I leaned back in my chair, deep in thought. The sound of clacking keyboards and excited entrepreneurs was drowned out by the symphony playing in my mind.

Okay, so the vast majority of my life is stable and predictable, I thought. But unexpected things still happen. How come?

I pondered the question until another Conversations With God passage surfaced from the archives of my mind.

You have come here to work out an individual plan for your own salvation. Yet salvation does not mean saving yourself from the snares of the devil. There is no such thing as the devil, and hell does not exist. You are saving yourself from the oblivion of non-realization.

You cannot lose in 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. You may even believe in the struggle long enough to create a whole religion around it. This religion will teach that struggle is the point of it all. This is a false teaching. It is in not struggling that the process proceeds. It is in surrendering that the victory is won.

Accidents happen because they do. Certain elements of the life process have come together in a particular way at a particular time, with particular results — results which you choose to call unfortunate, for your own particular reasons. Yet they may not be unfortunate at all, given the agenda of your soul.

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. All true Masters know this. That is why mystic Masters remain unperturbed in the face of the worst experiences of life (as you would define them).

The great teachers of your Christian religion understand this. They know that Jesus was not perturbed by the crucifixion, but expected it. He could have walked away, but he did not. He could have stopped the process at any point. He had that power. Yet he did not. He allowed himself to be crucified in order that he might stand as man’s eternal salvation. Look, he said, at what I can do. Look at what is true. And know that these things, and more, shall you also do. For have I not said, ye are gods? Yet you do not believe. If you cannot, then, believe in yourself, believe in me.

Such was Jesus’ compassion that he begged for a way — and created it — to so impact the world that all might come to heaven (Self realization) — if in no other way, then through him. For he defeated misery, and death. And so might you.

The grandest teaching of Christ was not that you shall have everlasting life — but that you do; not that you shall have brotherhood in God, but that you do; not that you shall have whatever you request, but that you do.

Conversations With God Neale Donald Walsch

I hadn't always had a cynical relationship with organized religion, or Jesus for that matter. At five years old, I was sent to a Catholic primary school in the Australian country town of Nowra, simply because there were no other viable options. We had to pray multiple times a day, either to 'Our Father' or the virgin Mary ("A virgin? Oh come on," my father would chortle at Christmas time. "Just because she had a cheeky romp with Joseph behind the stables, doesn't mean we need to make up a whole religion based on the biologically impossible explanation for her pregnancy.")

In addition to prayer, our school made us attend a lot of church. At eight years old, I did my first reconciliation, nervously entering the dark confessional to spill all of my shameful secrets and misdeeds. I'd spent the entire week thinking about all the naughty things I'd done recently, but nothing came to mind. I was a good girl. I colored between the lines, and did my homework, and followed the rules, and answered questions correctly in my tests, and spoke politely when called upon. I'd even won a coveted Rainbow Award at assembly the previous week for being such an excellent, conscientious student.

"Umm…" I hesitated in the silent box, nervously pulling at my long, pleated skirt. "Well, when I was in kindergarten two years ago, my brother was mean to me, and I got angry, so I went into his room and stole a two-dollar coin from his piggy bank." My hands covered my face in shame, and I almost started crying. I'd never told anyone that secret before. I thought I was the worst person in the world.

The priest paused. "And is there anything else you can think of? Perhaps something more recent?"

In retrospect, what did he think I was getting up to? Snorting cocaine off a succession of unnaturally perky tits in a debaucherous lesbian orgy, then casually indulging in some kleptomaniacal theft and playful murder before riding my bicycle home for supper? I was eight years old, for God's sake! What with school and extracurricular dancing, there was only so much sin one conscientious little girl could accomplish in a day.

"No," I shook my head.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, Father," I nodded. "I try my best to be good."

"Okay," he sighed before prescribing me ten Our Father and five Hail Mary prayers as penance for my disgusting actions.

I'd also spent many Sundays sitting in a two-hour-long Catholic church service with my grandma — a service delivered entirely in German. I'd have to dress up like a respectable young lady and wander around the morning tea reception having my chubby cheeks pinched by people with saggy jowls. I had no idea what anyone was talking about (I never bothered to learn German) — I just knew that my grandma and her friends loved Jesus. I found the community aspect of religion relatively pleasant, but the fangirling over a dead guy on a cross just wasn't my thing.

As I grew up and moved to Anglican schools, religion was still present in my education, but less intense. Our religion teacher, Mr. White, was universally renowned for his ability to smile through everything. To test his jolly conviction, one Jewish girl, Jessica, would sit up the front of Mr. White's class. She'd slowly rip a page out of her Bible while maintaining unblinking eye contact. Then she'd tear the page up and eat it, piece by piece. After an entire year of this, Jessica had devoured a significant portion of her Bible. Mr. White's smile had never faltered.

But now, there I was, a grown adult, thinking about Jesus all over again. What if he actually did perform those miracles? Hmm...

I set up another simulation in my mind. This one contained an empty room, a wooden table, and a goblet of water. I placed a man named Joe inside the room and told him to turn the water into wine.

Joe looked up at the heavens. "God? Is that you?"

"Yes, it's me," my voice bounced off the walls. "Now, please proceed with my instructions."

"But you can't be God. You sound like a woman."

I sighed, and a gust of wind blew through his window. "Okay. I lied. I'm God's personal assistant. Now can you please-"

"Sorry, lady. I'm only taking instructions from the Big Man himself."

Who was this insolent little shit I had created?

I deepened my voice. It bellowed around the room in my mind. "It is I, God. Sorry about that. Martha's gone out on a break."

"God!" Joe exclaimed. "I'm so excited to meet You! I have so many questions-"

"I need you to turn water into wine for me right now."

"But I just wanted to ask-"

"Joe," I bellowed. "God has no time for your curiosity. God is very busy and important. If you shut up and do exactly as I say, I'll send you to heaven when you die. How's that for a deal?"

"Ohhhh!" Joe's eyes lit up with excitement. "Can I have some bonus virgins, too?"

"Sure," I shrugged. "I'll throw in seventy-two of them. Sound good?"

"Yes! Oh, I'm turned on just thinking about it."

"Joe!" I bellowed, noticing his expanding crotch. "Get your boner under control. God does not want to see it!"

"But I can't help it!" Joe whined. "I'm biologically programmed to be turned on by the idea of seventy-two virgins. Why did you make me this way if it's so shameful and wrong?"

"What did I say about curiosity?!" I snapped. "No more questions! Just think about Donald Trump naked until you're decent."

Joe closed his eyes, but his crotch kept growing.

"Ew!" I boomed. "Seriously?! Trump?"

"Err… sorry." He looked up to the heavens, sheepishly. "I promise I'm not gay. Can I still go to heaven?"

I whistled elevator music into the room until Joe's nether regions deflated.

"I apologize, God. Please forgive me. I am now your loyal servant. What do you want me to do?"

"Turn the water into wine," I repeated. "Starting in three… two… one…"

I watched as the whole system began minimizing free energy. Joe looked into the goblet of water, grabbed his wallet and keys, then left the room. He walked outside the house and down to his local liquor store. He bought a cheap bottle of red, walked home, tossed the water out the window, and filled the goblet with wine.

"Voila," he beamed. "Water into wine."

It was just as I suspected. The path of least resistance through mutual expectation was simply buying a bottle of wine and pouring it into the goblet. Joe did not believe water could magically turn into wine, and so it didn't.

"Very good," I bellowed. "Now take a sip."

Joe picked up the goblet, and greedily poured the wine down his gullet. A few seconds later, he started frothing at the mouth and collapsed on the floor.

"Enjoy your virgins," I cooed in my softest, most feminine voice.

Jesus, Nikki. You're such a bitch, my mind scolded.

Shut up, Moral Compass, I snapped back. I'm doing very important creative work here. Besides, Joe's consciousness is a holographic fragment of my own, so he can't actually die. Death is an illusion. I can still see his body lying on the ground, but that's only because it can be no other way. If his body disappeared when he died, the whole system would get a raging prediction error.

You're still a bitch, my mind muttered.

Boo hoo, I shrugged. Well-behaved women seldom make history.

I returned to the scene in my mind. Someone entered the room and removed Bob's body. I then filled the goblet up with water again.

A moment later, Jesus walked into the room.

"Want me to do the water-into-wine party trick?" he asked the heavens.

"Yep," I replied.

The computation began running again. Jesus stared at the goblet. Within a few seconds, the water turned into wine. His Markov-blanketed consciousness knew, without a shadow of a doubt, what he could do in this illusory world. The reality that manifested around him reflected who he believed himself to be — namely, the son of God, capable of miracles.

It reminded me of that scene from The Matrix, where Morpheus fights Neo in a simulation. Morpheus looks down at Neo on the floor and says, "Do you believe that my being stronger or faster has anything to do with my muscles in this place? You think that's air you're breathing now?"

Jesus' certainty created a reality distortion field, just like Steve Jobs'. Both had the ability to produce something seemingly impossible out of thin air, but Jobs just had to go about it in a more linear way, like Joe. Jobs couldn't bend the known laws of physics, but Jesus could. The laws of physics weren't immutable laws at all — they were just neuroses; consistent emergent patterns unfolding in the explicate order.