Communion with God by Neale Donald Walsch
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Book Reviews of Communion with God
Book Review: Good Sense
Summary: 5 Stars
I have never found my answers in church. Walsch's series of books like C. A. Lewis' An Encounter With A Prophet portray a loving God who makes sense. I would recommend all of these books to anyone wanting answers about God that fit the heart and the head.Book Review: The BEST of the CWG Series, period.
Summary: 5 Stars
UPDATED REVIEW - 3/5/06
This is THE BEST book of the whole CWG series, period.
(Update: I'm not sure what motivated the negative ratings of this review but I encourage you to let me know if you do not like this review. This book is too important for it to suffer due to my limitations. If you like this review, please rate it as helpful.)
Neale & God keep managing to add more depth and detail to the core message. I have read CWG 1,2,3, Q&A on CWG, Friendship with God, etc. Each seems better than the last. But Communion felt different. For one thing, in this one God takes the lead. Neale writes an intro and a closing, but the body is all from a higher source. I like this change. Sometimes the questions Neale asked felt out of place. But there's none of that here.
I found all the others CWG books incredibly fresh and innovative in their perspectives and the concepts they revealed. I believe them to be (for me) the very highest levels of truth. (Each book is careful not to promote its view as the only way, or the best way, but simply another way of approaching life.)
I found Communion With God to be very deep and very thought provoking in ways the other CWG books were not. Communion gets to the heart of the matter. The message here is totally consistent with other advanced spiritual writings from other sources.
Communion with God clarifies the '10 Illusions' on which this reality has been built. It says that we chose to believe an illusion, and then we built another illusion on that one, and so on, to get where we are today, where we feel very separate from God.
This book says the purpose of all of creation is to create experience. We have full power to believe what we want and to turn those beliefs into a virtual reality. We have the greatest experiment in separation going on in this reality. We have chosen to experience the illusion of almost total separation. We can then experience re-unification or Communion with God again.
This book tells us to trust ourselves.
There are no wrong paths.
All paths lead to creation and experience.
All creation and experience is valuable.
This is an incredible level of responsibility, but why would God give us anything less? What does God have to fear? Nothing! That's why God gives us complete freedom! God knows we will find our way back. All paths lead to God.
And like the Prodigal Son, when we do return home, we will be welcomed with open arms and all of heaven will rejoice.
Finally, this book does not suggest that we abandon the 10 Illusions, but rather that we use them, or the new recollection of them (from reading this book), to go beyond them. We can still benefit from their memory without needing to continue experiencing them directly.
Yes!
We can't escape the illusions easily, so let's accept them, and use them until they fall away on their own.
The Conversations With God (CWG) books are an incredible series. I had waited for a long time (25+years), reading and longing for Information like this. Since first finding CWG1 in 1995, Neale and God have answered my prayers to understand why we are all here, and for that I am eternally grateful.
Thank you Neale, and thank You God!
At the risk of turning you off, I want to list the 10 Illusions. I present these for the curious. To really understand the beauty of this book you need to read it. This list will *not* help.
Part 1 - The 10 Illusions of Humans:
1 - The Illusion of Need - God needs nothing
2 - Failure - The outcome of life is assured
3 - Disunity - we are all one, there is no separation
4 - Insufficiency - there is enough
5 - Requirement - nothing is required to get approval
6 - Judgement - with oneness there is no judgement
7 - Condemnation - without judgement there is no condemnation
8 - Conditionality - Life and God's love is unconditional
9 - Superiority - in oneness nothing is superior
10 - Ignorance - we already know all of this
Part 2 - Mastering the Illusions
- Teaching Your Children Well
- Seeing the Illusions as Illusions
- Understanding the Purpose of the Illusions
- Meditating on the Illusions
- Using the Illusions
- Re-creating Your Reality
Part 3 - Meeting the Creator Within
- Taking Control of Your Body
- Taking Control of Your Emotions
- Cultivating Willingness
- The Message of the Creator
- Seizing Your Moment of Grace
This book strikes the chord of truth in my soul. Truth is not universal though. Truth is personal. It depends on our stage of development and our experiences so far. Your experience may vary.
I believe the CWG books will be the basis of a new understanding of Spirituality in this new Millenium. I believe Neale is a modern prophet. He definitely is in touch with a higher source. And he's the first to say the work stands separate from him. He's a person like you and me with all the same facets of humaness.
Neale is also quick to point out "This is not a better way. This is just a different way." This is significant because much of the strife in this world is due to those who believe their way is the best way, or even the only way. And they justify all manner of unloving behavior with this righteousness.
If we realized the truth of our unity with God, we would realize our inherent oneness. But the journey back to the realization of our oneness is a huge gift.
It seems we have chosen, at some level, to enter this illusion so we could find our way back to God. Since we do seem to be in this extremely persistent illusion, we need to strip it away, layer by layer to reawaken to our oneness with God.
I hope this review helps you.
Book Review: Walsch vs. C.A. Lewis
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the best of Walsch! If you already accept the premise that God is accessible within us all, and you simply want the essential insights which Walsch has articulated (or perhaps channeled) then this is the one to read. Ditto if you want practical application of his ideas to everyday life.I disagree with a couple of individuals who have reviewed this and other Walsch books on Amazon.com, who have suggested that you would also benefit from reading "An Encounter with a Prophet" by C.A. Lewis. I find that the two writers appeal to very different audiences.
Lewis does a good job of addressing the issues of fundamentalist Christians who are just beginning to get in touch with gnawing concerns about their lack of spiritual fulfillment and the fear- based motivation of their belief system, and who are beginning to doubt that Satan is lurking behind every door. Readers who resonate with Walsch, on the other hand, will have already addressed those basic shifts in mindset (if they came from a fundamentalist background) and are looking for deeper answers; or perhaps recognize that, even if Love is all there is, it can still be a challenge to live a life of enlightenment as a human being on this planet.
Book Review: There is a lot better than this around
Summary: 2 Stars
One of the common debates within spirituality seems to be whether it takes any effort. The notion of the fish swimming around frantically looking for water. Just open your eyes and see, drop your illusions, etc, writers like Deepak Chopra say. This book is in the same vein. Life is God, God is all there is, etc. If one asked Walsch to prove any of what he has written in this book, he may well say, "I just know."Intuitive knowledge of God (or spirit, soul, love) is fine, that is probably the only type there is. If you take the argument that the spiritual life takes no effort, that it is simply 'a choice to awaken', writers such as Watts, Krishnamurti, or DeMello will give you a better description than Walsch in my opinion. But then, they all spent many years in study and practice. Futhermore, taking the 'no effort' argument to its logical conclusion, why read at all? I understand that this is what Thomas Aquinas in fact did in the last few years of his life, but Neale Donald Walsch aint no Thomas Aquinas!!
On the other hand, if in fact you believe achieving enlightenment actually takes some work, there is a wealth of good material around. Authors such as Ken Wilber and Sogyal Rinpoche have more wisdom in one of their written paragraphs, than this entire book and the likes of Deepak have, in my view. Deepak and Walsch are like the fast food equivalent, lots more sales, but substance???
Book Review: Flooded with LOVE'S energy
Summary: 5 Stars
Inside this book is part of the simple expression of what is Real. This awareness and understanding of the reality of freedom, boundless possibilities in this lifetime, total interconnectedness and our unending worthiness of the unconditional love of the universe comes through Neale's beautiful soul so clearly. It is released through him in this book just as it is released through every person in countless ways each day. This book offers each person the chance to know what it means to feel the expression of the reality we already know inside to the fullest. The ultimate reality is that we are not separate from that energy, we are no less beautiful, magical, powerful and amazing than the most brilliant miracle ever fathomed. We exist literally AS this energy in all moments... re-emerging and evolving into a deeper experience of all that we are. The unconditional love is basic truth: always present, inside our blood our skin in the air and things all around us, flowing completely through all things, fulfilling us on the deepest level, asking nothing, needing nothing, offering us EVERY possibility to know ecstasy, providing total unconditional acceptance, feeling and knowing us exactly in the dimension where we are, and swinging the door open into the FULL awareness of Reality. These are the words in Neale's book, the energy in its paper, the miraculous flow of energy that is caressing every soul.