Rating: 
Summary: Whose I Am
Review: "Conversations with God" is thought provoking in the author's synthesis and comments involving many philosophies and religious teachings. My main criticism is the overemphasis of the "divinity of mankind." Man as both subject and object is akin to Ayn Rand's "The Virtue of Selfishness- a new concept in egoism." The exploration of Who I Am should also include Whose I Am.
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Summary: Which God is speaking?
Review: Postmodern Christianity teaches that yes, indeed, there are demons and angels who are eager to speak to us, and we are eager to listen to the supernatural. I would beg all to be careful in making assumptions about who is speaking. I see three possibilities: 1) he is making this stuff up - thus it could be an interesting psychological work, to be evaluated on those merits; 2) demons are speaking to him - in which case there are going to be nuggets of true things in the midst of misleading things; read this with care; or 3) God is speaking to him - but I believe God speaks to me, too, and the God that speaks to me doesn't like this book. One or both of us is therefore insane if (3) is true. Having read some of this book, I vote #2. I believe my God says something like this about this book: "There are two men on a hill, one sitting, one standing. The one who is standing thinks he is taller than the sitting one, but the sitting one knows the truth. Do not be led astray by looks, for the form of the Spirit of God is not to be mistaken with structure, with words, forms, looks, or deeds. There is one God who speaks, but there are many voices and many ears." Might be a fun read for ya, but do be careful.
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Summary: Here we find wisdom.
Review: This book is a clear expression of the wisdom of the ages, written in the form of a dialogue between man and God - a format which is so clear, so concise, so enlightening, so witty, and so utterly inspirational, that one would have to deny their own rationale to deny that Walsch is in touch with Truth. I feel it is important to put aside all preconceived ideas and personal biases when approaching this book, to read it for what it is, and then to step back and decide for ourselves whether the message rings Truth or not. I personally believe Walsch is very much in tune with the way things really are. I found it interesting that the insights expressed in this book are wholly compatible with the deeper grounding of all religious faiths. Indeed, the consonance between Theism and Buddhism becomes particularly apparent. If one finds 'truth' in Walsch's words, then it is obviously not necessary for them to 'leave' their own religious tradition in order to follow 'the gospel according to Walsch'. On the contrary, one can remain rooted within their own religious tradition, allowing Walsch's insights to illuminate and strengthen their own faith, awakening them to the deeper common ground that exists in all world faiths, and then to allow the barriers between other religious faiths to be dissolved. This, I believe, is the way forward for our spiritual Path. Here are a couple of tasters which reflect typical insights from Walsch. (This first one complements Jesus' profound words from his sermon on the Mount, "Behold, the meek shall inherit the earth. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." - Matthew 5.5). "You have been told about survival of the fittest and the victory of the strongest and the success of the cleverest. ... Yet I tell you this: when you choose the action love sponsors, then will you do more than win, then will you do more than succeed. Then will you experience the full glory of Who You Really Are, and who you can be. To do this you must turn aside the teachings of your well-meaning, but misinformed, worldly tutors, and hear the teachings of those whose wisdom comes from another Source." ... "Yea, let all those who have ears to hear, listen. For I tell you this: at the critical juncture in all human relationships, there is only one question: What would love do now? No other question is relevant, no other question is meaningful, no other question has any importance to your soul." ... "Envy not success, nor pity failure, for you know not what is success or failure in the soul's reckoning. Call not a thing calamity, nor joyous event, until you decide, or witness, how it is used. ... And know that what you do in the time of your greatest trial can be your greatest triumph. For the experience you create is a statement of Who You Are - and Who You Want To Be. ... The soul is concerned only with where you are going to be. Are you going to be in a place called fear, or in a place called love? Where are you - and where are you coming from - as you encounter life?" When Walsch asks God what His greatest desire is, God's reply is consonant with those found in all Theistic Holy Scriptures - i.e. that God created the Universe because of its great intrinsic value in order to fully actualise the potential of beauty, joy and love within the unique realm of relativity. God says, "I desire for the whole life process to be an experience of constant joy, continuous creation, never-ending expansion, and total fulfilment in each moment of now. I desire that you shall know and experience Who You Really Are, through the power I have given you to create and experience yourself in whatever way you choose. I have established a perfect system whereby these desires may be realised." Walsch then asks one of the most significant theological questions ever pondered by man, and God's answer was the most satisfying I have heard in my life. Walsch had asked that if the Universe is such a "perfect system" created by such a Perfect Being, then why is there so much suffering, fear, and natural disasters in the world? God replies, "In the moment of this great explosion from within", (referring to the big bang), "God created relativity - the greatest gift God ever gave to Itself. Thus, relationship is the greatest gift God ever gave to you. ... God knew that for love to exist - and to know itself as pure love - its exact opposite had to exist as well. So God voluntarily created the great polarity - the absolute opposite of love - everything that love is not, what is now called fear. ... In the moment fear existed, love could exist as a thing that could be experienced. ... A thing cannot exist without its opposite, except in the world of the Absolute. In the Absolute there is no experience, only knowing. Knowing is a divine state, yet the grandest joy is being. Being is achieved only after experience. ... Knowing something and experiencing it are two different things. ... Physicality is the only way to know experientially what you know conceptually, and the world is the way it is because it could not be any other way and still exist in the gross realm of physicality. Earthquakes and hurricanes, floods and tornadoes and events that you call natural disasters are but movements of the elements from one polarity to the other. The whole birth-death cycle is part of this movement. These are the rhythms of life, and everything in gross reality is subject to them, because life itself is a rhythm. It is a wave, a vibration, a pulsation at the very heart of All That Is." (1000 words up). This book is the answer to your prayers! Buy it!
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Summary: The Fine Art of Serial Spiritualism
Review: With his publication machine in full gear, Neale Walsch has joined Deepak Chopra and James Redfield and become a serial spiritual writer himself. The superficial discussion presented in this book and its many sequels is good for making money and for practising 21st century fanaticism, but not good for one's soul or for understanding the process of enlightenment. Readers who would like those issues addressed should read books like "Anita's Legacy," available on Amazon. Here is a story for WCR Inc. (inventors of serial spiritualism): Once upon a time there were two men who set out to knock on the door of Knowledge. One of them had a big stick and the other had a little stick. The man with the big stick was proudly brandishing it all the time, sometimes fencing with it, at other times hurtling it towards the sun. Every night he would polish his stick so that it would be shiny and clean the next morning. He would draw a large crowd to witness how well he wielded his stick. The man with the little stick, in the meantime, was following the rituals of his life and working on the door whenever he got a chance. One day, the man with the little stick succeeded in entering the door, while his companion was still showing off to the crowd. A small boy who saw this said to his father, "Papa did you see that?" "Yes, I did. He must be very spiritual and enlightened." "But what about the other man, Papa? His stick is much bigger and he has so many followers." "Son, I feel sorry that they are following someone who doesn't understand what enlightenment is. The size of the stick is not important. When one knocks on the door of Knowledge and it opens, then one should throw away the stick and enter inside. If you are too proud of your stick, you will remain unenlightened and never realize what to do when the door is open."
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Summary: Absolute humbug
Review: I will mention only one item: "How can you know if you are right? How can you know if your ideas are true, or not?" Answer: if you feel good, you're right. If you can't see something really really wrong with this "reasoning," you should buy this book and write another review about how your life was changed by it. Somehow, we believe that rational thinking is something that is built-in, that it is something we automatically know (like how to see colors). Rational thinking is like carpentry: you have to actually learn how to do it. And lesson one in rational thinking is that HOW YOU FEEL just doesn't matter at all. "But 2 + 2 = 5 feels right to me!"
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Summary: Tickles your ears with what you want to hear
Review: This book had intrigued me when I was seeking and struggling with religion/faith (as in, "which religion am I/should I be?" Then, shortly after I committed myself as a Christian (which was what I *thought* I was all along), a friend lent me this book. Even as a baby Christian, I couldn't get past the second or third chapter and all the deceptions and half-truths. Even at that point, it was blatantly obvious to me that this work, this concept of God, flies square in the face of the Scriptures. I have no problem believing that God speaks to men; that is how we got the truth of the scriptures and how the prophets got their messages. However, the God I love, study, and have come to know - the God of Adam, Abraham, Moses, David, and the God who sacrificed His Son in order to bring His beloved children back to Him - would not utter the words in this book to any man. Many people like the "god" in Walsch's books because they are put off by their mistaken concept of a vengeful or wrathful God. I urge them to talk to a Christian friend, to make a sincere effort to study the Old Testament, or to read some other books addressing this issue that are written by true Christians (Philip Yancey's books are a great place to start). What they will find is that God is loving, but because He is also perfect He also demands justice. He is too fond of us, too loving and merciful, to give us the justice we deserve, so he allowed Jesus to accept justice ("The wages of sin is death") on our behalf. God is not angry and wrathful in general, but he also is not soft on sin! And woe be to the man (or woman) who decides for him/herself what "sin" is, as is so common in today's culture and perpetuated by this book. My heart aches for those who read this book while they are "seeking God", for the "god" they find here is not the God whose Son will redeem them and give them eternal life in Him.
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Summary: For all of those...
Review: who definitively feel that Neale Donald Walsch has NOT experienced a "conversation with God", or any type of communication with God, that is fine by me, yet, consider the following. Let me share something I came across while "surfing the net" and exploring other "CWG"-related web sites and material. It was an audio broadcast that I came across, entitled, appropriately, "Conversations with God". Approximately 3 1/2 minutes into the radio interview with Neale, he mentions that the process of writing took place starting around 4:15 or 4:20 in the morning when he suddenly awoke from his sleep and felt a desire to write to God--not expecting a response, by the way--and that this happened for a number of weeks, each time at the same hour. Five and a half minutes into the radio interview, Neale mentions that about two years later when he was applying for a re-issuance of his birth certificate from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, upon receiving the certificate, he noticed that the time of birth listed was 4:20 a.m. The time of his actual birth, some 50 years ago when he was born. That was the first part of the connection I am making here. Here is the second part, involving the book, "Further Along the Road Less Traveled" by M. Scott Peck. There is a section in the book entitled, "Stages of Spiritual Growth" in which Peck condenses and revises the work of James W. Fowler, author of "Stages of Faith". Peck takes the scholarly work of Fowler and condenses it into layman's terms in what Peck describes as the four stages of human faith: "Chaotic/Antisocial", "Formal/Institutional", "Skeptic/Individual", "Mystical/Communal". Without elaborating into pages without end, I feel that many people will recognize the "Formal/Institutional" stage of faith as also "organized religion", even "fundamentalism" (not to insult or degrade those who rely on such institutions), whatever their religion may be. It is acknowledged in Peck's book that the leap from stage 1 of "Chaotic" to stage 2 of "Institutional" is sudden and dramatic, as if a "bolt of lightening" had struck them. Understandable. People of such a convergence often refer to themselves as "born again". The convergence, meanwhile, between stages 3 and 4, "skeptic" and "mystical" respectively, is quite gradual, not always as sudden as from stage 1 to 2. However, despite the differences of stages, it is noted by Peck that there are great similarities between stages 2 and 4, "Institutional" and "Mystical" respectively. Stage 4 mystics happen to believe in a great deal of what stage 2 people believe in, for stage 4 people happen to feel--however lengthy, however fleeting--a Oneness and communion with God. The major difference between stages 2 and 4 exist in the degree of freedom stage 4 people experience with their beliefs, whereas stage 2 people appear more confined and feel more rigid in their beliefs. What am I saying here? Well, remembering that Neale Donald Walsch began composing his letter to God, later to become the book "Conversations with God", at around 4:20 in the morning, and that the time of birth listed on Walsch's birth certificate was 4:20 a.m., it was as if Neale was indeed "born again"... and again... and again. Timewise, his experience shared the exactness and repetition of someone at stage 2, yet his was a gradual process as it took Neale some time to write, similar to that of a stage 3 process, and viewed as a whole, Neale's experience appears to parallel that of stage 4 mysticism. Considering that mysticism has its roots in the word "mystery"--aka the unknown, which to many is synonymous with God, Allah, whatever you wish to call or label him/her/etc., perhaps those who ardently dismiss these CWG books and their messages might wish to consider all of this, pick up and read a copy of CWG and possibly other books by Neale Donald Walsch in ADDITION to their version of the Bible and think about it for themselves.
Rating:
Summary: Jesus' message through Walsch
Review: An essential guide for anyone on the path to self-discovery! I was raised Catholic, served as an alterboy, wanted to be a priest, and admired the clergy life while growing up. A couple of years in a Catholic school has also shaped me. Then this book comes to me, or, I to it, and the clarity was overwhelming. If you read this book with an open mind, you will truly get what Jesus tried to say. You will feel God's presence in every breath.
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Summary: Read this book!
Review: This book says nothing that you already don't know deep down. Sometimes it's difficult to bring these things to the surface. This book makes everything clear again. Some followers of religions will not like this book, and say it is blasphemous. But these same people will still believe in the Bible word for word even though it was written over a hundred years after the event. Donald Walsch's writings would never make a good organized religion though, there are not any rules or fear involved.
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Summary: Questions answered...
Review: This book answers most of the questions that you have had rolling around in your head your whole life. You know, those questions you've had since those days of Sunday School or Temple School... It doesn't matter what religion you are. God is God. Get this book, learn it, live it, love it, practice it! You will not be disappointed!
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