posted 12-11-2002 08:17 AM            

From Neale Donald Walsch
Submitted by Dennis Greenwood

My Dear Friends,

We are coming upon the wonderful end-of-year holidays, and at this very special time of year, I invite everyone reading these words to join hands in choosing to co-create a new reality on our planet -- a world in which violence and killing are banished forever from our arsenal of solutions.

We can do this, and if you will read on further, I want to tell you one of the ways we can play our part right here, right now. Each of us. In our own lives, in our home communities.

We have had enough of international summits, United Nations Joint Resolutions, and world conferences on this, that, and the other. None of these things have produced the outcome that humanity so desperately seeks.

It is up to us now. US. That means you and me.

Let me be clear about something. The reason that most of the people on our planet do not want to admit that this is a spiritual crisis we are facing is that the world family does not want to have to acknowledge that this spiritual crisis has been created largely by exclusivist organized religions, most of which teach human beings that they have a right to do whatever they think they need to do in order to defend themselves from all those who disagree with their cultural and religious beliefs -- and who they thus imagine to be their enemies.

With this justification, human beings allow themselves to call all "attack" a "defense." Muslims have done this. Christians have done this. Jews have done this. Hindus have done this. People of virtually every religious persuasion have done this.

What we need in order to resolve this spiritual crisis is a willingness to look at our current beliefs about God and about Life and see if there are any that are not working. Then to admit it, if we find some. Then to consider some new ideas to replace them.

But there hasn¹t been a new idea seriously considered by organized religion in hundreds, if not thousands, of years. The human race is paralyzed on this point.

That¹s because new religious ideas challenge the bedrock beliefs of humanity. We want to hang onto our beliefs no matter what the cost. Rather than make ourselves, or those who gave us our beliefs, wrong, we hang onto our beliefs even if they don’t work. Even if they¹re killing us.

The most devastating belief that I can think of is that we have been separated FROM God BY God because we have failed to do God’s will. The reason this is so devastating is that Exclusivist Organized Religions have used this as justification for separating us from each other in a misguided thought that their way is the only way back to God.

And so we’re trying to do the impossible. We’re trying to get back to Unity through separation.

Now there are a lot of damaging beliefs about Life that spring from this belief about God, such as.Might is Right, Survival of the Fittest, To the Victor go the Spoils, Every Man for Himself, an Eye for an Eye, My Way or the Highway.

WE WOULD NEVER HOLD THESE BELIEFS ­ INDEED, IT WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE TO HOLD THESE BELIEFS ­ IF WE THOUGHT THAT WE WERE NOT SEPARATE FROM EACH OTHER.

Unfortunately, we think that we are, because we have been told that we are by religions themselves.

There¹s a way out of all this. We have to do whatever it takes to encourage humanity to explore new ideas about God and about Life ­ ideas that create Unity, not Separation. We¹ve got to approach the crisis at the level at which the crisis exists. To do this we must, as I said, become spiritual activists. We have to communicate directly and frequently with those we have placed in charge of our future ­ our political and spiritual leaders.

We must tell them to stop the insanity; that what they are doing is not working. Then we must show them what does work. And this we must do by example.

We must be the change we wish to see in the world. This begins at our kitchen table. It extends outward from there to our neighborhoods, to our places of business, to our churches and synagogues and temples and mosques, to our communities, our state, our nation, and to the world at large.

This will be accomplished not by joining a single organized religion, but by joining together in a common undertaking, in a unified effort, speaking with an urgent voice to all the world, and carrying a simple but eloquent message:

Our differences do not have to create divisions. The variations in our beliefs do not have to produce violence in our lives. There is another way. But we will not find that way by searching for it. We will only find it by creating it. And we cannot create it by staying stuck in old beliefs, but only by being open to new ideas. New ideas about God and about Life that can inspire the world.

There are many ways to do that. I’ve established inspiretheworld.com as one way for people to connect with each other to share new ideas, to explore new possibilities, to examine new paradigms, and to propose a new relationship with God and with Life that can truly light the world.

Please consider joining Humanity’s Team and becoming modern-day Martin Luthers. Please nail the Five Steps to Peace to every church-house door. Take it to every temple and synagogue and mosque as well.

I am serious here. Mail the Five Steps to Peace to every Letter to the Editor column in every publication you read. Send it to every community leader and politician you can think of. And nail it to the church-house doors.

Then, please visit the inspiretheworld.com website. And, after reading the opportunities for further participation found there, remember the words with which Helen Keller encouraged our world.

"Do what you can do."

The Five Steps to Peace:

There are five things you can choose now if changing the world, and the self-destructive direction in which it is moving, is what you wish to achieve.

1. You can choose to acknowledge that some of your old beliefs about God and about Life are no longer working.

2. You can choose to acknowledge that there is something you do not understand about God and about Life, the understanding of which will change everything.

3. You can choose to be willing for a new understanding of God and Life to be brought forth, an understanding that could produce a new way of life on our planet.

4. You can choose to be courageous enough to explore and examine this new understanding, and, if it aligns with your inner truth and knowing, to enlarge your belief system to include it.

5. You can choose to live your life as demonstrations of your highest and grandest beliefs, rather than as denials of them.

Thank you.