Status
Available
Call number
Series
Collection
Publication
New York : G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1996-
Description
Conversations with God is Neale Donald Walsch's account of his direct conversations with God that began while Walsch was immersed in a period of deep depression. He composed a letter to God in which he vented his frustrations, and much to his surprise, even shock, God answered him. Focusing on the universal truths that influence all life, Conversations with God offers a picture of the could be better. We are challenged to push past the imagined boundaries of what we believe ourselves capable and look instead to all that we can attain as co-creators with God. This first volume of Book 1 explores the individual's personal relationship with God.
User reviews
LibraryThing member rayski
Neale claims God talks through his pen. If you get by that, then there is some interesting thoughts on how we’re suppose to live and what life is about.
LibraryThing member yjeva
Interesting, and thought provoking, but I had difficulty with accepting that the messages were from God.
LibraryThing member bookheaven
Thought provoking ideas about the universe and the meaning of life.
LibraryThing member TattooedMamaMeg
I'm not good at writing reviews like this. This book changed my life. I call it my "bible". If that offends people, I apologize. But that's how strongly I feel about this book. Everything written in here is what I believe about love, life, and God.
LibraryThing member LadyBlossom
Another book that all of humankind should read, it speaks for its self.
LibraryThing member dianemb
I found this book a bit contrived. It was just a little too smooth for me.
LibraryThing member helenaharper
An amazing book! It was recommended by a friend, and so I thought I would read it to see if it would give me any new insights into the age-old questions about the purpose of life etc. I didn't really know what to expect, but it blew me away! It's a conversation between an ordinary man called Neale
So many of my questions were answered in a totally new way (going to church or reading the Bible had never given me answers like these) and not only did they make sense to me, they were also liberating! If you're remotely curious about any of the above questions, then I would encourage you to read this book and decide for yourself whether the answers are for you or not.
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Donald Walsch (with a lot of problems in his life) and God (you may not accept that it's 'God' talking, but then that's up to you) and it's written in a very easy to read style. From the first page it had me riveted and I couldn't put it down. You learn about the importance of trusting your feelings, expressing appreciation, how all human feelings are rooted in either fear or love and that we have been taught to live in fear. As it says in the book 'precious little is said about the glory of the most loving', but an awful lot is said in our society about being 'better', 'stronger' and 'cleverer' than others. Fear motivates us to be this, because we don't want to be considered failures. All the big questions are answered: why are we here? Why is there evil in the world? Is there sin? Is there a hell? If so, what is it? Why do things happen as they do? What happens when you die? How can I have successful relationships? Is having a lot of money a bad thing? And inbetween times there's also humour, because we're told that God has a great sense of humour! So many of my questions were answered in a totally new way (going to church or reading the Bible had never given me answers like these) and not only did they make sense to me, they were also liberating! If you're remotely curious about any of the above questions, then I would encourage you to read this book and decide for yourself whether the answers are for you or not.
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LibraryThing member Czrbr
Book Description: New York, NY, U.S.A.: G.P. Putnam, 1996. Hard Cover. Fine/Fine. 8vo - over 7�" - 9¾" tall. 211pp.
LibraryThing member TheyCallMeVarmit
A Conversation with God: If You Could Ask God Any Question, What Would It Be?, written by Alton Gansky, is a book containing questions and their answers that Christians/people may wish they could ask God. Each answer is drawn from the Bible and each topic comes with spiritual references so they can
What I like about this book is that while it is great for solo readers, it is also suitable for groups. The book is split up into 55 questions, and each one is written as if answered by God, Jesus, and whomever else who could add any insight (such as Peter, Job, John, Simeon, etc.). The length of the answers to these questions, as well as the discussion that can be derived from them makes each question suitable for a weekly group reading/discussion.
The topics range from talking about hell, heaven, the sexes, forgiveness, sin, the end of the world, and more. Each answer, while written in the first person, is taken from the Bible and I think the way they are written (not in verses, but as if the speaker were having a conversation with the reader) will appeal to nearly everyone. One thing that could prove to be a negative, however, is that because of the way it is written, this could be considered "Gansky's interpretation of what the Bible says" and there may be some out there who would disagree with any of the question and answer sessions. I know that for myself, while I did not disagree with the words he had written, I did disagree with the "tone impression" they were leaving me with. In my mind, the main speaker (God) should be a little more authoritive (yet loving), yet each speaker had the same voice.
A Conversation with God would make a nice gift book, or a companion (not replacement) to the Bible
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be read directly from the source.What I like about this book is that while it is great for solo readers, it is also suitable for groups. The book is split up into 55 questions, and each one is written as if answered by God, Jesus, and whomever else who could add any insight (such as Peter, Job, John, Simeon, etc.). The length of the answers to these questions, as well as the discussion that can be derived from them makes each question suitable for a weekly group reading/discussion.
The topics range from talking about hell, heaven, the sexes, forgiveness, sin, the end of the world, and more. Each answer, while written in the first person, is taken from the Bible and I think the way they are written (not in verses, but as if the speaker were having a conversation with the reader) will appeal to nearly everyone. One thing that could prove to be a negative, however, is that because of the way it is written, this could be considered "Gansky's interpretation of what the Bible says" and there may be some out there who would disagree with any of the question and answer sessions. I know that for myself, while I did not disagree with the words he had written, I did disagree with the "tone impression" they were leaving me with. In my mind, the main speaker (God) should be a little more authoritive (yet loving), yet each speaker had the same voice.
A Conversation with God would make a nice gift book, or a companion (not replacement) to the Bible
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LibraryThing member tiffwick
I have always believed that books find us when we need them. That was the case with Conversations With God. This author said what what I needed to hear at that time so it was a powerful, thought provoking experience. I reread chapters from time to time and it still brings me comfort and something
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to ponder. I like how the author relates to God. I haven't decided which way I lean yet - but I like the idea of a collaborative, loving creator. I also liked the idea of us as creators. Show Less
LibraryThing member Daniel.Estes
Of all the books I've read in my lifetime, this one is perhaps the most difficult for me to review.
I was 19 years old and curious about my spiritual place in the world—I imagine many young adults are at that age. Each brand new life experience seemed to challenge everything I thought I knew about
Reading Walsch's book was such a pinnacle moment in my life that everything around me took on this aura of affirmation. Here was a way of understanding the world that I'd never previously considered, and the insights I gained propelled my life in new and delightful and frightening directions. Up until then I was like a corked bottle of possibility and unknown expectations, and Conversations With God popped the cork.
The irony now is that several years later I feel like I outgrew the book. Now when I read Walsch's words I don't derive anywhere near the same joy from them that I once did, and just as frequently I disagree with what he wrote. That seems a disheartening thing to say about potentially one of the most important books of my life.
I was 19 years old and curious about my spiritual place in the world—I imagine many young adults are at that age. Each brand new life experience seemed to challenge everything I thought I knew about
Show More
how the world worked. It was during this state of existential uncertainty that I discovered Neale Donald Walsch's Conversations With God. And then everything changed. My entire worldview was torn down and rebuilt overnight.Reading Walsch's book was such a pinnacle moment in my life that everything around me took on this aura of affirmation. Here was a way of understanding the world that I'd never previously considered, and the insights I gained propelled my life in new and delightful and frightening directions. Up until then I was like a corked bottle of possibility and unknown expectations, and Conversations With God popped the cork.
The irony now is that several years later I feel like I outgrew the book. Now when I read Walsch's words I don't derive anywhere near the same joy from them that I once did, and just as frequently I disagree with what he wrote. That seems a disheartening thing to say about potentially one of the most important books of my life.
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LibraryThing member twokidsnablanket
Phenomenal book!! I have read this book before but I was at a different point in my life, I was younger and less experienced then, so I took from it only what was relevant to me at the time and I am reading it again to renew and further my knowledge as I am in a different point in my life again so
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other parts and points in the book will apply to me now!!! There are those that will say the book is blasphemy etc etc yada yada yada but I don't read the book as my gospel I read it because whether he was genuinely communicating with GOD or not I agree with a lot of what is being said in the book. The book spoke to the things that I already knew in my heart and soul but couldn't put it into the "least effective communicators...WORDS" Pg3. Show Less
LibraryThing member IonaS
I read this marvellous book in Danish which made it a bit difficult for me to get an overview of it when writing this review.
The book, and the whole Conversations with God series, is filled with wisdom, so that there was no doubt in my mind that it was dictated by “God”, or at least came from a
One day in 1992 when Neale Donald Walsch was going through a difficult period, he decided to write a letter to God containing a lot of angry questions about his life. Great was his surprise when suddenly his pen began to move by itself and he started getting answers from God, Later he said he heard an inner voice dictating it.
Thus began this illuminating work.
God told Neale that he talks to everyone constantly, but not everyone listens.
Feelings/emotions are the language of the soul.
As a means of communication, God uses both emotions, thought and images from experiences. When these don’t work, He uses words.
Your highest thoughts, clearest words and strongest feelings always come from God.
The highest thought is the one containing joy. The clearest words are those containing truth. The strongest feeling is that which you call love.
The most powerful messenger is experience, and this we generally ignore.
God has given us free will and he never forces us to do anything.
The first “shocking” statement God makes to Neale is that as regards the nature of God, the church fathers, theologians, rabbis, priests and the Bible are NOT authoritative sources. Ha, ha! I like this.
God has no specific form, though he can assume any form he wishes.
He reveals himself by means of our inner experiences (I will attest to that).
He tells us that the correct form of prayer is never a begging prayer but a thankful prayer. (This is what the New Thought Church and the like have been telling us for years.)
We should never beg but appreciate. We should have faith that God gives us everything we ask for.
God is the observer, not the creator. He created us in his image. He does not interfere in how we live our lives.
God doesn’t care what we do.
We have created the mythological being we call the Devil.
Life is not a school; we are here to remember who we are.
God knew that in order for love to exist, the opposite, fear, had to exist too.
God divided himself into all of us so as to experience Himself. Thus he gave us the same power to create as He Himself. We are made of the same substance and have the same qualities and abilities, including the ability to create physical reality out of nothing.
God cannot experience Himself except through us. He has given us the ability to experience ourselves as Him.
We are divine parts of the divine whole. Our work here on Earth is not to learn but to remember who we are.
We do not become ill without it being at least in part our fault, and we can become well again in a moment just by deciding to become well. (Easier said than done!)
God does nothing to stop negative events because He would then be taking away our free will. It is up to us to change things. There are no victims in the Universe, only creators. Every soul is a master.
Pain is a result of wrong thoughts. A master can make the worst pain disappear. Pain stems from judgement of something. Remove the judgement and the pain will disappear.
There is no “should” or “should not” in God’s world. Do what you want to do. But don’t judge or condemn, because you don’t know why something happens or what its purpose is. What you condemn condemns you, and what you judge you will become one day. And bless everything, for everything is created by God.
Hell is to experience the worst conceivable outcome of what you choose, decide and create. Hell is the opposite of joy.
God assures us that the (negative) experiences after death which we have constructed in our fear-based theology do not exist. (Though some of those who experience NDEs have temporarily experienced a “place” reminiscent of Hell – they can quickly move on to a better place, if they ask for help, for example.) It is ourselves who create the experience of Hell every time we separate ourselves from our own highest thoughts of ourselves.
We are not punished by God but experience natural outcomes of our actions, What we experience as punishment or what we would call “evil” is nothing but a law of nature that comes into play. (I was thinking this just the other day in connection with someone I know having a bad experience.)
There are no coincidences. All incidents and experiences are created by ourselves so we can experience who we really are.
We are the creator of our own reality and life cannot give us other opportunities than those we believe it can.
God says that he has sent humanity teacher after teacher. We don’t listen to his teachers, we kill them.
The first law is that we can be, do and have everything that we can imagine.
The second law is that we attract what we fear.
The laws are simple:
1) Thoughts create.
2) Fear attracts.
3) Love is all there is.
The purpose of a love relationship is not to have another person who can perfect you, but have another with whom you can share your perfection.
Our focus on the partner, our obsession with the partner is what makes the relationship fail.
All illness is created by ourselves. People smoke and wonder why they get cancer. They eat animals and thus animal fat and wonder why they get blood clots. They are angry their whole lives and wonder why they get heart attacks. They compete with others and wonder why they get strokes.
Most people worry themselves to death. Worrying is meaningless.Health improves as soon as worrying stops. Hate is an extremely harmful state. It poisons the body. Fear is excessive worrying. Worry, hate, fear attack the body at the cellular level. It is impossible to have a healthy body under these conditions. All disease is first created by the mind.
There is nothing in life that is not first a thought.
You can heal yourself by changing the way you think,
You don’t train your body so it gets weak from lack of use. You don’t eat proper food, which makes you even weaker. You fill your body with toxins and the most absurd substances that are supposed to be food. You read this information and return to the poor treatment of your body. Why? Because you don’t have the will to live.
The body was not supposed to consume alcohol. It weakens the mind.
Our bodies were intended to last forever.
God says:
“You are my body. Everything I experience I experience through you. Jesus of Nazareth said, ‘I and the father are one flesh’”.
Then He says: “For just as you are my body, I am another’s body.” I seem to recall that God talks more about this in Book 3. If so, in my review of Book 3, I will recount a spiritual experience I had when I was 19 which showed me this.
God says that we are already God, but just don’t know it.
This book presents information on much, much more than I have touched on here. I highly recommend that everyone read this book and the whole Conversations with God series.
The book, and the whole Conversations with God series, is filled with wisdom, so that there was no doubt in my mind that it was dictated by “God”, or at least came from a
Show More
high, high source.One day in 1992 when Neale Donald Walsch was going through a difficult period, he decided to write a letter to God containing a lot of angry questions about his life. Great was his surprise when suddenly his pen began to move by itself and he started getting answers from God, Later he said he heard an inner voice dictating it.
Thus began this illuminating work.
God told Neale that he talks to everyone constantly, but not everyone listens.
Feelings/emotions are the language of the soul.
As a means of communication, God uses both emotions, thought and images from experiences. When these don’t work, He uses words.
Your highest thoughts, clearest words and strongest feelings always come from God.
The highest thought is the one containing joy. The clearest words are those containing truth. The strongest feeling is that which you call love.
The most powerful messenger is experience, and this we generally ignore.
God has given us free will and he never forces us to do anything.
The first “shocking” statement God makes to Neale is that as regards the nature of God, the church fathers, theologians, rabbis, priests and the Bible are NOT authoritative sources. Ha, ha! I like this.
God has no specific form, though he can assume any form he wishes.
He reveals himself by means of our inner experiences (I will attest to that).
He tells us that the correct form of prayer is never a begging prayer but a thankful prayer. (This is what the New Thought Church and the like have been telling us for years.)
We should never beg but appreciate. We should have faith that God gives us everything we ask for.
God is the observer, not the creator. He created us in his image. He does not interfere in how we live our lives.
God doesn’t care what we do.
We have created the mythological being we call the Devil.
Life is not a school; we are here to remember who we are.
God knew that in order for love to exist, the opposite, fear, had to exist too.
God divided himself into all of us so as to experience Himself. Thus he gave us the same power to create as He Himself. We are made of the same substance and have the same qualities and abilities, including the ability to create physical reality out of nothing.
God cannot experience Himself except through us. He has given us the ability to experience ourselves as Him.
We are divine parts of the divine whole. Our work here on Earth is not to learn but to remember who we are.
We do not become ill without it being at least in part our fault, and we can become well again in a moment just by deciding to become well. (Easier said than done!)
God does nothing to stop negative events because He would then be taking away our free will. It is up to us to change things. There are no victims in the Universe, only creators. Every soul is a master.
Pain is a result of wrong thoughts. A master can make the worst pain disappear. Pain stems from judgement of something. Remove the judgement and the pain will disappear.
There is no “should” or “should not” in God’s world. Do what you want to do. But don’t judge or condemn, because you don’t know why something happens or what its purpose is. What you condemn condemns you, and what you judge you will become one day. And bless everything, for everything is created by God.
Hell is to experience the worst conceivable outcome of what you choose, decide and create. Hell is the opposite of joy.
God assures us that the (negative) experiences after death which we have constructed in our fear-based theology do not exist. (Though some of those who experience NDEs have temporarily experienced a “place” reminiscent of Hell – they can quickly move on to a better place, if they ask for help, for example.) It is ourselves who create the experience of Hell every time we separate ourselves from our own highest thoughts of ourselves.
We are not punished by God but experience natural outcomes of our actions, What we experience as punishment or what we would call “evil” is nothing but a law of nature that comes into play. (I was thinking this just the other day in connection with someone I know having a bad experience.)
There are no coincidences. All incidents and experiences are created by ourselves so we can experience who we really are.
We are the creator of our own reality and life cannot give us other opportunities than those we believe it can.
God says that he has sent humanity teacher after teacher. We don’t listen to his teachers, we kill them.
The first law is that we can be, do and have everything that we can imagine.
The second law is that we attract what we fear.
The laws are simple:
1) Thoughts create.
2) Fear attracts.
3) Love is all there is.
The purpose of a love relationship is not to have another person who can perfect you, but have another with whom you can share your perfection.
Our focus on the partner, our obsession with the partner is what makes the relationship fail.
All illness is created by ourselves. People smoke and wonder why they get cancer. They eat animals and thus animal fat and wonder why they get blood clots. They are angry their whole lives and wonder why they get heart attacks. They compete with others and wonder why they get strokes.
Most people worry themselves to death. Worrying is meaningless.Health improves as soon as worrying stops. Hate is an extremely harmful state. It poisons the body. Fear is excessive worrying. Worry, hate, fear attack the body at the cellular level. It is impossible to have a healthy body under these conditions. All disease is first created by the mind.
There is nothing in life that is not first a thought.
You can heal yourself by changing the way you think,
You don’t train your body so it gets weak from lack of use. You don’t eat proper food, which makes you even weaker. You fill your body with toxins and the most absurd substances that are supposed to be food. You read this information and return to the poor treatment of your body. Why? Because you don’t have the will to live.
The body was not supposed to consume alcohol. It weakens the mind.
Our bodies were intended to last forever.
God says:
“You are my body. Everything I experience I experience through you. Jesus of Nazareth said, ‘I and the father are one flesh’”.
Then He says: “For just as you are my body, I am another’s body.” I seem to recall that God talks more about this in Book 3. If so, in my review of Book 3, I will recount a spiritual experience I had when I was 19 which showed me this.
God says that we are already God, but just don’t know it.
This book presents information on much, much more than I have touched on here. I highly recommend that everyone read this book and the whole Conversations with God series.
Show Less
LibraryThing member ffifield
Did he have a conversation with God? I dunno, but at least this imagining of God is more plausible than most of the others I know of.
LibraryThing member VhartPowers
I have a problem with someone saying God doesn't have any problem or differentiate between good and evil and he loves everyone the same and that Hitler is in heaven.
If God didn't have a problem with it then why did he call Eve out about what she was hiding? etc. etc. etc.
And even if you don't
His religion is not for me.
If God didn't have a problem with it then why did he call Eve out about what she was hiding? etc. etc. etc.
And even if you don't
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want to bring the Bible into this; according to this author (who may be trying to start his own religion?) I don't feel good about his feel good religion. According to the first paragraph I can go on a killing spree just like hitler and still go to heaven. His religion is not for me.
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Awards
Audie Award (Finalist — 1997)
Language
Physical description
22 cm
ISBN
0399142789 / 9780399142789
Other editions
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