Part of the problem of humanity is denial that we are responsible for the world and how it is. We cannot create a new way of living on our planet until we take ownership for what we are been creating up until now.
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Sunday is Message Day on the blog. Monday through Friday we look at contemporary events and day-to-day occurrences at the intersection of Life and the New Spirituality…but on Sunday, we reserve this space for a specific teaching derived from the material in Conversations with God
Through the years I have given hundreds of talks and written scores of articles revolving around this material. Every seven days we will present in this space a transcript or reprint of one of those presentations. We invite you to Copy and Save each one of them, creating a personal collection of contemporary and uplifting spiritual thought which you may reference at any time. We hope you will find this a constant source of insight and inspiration.
This week’s offering: The fifth in a series of excerpts from an interview with Neale Donald Walsch first appearing in Spiritual Growth Monthly
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Matt: Isn’t the feeling uncomfortable, though, part of the problem, because if we’re focusing on negative aspects of experience, are we not just creating more of that? Is it not the solution to focus more on the positive changes that we want?
Neale: Yes, but the positive changes in what? You can’t change nothing, you can only change something, therefore you have to be thinking about what you want to change. That means you’ve got to be aware of what you want to change.
Focusing on the uncomfortable is not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about noticing the uncomfortable truths and then focusing on the way we want things to be. But if you want to focus on the positive, if you want to focus on the changes you wish to make, you have to know what you’re trying to change. What are you trying to change? In order to know what you’re trying to change, you’ve got to think about that. You’ve got to think about the bad things in the world that are going on because those are the things you want to change. You just can’t say, “I want to change…I can’t mention what I want to
change, because that would be focusing on the negative. But I want to change something, I know that. I want to change something.” No, you have to actually say, “I want to change prejudice. I want to change the oppression of people. I want to change the conditions that create starving children.”
You’ve got to look at that and say…

…“That’s what I want to change.” Part of the problem in the new-age community is that we get into this idea that we’ve got to focus only on the positive, only on the positive – be the change you wish to see – only on the positive. But changing what? Even positive thinkers have got to say, “Okay, there is a train coming down the tracks.” That’s just what’s so. Now, do we want to get off the tracks or do we want to throw more people on the tracks? What do we want to do?
Matt: So we first need to appreciate and really understand where we are now before we can help to change something.
Neale: We have to be aware of what we already have created. The process is really quite simple. We are all creating our own reality, that is true, but in order to change the reality we have created and make it different in the future, we have to acknowledge, at the very
least, what we have created in our most recent past.
To observe that the train is coming is not to put it there. If I observe that a train is coming, I’m not actually creating it. People say, “Don’t say that, don’t say that. Are you trying to create that?” Whoa, wait a minute, I’m not creating anything, I’m just observing it. If I observe that a train is coming, I haven’t crated it, I’ve simply observed that it was
created already, it’s already on the way. In a past moment, that was created. Yes, it was me who created it, but that was Then and this is Now.
In the Now I have a whole different decision. Given that the train coming down the tracks has already been created, what do I now wish to create? What is the best way to do it? Id I want to create a new future, is the best way to create that to ignore the train that’s coming, or to get out of its way?
Matt: Get out of its way.
Neale: Of course, obviously. So we have to first observe what we have created in our past, including in our most recent past. We can’t ignore it and we can’t put our heads in the sand like an ostrich and pretend it’s not there. We have to notice what’s there and then say, “Now, what do I choose?” So I have a bit of impatience with people who say, “Don’t talk about that, don’t say anything negative!”
Matt: Really? Impatience?
Neale: Yes, of course. Just like Jesus in the temple, when he took out a rope and tied knots in it and drove the money changers out of the temple. ‘You vipers!’ he said,
‘You hypocrites!’ I would call that a little impatient. And he was called the greatest Master of all time by some people. So if it’s good enough for Christ, it’s good enough for me.
Matt: Was that not righteous anger?
Neale: What’s the difference between righteous anger and impatience? How many angels fit on the end of a pin? Let’s split words in half.
Matt: Okay, I’m just throwing it out there for further discussion.
Neale: Sure, and I’m willing to discuss it with you. Let’s talk about it. What’s the difference between impatience and righteous indignation or righteous anger? It’s the same thing. In fact, the motto of my group of 1,000 is “be impatient.” I think that righteous anger leads to impatience, or impatience leads to righteous anger – it’s all a circle, getting to the same place. But there’s nothing wrong with impatience. All great masters have become impatient. There’s nothing wrong with anger. Anger is one of the five natural emotions. It’s what you do with your anger that matters. If you use anger to fuel your earnest desire for change, and to work hard to make change happen, then anger is good, anger is powerful. If you use anger to hurt other people, to lash out, to attack, to destroy, rather than to rebuild in a new way, then anger may not be so good.
Gandhi’s impatience with British rule over India created an entirely new nation-state. Martin Luther King Jr.’s impatience with prejudice in the United States created the civil rights movement. I’m all for impatience.
Matt: I suppose it depends upon the spirit in which that impatience is expressed.
Neale: Of course; everything does. That is true of every single thought one has. That is correct.
Matt: All of these things we’re talking about apply to our personal lives as much as they do to the entire planet.
Neale: Indeed, because we are all one, and that is what is true.