Renowned author and spiritual teacher Marianne Williamson joins me on today's podcast to discuss the current disconnect between spirituality and politics, how to to navigate mental health such as depression and whether a spiritual and political revolution is on its way!
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Welcome to under the skin this week until his Marianne Williamson, the personal details,
in the pioneer the Spirit sure, where are we going to call a spiritual leader? She is certainly a very influential and powerful person. We talk about activism. We talk about the new potential for a fusion of activism and politics, spirituality in politics, the empowerment of women, embracing God and the spiritual, fantastic conversation that took place at the Wellspring Wellbeing Festival that is put on by
the last thank you to them for providing the facilities environment do enjoy under the skin, trying to achieve equality with the entire life in a category. Nor successful, that's exactly right. Where turns out, we were never works beneath the surface of people. We admired the idea that the finance on the street we welcome to Russell Grand.
Moran Williamson. Thank you for joining me Russell brand on under the skin, where, having this conversation, wellness festival, the wellspring event. What what
vacation? Do you feel when you're addressing an audience were, particularly in the field of personal development? First
thank you for having me all right, yeah. Next, I have.
We felt in my career a profound sense of responsibility, because when you are talking about spiritual issues, you are talking about someone psyche and people are holding a space.
ass for the possibility that you're saying something that will deeply affect the way they look at the world and how they behave in the world. That tool. That is always seem to me very serious today, probably them
also because of the state of the world and our need to rise to the occasion of said
democracy means having our planet in time. When did you begin to? When did you begin your journey in this area of personal and spiritual development?
How did it happen? I was always very interested in spiritual topic, starting even when I was like a teenager and my mother, you saw always Joe
about how, when I was a little girl how my prayers went on for so long. So I always had this interest in anything: philosophical were religious or spiritual, and then I was very much a child at the sixties and the seventies where we were
did you know we would redrawn doors in the e Ching and do spirit
things in the morning and go to anti war protests in the afternoon, so it was very much part of my job
racial outlook of that time that there was the spiritual, philosophical revolution and as cultural sexual political revolution was all going on at the same time and was all of one has very curious because, obviously, now business over by vacation of those two ideas, activism is regarded as a kind of his sick secular pursue with the assumption that what we're dealing with is a material and political conversation and spirituality increasingly become regarded as either extreme or irrelevant deal. How do you feel
that we can change people's perception of spirituality, so the a's neither of those things. Well, I don't. I have never felt, nor do I that it's my job to change anybody's perception of anything. No, no.
Was spirituality. Just like talking about recovery, I think its attraction, not promotion, so
I dont think of myself ass here to change any one. I'm just here to sing the song and I'd feel in my heart, but to me
talk about spiritually, not as an effort to change anyone else. But to me,
or to allocate that by frustration. You're talking about is unspearing swell
Gandhi said anyone who doesn't think religion has anything to do with. Politics doesn't understand religion there
no serious, religious or spiritual path gives any one a pass
on addressing the suffering of others sentient beings, so this sort of
an artificial notion of spirituality that has grown up in the last few decades very much
as you and I were, and earlier this ethos of only in modern Capitalist America. Could you possibly dream up by spirituality which actually gives itself a pass
and uses this notion of spirituality as a justification for political disengagement. The good news is that people,
I think, waking up to the what course American,
the cold war mindedness of this while we lost you, buy that room mindedness in
I've written down on my notes here,
makes me wonder Marianne, how insidious and
all encompassing this ideology within which we unconsciously live is for us to unthinkingly except ideas such as the political nature of spirituality. It makes me think it's everywhere and everything that we kind of breathing an invisible gas.
but we're bewildered by an invisible ideology. Well, I think it were old enough. We remember a time when this sociopath Ec Economic perspective did not yet dominate everything
and if you were born after a certain period of time, you don't remember a time when that would have been considered insane
are you don't even realize that you people are brought up this just so
inundated by this monstrosity born of milk.
Friedmann and an rand this this this trickle down economic perspective that says,
market forces matter. Market forces rule it really, which amounts to the man who has to die dead matter. What happened to be done to the planet and we're all in lockstep with it, and
now, and that's why I think those of us who are older and remember a time when no, I take I
take seriously my role as keeper of the story. There was a time when it was understood
capitalism to how to have an ethic had ethics corps,
cooperation should have ethics. Our economy should have ethics that
They should not be the bottom line. That love should be the bottom line and if it's not the spirit,
your communities taking that stance, we should be the biggest
up in the room. We should not be these infantilism people who
Handing over on the Andy on this
sidelines acting like me:
We we don't. We know we don't talk about that. What that means they ve got you. That's that's not liberation. That's the essence of having been co authored by that very sociopath exist has really interesting, whose actually thinking for a moment of over some of the civil rights icons of the previous century likes. You already mentioned Gandhi, where this or fusion of spirituality and politics is total.
Entirely accepted and Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, in this country and abolition emerged from the quakers really so all the great social justice movement. Certainly in this
drain and, as you were talking about Gandhi, emerge from the spiritual and religious impulse. I wonder how this spiritual can be reintroduced into them.
political there's someone, I thank you and I alone are doing what we can
yeah I'm try my best
I'm doing very well. I must set remark
some of the right to enter the blanket and coffee almost like the candy, knows been taken a little too seriously.
A blanket arrived from the sidelines lovely thank you
variant? I'm really excited to meet you. As you know, I'm a person that is in a abstinence, based recovery. I believe in nurse of twelve step principles up. Can you tell me please a little about course, of miracles and how the ideas in the course of miracles, she refused
with twelve step recovery because a lot of people I know a stage of recovery. I admire banging Theo course miracle stuff. I think there is one truth with a capital tee and spoken in many different ways. Many different religious and spiritual traditions and one of the things that's exciting about studying comparative religion and spirituality.
it is that you see how all these different paths dovetail. You are at an a a meeting or at a course in miracles, group you're at a cabal electoral Tibetan Buddhism and is all like yeah right. It's all the same. All the same this just this one truth
and as you and I were talking about earlier, I think, particularly when it comes to the eleventh step through prayer through meditation and through practice. I think one of the you know the course in miracles is not a religion, just like a
religion, and there is no dogma, orders and there's no doctrine, but there are principles and these principles, and that, just like in a a these principles in in the course of miracles, are talked about as tools in your problem solving repertoire. At a certain point, you know the principles, you've read the chorus. You've read the big book. You've done the steps, then the issue is to the best of our ability.
On any given day practicing what we already know. I think that at at conferences like this one, unlike what was true in my career, began most people now, we've all read the same books. We've all listened to the same tapes. The era of data collection is over. We get what the principles are now. The principles in themselves are simple. Life, though, is complicated. He says in the course in miracles. My way is not different, but it is excuse me. I'm sorry, my way is not difficult, but it is different. So that's the the Zeit Geist of this moment is not
coming to hear from you or for me, or from any one who speaking here things we don't already know now we're all joining together in order to access more deeply the things we do now and a deeper discussion of how the things we know apply to everything and also the changes inside ourselves that are necessary in order to bring about the external changes that are necessary in order to turn
the ship of humanity's fate around in time, so you're saying that the knowledge already exists within us, but we need to learn how to activate him. I think sometimes that for a long time in my own life, I was unable to transcend certain behaviors. I found the idea of living without a pleasure or living without distraction very frightening, and I think, in a way to beat
it contradicts you button to challenge a little. I feel like I didn't personally, have the knowledge I I wasn't aware of the possibility of living a life that was outside of the false ideals of a materialistic society. I felt that the only opportunity for success was personal success. I felt the only possibility of happiness was kind of a the approval of others, adulation of others and as fruit fortune circumstance and chance. I experienced a degree of approval and success and the emptiness remained unaddressed. I only then, through crisis and personal calculate began to consider the idea that the other paths might
valuable and, to be honest, I didn't have, I didn't feel like I had access to the kind of mentorship there I needed. I don't know if that's because I'm particularly my optical stupider, though I would consider both possibilities like where, where where are those mentors? Where are those method? You know, if you think of light with some of the religious tat we ve touched on, they seem obvious skate by obvious conflict. In this time it seemed difficult, I think, to access some of the very simple principles that you ve already talked about.
while I totally agree with you, but the point is then you did fine, the twelve steps made to me. That's what the twelve steps represent. That's what the course in miracles represent every for everyone has a temperamental propensity for one particular path or another, and sometimes it has to do with where your particular areas of of of challenge are. But the point is that you did fine twelve steps and I did find a course a miracle
and by the way when you said you used to. I have not see myself as someone who now I get it all the time I mean I've, faced those challenges to my ability to practice what I preach.
Almost every day, honestly, I think he was a proper out their personal development guru personal, but now there are no mention input costs to announce that you're a wreck. Now, I'm not, I didn't say that I was a black
and I think that is really important- that as much as we admit the gap that still exist us between us on the enlightened self. Most of us would do well to give ourselves credit for the four,
What we have achieved so particular woman, a not no, I'm not listen, not with american women. Pretending were porcelain, dolls, we're not porcelain golf and we are not we and we are not ready and that in cork, however,
yes, I'm on the path, I think of myself, and course a miracle storms as in good
intermediate student, what we're doing
fallibility pardon. Where do experience fallibility.
Men love really the men, the co dependency.
I lied, lied, lived it recently. Images shocked me that I didn't, I dont think of myself ass. A
Think of that is being an issue for me, but in a particular situation I lied and he knew I was lying and he knows
light and one he said, you're lying, I wish I'd just said, die, and it has been a real crisis from me that I there I could have fallen to such panic pats
at that point because you know like oversee unite, were speaking to you, each other in the car.
in the context of age or well being festival, I'm I'm you know
I am very aware of my own fallibility. Sometimes that extends to the point and this interesting that
kind of, saw or least refrained my previous comments about being particulates sex, because I perhaps this is a white male is just evidence of my privilege, region
Those categorization, because I feel it in my own femininity- is oppressed by any toxic masculinity. There is prison
I feel that my own fallibility in a prayer,
and I feel that a person, the oppressed by any system that doesnt honour all of the energies that make up human beings, but but perhaps more to this point, I
still, when I'm licensed to talk to people about personal development or helping people. I think, oh, my god, what am I going to tell people I'm a nutcase. You know I'm capable of having a breakdown on an air praying plane lashing out in traffic. I mean for me, it's a tight rope,
the I. I think that when you are a public person,
as you are, and as I am our willingness to a to not only appreciate but demonstrate
Not only what those nuances are, but our willingness to try to get it right in a public space,
Important, and I want a panther, but I think you do a beautiful job to Lebanon.
we say so. Marianne, thank you very much
Very them. I'm frightened
probably isolate that clip and play as a mantra possibly try to edit it as if that was the sum total of the interview. Just continually right now
one of like a couple of years ago. I am got more involved in british politics. I saw what happened was awful. What will happen if I just say what I think is true.
continually on the internet will happen and what
Happiness, I can now conclude, is I'll, have a mental breakdown and I'll be at attacked to appoint this difficult for me to bear
you, I notice a very new, politically vocal. How do you propose
Who's is to remain in the conversation about politics at a time when media, as you so brutally, to attack or undermine individuals that oppose that is dominant narratives.
think about what some women but question just
of my price quite elegantly. I myself am, I think, about what women in many parts of the world go through
We can't even leave the house without em male relative who can leave the house without completely covered. Even if that's not their choice,
Who can't make decisions about their own lives without being punished? Something
severely even to the point of stoning, and I think what the hell are. You
Miranda Gonna throw to matters out, you were too mean things about young people magazine. Who are you if that will stop you who,
are you as being embarrassed or being humiliated, will stop you
if every woman in a in a free society- and that's only about twenty percent of the peoples of the world, we should think of ourselves, as speaking, not only for ourselves but for
every woman out there who cannot speak for yourself, that's
a good idea, but also,
gain size and contradicts the kind
if presumed idea about time the hour journey
our very individualistic known the a visitor in the United States of America, in spite of my current green card status, but I will say that
this perhaps is the I can't think of a culture where
Israel is more worship with the idea that you make your own, like that. You make your own fortune the rags to read the idea of personal success, successes so imbedded in doesn't last of all that the deep dna stitching, if that I do not agree to a very deep, a great degree, prevent also thinking in terms of collective identity,
then ass thinking. Well, we know what's happening to
People in the Yemen is our responsibility or the history of african american people form.
Nice nations is our responsibility, because then we just think bomb. Basically, I wanna see myself out. We were festival in
it is about individual wellness. Roy
then. Why don't we all club together? I saw out she she in Saudi Arabia, well any time in life with any strength you after
what are the shadow watch out for the flip side? So
in America, one of our strengths, one of our character, logical strings, is what you just refer to its rugged individualism. Any
They can make it you can do whatever you want, but the
has become unbalanced and
has been used to legitimize as selfishness, though maybe even in a crowd week. We take all fat and selfishness and we call itself care. Now.
I mean there is such a thing as health care, but some of the things justified its health care that we used to call it selfish lips and we
legitimize over the last fifty years in America. We have taken this idea of of rugged individual.
And we have made a too much legitimate version, rugged narcissism, but I think many people in America realise this. This is when I said,
four Milton Friedman hooked up with an rand yeah that as it it's a perverted sense when it really off
may and to Hell with what it you know, what happens to other people, that is the disease, but
if that is all about you, you know in the human body, every step
as assigned to other cells, to
library with those cells in order to serve their healthy functioning of the hall. When us,
How goes off on its own disconnects from that collaborative matrix.
doesn't remember. No, it is about working with other self disturbed. The healthy functioning of the whole goes out
do its own thing. That's called cancer that
Lignite in the body and its model
in in consciousness than that's? What's happened from a spiritual, metaphysical perspective? That's what's happened to the human race. We have been infected with a malignant consciousness. It's all about me.
and that's so what the United States is dealing with now is an. I do thank you know of a country
it's not a particle to waive. So, let's talk and
of what we are realising and
I think many people are realising where this meant
how has gotten us, particularly to the extent to which it infuses our economics, to the extent to which money has
an undue influence on
on our government that its in services hand maiden to that economic system, which is basically sociopath, because a sociopath has no empathy
a sociopath has no remorse a sociopath just want what they want, and so you
the sociopath a gate, those this is now that is infused our economics, its deepen, the bones of power operating and that's why
to be named needs to be called forth and it needs to be changed when has interesting what you say there about the shadow, I'm very interested in understanding politics,
From a psycho analytical perspective is offered in a new wave of analyses that relies heavily on union
psychoanalysis to understand so, for example, gender or sexual politics, depending on which term is more appropriate, and my feeling is that all
culture or civilization, passes through the consciousness of human individuals, and is
Tarzan recapitulates phylogeny or is applied to recapitulate ontogeny ward.
that was a is that's. That's the genesis pushing the Bible of group, but it is the same.
It's mirrored in
yeah yeah right, less lay soon ultimately
these energies, all these trends or traits, must exist at the level of an individual. I've been thinking a lot about me. No american politics
It does seem, particularly among them in England and his thoughts going on there as well, but like
a kind of vivid nurse lurid nurse to american politics at present, but my question is that of these
not necessarily anomalous but merely exaggerations. Merely great
revelations of conditions that have always been present in but to put bluntly, whilst on Donald Trump, might seem
specially terrifying is, he merely not
merely an emphasis of conditions,
and ideologies that have long existed about two things. First of all, if you have,
two major political parties, both of whom set the idea of the business man up to be God,
Then it shouldn't surprise anyone Tom a metaphysical perspective that the worst kind of devilish perversion of that image would appear on the scene that was created by that. But secondly, we had reached a point in our society where we thought we had a consensus. It's not like any one thought braces
bigger tree Anti Semitism homophobia, massage unease in a phobia didn't exist in America, but we thought we had reached a consensus that there were lines pass, which we would not go. We thought
We have reached a consensus that no major political institution, any political party, etc.
Would give a serious political megaphone to those forces. One part.
thought. Well will bring a man just Gazelle vote for us in the more moderate them once they get in which didn't work
and also with social media- and then you have someone like a president tromp- was willing to harness all that for political purposes, and you have the kind of crisis that we have now but once again, and I think that those
thus, in the spiritual community, have a lot to look at and ourselves because
of this came out of nowhere, none of this could have happened. Had we not taken demand,
see for granted. Had we not thought somewhat
As you know, I'm not political. Somebody also handle that. That's what we ve learned about it.
We ve learned how naive we were you can
or take democracy for great, it's just like health, and that's why this is a perfect place to be discussing this. You have to
take care of your nutrition you have to take.
Of your exercise. You have to take
of your spiritual path. Your lifestyle, all kinds of things you can
not cultivate health, just wait to sickness, also
inevitably arises and seek through Alex
That means alone to just eradicate or suppress the symptoms, but
model of allopathic medicine has now given way to an integrated approach. We need to do.
That was society? You can't not cultivate justice, not cultivate mercy, not
health debate, democracy, not cultivate compassion. Not look at mass incarceration could not near neighbourhood, not look at wealth. Inequality did not in your neighborhood, not look at what is happening to the food supply because you can drink grinned Jews, you can't you can do that and then
all shocked when this explosion of dysfunction an antidote.
Article stalled happens now,
At the eleventh hour we can. We can
although I think we're gonna move through this, but we have to change, and that includes take
responsibility as citizens for our part in getting to this point,
we have to change Martin Luther King, so there have to be. We need quantitative extra,
quantitative changes in our circumstances and qualitative change.
in our souls we all
to be the immune cells now and I
think this awakening is happening. I'm not saying this from a place of thinking. It's not happening
I think actually it is happening. I think that the Trump
phenomenon and the crisis in our democracy right now has caused a lot of awakening, but this awake
must be permanent Ized, because if we
Don't, first of all, if we don't have this awakening, we won't defeat these forces even temporarily
if we are temporary with our wakening, then, even if we let say defeat the president,
that hide or has many heads we
have to remain awake. Sit,
Shep has to become a part of our sense of what it is to be a conscious human being on a whole new level. For the sake of your children in the sack of mine, I realise that rent
It seems I Marianne, this of most immediate response to Donald Trump is a kind of in there what he would refer to it.
mainstream media, a kind of nostalgia to return to what immediately proceeded at a kind of fighting of previous. The previous president
without an acknowledgement that the conditions that immediately preceded this time lead to this time and the much needed is the kind of radical solutions the key
a radical change in perspective that you ve just stir, illustrated I've. My fear is people and not learning the relevant lessons of this time. People came to retain a soft
five years ago, when things were a bit nicer. First of all, you can
look in somebody else's heart and know what relevant lessons they have learned,
There are few you can look in the newspapers and regional. Their writing, and I am a more they're saying- is like a banner was nice. While I think this, I think that a lot of
and doing media in the United States knows that it has blood on attend, knows that they treated this man like it was a joke. Less Mendez said bad for America, but it's good for CBS.
They didn't they they treated like was a clown at the beginning of the election season. Bernie Sanders had as many people at his rallies as Dead Donald Trump,
showing Donald Trump all day every day, because it made ratings go up day. They helped create a Frankenstein and then couldn't couldn't uncreated
and what I see as a lot of people in media actually trying to make up. I think those actually some very
riding going on right now. I do
and also we have the fact that, like everything else, it all became a corporate matrix that that that dominated most
most of our media outlets as we know, so that we got to appoint a
years ago with the same kind of article that would have gotten a Pulitzer prize fifteen years ago.
the report are fired now, because the cap, the corporate chieftain, who own the newspaper who actually own
factory that the article was writing about how it was polluting, the environment, so
It all is, it has become this putrid talk
city underlying everything. The fact that there has been this corporate take,
for not only of our political system in our economic system but even the american mind, Moon, does and also
an indication of what we saw touched upon before that we are living in visibly and extremists times that extremism is not necessarily observable, because you don't look around thinking some extreme. If it's all you ve ever known, you think of it as normal
can. You tell me what you like please when he was a little kid, because I know how you came to have this says spiritual perspective.
You tell me about early experiences of God away, because you want to call it cannot go back just a little.
To do you, like I mean I'm, not really pushy guy. I said
you particular because your British,
A lot of what we just talked about implies correct.
That Americans slept for way too long. I Churchill himself said
Always count on the Americans to do the right thing after they have exhausted every other option.
Our historical narrative and Europeans are very aware of this- is such that
We are often slow to get there.
We slam like nobody's business, wants we do, they say
I worry about things like that, because it seems that isn't that in weight hearing to the idea that the research things in America and American Ideology- and if you have a soul
national identity, even in a quite pleasant. Why such as that
intimately at one end of it. There is. It leads to a kind of us of a beaver supremacism or in a lie. Is him when, in effect the United Kingdom, America,
these things merely economic confections for some sort of softening this of in history. But
Perhaps these are the very kind of ideas that we need to overthrow. Does the genuinely look at this? Is a global community genuinely democratize the world genuinely give people or thirty empower and look at? Who does America serve? Who benefits from America who benefit from the UK whose benefit from the last century, from industrialization to the technological revolution other than these are leaves that continues to be in power, regardless of what
sort of noise comes out of the president's face. Nothing
I just said in any way imply better arose
not a penny. They both flowers, a
because a lot to atone for, but we shouldn't have to apologize for every little thing, either settlement eyes when I read what I learned at America needs to apologize like it's made out. We have but well, but I think there are things that a British. I think there are things that are italian. I think there are aspects of this woman's personality that is different from mine, different your personality,
different than mine, and I do think that countries have character a logical, have character, illogical tendencies like I was just in Ireland.
Think of all the irish writers when I'm in ITALY. It's like what are these people? It's like they see. Color, we don't see, I mean that's just I think every person there are talents in there. I don't
any nation is better than any other nation, because I dont believe that any p
hello special than any other people. But I do think that you can talk about the history of a person and you can talk
the history of a nation, and that all I was just talking about. I was talking about what has happened so far,
and I M a kind of a character, illogical tendency. There is simply fact it doesn't make us better or worse. I think that we clearly have demonstrated both use. I wonder what
kind of radical ideas will have to end the mainstream in order for us to transcend the kind of bipartisan or dualistic politics that we toil under. But this is what then
to me you so what has to enter the mainstream? I think we get to
concerned with the majority
majority didn't wake up one day and say: let's free the slaves, the Madrid
They didn't wake up one day and say: let's give women the right to vote it.
I d changes because a small group of people usually considered outrageous radicals by the status quo of their time have
better idea it just like an evolution of a species if, if the, if the
collective behaviour patterns are met.
adaptive for the survival of the species. Then it will either go extinct or,
it will change so there is the introduction of the mutation and then
mutation is never the the
majority, but it's the only survivable option. So what
happening in the world, is that our collective behavioral patterns are maladaptive for survival of our species and all the good
avatars and spiritual wisdom? They are the mutation they show another possibility so
I think some of those we worry too much about the mainstream, the mainstream, the abolitionist, we're not the mainstream. The women suffer
we're not the mainstream that civil rights was not the mainstream. Don't worry about the horizontal stay with the vertical say what you think and conviction becomes a form of a force multiplier, and I think people such as yourself
I think I like to think any of us who do work in the public that are stating a certain something it you just
and down on the vertical. That's what hate
hate has conviction in the world today far
or people love them hate, but hate hate with conviction. We need
demonstrate behind
I love the same kind of conviction
that is now being demonstrated by hate and we
to be willing to say it. We need to be willing to point out the loveliness in economics in our society, in politics, as well as in our hearts, and not care how many people agree with us. That's the thing
that's just sales mentality. This is
like laid down because it's the right thing to do more.
king said your life begins to end on the days. You stop talking about things that matter and then it
and even matter linen when they said to linen with a russian revolution. You'll never know,
be able to convince the masses. He said, I need
and good men who understand what I'm talking about
this community alarm and we get this. We can help to things and really, but why.
Yes, I agree with you but also
And I feel that you know know that I feel that there is a kind of a. I think it is fair to say that there is a kind of lethargy and my my personal principles may lead me to
feel the here. I guess I have us of a sense. I have a good tremendous faith in human nature. I believe that what will be revealed as bear information comes to the forefront as knowledge becomes wisdom
is that people will recognise that their own lives, ah not their best lives, aspire to spend and quiet
I grew up in a pre ordinary community preschool ethics and for American shook hands. That's New Jersey by saying that you fail was Essex at an open,
and it means New Jersey on from New Jersey.
But an english Evans. Absolute.
bloody delightful. To tell you the truth and, like you said you know, people are love, is more prevalent in most people's lives than hay and when height becomes more prevalent in my own life, I could not be relieved of it more quickly. I crave freedom
may I want the lie. I want the lie when I took up the mainstream Ike's innocent, I'm talking about. I pull to portal through which the information can be
vague as opposed to serve. You know a majority sway of opinion another most. Our democracies are governed by
pretty small army and a pre, powerful media and some private prisons. It's not like you know, is not now.
we percent of the people out March in the streets managing minorities? It's like passiveness button. You know when, if I feel when I feel like how are we going to bring about radical change, how are we going to, for example, just off the top of my head and I'm taking a risk saying this out loud
how are we going to make people think that a God or love, or whatever word you want to use- is more important than the things that tether us to material things through fear? How are we going to
midwife that kind of psychic change without challenging the ideas that have been around for a long time like the preeminence and importance of economics like the idea of identifying with the nation state like the idea of even being governed by your own fear? So when I took art bringing these ideas into the mainstream is not luck I saw of it.
Imagine I tiki torch wielding hold marching through the streets sing in the name of Christ and Mohammed in unison, although how that work is a harmony, I'm thinking instead, how do we bring?
Do we popularize these ideas? How do we are taking them even if its not in or even load, I want sesame Street replaced or the x factor to replace be replaced with some sort of esoteric spiritual, bloody idea. Log, I'm saying how do we make these things clear? How do we make these
things accessible. What new ideas are we willing to embrace
You know, and I invented and blame by easy time to start talking about. God do that we need America, we need England. What,
I need to think we are doing it right now. I think you are doing it, I'm doing it we're doing it. I think everybody in their own way is doing it. I think it's happening.
said: how do we do that without challenging no,
can't, do it without challenging the point. I think that this is where the spiritual community is, as you can't. You know, you
can't go right to the resurrection and ignore the crucifixion. That's not that's not hair about setting the crucifixion that bit. We get spirit. What
as I like, it's a shame that you have to go through the crucifixion. Isn't it poor Jesus there? Now I don't exist about Jesus, it's about
the dynamic crucifixion means is so. The point is that we
need to get out of denial and go into transcendence? Transcendence is not where you deny all those awful things that you just listed about economics, nation states and so forth. The point is, we have to name it and I think it is happening.
When you say how do we do it you're being led to do it on being led to do, and I am assuming everybody in the audience in their own way, has been led to do it. The fact that people wanted to listen to this,
podcast. They know you're doing it and they know I'm doing it so that
opposition means that you're part of that conversationalist on corn she's, doing it so every who here isn't doing it happening, and I think that
the more we hold with a loving
loving contacts that we have to look just like,
and you have to look in in in Catholicism. You up confession in
you assume you have the day of Yom Kippur in a you, have to take a brute brutally
Let us look at your own character defect. You can't healed
looking at our character, defects and the socio political and
economic issues that you referred to are that are our collective, a character defeat
and the issue is to create a safe place for the conversation where we do look at them so that the changes can be made. Hey Moran tell us about when.
is like my eyes, a logo
Well I just go ahead, we do it. You said you would have that's gonna pick.
The conversation got very political, very spiritual, and now I want to know when he was a kid, how you feel about God or love or how you even term, most things or, if you're afraid of talking about Amanda those bears. You are gonna know and I'm I'm jewish. My mother, I already said my mother- is it's kind of family, Laura that I
It took a long time saying my prayer or setting up a chick come back. I was still talk. You remember that
Look. I know what you're saying
I remember I had I had all figured out I had
Lord prayer. I said the shamardal jewish Mamma has, I am I.
Israel out annoyed. Her new out, annoy Assad. Hero is
EL, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one a man. We might take a moment to think about the synagogue. That was
experience amassed shooting today and in Pittsburgh and the policeman also who died.
you know whether its shootings in schools or charges or synagogues or anywhere else. These ancient viral barbarism, Sir continued to
among us. So when I was a child, the thing I remember most not most, but something I remember is that my parents had a friend who was going
open heart surgery, and I had it all planned that the night before
it's gonna, pray for him and I forgot. I fell asleep and he died the next and I was in horror. I thought it was because I forgot to pray for him both by himself.
the patent went down still blame yourself now. I don't really think that my forgetting to pray for him. No, I didn't. I thought that I was a child. You know you have a little child mind automatic. Where did you to the significance of prayer?
yeah? I always had a well I'm while was raising a conservative jewish home, so is very traditional and that turned
and then when I was in, I remember. I took my first philosophy class when I was fourteen. I went off to a summer,
school, and I remember looking at the at Felix Phillips-
so our catamaran New Hampshire. I remember that the the
pamphlet, said philosophical approaches to the question of God. Knows it
I just heard then, and there
I was very into astrology in the eating. I've always been equally attractive to east and West Esoteric Exeter. You can talk to me about saying Org
and you can talk to me about the Taoists loud to where you can talk to me about the itching or chinese astrology. As you know, we it's all exciting to me here, boys that was eating. That impulse was
When you were a kid? Would you think that was one I just kind of like we were talking before about nations? Everybody has their temperamental, your some people can paint. Some people can draw some people, I just
Have that talent? You know we all have our. Are our dorm aware that I'm I'm about that? I'm not!
tat other people around out there, so you ve just fell.
of a yearning for the unknowable and you ve out, arise here I always of avoid. Yes, I've always been a mistake here who will first good hookups. You know that
it will be, for our can go to my grandfather because I used to go to Temple with my grandfather on Saturday. Man he's taking my outlook and when the Ark would open a new genuflect, he would cry until I used to
get him an iron, and so did I cry because he was crying or debt, I cry, because
I don't know, I've always wondered. Why do I? Why does a big me cry with it? Because pops cried alone, and I think that
you and I were talking before banner women to our children and our grandchildren have always just had that thing. So your grandpa, your pops, he was an early,
for you? In his sincerity of said it's in that sense, and it was a lovely, lovely man, but I just
member when you asset I would go to when I was a synagogue with him, and I remember how he would cry when the Ark opened. So I would cry so I too sometimes asked myself. Would you ve cried?
anyway, you will probably not because I am imagine that is- were kind of a resonance that he was in tune with a kind of a wordless sentimental beautiful to connection to whatever that meant to him, and you could feel that the resonance of that that you could feel no mind
grandparents, and I think this is such a such a big topic for US
so many of us, including in the spiritual community, have lived history and
politics from the neck up, so think about what this means the Holocaust was over and nineteen forty five I was born in nineteen. Fifty
Do so if I was enough, I was attacked,
all with my grandfather when I was just a little girl. The Holocaust had been over that long, so the story of the immigrant, the story of people who suffer
I loved it. It's the emotion and the depth of that. That needs to be passed on. That's what sick about America today,
so we don't realize that we're so easily vulnerable to this horrifying propaganda about caravans.
Why? What do you think these people coming up from Guatemala in Honduras and elsewhere
The door are except what our answers-
there's were unless you're a descended.
Of slaves who obviously forcibly border from Africa
or native American, to work
for thousands of years before we got here, then that means your ancestors
came over here with that same level of despair that same level of of sacrifice to get here to hope for a better life, and so I think
so important that every generation passes on not only the
stories of our history of the human race, but also particular tribes and group.
Or else or or else we we become we become
automatons we're not living the whole person. Rio
What do you know I see shown over there and I was looking at your
to and about people. I wished
in Mississippi and South Carolina and people who are going to
plantations we're in the midst of
huge re education process. You know
after the Holocaust part of the reconciliation with Jews on the part of Germany was,
tenuous holocaust education
we haven't had out here, and so
which we need. You know people american kids, grow corroborating, maybe a paragraph about slavery in the civil rights movement. So
Now we are taking r r.
The and we're taking it down to the level of two, a cellular level of experience and emotion and psychology and understanding bats and again
apple. What I meant when I said, I think it is happening
the issue is, will happen enough happening.
Ass enough and will know more about that on the morning of November seventh o because their way mid term elections, yeah yeah, I know we will only okay so
I have more inquiries of this nature. How did your spiritual education continue from these early experiences and curiosities? The visceral and emotional experiences with your grandfather whoa? How do you feel that your spiritual perspective was full?
Well, my my sense of of values definitely came and a sense of God and connection too
It was came from my family
my religious education I found
but the institutional Judaism, what you find a lot with institutional Christianity. I learned some religious things, but I didn't learn this
europe- will meat of my own religion.
Saying my religion doesn't have spiritual me, but it's not what I learned so for me. I kept r I picked up any book. The set books were very
difficult to me, life in teachings of the masters of the Far EAST raw
das.
Things that every Alan Watts all the stuff that everybody was reading at that time, but it was when I picked up the course in miracles, which doesn't claimed to be for everybody, but if it to you you know it
What I got from the course in miracles- and I was in my men twenties at the time
not saying that this had not been and other things that,
read, for whatever reason I didn't get it from other things. I'd read and that's that there is no,
to God, except through the person in front of you, that that is in the course of miracle says believe in God is, doesn't mean anything it's the x
ignorance of God and the experience of God as I love for each other. I loved the course it's, as some people conspire with God.
Do not yet believe in him. It's like you and I were talking before, but Adsl and so forth.
So here- I learned that the loving other people everything is secondary and my capacity to reach across the wall that so
rates may for mothers to my own judgment through my own attack thoughts to my own failure to take responsibility is self righteousness or whatever that work on myself is the spiritual were ah to prepare yourself so that
you are able to feel God or love overworked convenient
in your relationships with other people. This is that these we experience of war
tell us more. While the course America says there is no getting to Heaven on this.
Heaven is entered two by two. You cannot,
if they, unless you take someone with you and Heaven is now-
condition or place, but an awareness of our oneness cells.
Horse is not trying to get us to believe in God. It's trying to get us to believe in each other. If you are in front of me you're my spiritual lesson and you're my path to God, the core
as everyone you may well, it'll, be your Crusoe fire or your savior, depending
what you choose to be to them
alone, like just literally amount moment to moment Phil?
My life was somehow this ossification of loneliness of dreadful solitude pain of loneliness. I revisit some. How often when alone,
even briefly intermittently like in a arrive here, it's like a go to the room and a source of head IKEA and Post
flighty and alone, and I have to
but when I talk to other people, if I prepare myself in the manner in which you have described, I will feel God and love enough people, even in just incident or communication. But when I talk to her,
excuse me, you know, visited yoga here in person really time
oh yeah, that mutual funding of all young people, a beautiful centres of my own
Pre scared, like that Philip. We know that I'm gonna be attacked or people won't be beautiful or the world on take care
Give me a heavy over time been able to come, cultivate a sense of this faith,
in God, through relationships that will be sustained
well even in periods of solitude suffering, pain and endurance. Yes, how did that happen?
When I have been these times of pain, I wonder when was the time of wilderness for you or the garden? Might I wrote a book called tears to try and put it
exactly about that about there.
Location of spiritual principles to human despair. One
the issues that has been very on that
passionate about is talking about they sociopath economics and how.
Even human pain will be turned into a profit centre. If there is money to be made for some corporation, I am very concerned about what I think of us of the cycle: therapeutic,
cycle pharmacological industrial complex, which
has chosen for the sake of a billion dollar industry too
the collides human despair and the truth
matter is
pressure and I'm not talking about bipolar or or schizophrenia
outside my land outside my purview, but the normal
back them up. Human despair is my late, because the real spiritual path does not just take
I was smiley. Face like this and put it over Everything'Ll be happy, be happy Buddha,
not have begun his path of enlightenment and until he he crossed his father's walls and saw suffering for the first time most
was sent by God to the Israelites, because they were suffering in in Egypt as slaves and
Jesus suffered on the cross, so the real spiritual outlook wreck,
Nice is the suffering.
The human condition when we're living outside the context of our love for each other? So,
that you know with you. If you had a heartbreak divorce, financial failure, bankruptcy lost someone, you love these things are painful, but they're, not mental illnesses and what
and that's why, in that book, I right this is what Buddhism says. This is what the old testament says is about. The new testament says
or anything else. Do you that's why you keep coming back because it's a rough data. It recognised that too rough day to day
it recognises the rough day to day and of your left on your own. God knows what your mind might lead you to do. So when you know principles whatever your path is, and you practice themself. You asked about my
Off, ok, Moran and I've. I've lived to periods of time that by any
by any means today would be called clinical depression, but even that such a scam,
means as somebody and clinics at it. There is no blood test right, but if you ve been there, you, you know it. Ok, maybe
number one. You don't even think this is gonna be done quickly, so none of their likeness
we know today, people so your mother died a month ago. Are you over yet now? Ok, it's gonna. Take
number two who are the same people who can accompany you on those who are going to say
like an arrow who are the people who bear witness to your
during this time, are you probably want to get a lot of fun? What
the movies on the end of the one other thing
you're gonna need to support, you make sure you have a lot of a bubble back.
sure that you stay with your meditation, even though you don't want to stay with your prayer work.
So you show up for other people you will be. We will have a tendency to isolate during this period of time. You must not do that. You must get up and work. Your subconscious will put aside to despair while you're showing up for other people and then, when you come back from that you
go back to crying again, there is an art to navigating despair. There is an art to navigating depression and spiritual. Spiritual principles lead us there. There are seasons of life. I quoted
a book from Roca where he says. Let me not squander the owl
of my pain, that's even
right now, if you don't wanna, be depressed, excuse me, given
it's happening in this country today and given what's happening in this world, if you and
depressed who argue we
these are very sobering times these two very sobering times. Somebody said
arms to all the major to all the major critics of the president. Yesterday they shut up a synagogue today. What look at what
happening and not just the just in America this week. So when you, when you recognise the depth of of the serious problems confronting us, sober people are sober
so sobering times and not everything is robber. That's why
and in our community too often there is this in
a delegation to anyone
acting like girls, too many men acting like boys, at least in America, it's a crisis of adulthood and I think now a deep recognition
of our own suffering and you don't wanna desensitize yourself to your own suffering. If I D sent
as myself to my own suffering
a more likely to be insensitive to the south,
in others. I remember when we win.
when we are in
is a rock
all these women, these this
rain of fire.
On their homes and their
children that I couldn't protect and their there huh.
they can protect their thought they could put other what they did
nothing to us, they didn't
to do with nine eleven, and even if they had weapons of mass destruction, we do business with people who do
The mass destruction every day and I would say to people this is terrible. This is a terrible and that we give me the most facile answers. So we have to
bear witness to our own agony and and be with people.
witness who others, because we have an agonized world. We have to address hmm, alright, these the way that these personal coordinates
coping with despair, knowing that when you in that terrain of agony,
have some disciplines or principles that will be
applied when you're. In that lately, I wonder, do
I think, Marianne, that there is a limit, that's being exceeded to how ic applicable these principles. Are I mean, in terms of scale that in a way we're being sort of tested, amp repair, logically like
how can like, if the, if we were the only people in the world, now this couple of hundred people in this room, perhaps we'd, be able to organise ourselves, support the flaws fallibility and
inability in each other to recognise that none of us a perfectly that share
in democracy would be the best way for us to govern this small society as that scales up to her,
hundreds of millions of people- and
actually understand an elite establishes systems the beneficial to them. Regardless of the consequences you spoke of earlier, with the sociopath EC objectives of domination, regardless of the consequences, how do you even think? It's possible
to apply these principles on the social level or do you think the obstacles that are presented by the truly powerful? Ah,
as things stand at the moment insurmountable, meaning that we have to
bring about revolutionary change in order to leave principled lives,
President Kennedy said: those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violet revolution inevitable. There is a revolution going on. There does need to be a revolution, but it is a peaceful revolution and I think it happening. I think it's happening inside people. I think that the wellness community is a large part of bad I'm assuming that to have everything
and who is here, and I know for a fact that we are all being led to each other. Some
people. Experience seen this in this room with some of the people in this room where also
coming together for more public, more collective things. Don't count
out our I it's the eleventh hour, but it's not midnight yet
I remind you even here in the United States, Gore, one
and I remind you that Hillary Clinton got three million more boats, we are being met
this point. We are being tyrannise by a minority and its important for us to remember that so this extreme right wing. Ah,
Force field in in America today and- and I realize it happening- it's a global threat, but I believe in every country in the world
the yearning of the human heart to be free of this is evident everywhere, and it's inside and its outside. And, yes, I believe, a top
it's like that that line more lark of the universe is long, but it bent towards justice
Course he miracle says God's will has never not been done. We are going to overthrow the tyranny of a sociopath EC economic ordering principle. The we're going
happened, because it is too out of alignment with nature. The only
she was how much suffering is going to happen first and a short that choice is up to you and me, and as long as people like yourself, Russell the very fact that your you know you are placed in your life you we could use your fame only for frivolous, silly things, but your choosing not to- and there are millions of people doing the same- we're let's, let's, let's not forget to give credit where credit
If we're in the middle of this we're doing it, and I think we're going to pull this off Marianne Williamson, the we will bring this podcast to a conclusion, as the women and men in the room spanx to applaud you, Marianne Williamson. Thank you very much for that educational area.
Transcript generated on 2022-05-04.