, “there is a God, and Evolution is real.” The Universe and Evolution are the outward proof of God, your thoughts and feelings which are based in love are the inward proof of God.

In my journal post on Masks of Eternity I wrote,

“Now Campbell goes on to say to Moyers question, “ “ You are a man of faith,” “No, I don't have faith, I have experience.” ” My only problem with him saying that is that is his faith. Experience creates faith, it creates a system of belief. Campbell had his own system of belief regardless of whether or not he wanted to admit it. Each one of us has our set of beliefs. And those beliefs are a form of faith, regardless of what one person will try to say to themselves about it or not.

In the text for Masks Moyers says, “So prayer is actually a meditation?” The discussion continues explaining that prayer is relating to a mystery. A calling of power from within, to concentrate on one thing. To have an experience that is profound. One has to go past their animal experiences of hunger and greed. One has to go past sexual zeal. One has to become centered within their heart, and open to compassion. To realize that they are not alone, that they are not we and them. To realize that we are all one. This is the experience of your god within.

Here is how Campbell stated it, “ When you experience your god as with form, there is your envisioning mind, and there is the god. There is a subject, and there is an object. But the ultimate mystical goal is to be united with one's god. With that, duality is transcended and forms disappear. There is nobody there, no god, no you. Your mind, going past all concepts, has dissolved in identification with the ground of your own being, because that to which the metaphorical image of your god refers is the ultimate mystery of your own being, which is the mystery of the being of the world as well.” This is the idea that god is within. That god is within everything, that everything is part of god and we are of god at our deepest level of being.”

http://www.templeofthejediorder.org/forum/47-Journals/65989-scott-s-journal?limit=10&limitstart=0&start=30#71745

God is your voice within. Once you actually learn how to listen to God, your life will transform before your eyes. Everything changes once you experience God. This is what the book says,

“There is only one purpose for all of life, and that is for you and all that lives to experience
fullest glory.

Everything else you say, think, or do is attendant to that function. There is nothing else for
your soul to do, and nothing else your soul wants to do.

The wonder of this purpose is that it is never-ending. An ending is a limitation, and God’s
purpose is without such a boundary. Should there come a moment in which you experience
yourself in your fullest glory, you will in that instant imagine an ever greater glory to fulfill. The
more you are, the more you can become, and the more you can become, the more you can
yet be.

The deepest secret is that life is not a process of discovery, but a process of creation.

You are not discovering yourself, but creating yourself anew. Seek, therefore, not to find out
Who You Are, seek to determine Who You Want to Be.”

Who you are, you have chosen to be, through your thought and feelings. If you do not like something about yourself, then search within and change your thoughts and feelings and become on overcomer. You and you alone change your life and no one else can force you to be something that you do not wish to be. Others may be able to force you to do things that you do not wish to do, but just because someone forces you to be a slave for example does not make you a slave. One only becomes a slave to another when one believes that they are a slave to that person. What is funny about that is most people actually become a slave to their own egotistic minds. I have to go to work; no actually, you do not have to go to work. You choose to go to work so that you can gain things that you want. Likewise, you do not have to think the thoughts that you have been having. You can change your thoughts by thinking a different way. To learn to think a different way you must learn to seek within, once you have sought within you will find your true self. Your true self is your God within.

To many believe that there is God and that there is them. Jesus stated it perfectly,

“[Jhn 17:11, 22 KJV]
11 And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we [are]. ...
22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:”

Jesus basically, was saying he was one with the Holy Father, and that we “may be one.” Not only did Jesus say that we, “may be one,” but he also said, that his glory he has given it to us. What is the glory of Jesus then? Many say that the glory of Jesus is that Jesus is the Son of God. Well if that is the glory of Jesus and Jesus has given us his glory, then are we not also “the sons of God?”

[Gal 4:6-7 KJV]
6 And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.
7 Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

The bible even says that because we are sons, the Spirit of the Son is in our hearts, and because we are a son we become an heir of God through Christ. What this is talking about is what is describe in the book as,

“the All of Everything chose to know Itself experientially. This energy—this pure, unseen, unheard, unobserved, and therefore unknown-by-anyone else energy—chose to experience Itself as the utter magnificence It was. In order to do this, It realized It would have to use a reference point within.
It reasoned, quite correctly, that any portion of Itself would necessarily have to be less than the whole, and that if It thus simply divided Itself into portions, each portion, being less than the whole, could look back on the rest of Itself and see magnificence.”

Your inner self, that looks through the window of your eyes is your God within. Once you experience oneness with your God within, you know that you are one with all and that duality is a lie. You have and always be part of the whole. The universe would not be the universe without you, nor could the universe exist without you. Some may say wrong when I die I will not be. But that is wrong.

There is no death, there is the force.

To say that a bit different.
There is no death, there is God.

May the force(God) be with(in) you.

Interesting. Up until you started quoting the Bible it wasn't that obviously inconsistent. The only question I had was "How do you (or the author of that book) know? How are we to tell you (or he) is correct while people asserting often what is the opposite are incorrect? How is your (or his) experience superior to that of those who assert something different?"
And of course there was also the problem of reconciling one's oneness with child molesters, emotional parasites, sadistic tyrants and the like, and of course claiming that they do not see the oneness, while may at first glance seem like a response to that objection, really creates a separation between the Us and the Them thus nullifying the hypothesis that created the problem in the first place.

Also, while I don't think Mr. Campbell would necessarily spin around in his grave for this, it must be noted that he was a mythologist for the most part and worked comparing myths and religions. So while of course he found common threads, the mos he could do was attribute that fact to some inate properties of human natural thinking and not to any properties of a supernatural realm governing anything. Of course, personally he may or may not have believed a number of things and I'd have to study all of his work to say wether he displayed any, but from what I know about him he didn't and would have been unprofessional to do so.

And then you brought the Bible in to quote a few words from it that barely resonate at all with the main thesis presented as of course both can be interpreted to mean nothing of the sort and you don't even have to deviate from the literal meaning of the words to get there - no leaps of any sort necessary. Let alone the context (of the first one), of course.
And ontop of that it must be noted that the god of the Bible is not like any inner voice or any unity of mankind. It is a distinct character with personality traits, and even a few names, who has his very own wishes, demands and preferences and thoughts and actions. So from a purely journalistic motive, if I were to write this article in a form like this, I would probably have chosen a different source to quote for backup or left that bit out altogether, for it serves not the purpose but serves against it rather well.

Gisteron wrote: Interesting. Up until you started quoting the Bible it wasn't that obviously inconsistent.

The premises is that this journal entry is about Chapter 1 of the Book, "Conversations with God." That is the premises. I did not go over everything that the book talks about. Plus like a natural conversation does many times subjects tend to flow like water moving about with the whim of those who are in the conversation. So, under this premises understand that the Author was asking questions and God was answering those questions.

Gisteron wrote: The only question I had was "How do you (or the author of that book) know?

How do I know what he was saying is correct? I will not say that he did have a conversation with God, but I will say he is correct in what he presented. Just as the author says he has had an experience with God, I too claim to have had an experience with God.

Gisteron wrote: How are we to tell you (or he) is correct while people asserting often what is the opposite are incorrect?

Those in my opinion who assert the opposite simply have not had a true experience with the oneness of God. Once they do they simply know the truth. Those who have had such experiences duty is to afterwards inform those of what they experienced. But remember, my experience is not going to be the same as someone else's experience. But, all that do experience God will be able to see past the normal spiritual blindness that is upon humankind due to personal ego's and will see truth in what has been presented.

Gisteron wrote: How is your (or his) experience superior to that of those who assert something different?"

It is not a matter of being superior, it is simply a matter of knowing the truth.

Gisteron wrote: And of course there was also the problem of reconciling one's oneness with child molesters, emotional parasites, sadistic tyrants and the like, and of course claiming that they do not see the oneness, while may at first glance seem like a response to that objection, really creates a separation between the Us and the Them thus nullifying the hypothesis that created the problem in the first place.

Sorry you see separation, I do not.

Gisteron wrote: Also, while I don't think Mr. Campbell would necessarily spin around in his grave for this, it must be noted that he was a mythologist

I agree he was.

Gisteron wrote: for the most part and worked comparing myths and religions. So while of course he found common threads, the mos he could do was attribute that fact to some inate properties of human natural thinking and not to any properties of a supernatural realm governing anything.

I disagree. Many times he talks about an experience that transcends.
This is from the Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell

"Truth is one; the sages call it by many
names." All our names and images for God are masks, he said, signifying the ultimate reality that by definition transcends language and art. A myth is a mask of God, too -- a metaphor for what lies behind the visible world. However the mystic traditions differ,he said, they are in accord in calling us to a deeper awareness of the very act of living itself. The unpardonable sin, in Campbell's book, was the sin of inadvertence, of not being alert, not quite awake.

Myths are an attempt to impart to those that have not transcended what one experiences.

Then elsewhere Campbell says,

CAMPBELL: Yes. The initial sound (a Christian might say, the creative Word), out of
which the whole world was precipitated, the big bang, the pouring of the transcendent
energy into and expanding through the field of time. As soon as it enters the field of
time, it breaks into pairs of opposites, the one becomes two. Now, when you have two,
there are just three ways in which they can relate to one another: one way is of this one
dominant over that; another way is of that one dominant over this; and a third way is of
the two in balanced accord. It is then, finally, out of these three manners of relationship
that all things within the four quarters of space derive.

I've been speaking about, realizing what a wonder the universe is, and what a wonder
you are, and experiencing awe before this mystery. Myth opens the world to the
dimension of mystery, to the realization of the mystery that underlies all forms. If you
lose that, you don't have a mythology. If mystery is manifest through all things, the
universe becomes, as it were, a holy picture. You are always addressing the
transcendent mystery through the conditions of your actual world.

The mystery is what I call God.

There's a Hindu image that shows a triangle, which is the Mother Goddess, and a dot in
the center of the triangle, which is the energy of the transcendent entering the field of
time. And then from this triangle there come pairs of triangles in all directions. Out of
one comes two. All things in the field of time are pairs of opposites. So this is the shift of
consciousness from the consciousness of identity to the consciousness of participation in
duality. And then you are into the field of time.

When that which is transcendent enters the field of time is when the transcendent incarnates. There are some that believe that all things, whether they be mineral, plant, animal, or human are part of the transcendent.

CAMPBELL: It's a matter of planes of consciousness. It doesn't have to do with
anything that happened. There is the plane of consciousness where you can identify
yourself with that which transcends pairs of opposites.

This plane of consciousness is where one meets God so to speak.

Gisteron wrote: Of course, personally he may or may not have believed a number of things and I'd have to study all of his work to say wether he displayed any, but from what I know about him he didn't and would have been unprofessional to do so.

See some of the quotes above and there are more also.

Gisteron wrote: And then you brought the Bible in to quote a few words from it that barely resonate at all with the main thesis presented as of course both can be interpreted to mean nothing of the sort and you don't even have to deviate from the literal meaning of the words to get there - no leaps of any sort necessary. Let alone the context (of the first one), of course.

Just because you do not see a connection that directly relates to transcendence does not mean that it is not there.

Gisteron wrote: And ontop of that it must be noted that the god of the Bible is not like any inner voice or any unity of mankind.

Not going to argue the bible with you.

Gisteron wrote: It is a distinct character with personality traits, and even a few names, who has his very own wishes, demands and preferences and thoughts and actions.

Going to say that this is your belief of the bible, not mine.

Gisteron wrote: So from a purely journalistic motive, if I were to write this article in a form like this, I would probably have chosen a different source to quote for backup or left that bit out altogether, for it serves not the purpose but serves against it rather well.

I am not a journalist and do not pretend to be one. This post was simply to give an overview of Chapter 1 of the book, "Conversations with God," and my thoughts about it.

Again Thank You for your reply.

Scott.