I'm going to start reading Conversations with God. A book filled with "alternative ideas about God and Life and Each Other" that aims to "reopen discussion about God in a way that refreshes and reinvigorates our relationship with the Divine"
The title may seem religious, but—

—it really isn't. I'd describe it as spiritual rather than religious.

I'll be adding to this thread excerpts that I find impactful, because I'm reading it online and may want to look back on bits of it without having to frantically search the ebook.

[ L I N K ]
The complete conversations with God : an uncommon dialogue : Walsch, Neale Donald : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/completeconversa00wals via @internetarchive

My (God's) most common form of communication is through FEELING.
_FEELING is the language of the soul._
If you want to know what's true for you about something, look to how you're FEELING about it.

—Book 1, page 12-13

(My own words)
God communicates with feeling, thoughts, and experience. When all else fails, words will be used, being the least effective communicator because it's most open to misinterpretation and most often misunderstoon.
"They are not truth, they are not the real thing."

These are the tools..., yet they are not methods,...
_Mine (from God) is always your Highest Thought, your Clearest Word, your Grandest Feeling. Anything less is from another source._

—Book 1, page 14

You cannot know God until you've stopped telling yourself that you already know God. You cannot hear God until you stop thinking that you've already heard God.
_I cannot tell you My Truth until you stop telling Me yours._

—Book 1, page 16

Listen to your feelings. Listen to your Highest Thoughts. Listen to your experience. Whenever any one of these differ from what you've been told by your teachers, or read in your books, forget the words. _Words are the least reliable purveyor of Truth._

—Book 1, page 17

((I'm starting to regret making this. Might as well rewrite the whole book here.)))

...for I have no form or shape you understand. I could adopt a form or shape that you could understand, but then everyone would assume that what they have seen is the one and only form and shape of God, rather than a form or shape of God—one of many.

—Book 1, page 18

((A blow to most religion))

_The correct prayer is therefore never a prayer of supplication, but a prayer of gratitude._
...
Therefore never supplicate. Appreciate.
...
Gratitude cannot be used as a tool with which to manipulate God: a device with which to fool the universe.
—Book 1, page 19

God is the observer, not the creator. And God stands ready to assist you in living your life, but not in the way you might expect
_It is not God's function to create, or uncreate, the circumstances of your life._

—Book 1, page 20

God created the process of life and life itself as you know it. Yet God gave you free choice, to do life as you will.
In this sense, your will for you is God's will for you.
_...I have no preference in the matter._

—Book 1, page 21

All human actions are motivated at their deepest level by one of two emotions—fear or love. In truth there are only two emotions—only two words in the language of soul.

—Book 1, page 22

Love sponsors fear sponsors love sponsors fear..
..And the reason is found in the first lie—the lie which yoy hokd as the truth about God—that God cannot be trusted; that God's love cannot be depended upon; that God's acceptance of you is conditional; that the ultimate outcome—

—is thus in doubt. For if you cannot depend on God's love to always be there, on whose love CAN you depend?
_And so it is that in the moment you pledge your highest love, you greet your greatest fear._

—Book 1, page 23

Yet if you knew Who You Are—that you are the most magnificent, the most remarkable, the most splendid being God has ever created—you would never fear. For who could reject such wondrous magnificence? Not even God could find fault in such a being.

—Book 1, page 23

But you do not know Who You Are, you think you are a great deal less. And where did you get the idea of how much less than a magnificent being you are? From the only people whose word you would take on everything. From your mother and your father.

—Book 1, page 23

It was your parents who taught you that love is conditional—you have felt their conditions many times—and that is the experience you take into your own love relationships.
It is also the experience you bring to Me.
...

...
You have forgotten what it was like to be loved without condition. You do not remember the experience of the love of God. And so you try to imagine what God's love must be like, based on what you see of love in the world.
...

You have projected the role of "parent" onto God, and have thus come up with a God Who judges and rewards or punishes, based on how good He feels about what you've been up to. But this is a simplistic view of God,... It has nothing to do with Who I Am.

—Book 1, page 24

..., you then create an entire reality around love. It is a fear based reality,... And though the new theology which would replace it would truly be your salvation, you cannot accept it, because the idea of a God Who is not to be feared,... is simply too magnificent—

—to be embraced within even your grandest notion of Who and What God is.

—Book 1, page 24

_Every human thought, word, or deed is based in one emotion or the other. You have no choice about this, because there is nothing else from which to choose. But you have free choice about which of these to select._

—Book 1, page 25

To do this (choosing love sponsors) 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.
...Yet the greatest reminder is not anyone outside you, but the voice within you.—

—This is the first tool that I use, because it is the most accesible.
The voice within is the loudest voice with which I speak, because it is the closest to you...It is the radar that sets the course, steers the ship, guides the journey if you but let it.
—

—It is the voice which tells you right now whether the very words you are reading are words of love or words of fear.

—Book 1, page 26

There is only one purpose for all of life, and that is for you and all that lives to experience fullest glory.
...There is nothing else for your soul to do, and nothing else your soul WANTS to do.
The wonder of this purpose is that it is never ending.

—Book 1, Page 26

_The deepest secret is that life is not a process of discovery, but a process of creation._
You are not discovering yourself, but creating yourself anew. Seek, therefore, not to find Who You Are, seek to determine Who You Want to Be.

—Book 1, Page 27

Why are we here?
To remember, and re-create, Who You Are.

—Book 1, Page 27

The soul—your soul—knows all there is to know all the time. There's nothing hidden to it, nothing unknown. Yet knowing is not enough. The soul seeks to experience.

—Book 1, Page 27

It is the nothing which holds the everything. It is the non-space which holds the space. It is the all which holds the parts.

—Book 1, Page 29

...I am All Things—seen and unseen... Those who believe that God is All That Is and All That Is Not, are those whose understanding is correct.

—Book 1, Page 29

My divine purpose in dividing Me was to create sufficient parts of Me so that I could know myself experientially. There is only one way for the Creator to know Itself experientially as the Creator, and that is to create. And so I gave to each of the countless parts of Me—

—(to all of My spirit Children) the same power to create which I have as the whole.
_This is what your religion means when they say that you were created in the "image and likeness of God."_

—Book 1, Page 31

...physicality is the only way to know experientially what you know conceptually.
Once in the physical universe, you, My spirit children, could experience what you know of yourself—but first, you had to come to know the opposite...
...It is by that which you are not that you—

—yourself are defined.
...you cannot experience your Self as creator unless and until you create. And you cannot create yourself until you un-create yourself. In a sense, you have to first "not be" in order to be.

—Book 1, Page 32

So you did the next best thing. _You caused yourself to forget Who You Really Are._
...This allows you to CHOOSE to be Who You Are, rather than simply wake up in the castle, so to speak.
...
Your job on Earth, therefore, is not to learn, but to remember Who You Are. And to—

—remember who everyone else is. That is why a big part of your job is to remind others, so that they can remember also.
...It is your SOLE purpose. That is to say, your SOUL purpose.

—Book 1, Page 33

A thing cannot exist without its opposite, except in the world of the absolute. Yet the realm of the absolute was not sufficient for either you or Me...
In the absolute there is no experience, only knowing. Knowing is a divine state, yet the grandest joy is in being. Being is—

—achieved only after experience. The evolution is this: knowing, experiencing, being. This is the Holy Trinity—the Triune that is God.
The simple being is bliss...It is that for which God yearned in the beginning.
...

Adding the third part of the Trinity produces this relationship:
That which gives rise to / That which is risen / That which is.
This Triune Reality is God's signature. It is the divine pattern.

(Can be 'seen' in: space (here, there, in between); time (past, present, future /—

—before, now, after); physics (energy, matter, ether); spiritual (mind, body, spirit))
...
In matters of gross relationships, you recognize no "in between." That is because gross relationships are always dyads (male-female, up-down, left-right, big-small, etc.)
...

Within the realm of gross relationships, nothing conceptualized can exist without a conceptualization of its opposite...
Within the realm of sublime relationships, nothing which exists has an opposite. All is One, and everything progresses from one to the other in a never-ending—

—circle.
...
The world is the way it is because it could not be any other way and still exist in the gross realm of physicality...These (catastrophes, birth-death) are the rhythms of life...It is a wave, a vibration, a pulsation at the very heart of the All That Is

—Page 34-36

_Do not condemn, therefore, all that you would call bad in the world. Rather, ask yourself, what about this have you judged bad, and what, if anything, you wish to do to change it._
...For all of life exists as a tool of your own creation, and all of its events merely—

—present themselves as opportunities for you to decide, and be, Who You Are.
This is true for every soul, and so you see there are no victims in the universe, only creators.

—Book 1, page 36

Each soul is a Master—though some do not remember their origins or their heritages. Yet each creates the situation and the circumstance for its own highest purpose and its own quickest remembering—in each moment called now.

—Book 1, Page 36

Call not a thing calamity, nor joyous event, until you decide, or witness, how it is USED. ...you should not judge, but keep always your own counsel, and allow others theirs.
...For each circumstance is a gift, and in each experience is hidden a treasure.

—Book 1, Page 36-37

_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._

—Book 1, Page 37

_You came into this life with nothing to learn—you have only to demonstrate what you already know. In the demonstration of it will you function it out, amd create yourself anew, through yohr experience. Thus do you justify life, and give it purpose..._

—Book 1, Page 38

At some level you have all created that which you say you detest—and, having created it, you have chosen it.
...For it is only when they can accept responsibility for all of it that they can achieve the power to change PART of it.
So long as you entertain the notion that there—

—is something or someone else out there "doing it" to you, you disempower yourself to do anything about it. Only when you say "I DID this" can you find the power to change it.
_It is much easier to change what you are doing than to change what another is doing._

—Book 1, Page 39

The first step in changing anything is to know and accept that you have chosen it to be what it is. If you can't accept this on a personal level, agree to it through your understanding that WE ARE ALL ONE. Seek then to create change nkt because a thing is wrong, but because—

—it no longer makes an accurate statement of Who You Are.
_There is only one reason to do anything: as a statement to the universe of Who You Are._
...
If you wish to he accurately re-presented, you must work to change anything in your life which does not fit into the picture—

—of you that you wish to project into eternity.
In the largest sense, all the "bad" things that happen are of your choosing. The mistake in not in choosing them, but in calling them bad. For in calling them bad, you call your Self vad, since you created them.
This label you—

—cannot accept, so rather than label your Self bad, you disown your own creation. It is this intellectual and spiritual dishonesty which lets you accept a world in which conditions are as they are.

—Book 1, Page 39

The world's natural calamities and disasters are not created by you specifically. What IS created by you is the degree to which these events touch your life.
...
These events are created by the combined consciousness of man. All of the world, co-creating together, produces these—

—experiences. What each of you do, individually, is move through them, deciding what, if anything, they mean to you, and Who and What You Are in relationship with them.
_Thus you create collectively, and individually, ...,for the sould purpose of evolving._

—Book 1, Page 40

The way to reduce the pain which you associate with earthly experiences and events—both yours and those of others—is to CHANGE the way you behold them.
...
Nothing is painful in and of itself. Pain is a result of wrong thought. It is an error in thinking.
...

Pain results from a judgement you have made about a thing. Remove the judgement and the pain disappears.

—Book 1, Page 40

There are those who say that I have given you free will, yet these same people claim that if you do not obey Me, I will send you to hell. What kind of free will is that? Does this not make a mockery of God—to say nothing of any sort of true relationship between us?

—Page 41

(For context, it is said in the book that God "have never set down a "right" or "wrong", a "do" or a "don't"." Doing so would strip us from gaining the experience our soul craves to re-create Who We Really Are/Want to Be)

Hell is the opposite of joy. It is unfulfillment. It is knowing Who and What You Are, and failing to experience that. It is being LESS. That is hell, and there is none greater for your soul.
(Not somekind of everlasting fire)
...
Yet even this experience is never eternal. It—

—cannot be, for it is not My plan that you shall be seperated from Me forever and ever...—for to achieve such an event, not only would you have to deny Who Yoh Are— I would have to as well. This I will never do.

—Book 1, Page 42-43

...yes, you may do as you wish without fear of retribution. It may serve you, however, to be aware of consequences.
Consequences are results. Natural outcomes.
...
What seems like punishment to you is nothing more than a natural law asserting itself.

—Book 1, Page 44

This is the goal of your soul. This is its purpose—to fully realize itself while in the body; to become the embodiment of all that it really is.
This is My plan for you. This is My ideal: that I should become realized through you.

—Book 1, Page 44

(About remembering the Natural Laws)
Remember this axiom: If you do not go within, you go without.
Put it in the first person as you repeat it, to make it more personal:
_If I do not go within, I go without._
...
There is nothing you cannot be, there is nothing you cannot do,—

—there is nothing you cannot have.
(To put it simply, the answers are within our Selves. It can be obtained when we quiet the outer world. This is why meditation works imo)

—Book 1, Page 45

For thousands of years people have disbelieved the promises of God for the most extraordinary reason: they were too good to be true. So you have chosen a lesser promise—a lesser love. For the highest promise of God proceeds from the highest love. Yet you cannot conceive of a—

—perfect love, and so a perfect promise is also unconceivable. As is a perfect person. Therefore you cannot BELIEVE even in YOUR SELF.

—Book 1, Page 45

Your potential is unlimited in all that you've chosen to do. Do not assume that a soul which has incarnated in a body which you call limited has not reached its full potential, for you do not know what that soul was trying to do. You do not understand its agenda. You are unclear—

—as to its intent.
...For nothing happens by accident in God's world, and there is no such thing as coincidence. Nor is the world buffeted by random choice, or something you call fate.

—Book 1, Page 47

...why does God allow any suffering at anytime?...There is perfection in the process—and all life arises out of choice.
(It is inappropriate to interfere, question, or condemn it. It is only appropriate to observe and assist the soul in seeking and making a higher choice.)
...

...a sacred Law of The Universe:
_Allow each soul to walk its path._

—Book 1, Page 47-48

"Rightness" or "wrongness" is not an intrinsic condition, it is a subjective judgment in a personal value system. By your subjective judgments do you create your Self—by your personal values do you determine and demonstrate Who You Are.
...If the world existed in perfect—

—condition, your life process of Self creation would be terminated. It would end.

—Book 1, Page 48

I will do nothing for you that you will not do for your Self. That is the law and the prophets.
The world is in the condition it is in because of (all of) you, and the choices you have made—or failed to make.
(Not to decide is to decide.)

—Book 1, Page 50

You are saving yourself from the oblivion of non-realization.
You cannot lose this battle. You cannot fail. Thus it is not a battle at all, but simply a process. Yet if you do not know this, you will see it as a constant struggle...It is not in struggling that the process—

—proceeds. It is in surrendering that the victory is won.

—Book 1, Page 51

I tell you this: There is no coincidence, and nothing happens "by accident." Each event and adventure is called to your Self by your Self in order that you might create and experience Who You Really Are.

—Book 1, Page 52

For you are the creator of your reality, and life can show up no other way for you than that way in which you think it will.
You think it into being. This is the first step in creation...Your thought is the parent which gives birth to all things.

—Book 1, Page 52

You are filled with fear—and your biggest fear is that My biggest promise might be life's biggest lie...God would never make such a promise, you tell yourself, only the devil would—to tempt you into denying God's true identity as the fearsome, judgmental, jealous, vengeful—

—and punishing entity of entities.
...,you have assigned devilish characteristics to God in order to convince yourself not to accept the God-like promises of your Creator, or the God-like qualities of the Self.
Such is the power of fear.

—Book 1, Page 53

The First Law is that you can be, do, and have whatever you can imagine.
The Second Law is that you attract what you fear.

—Book 1, Page 53
((Gentle reminder to self: read Law of Attraction next))

Emotion is energy in motion...
Thought is pure energy....
Like energy attracts like energy...But matter will form out of pure energy. In fact, that is the only way it can form.

—Book 1, Page 54

..., when entire societies think in a certain way, very often astonishing things happen...
Similarly, large communities...often find miracle-producing power in combined thinking/common prayer.
And it must be made clear that even individuals—if their thought (prayer, hope, wish,—

—dream, fear) is amazingly strong—can, in and of themselves, produce such results.
...
This is the knowledge of good and evil of which Adam and Eve partook.

—Book 1, Page 54-55

The Laws are very simple:
1. Thought is creative (meaning that it could actually create things in your life).
2. Fear attracts like energy.
3. Love is all there is.

—Book 1, Page 55

_Love is the ultimate reality. It is the only. The all. The feeling of love is your experience of God._
In highest Truth, love is all there is, all there was, and all there ever will be. When you move into the absolute, you move into love.

—Book 1, Page 56

Through the corridors of all human experience has this Truth been echoed: Love is the answer. Yet you have not listened.
...
So go ahead now. Ask Me anything. Anything. I will contrive to bring you the answer. The whole universe will I use to do this. So be on the lookout...

...—all these devices are Mine; all these avenues are open to Me. I will speak to you if you will listen. I will come to you if you will invite Me. I will show you then that I have always been there. All ways.

—Book 1, Page 57

If you think God looks only one way or sounds only one was or IS only one way, you're going to look right past Me night and day. You'll spend your whole life looking for a God and not finding Her. Because you're looking for a Him. I use this as an example.

—Book 1, Page 58

What gave you the idea that God is only "reverent"?...
...I tell you, you can speak to Me as you would speak with your bestfriend.
...I despise nothing. None of it is repulsive to Me. It is life, and life is the gift;

—Book 1, Page 59

Your ideas of right and wrong are just that—ideas. They are the thoughts which form the shape and create the substance of Who You Are. There would be only one reason to change any of these (beliefs, values); only one purpose in making an alteration; if you are not happy with—

—Who You Are.
...
If your values serve you, hold to them. Argue for them. Fight to defend them.
Yet seek to fight in a way which harms no one. Harm is not a necessary ingredient in healing.

—Book 1, Page 60

_If there were such a thing as a sin, this would be it: to allow yourself to become what you are because of the experience of others._

—Book 1, Page 60

Most of you, therefore, spend the bulk of your adult life searching for the "right" way to worship, to obey, and to serve God. _The irony of all this is that I do not want your worship, I do not need your obedience, and it is not necessary for you to serve Me._

—Book 1, Page 62

_Deity has no needs. All That Is is exactly that: all that is. It therefore wants, or lacks, nothing—by definition._
...
_No, my children, please let Me assure you again, through this writing, that I am without needs. I require nothing._

—Book 1, Page 62

(God's desire: summarized)
1. Know and experience Myself, through you (us)
2. You shall know and experience Who You Really Are
3. The whole life process to be an experience of constant joy, continuous creation, never-ending expansion, and total fulfillment in each moment of now.

...
In the moment of your total knowing (which moment could come upon you at anytime), you, too, will feel as I do always: totally joyful, loving, accepting, blessing, and grateful.
These are the Five Attitudes of God,...

—Book 1, Page 63

_Actions are words moving. Words are thoughts expressed. Thoughts are ideas formed. Ideas are energies come together. Energies are forces released. Forces are elements existent. Elements are particles of God, portions of All, the stuff of everything._
The beginning is God.—

—The end is action. Action is God creating—or God experienced.
Your thought about yourself is that you are not good enough,..., to be a part of God, in partnership with God. You have denied for so long Who You Are that you have forgotten Who You Are.

—Book 1, Page 70

The promise of God is that you are His son. Her offspring. Its likeness. His equal.
..., but you recoil at being called "His equal." It is too much to accept...
I tell you this: all you see in your world is the outcome of your idea about it.
Do you want your life to—

—truly "take off"? Then change your idea about it. About you. Think, speak, and act as the God You Are.
Of course this will seperate you from many—most—of your fellow men.
...
And the truth, adopted would mean the end of their ways.

—Book 1, Page 71

Why, then, do it?

Because you are no longer concerned with the acceptance or approval of the world...You have had enough of this world as it presently is. You seek a newer world.
Seek it no longer, Now call it forth.

—Book 1, Page 72

It is your first nature to be unconditionally loving. It is your second nature to choose to express your first nature, your true nature, consciously.

—Book 1, Page 72-73

So—do you want your life to "take off"? _Begin at once to imagine it the way you want it to be—and move into that. Check every thought, word, and action that does not fall into harmony with that. Move away from those._

—Book 1, Page 73

The first thing to understand about the universe is that no condition is "good" or "bad." It just IS. So stop making value judgments.
The second thing to know is that all conditions are temporary...Which way a thing changes depends on you.

—Book 1, Page 74

The greatest gift you can give the dying is to let them die in peace—not thinking that they must "hang on" or continue to suffer, or worry about you at this most crucial passage in their life.

—Book 1, Page 75

All your life you think you are your body. Some of the time you think you are your mind. It is at the time of your death that you find out Who You Really Are.
(When your soul decides to leave (to serve its higher agenda), it will—despite what the mind and body says.)

—Page 75-76

(To listen to the soul:)
...the first thing to do is to stop making these judgments against yourself. Learn what the soul's desire, and go with that. Go with the soul.
...
_The purpose of the human soul is to experience all of it—so that it can be all of it._

—Book 1, Page 77

The job of the soul is to cause us to choose the grandeur—to select the best of Who You Are—without condemning that which you do not select.
This is a big task, taking many lifetimes, for you are wont to rush to judgment,..., rather than to bless what you do not choose.
—

—You do worse than condemn—you actually seek to do harm to that which you do not choose. You seek to destroy it...In this you err, for you create only half a universe. And you cannot even understand your half when you have rejected out of hand the other.

—Book 1, Page 78

Healing is the process of accepting all, then choosing best. Do you understand that? You cannot choose to be God if there is nothing else to choose from.
(Soul seeks the highest feeling = experience perfect love = be God)

—Book 1, Page 78

All your life you have spent convincing yourself that you are bad. Not only that you are bad, but the things you want ARE bad—sex, money, joy, power, anything.
...Having made this judgment about yourself, you have decided that your job is to get better.

—Book 1, Page 79

It's okay, mind you. It's the same destination in any event—it's just that there's a faster way, a shorter route, a quicker path:
Acceptance of Who and What You Are right now—and demonstration of that.

—Book 1, Page 79

(Who and What You Are:)
—Book 1, Page 79

_Life is a creation, not a discovery._
(10 points of why and how, summarized)

1. I have created you in the image and likeness of God.
2. God is the creator.
3. You are 3 beings in one (mind, body, spirit; other names).
4. You create at 3 levels. The tools are word, thought, deed

5. All creation begins with thought, then moves to word, and fulfilled in deed.
6. Create at all 3 levels then it will become made manifest in your reality.
7. To think, speak, and do something which you do not truly believe is impossible...This is knowing of a certainty (faith)

8. This place of knowing (believing, having faith in) is a place of intense and incredible gratitude. It is a thankfulness in advance.
9. Celebrate and enjoy all that you create. To reject any part of it is to reject a part of yourself. (Own, claim, bless, be thankful)

10. If there is some aspect of creation you find you do not enjoy, bless it, and simply change it. Choose again.

—Book 1, Page 83-84

(How to get your life to "take off," summarized:)

1. Becoming very clear in your thinking about it, then think about nothing else. Imagine no other possibilities. Discipline your mind to hold fast to the original creative thought.

2. Begin to speak them as truths. Say them out loud. Use the great command, the strongest creative statement: "I am."
3. Watch the universe work.

*Harnessing your thoughts is not as difficult as it might seem. It is all a matter of discipline; a question of intent.

—Page 84-85

_Enlightenment is understanding that there is nowhere to go, nothing to do, and nobody you have to be except exactly who you're being right now._
You are on a journey to nowhere.

—Book 1, Page 89

_What Enlightenment ask you to do is to know something you have not experienced and thus experience it. Knowing opens the door to experience—and you imagine it the other way around (experience to know)._
—

—Actually, you know a great deal more than you have experienced. You simply don't know that you know.

—Book 1, Page 90

There are those who say that to know God you must overcome all earthly passions. Yet to understand and accept them is enough. _What you resist persists. What you look at disappears._

—Book 1, Page 91

Passion is the love of turning being into action. It fuels the engine of creation. It changes concepts into experience.
Passion is the fire tha drives us to express who we really are. Never deny passion, for that is to deny Who You Are and Who You Truly Want to Be.

—Page 91

...the renunciate simply denies attachment to results. Passion is a love of doing. Doing is 'being', experienced. Yet what is often created as part lf doing? Expectation.
To live your life without expectation—without the need for specific results—THAT is freedom.

—Page 92

If you don't want it, why think about it? Don't give it a second thought. Yet if you must think about it—that is, if you cannot NOT think about it—then do not resist. Rather,...accept the reality as your creation—then choose to keep it or not, as you wish.

—Book 1, Page 93-94

You cannot move away from something, because it will chase you all over hell and back. Therefore resist not temptation—but simply turn from it. Turn toward Me (highest feeling; perfect love) and away from anything unlike Me.

—Book 1, Page 94

_The point of life is not to get anywhere—it is to notice that you are, and have always been, already there. You are, always and forever, in the moment of pure creation. The point of life is therefore to create—who and what you are, and then experience that._

—Book 1, Page 94

Suffering is an unnecessary aspect of the human experience. It is not only unnecessary, it is unwise, uncomfortable, and hazardous to your health.
...
...suffering has nothing to do with events, but with one's reaction to them.
—

_What's happening is merely what's happening. How you feel about it is another matter._
((Put in another word: suffering is created when we decide to see something other than it is; wanting it to be something else; putting meaning and stories around it))

—Book 1, Page 95

There is nothing scary about life, if you are not attached to results.
...Choose, but don't want.

—Book 1, Page 99

_..."being at the spiritual game" means dedicating your whole mind, your whole body, your whole soul tp the process of creating Self in the image and likeness of God._
...It is a choosing and a re-choosing every instant. It is ongoing creation. Conscious creation.

—Page 101

Yet the trutu is, how long you have been engaged in it is not important. Are you engaged in it now? That's all that matters.

—Book 1, Page 101

...God's greatest moment is the moment you realize you need no God.
...this is the antithesis of everything you've ever been taught.
...
A true Master is not one with the most students, but one who creates the most master.
A true leader is not the one with the most followers,—

—but one who creates the most leaders.
A true king is not the one with the most subjects, but one who leads the most to royalty.
A true teacher is not the one with the most knowledge, but one who causes the most others to have knowledge.
And a true God is not One with—

—the most servants, but One who serves the most, thereby making Gods of all others.
For this is both the goal and glory of God: that His subjects shall be no more, and that all shall know God not as the unattainable, but as the unavoidable.
...your happy destiny is unavoidable.—

—You cannot not be "saved." There is no hell except not knowing this.

—Book 1, Page 102-103

When you are in your God space, you know and understand that all you are now experiencing is temporary. I tell you that heaven and Earth shall pass away, but you shall not. This everlasting perspective helps you to see things in proper light.

—Book 1, Page 104

I understand that you may think it's too big for you to handle, even with all the tools I have given you—but do you really think it's too big for Me?

—Book 1, Page 104

I want for you what you want for you. Nothing more, nothing less...
My law is the law of cause and effect, not the law of We'll See. There is nothing you can't have if you choose it. Even before you ask, I will have given it to you.

—Book 1, Page 105

_Your Life is always a result of your thoughts about it—including your obviously creative thought that you seldom get what you choose._

—Book 1, Page 105

This alleged state of imperfection in which you are said to have come into this world is what your religionists have the gall to call original sin. And it is original sin—but not yours. It is the first sin to be perpetrated upon you by a world which knows nothing of God if it—

—thinks that God would—or could—create anything imperfect.
Some of your religions have built up whole theologies around this misconception...For anything I conceive—all that to which I give life—is perfect;

—Book 1, Page 106

It is only through your relationship with other people, places, and events that you can even exist in the universe. Remember, absent everything else, you are not. You only are what you are relative to another thing that is not.

—Book 1, Page 108

You can choose to be a person who has resulted simply from what has happened, or from what you've chosen to be and do about what has happened. It is in the latter form that creation of Self becomes conscious.

—Book 1, Page 108

_The purpose of a (romantic) relationship is to decide what part of yourself you'd like to see "show up," not what part of another you can capture and hold._
There can only be one purpose for relationships—and for all of life: to be and to decide Who You Really Are.
...

_Yet the purpose of relationship is not to have another who might complete you; but to have another with whom you share your completeness._
(Paradox: You don't need a particular other to experience, fully, Who You Are, yet without another, you are nothing)

—Book 1, Page 109

The test of your relationships has had to do with how well the other lived up to your ideas, and how well you saw yourself living up to his or hers. Yet the only true test has to do with how well you live up to YOURS.
...
Let each person in relationship worry about self—...

...and all relationships would magnificently serve their purpose—and all their participants!
_Let each person in relationship worry not about the other, but only, only, only about Self._

—Book 1, Page 110

...If you cannot love your Self, you cannot love another. Many people make the mistake of seeking love of Self through love for another. Of course, they don't realize they are doing this. It is not a conscious effort.
...

The reverse of this is that so many people hate themselves because they feel there is not another who loves them. This is a sickness—it's when people are truly "lovesick" because truth is, other people do love them, but it doesn't matter.

—Book 1, Page 111

_This losing of Self in a relationship is what causes most of the bitterness in such couplings._
Two people join together in a partnership hoping that the whole will be greater than the sum of the parts, only to find that it's less.

—Book 1, Page 111

_You must first see your Self as worthy before you can see another as worthy. You must first see your Self as blessed before you can see another as blessed. You must first know your Self to be holy before you can aknowledge holiness in another._

—Book 1, Page 112

And so I tell you this: be now and forever centered upon your Self. Look to see what you are being, doing, and having in any given moment, not what's going on with another.
_It is not in the action of another, but in your re-action that your salvation will be found._

—Page 113

Probably not going to continue this thread because I want to /just/ read.

PERHAPS a conclusion and final verdict later.