Blanton - Honest to God

HONEST TO GOD:

A CHANGE OF HEART THAT CAN CHANGE

THE WORLD

NEALE DONALD WALSCH

and

DR. BRAD BLANTON

Published by:

Sparrowhawk Press

646 Shuler Lane

Stanley, VA 22851

www.radicalhonesty.com

2002 Neale Donald Walsch and Brad Blanton

The poem September 1st, 1939 is from the anthology From Another Time by W. H. Auden, published by Random House. Copyright 1940 W.H. Auden, renewed by The Estate of W. H. Auden. Used by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from Sparrowhawk Publications, with the exception of short excerpts used with acknowledgment of publisher and author

Cover by Vicki Valentine

Cover photo of Neale Donald Walsch Christopher Briscoe

Interior Design by Art Squad Graphics

Foreword

The truth shall set you free John 8:32

Remarkable things happen when people become open and honest. Incredible things happen when they do it all the time.

Almost everyone agrees about that. Hardly anyone seems to know what to do about it, however. This book discusses what can be done about it.

No one else is really talking about this. Not in this direct a way. Not with the head-on approach that you are going to find here. Some will also see this as a dangerous book, because it will threaten their way of life, and all the societal institutions that are in place to support it.

And what is so threatening here? Just what is so threatening?

The message of this book, which, after all is said and done, breaks down to six words:.

LET's ALL JUST BE HONEST.

That message could change your life. It could also change the world. That's what some people are worried about.

Not all people. Just some people. Mainly people who would have a lot to lose if the world did change.

Mostly, these are the people who hold power, and who think that they need to hold power in order to be happy. And not just hold power, but hold it in a particular way. Namely, power over, not power with.

People who are willing to hold power with others have no problem with the idea of total honesty. Only people who want to hold power over others have difficulty with this concept. These people are in the minority.

Most people are intrigued by the idea of transparency and complete honesty in relationshipsa way of being that for the purposes of this discussion we shall call radical honesty. Brad has written a book by that title that has touched hundreds of thousands, and Neale has talked about transparency and total visibility as a lifestyle in his best-selling Conversations with God books read by millions of people. So we both have the same message to send, and we've chosen to join forces to send it.

Why? Because people are scared. Even as they are intrigued, they are also a bit scared. The people who want to have power over them have made them scared. They've told dire stories about what happens when the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth is told, and they've spread the word that this is to be avoided at all cost. Indeed, the power structure in our society actually rewards those who do not tell the truth, and punishes those who do. Why do you suppose that people lie all the time?

Nobody tells the truth about anything any more. Not anything important. Everybody's lying to everybody else, and everybody knows it. It was once our dirty little secret and now it's not even dirty any more because it's become so common that it's now the truth tellers who are the dirty ones. It's the whistle blowers and the truth tellers who are criticized, and the totally honest person who is held up as an example of socially unacceptable behavior.

So people are now scared to be honest. After centuries of this training they are caught in a trap of their own devise, yet live in fear of the very thing that will set them free. Truth heals, and they think that it is the truth that hurts.

At a lecture Neale delivered in Boston in which he talked about utter transparency as a lifestyle, a member of the audience became quite agitated. Does that mean, he asked, the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, no matter how much it hurts someone else?

We'll begin our exploration of this dynamite topic here, because this is where the rubber meets the road. And as we undertake our exploration, we'll warn you that we may use some words here that may make you blush. We may say some things here that may cause you discomfort. And we may propose some solutions here that may send you screaming into the night, that These guys are crazy.

Maybe it is crazy to think that most of what's going wrong on this planet (and in our personal lives) could be set right by the use of one single tool: the truth. On the other hand, maybe those who are telling you not to tell the truth (not directly, of course, but indirectly, by their behaviors) are the crazies. Insanity has been defined as doing the same thing over and over again, expecting to get a different outcome. We've been lying to each other and lying to ourselves for centuries now and It hasn't worked. Still, we keep doing it, and we're encouraged to keep doing it by a society that doesn't know any other way.

Our politicians, in their attempts to win approval from everyone and offend no one, just don't know any other way.

Our businesses, in their desperate competitions with each other, just don't know any other way.

Our schools, in their reflections of the decisions and values of the society in which they exist, just don't know any other way.

Even our religions, in their maniacal drive to convince everyone that their way is the only way to God, just don't know any other way.

And so, with all of our institutions modeling the lying behavior, we are taught to lie and to support others in lying. We lie to each other now, about the smallest things. Forget about the big things; they went by the wayside a long time ago. We are now deep into the era of the Social Lie. We won't even tell the truth about why we don't choose to play bridge tonight.

There's a way out of this, and it's total transparency. It's radical honesty. And it works. It changes everything. It empowers, it does not disempower. It heals, it does not damage. It is focused on intimacy. True intimacy, the kind based on sharing the way your life actually is. Not Hollywood romance. Not pleasantness like in the movie Pleasantville. Not those things. It is an acknowledgement of the truth of our experience as it actually is, without build up or spin or distortion of any kind. It is the love of what is so. It is the love of being itself that allows us to love and honor other beings with the truth.

It may look, as you begin reading this book, as though it has nothing to do with the present global crisis. Only deep insight and a willingness to 'see what most of us have been unwilling to see about ourselves will cause you to notice how extraordinarily relevant the following words are to what is now occurring on the planet. So, for those of you who see the relevancy, there will be great rewards. We invite you to turn this page and to write a new chapter in the history of the human race.

Neale Donald Walsch and Brad Blanton
November, 2001

1: Introduction

The Democratic Unconvention

W e're going to talk about the power of honesty in an unusual way. So not only is this book going to be unusual for its content, but for the way its content is presented. We're going to do something that authors are not allowed to do. We're going to mix conventions in this book.