WHAT DOES GOD WANT?

            Of all the questions a person could ask this one is the question most religious and spiritual practices try to answer.  In fact, humans have been trying to find the right answer for centuries and still we disagree and even go to war over our answers because they are all different.  What a sorry state of affairs!

            The Adult Discussion Group just finished the little book by Neale Donald Walsch entitled, "What God Wants," and we were a little surprised to find that the answer to the question is so simple and yet so powerful that if we acknowledge and accept this answer, it will transform humanity.

            Walsch says, "...millions of people all over the world have been living their lives based on the information they have been given about What God Wants, and if the world's prior information on this topic in inaccurate, the world could be in big trouble." He believes the problems of the world and its people have come about because they all insisted they are the only ones to know what God wants. Not only do groups of people claim to know what God wants, if you don't believe the same way, they kill you, so that one day they believe every person on earth will support their version of the answer.

            People who thought they knew what God wants passed laws making it illegal for humans of different skin colors to marry, or prohibited people to love, or sing, or dance, draw pictures of any person, or play music of any kind except sacred songs, all determined solely by them. People who thought they knew what God wants said it was not okay to even utter or write the name of GOD but that it was okay to kill in GOD's name.

            Some people told us that God is One.  Others told us that God is Three Parts and one of those parts became human.  Some humans told us there are many gods and some told us there is no God at all.  And others have told us that we shouldn't even spend our time thinking about God.

We are also told that God wants Love and Justice and for us to be reconciled with Him.  We are told that God wants to sit in judgment of us at the end of our life and God has the power to send us to heaven or to eternal hell. We have been told that God is a vengeful God, a jealous God, an angry God and on the other hand we have been told that God is a caring God, a compassionate God, a merciful God, and all humans have to do is obey Him.    

Just exactly what are we to obey when we've been told so many opposing ideas? All of this sounds like something we humans have concocted to answer the human question, What does God want?  Where can we go to find some clarity here?  Ah, in the Holy Scriptures.  Uh oh, which Holy Scriptures?  If we choose the wrong one, will God send us to hell?  What about the Messengers? Which one of them is the right one that can tell us what God wants?  And if we don't choose the right Messenger to listen to, will God send us to hell anyway?  And why would God create a hell when Holy Scriptures tell us that God created everything good?

            Let's start at another place. We have also been told that what God wants is for people to live good lives.  That life is a school.  That we have to work hard not to sin.  That we have to serve our fellow human beings, go to church or temple or synagogue regularly, and pay them our tithes, but we are also told money is bad.  That God doesn't want us to eat certain foods, or dress a certain way, or forget our prayers, or marry the wrong person, or prevent children to be born in an ever increasing population explosion.  That if we strap this dynamite to our chests and go somewhere public and blow ourselves up, we will get to heaven. 

All of the above answers sound like separation to me. If we even begin to try to answer this question, we have created separation. Does God really want humans to love Him, to worship Him, to adore Him, to surrender to Him, to be grateful to Him, and to pay Him homage?  And what if God is not Him but Her? What is God's will?  Is it to kill each other if we don't believe the same answers to the question? Why would God want this?  Why would God care only about a portion of God's creation?

            Walsch further points out that "Humanity's ideas about God produce humanity's ideas about life and other people."  And those ideas let 400 children die of starvation every hour?  The old answers separate us from our children. We could easily feed all the children in the world who are hungry with just 5 % of the global money spent every year on the sale of guns and weapons that kill their future.

            Those old ideas have guaranteed the income of the richest 225 people to be equal to the income of three billion poor people.  That's half the world's population. The facts are sad in themselves, but the saddest part is that we believe it is okay that these separations exist. 

If we believed in Oneness all people would have enough to eat, a place to live, free access to education and health care. Our children and grandparents would not be starving.  Do you know how many children can't wait until Monday morning to go to school to just get something to eat in Montrose?  Do you know how many children sleep in their parent's or friends cars or a different living room floor every night?  Do you know how many seniors eat dog food because it is the only food they can afford? It's all about separation.  And it is strange to me that even the help that is offered to people in this community is still based on separation.  You have to be a Christian to give the help and you certainly are expected to be a Christian to receive help. Separation creates more separation.

            Let's go back to Walsch's simple answer to the question, What does God want?  Walsch says - GOD WANTS NOTHING, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.  If God is all powerful, all knowing, all seeing, All That Is, how could God want or need anything from God's creation?  Some people may argue that oh, yes, God wants us to love Him.  How can we humans give God any different kind of love than God already is?  We can't give God anything.  God has it all. And we are a part of God's creation so we have it all too.

            So why believe in God at all if God wants nothing?  Walsch says that "the very best reason to believe in God is that we don't need God.  God has made us capable enough to get along just fine."  He says God intended for us to be independent and fully capable.  We humans have made up stories and created a needy God and a need-based relationship with God.  God does not need anything from us and God has already given us everything therefore we do not need anything from God.

            If humanity believes that God wants something from us then our legal systems, education systems, political, economic, military and social systems continue just like they are and we move to self-destruction.  If humanity understands that God wants nothing, then these systems based on separation will fall.  And it is time to let them go.  Maybe God is not at all what people believe God to be. Perhaps God is the Sum Total of Everything, the All in All, the Alpha and Omega and nothing stands outside of this Oneness.  This means that what you want, God wants. It means that your will for you is God's will for you. What if God's will was for you to choose for you?

What if you can't make a choice?  Well, that is a choice in itself.  It is FATE, which Walsch says is "From All Thoughts Everywhere."  Do you really want other people or your own past negative thoughts deciding for you?  You are always choosing.  You are always creating.  That is being human.  That is how God created us. So the best possible action is to make conscious personal choices about everything.  That is God's Will for you.

            If God created everything in the universe and God is everything then you are also God.  Everything you could possible need is already within you. All you have to do is call them forth with gratitude. Every moment in life is a process.  It is in the moment-to-moment of your life that you decide who you are and who you choose to be.  And you do not have to choose to be who you used to be. That is the great miracle. The five attitudes of Godliness, says Walsh, are totally joyful, loving, accepting, blessing and gratefulness.  It is from these attitudes that we make our conscious choices.

            If we are God, then we are also the Source.  We can be the Source, the source for what we wish to experience.  If we wish to experience something, then all we have to do is cause another to experience it.  This is the basis of the Golden Rule that runs at the very foundation of all religions and spiritual and non-spiritual paths. This is the mechanism for how the universe works.  Why else would this idea have stayed with humanity for these millennia?

            It is Oneness that calls to us now as we build the new world.  It is Oneness that we embrace to change ourselves and to change society.  This is the New Spirituality, the new awareness that is moving upon the face of the planet.  We are so privileged to be alive at this time to look with new eyes, to open our hearts fully to the Truth and that Truth is - there is only Oneness, there is only Love. Namaste.