A Letter to Neale

Reader Question:

Hi Neale...First off I want to thank you for your books, which have helped me realize who I truly am. In those books you touched on illusions. I'm reading A Course in Miracles and it states: This world is an illusion, what has ever happened has happened and the divine mind is just reviewing it.

My conclusion is that it's all pre-ordained and we have no choices in this world. Could you please discuss this topic in your bulletin, or personally respond, as I find I am rather all at sea with this topic.

Thank you.
Colin McKinley
Perth, Western Australia

Neale Responds

Dear Colin...This is what Conversations with God calls a Divine Dichotomy, where two truths, apparently contradictory, exist simultaneously in the same space. It is quite true that the world is an illusion, and that everything that has happened, is happening now, and ever will happen, is occurring Right Now. That is because there is no such thing as Time and Space. This does not mean, however, that you do not have Free Choice, or that all of your life is preordained.

To help people understand this dichotomy, I often ask them if they have ever played, or even ever heard of, a game of Computer Chess. If you have, you will know that the entire game of chess has already been played. That is, all of the possible moves are already on the computer disc.

It took the programmers quite a long time, but they worked out every possible move from every possible position, and every variation of every position, on the board. That is why the computer can answer any move you make with lightning speed. It already knows every possible move open to you from every possible position that your pieces could occupy on the board at any point during the game.

So you can take 20 minutes to figure out your next move, yet the computer needs but a nano-second. This is because, from the computer's point of view, the entire game has already been played, in every one of its variations. This does not mean, however, that you do not have Free Choice as to which variations you choose. It just means that the whole game has been played out no matter what you decide to do. Nothing has been "predestined." Nothing has been "pre-ordained." The proof of this is that the game sometimes ends with you as the "winner" and sometimes ends with you as the "loser." It depends on what moves you make!

When the game is over the computer does not "care" who won or lost. It doesn't consider the process in those terms. The screen simply says, "Congratulations, you win!" or, "Sorry, you lose." It has no emotional investment in the outcome. But then the computer says something else; something quite wonderful...

"Do you want to play again?"

Each time you sit down at the computer you can start a new game. All previous choices and moves are wiped clean and you can play the game again in any way that you wish. This is the ultimate experience of Free Choice. The fact that all the outcomes already exist does not mean that you are not choosing those outcomes freely!

Now if human beings can do just a masterful job creating a computer game, what do you think God can do with the Universe?

Sending Pure Love,