Expansive Love
"How come you feel fear, then?" Zac asked. "You're the one sitting here, logically explaining why you and I and everyone are God. If you know you're God, why are you still keeping yourself so small?"
"It's one thing to know something conceptually or intellectually — like the little candle in the sun — but quite another to ground that knowing in experience. Like, I can understand that I'm God in a purely conceptual way, but until I step into my power and express that new concept of myself into the world through action, I don't deeply believe it. If I truly believed it on a fundamental subconscious level, I wouldn't feel fear.
A university professor can understand entrepreneurship intellectually by studying and teaching it. They might have all the knowledge in the world about how business works. But that doesn't make them an entrepreneur, or a good one at that. They may conceptually believe 'I am good at business,' which is like the little candle in the sun believing 'I am the light.' But any entrepreneur I know wouldn't take advice from an intellectual because their knowledge is just pure, unexpressed self-concept.
If you want to know if you're actually good at business, start a business. It's massive fun, if your idea of fun involves euphoric highs and then being repeatedly punched in the face while learning to love the taste of your own blood. You can believe yourself to be a boxer, but you can't experience yourself as a boxer until you get in the ring, take a few hits, and then develop the confidence and skill to fight back. If you want to know if you're really a boxer, find a way to get in the ring. Turn your self-concept into experience, like God said…"
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. That thus, concept is turned into experience, that I might know my Self experientially.
Neale Donald Walsch
"In my case, if I want to understand my own self-concept as a powerful creator capable of changing the world, then I need to go ahead and express that version of myself into reality. Actually," I scribbled another diagram, "it is incredibly important that you understand this concept. It is quite possibly the most helpful idea you will ever come across for understanding how life works. I'm going to start out very basic. Let's assume you are a young, healthy person — but you're broke-as-fuck. What would you fear?"
"Err… bills, debt, not picking up enough shifts to make ends meet?"
"Yep," I agreed. "The underlying fear is a belief that money is scarce. If you didn't believe that money was scarce, you wouldn't fear money. You wouldn't avoid looking at your bank account or paying bills. You wouldn't neglect your money, or vilify it, or feel jealousy towards people who have more money than you. So if you're a young, healthy person who fears a lack of money, what is something you don't fear?"
"Umm…" Zac thought.
"You don't fear your next breath," I said. "There is no fear that you'll run out of oxygen. You've formed a mathematical model of reality whereby air is abundant, and so you never worry about taking your next breath. You don't even think about it consciously. It just is. You'd be incredibly surprised if you suddenly ran out of air, right?"
"Yeah," Zac agreed.
"But would you be surprised if you suddenly ran out of money and couldn't pay your bills next month?"
"No," he replied. "If I believe I'm poor, then not having money in my bank account would be pretty normal, right?"
"Exactly," I said. "Not having money in your bank account is your homeostatic state — just like effortlessly breathing in air is your homeostatic state. You trust that there is an abundance of air, so you don't hold your breath. You don't hoard air just in case there won't be any available next minute. Nor do you worry about where the next breath of air will come from.
Yet you do the exact opposite with money. You don't give away money to that homeless person because you're fearful that you won't have enough. You don't want to 'breathe out' your money in case your next breath doesn't come in. Of course, the Sponsoring Thought of this belief is fear. Remember how God talked about the Sponsoring Thought?"
Every human thought, and every human action, is based in either love or fear. There is no other human motivation, and all other ideas are but derivatives of these two. They are simply different versions—different twists on the same theme.
Think on this deeply and you will see that it is true. This is what I have called the Sponsoring Thought. It is either a thought of love or fear. This is the thought behind the thought behind the thought. It is the first thought. It is prime force. It is the raw energy that drives the engine of human experience.
Neale Donald Walsch
"Also, remember what God said about manifestations on the physical plane..."
Fear is the other end of love. It is the primal polarity. In creating the realm of the relative, I first created the opposite of My Self. Now, in the realm in which you live on the physical plane, there are only two places of being: fear and love. Thoughts rooted in fear will produce one kind of manifestation on the physical plane. Thoughts rooted in love will produce another.
Neale Donald Walsch
"Once you understand this algorithm, you'll see that God's statement is true. Thoughts rooted in fear will produce one kind of manifestation, and thoughts rooted in love will produce another.
Let's go back to pretending you're a person who believes himself to be poor. This is a fear-based belief in lack. We know it is fear-based because it is the opposite of the Truth: that you are infinitely abundant, powerful, worthy, and magnificent.
Let's represent this fear-based consciousness as a little circle. One day, you read an inspiring book, and you decide that you are abundant. You begin expressing this new love-based belief into the world. This belief is expansive because it is based on Truth. I'm representing this new version of yourself as a star shape."
"Now, Who You Believe Yourself To Be (an abundant star) contradicts Who The World Tells You You Are (a poor little circle). The gap between the two creates surprise (the area colored black in the diagram). This surprise throws the system out of homeostasis."
"So what happens?" Zac asked.
"Either of two things," I replied. "Most people look at their empty bank account and overdue bills, then go back to their old fear-based beliefs. If they do that, they've just restored homeostasis to the system. They believe they are poor, and their physical reality reflects that concept of Self. The surprise no longer exists.
The people who 'get it,' though, don't let the world tell them Who They Are. They look at their empty bank account and overdue bills, yet still express a belief that they are a worthy and abundant person. They latch onto a vision for their future and walk towards it with confidence — believing, deep in their core, that their success is inevitable.
If they continue to hold this prediction error, the system can only do one thing to restore homeostasis: physical reality has to rearrange to minimize the surprise. One day, this person will wake up and realize they're physically living the abundant life they once dreamed of."
"So, as you can see, thoughts rooted in love are expansive. Because you now believe yourself to be an abundant person, and your outer reality reflects that new self-concept, money can flow to you as abundantly as air. You worry about money to the extent that you worry about air — i.e. not at all.
If you closely observe this model, you'll notice that any positive change in your physical reality requires you to face your fears and venture into the unknown. By definition, everything inside your Markov blanket represents order, but everything outside your Markov blanket represents the chaos; the unknown. Why? Because if you knew something, you wouldn't fear it. Therefore, every time you expand yourself, you are venturing out of comfortable order and into uncomfortable chaos. Chaos will only transform back into order once homeostasis is restored in the system, and your reality begins to match your expanded self-concept.
Money once represented chaos. It now represents order because it flows to you abundantly like air. You've created a new 'normal' in your reality; a new neurosis.
If you observe the diagram, you'll also notice that your love-based belief has reduced the surface area of the fear-based shadow that obscures Who You Really Are. It's not necessarily that you're creating abundance — you're just remembering that you always were abundant. You're remembering Who You Really Are. It's like God said…"
Then may I ask You — does it at least get any easier?
Oh, my darling friend — it is so much easier for you now than it was three lifetimes ago, I can’t even tell you.
Yes, yes — it does get easier. The more you remember, the more you are able to experience, the more you know, so to speak. And the more you know, the more you remember. It is a circle. So yes, it gets easier, it gets better, it becomes even more joyful.
But remember, none of it has been exactly a drudge. I mean, you’ve loved all of it! Every last minute! Oh, it’s delicious, this thing called life! It’s a scrumptious experience, no?
Well, yes, I suppose.
You suppose? How much more scrumptious could I have made it? Are you not being allowed to experience everything? The tears, the joy, the pain, the gladness, the exaltation, the massive depression, the win, the lose, the draw? What more is there?
A little less pain, perhaps.
Less pain without more wisdom defeats your purpose; does not allow you to experience infinite joy — which is What I Am.
Be patient. You are gaining wisdom. And your joys are now increasingly available without pain. That, too, is a very good sign.
You are learning (remembering how) to love without pain; to let go without pain; to create without pain; to even cry without pain. Yes, you’re even able to have your pain without pain, if you know what I mean.
I think I do. I’m enjoying even my own life dramas more. I can stand back and see them for what they are. Even laugh.
Exactly. And you don’t call this growth?
I suppose I do.
And so then, keep on growing, My son. Keep on becoming. And keep on deciding what you want to become in the next highest version of your Self. Keep on working toward that. Keep on! Keep on! This is God Work we’re up to, you and I. So keep on!
Neale Donald Walsch
"So," I continued, "souls would spend many lifetimes remembering Who They Really Are. The more they remember, the easier life becomes because they don't constantly live in fear."