A Letter to Neale

Reader Question:

Dear Neale,

My name is Ipek and I’m a 17 year old Turkish girl, and because of a reason that I don't know why, I believe in you. I have read three books and I love them, but there are still some questions in my mind. For example, I still don't understand how to change myself, cuz I know that if I want a different life I have to change. But how can I do that?? I tried so hard but... the fact is sometimes it works but sometimes there is something wrong. Everything is very complicated now. I love my world, I love living, I love this life, but there is something absent... can you help me??

By the way, I was a Muslim but now I’m not, because of your books. But my friends think that I'm stupid. I am afraid to tell them but they are dark Muslims and they refuse to read the book. Is there anything that I can do for them??

- A friend in Turkey.

Neale Responds

My Dear Ipek,

You have asked a very good question, and it is a question that many, many people have been asking for a very long time: How can I change? When we really hear and apply the answer to that question, the whole world will change. This process can only occur one person at a time, however, and so the trick to changing the world is to change ourselves, each of us in our own way, in the fastest time that we can.

There are several steps that we can take along the way. Let's look at them:

First, we must admit and acknowledge that we really WANT to change--yet we cannot seek change as a means of resisting that which we are now. What we resist persists. That is why all great masters tell us that the fastest way to personal peace is to resist nothing. As the spiritual teacher Da Free John says: "Cease all againstness."

So do not seek to change because you are "against" anything that you are today, but, rather, because you want to become even more; you want to be an even larger version of the greatest vision ever you had about Who You Really Are.

Second, be very clear with yourself about HOW you want to change. Don't just say, "I want to change," but, rather, say, "I want to change the way I eat." Or, "I want to change the way I react when somebody makes me feel impatient." Or, "I want to change how I feel about people who don't agree with me, or who don't share my own views about God and about life." Or maybe, "I want to change how I experience the world, and how I create my life, so that everyone I touch is blessed."

Third, give yourself a time period within which you would like to see this change occur in you. Tell this to yourself: "I would like to change the way I speak to people when I am angry, and I would like to see this change in me by June of 2022.” You can just make up this date. It can be any date at all. And it can occur BEFORE that date. You do not have to wait to put this change into effect and to see it in your daily life.

Fourth (and here is the magic part), believe that this change has already occurred, and that you are just waiting for it to be seen by you. Try to see this as something that has already happened, and that you are just waiting to experience!

Fifth, remember that you have God or Allah (both words mean the same thing) on your side, and thank God/Allah in advance for helping you to accomplish what you have decided to do. Say a prayer of gratitude each day. "Thank you, God, for helping me to see that this change has already occurred in me."

Try this formula with one change at a time. Pick a single thing that you would like to see changed, and go about this task one thing at a time like that, until all the changes that you wanted to see in yourself have been experienced. Then go out and change your world.

As for no longer being a Muslim, I want you to know, my wonderful friend, that it is never my intention to move a person away from their personal religion. It is okay if you are no longer a Muslim --- and it is also okay if you still are a Muslim. What really matters is not what religion you belong to, but how you practice the religion that you call your own.

What Conversations with God seeks to do is not to move people away from their religions, but to help people expand their understanding to allow them to see that God and Allah and all the other names that we have for That Which Is Divine are the same thing, and that This One Divine Being loves all of us, and would never want to see ANY of us hurt or damaged or punished in any way if we do not belong to a certain religion. All religions are individual paths to paradise, and each path will take us there. There is no path to paradise that is better than any other path. This is the great secret, and when we learn this, we will never fight or argue or have war in the Name of Allah or in the Name of God again.

I hope this has helped you, Ipek, and I wish you well.

Hugs and love,