Know Thyself - E119 - Marianne Williamson: “Heaven & Hell Exist Right NOW…” Do This To Create A Mind Of Love

Episode Date: October 22, 2024

Marianne Williamson reveals the profound teachings of Jesus beyond traditional dogma, delving into the mystic aspects of his message, offering fresh perspectives that can help reclaim your energy and reshape your understanding of existence. She explores the symbolic truths hidden in Jesus' teachings: from Heaven & Hell, to Crucifixion, to Resurrection, and how these understandings can help us heal ourselves and the world. She dives deep on the meaning behind the dark night of the soul, and gives advice for how to move through these painful moments with grace.She explores the journey from judgment to forgiveness, offering a message to find hope and clarity amid today’s chaotic world.André's Book Recommendations: https://www.knowthyself.one/books___________0:00 Intro 1:36 Redefining Jesus: From Dogma to the Mystic11:21 Two Powerful Reframes to Reclaim Your Energy15:13 The Reality of Heaven & Hell22:10 Freeing Yourself From the Illusion of Separation26:10 Crucifixion & The Dark Night of the Soul36:59 Principle of Atonement: Having the Courage to See the Truth40:23 Taking Responsibility for Our Lives & Humanity's Future45:20 Overcoming Our Wounds & Rebalancing the Masculine/Feminine53:30 Human Behavior as Either Love or a Call For Love55:45 Going From Judgement to Forgiveness1:07:27 Awakening Amidst the Chaos of Current Times1:19:15 Conclusion___________Marianne Williamson is a bestselling author, political activist, and spiritual thought leader.For over three decades, she has been a leader in spiritual and religiously progressive circles. She is the author of 16 books, four of which have been #1 New York Times bestsellers.Williamson founded Project Angel Food, a non-profit organization that has delivered more than 16 million meals to ill and dying homebound patients since 1989. The group was created to help people suffering from the ravages of HIV/AIDS.She has also worked throughout her career on poverty, anti-hunger and racial reconciliation issues. In 2004, she co-founded The Peace Alliance and supports the creation of a U.S. Department of Peace. Williamson ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020 & 2024.Website: https://marianne.comNew Book "The Mystic Jesus": https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-mystic-jesus-marianne-williamson?variant=41001460138018Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mariannewilliamson/___________Know ThyselfInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/Website: https://www.knowthyself.oneClips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ4wglCWTJeWQC0exBalgKgListen to all episodes on Audio: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4FSiemtvZrWesGtO2MqTZ4?si=d389c8dee8fa4026Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/know-thyself/id1633725927André DuqumInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

We're at a moment where you're either headed down or headed up. You start with the realization that the controlling you, the negative you, the needy you, was a product of your experience here in a very hurt world. You can't just heal the symptom. You have to move into root cause. The idea of the Christ mind is like an undelatable file within the computer of your own consciousness. So now you're not talking about just something that happened 2,000 years ago. You're talking about what's happening in our lives right here.

right now. Jesus represents someone who has perfectly and completely actualized the divine consciousness which is potential within us all. None of that's hard, but life is complicated. So when you say, how do we do it? Well, two things come up for me. Number one, now between climate and wars, we're like, wow, how did we let this happen? But we have to remember this is all purposeful, and it's all taking us to who we need to be. Wiser, stronger, more capable, because we have a world to save. Marian, it's so good to see you again. It's so good to see you too.

Thank you for having me. Yeah, I think the topic of today's conversation is really important more now than ever. I know we were just talking a little bit before starting. And of course, before election times, I think things generally get heated. But as it relates to Jesus and the archetypal mystical understandings

instead of just the literal historical figure that he was, Can you make your distinction with that off the bat before we dive in further? You're talking about the distinction between the historical Jesus and the mystical? Yeah. Okay. So obviously, Jesus, the man lived 2,000 years ago, and there's nothing in the mystical conversation which minimizes that or in any way disrespects the more traditional notions

that emerge from a concentration on Jesus as the historical figure. That's not what this is about at all. What it's about is the fact that in all the great religious system, There is the mystical core. So in Judaism, they have the Kabbalah, in Islam, there is Sufism, and within Christianity, or not so much the religion of Christianity, but within the worldview that arises from a Christ-centered perspective, there has always been the Gnostic or the mystical tradition. And a lot of the ecclesiastic, more traditional church notions with dogma and doctrine, there's a minimizing of the Gnostics and the mystics.

Like, oh, well, they've just been a small tributary. But I remember when I read a book by Elaine Pagels called Gnostic Gospels, it was really mind-blowing for a lot of us because she makes the historical case for the fact that, no, this wasn't one major river and one tiny tributary. This was two major rivers. But all, you know, throughout history, the mystics have been either figuratively. or literally sort of run into the hills. So today the way the mystic, the Christian, or the Christ-centered mystic, and I won't say Christian, because this is not specifically about a religion. I think that's

the whole point of the mystical Christ, is that it is not only not tied to dogma or doctrine, it can't be monopolized by any one particular religion. So I think that there is a major historic rethinking going on on the planet at this time, and not just in terms of religion. and spirituality, politics, science, healing, food, agriculture, relationship, sex, sexuality, everything. It's like we're giving it a major rethink because clearly we are moving even, you know, when you have even like the Secretary General of the United Nations saying that we're heading in an unsustainable direction, something's going to have to evolve in a different way. And when we were children, we were taught that. We were taught that if a species is displaying collective habit patterns,

behavioral patterns, that are maladaptive for its survival, something's going to give. Either there will be an evolutionary turn in a different direction, or that species will go extinct. And I think people, whether we are really looking at this soberly or not, I think a lot of people certainly get that we're beyond dysfunctional. We are malfunctional at this point as a species. So what's the mutation, as it were? What is the display of a better way, which is what happens when a species mutates? Some member of the species demonstrates a different way, a different possibility. And then in the cases where there is an evolution of the species, the entire species begins to move in that direction. That's what the great religious figures are. That's what

the great avatars and great spiritual leaders are. They are people who have lived on the earth, and in some cases perhaps live now, and demonstrate a better way. So now you're not talking about just something that happened 2,000 years ago in somebody else's life. You're talking about what's happening in our lives, right here, right now. Because the mystic Christ is not a man who lived 2,000 years ago, but the spirit that has inhabited that man, but inhabits all of us. and we begin to see the story of his life, in terms of its archetypal significance, all religious scripture is code. It code.

And so you begin to see, just like when people talk about dreams, and they say, well, every character in the dream is an aspect of you. Every character of the Christ's story is an aspect of us, an aspect of the world. And that's really what the book is about, but that's what all mystic, you know, teachings, Christ-centered teachings are about. So nothing really new. It's just my take on Jesus, then, within the context of the course of miracles. I know so many of us have grown up in a form of Christianity or really churchianity. Churchianity.

Yes, the ecclesiastic religion, you know, and some of us wake up to how maybe that doesn't work for us anymore. And then oftentimes, unfortunately, we threw out the baby with the bathwater. In this case, it's the baby Jesus with the religious bathwater. I didn't mean to just end up in chaos and randomness here. Yeah. But, you know, it is a shame because Jesus Christ, both the archetypal energy in which he represents for us all as a North Star, but also him as like one of the most powerful human beings to have walked on this planet.

You know, I think there is many people now searching, whether it's through the Aseans in that beautiful lineage or the Gnostics and seeing and discovering more of who Jesus was, what he represented, and, you know, when we look at how Buddha wasn't a Buddhist and Jesus wasn't a Christian, they represent a level of alignment that we can attune to in our life that is now needed more than ever. And so I'm just curious, what do you think for those that have, you know, in many ways, thrown out the baby with the bathwater and are now discovering, you know, Jesus as a mystic. Yeah, what do you say to them?

Well, you described the situation perfectly, and people are realizing, wait a minute, as you said, didn't mean to throw away the baby with the bathwater. And that's why the popularity of books like A Course in Miracles. And A Course in Miracles, once again, no monopoly on truth here, not even a monopoly on introduction and opening to the Christ-centered worldview. But it is one way. And in reading the book, in doing the daily lessons, we literally retrain our attitudinal muscles. The idea here is that Jesus represents someone who has perfectly and completely actualized the divine consciousness which is potential within us all.

In that sense, he becomes what is called in the course of miracles, an evolutionary elder brother. An evolutionary elder brother. I love that. And he says on the course, I don't have anything you don't have. The difference between us is I don't have anything else. I am in a state which is only potential in you. So you start with that. You start with the realization that the neurotic you, the controlling you, the negative you, the needy you, the victim you, the whatever your character defects or posture or imposter self might be is a personality as a persona that was a product of your. experience here in a very hurt world, in a world that is dominated by a thought system based on

fear, a sense that we're separate from each other, a sense that we're alone here, a sense that the world is random, the experience of chaos, the woundings of the world. And so we do what we can to cope with that, but a lot of our coping mechanisms are actually, they actually make things worse. Because in our hurt, we develop those personality characteristics that maybe the unlawful. mine master would look at you and go, oh, you must be wounded, but most people would look at you and just go, you're a jerk or you're dysfunctional, or I don't want to be around you or whatever. Once we realize that all of that is a product of our deep, seated core beliefs and thoughts about ourselves and others, then we know that we have to heal on that causal level.

You can't just heal the symptom, even the symptoms of your own personality. You have to move into root cause. The idea of the Christ mind, the idea of that which Jesus actualized, is like an undelatable file within the computer of your own consciousness. It's not something you need to create. It's something that God created. It's in all of us. And because God created it, it's unalterable and eternal.

The image I used in the book is when Michelangelo was asked, how do you create a sculpture? And he said, I go to the quarry and I see these big pieces of marble. And in my mind, God has already created the Pieta, the David, the Moses. My job, he said, is to get rid of all the excess marble that surrounds the statue that God has already made. The Christ mind, the idea of the Christ's mind is where you take the notion, you know, Carl Jung said, if you go deep enough into your mind and deep enough into mind, there is mental imagery, what he called archetypes, that we all share. the idea of the Christ mind from a metaphysical perspective,

you take it one step further, that if you go deep enough into your mind and deep enough into mind, we share the same mind. And that's really the esoteric meaning of the idea that there's only one begotten son. Not that Jesus is the only one, but that we're all it, we are all one. When you realize we are all one, the idea of the Christ's mind is not only, is there no place where I stop and you start, But that which is the perfect Christ's mind is completely innocent and completely loving

and completely invulnerable to lovelessness or imperfection. And all the problems of the world come from our identifying with this false world rather than the real world. So the course of miracle says that enlightenment is a shift in self-perception from body identification to spirit identification. Now, none of that's hard, but it's different. It's simple, but life is complicated. So when you say, how do we do it? Well, two things come up for me. Number one is there's so much for us to embrace about the power of every morning. Because when you wake up in the morning and you go directly to social media, directly to the news, directly to the stuff of the world, it's like you're just saying to the world

and to the worst aspects of the world, come on, eat me alive, take my nervous system, make me crazy, come on, do it. And especially like before political campaign and stuff, we're all just like this. And every religious tradition I've ever read about talks about the power of the morning to calm, whether it's the lessons of the course,

transcendental meditation, some mindfulness exercise, Buddhist, Kabbalistic, whatever, to align the nervous system with the truths of who we are, the course of miracle says even five minutes in the morning will guarantee that the spirit will be in charge of your thought forms throughout the day. It doesn't mean you're going to be an enlightened master, but it means that the chances of you're really falling off this spiritual wagon, saying something, doing something, sending an email, writing a tweet,

you're going to go, oh, why do I do that? Your chances are much less. and also the chances are much greater that you'll catch yourself when you do and you can atone and make amends. The second thing is to recognize that everything we go through in life is part of what the Course of Miracles calls a highly individualized curriculum. Everyone we meet, every situation we're in is perfect for what we can learn that moment that day.

Are you showing up in your best? Are you showing up with a give mentality or get mentality? is your heart open or is your heart closed? Are you there in support of others? Are you only thinking about yourself? And it's about using every experience to train our attitudinal muscles. There is physical gravity. You go to the gym because at a certain age,

if you're not holding those muscles up, gravity is bringing them down. But there's emotional psychological gravity too. If we're not exercising with accumulated repetitions of positivity and graciousness and forgiveness and mercy and personal responsibility, then we're headed down to anger, to cynicism, to anxiety, to depression. And that's really where we are right now. We're at a moment where you're either headed down or headed up. We've had this myth of neutrality, but there's really no such thing as a neutral thought.

There's no such thing as a neutral life. Either our energy is being sucked into this maelstrom that's at this point a downward spiral. And you see it all around us. Institutions crumbling, people's relationships, how people feel about themselves. Or you're part of this evolutionary spiraling up that is also happening, that we're all, you know, and the kind of people who would be listening to your podcast feel part of and want to be part of. These two simultaneous phenomenon happening at the same time. Part of taking responsibility for those that want to go on that upward spiral trajectory

is deconditioning all these programs that we have embedded in society, culture, historical, parental. And so I want to keep unpacking the differences between some of the literal interpretations and contrasting that to the archetypal, metaphorical, and just getting us closer to reality. One of the things that has been weaponized by the church is this concept of heaven and hell. And I think the more that you kind of put aside belief in general and dogmatic ways of thinking, you see that these are realities that people are experiencing every day here on earth, putting aside what happens after we die. And so much of your work, of course, and miracles, many teachers have talked about how hell is separation from God,

just like fear is separation from love. And so what is heaven and hell in the mystical understanding as how it relates to this reality? That heaven is neither a condition nor a place. It's an awareness of our oneness. And it's not someplace you go after you die. It's somewhere you go pretty much right after the thought you thought, which was a reflection of an awareness of oneness. Same with hell. It's not about after you die.

It's the anxiety, fear, pain, angst, depression, that was, you know, we feel as a product of thought, as you said, that is separated from love. And so it's not after we die. It's right after we thought the last thought that we think. And the course of miracle says that because all minds are joined, every thought we think takes not only ourselves, but everyone around us straight to heaven, straight to hell. If you are thinking thoughts of love and trying your best to show up, it has a ripple effect. Everybody around you can feel it, be part of it, feel that we're sharing, a field here, if you introduce into that field, your own stuff, your own unloving stuff, people can feel that as well.

And so we're all on this together, whether we recognize that we're in it together or not. The mystical issue in terms of Jesus, in terms of God, is, like you were talking about how dogma can be weaponized, the dogma that you referred to says, okay, if you get it wrong, i.e. sin, then God will send you to hell. Well, this is the exact flip, you know, this is the opposite of that. It is the idea that, first of all, you can't sin because God created you perfect, and the real you is only capable of love. You can, however, and often do where human beings make mistakes and sometimes big mistakes. But God doesn't see it as a sin that he wants to punish. God sees it as a mistake. an error that the Holy Spirit, that connecting link between God and us, is here to correct.

So hell isn't where God sends you because you did something terrible. Hell is what God saves you from. Hell is what you sent yourself to with your own wrong-minded thinking, thinking that was separated from love, which is separated from God, which is the same thing. And God is that which delivers you. So to say Jesus is your savior, for instance, another one weaponized. Okay. From a mystical perspective, the only thing to be saved from is our constant temptation to think without love

because we've been trained on this earth in a mindset from the time we're very young. We think that unnatural thoughts feel natural to us. Natural thinking feels unnatural to us. It is unnatural the way we accuse, the way we judge, the way we attack. And we're living in a very mean-spirited moment. Social media, it's unbelievable and canceling each other and accusing one another and thinking the worst. It's unbelievable. So that is not the thinking of love.

That is not the thinking of God. So the idea that Jesus, quote, unquote, saves, the only thing to be saved from is our own negative thinking. The only thing to be saved from is our own insanity. and Jesus being that fully actualized elder brother, we're taught, and we're also taught in the course that he's not the only one. But him having achieved that full actualization of our divine mind has been authorized by God. Should we request it?

Because if we don't request it, it's a violation of our free will. But we're taught that he has the power, should you request it? And the court says he will respond fully to your slightest invitation. He has become one with the Holy Spirit or the connecting bridge between us and the mind of God. And to call on one is to call on the other. And if you say, I'm angry, I'm upset, I'm, I'm, ugh. But I'm willing not to be. That prayer is the medium of that miracle.

I'm willing not to be. I know this is my own thinking, but I am so triggered and I'm so wounded. And the evidence of the world tells me that this person messed with me. I am willing to see this differently. And then it begins. It could be a book that falls at your feet, something a friend says, you turn on TV, you turn on something, and somebody says something.

Often, I'm always fascinated about how sometimes it's somebody who's the last person you would think of that was going to be just dropping this truth bomb. They didn't even know that they were speaking to just what you needed to hear. and then if you can quiet your mind, it so increases your ability to hear. Blaise Pascal, who is a French philosopher who lived centuries ago, said that every problem in the world stems for man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

Your home and your studio, obviously you were well aware of this. your home and your studio are set up to support your aesthetic, your furniture, everything about it, supports the alignment of the nervous system with the best of who we are. The world today is cacophonous. It's so hard to find harmony within that. And there is in both Judaism and in Christianity the phrase the small still voice within. The ego speaks first and the ego speaks loudest and it's yelling at us all the time. And if we don't cultivate that inner silence, just like if I go to the gym, it's to work my muscle so that I can move,

you go into meditation and prayer to work your attitudinal muscles so that you can be non-reactive and still and knowing and loving, which is much easier to do when the people around you are loving and what the ego will always be doing. There's a voice in your head and a voice from other people is trying to do. to bait you. That's where the rubber meets the road. In your book, The Mystic Jesus, one quote that I liked was, you said, the only thing to be saved from is our own misguided belief that we are separate, and alone in a random and meaningless universe for that is the source of all fear. I want to talk a little bit about this illusion of separation because it does serve a useful purpose,

meaning without the perception of individuality, life, the universe, God, doesn't get to go on this data collection process of differentiating itself so much so. And it also, you imagine God floating in the universe alone, now differentiating itself into all of these different beings, forgetting who we are, right? We have this ego that you said is the loudest and the first to speak usually, right? And so much of the journey is then going to discovering who we are beneath that. And so what purpose do you see separation is as it pertains to, like, functioning in reality? Well, there are two levels of separation.

There's no purpose in a sense of spiritual separation. If I have a sense of our spiritual unity, it doesn't mean I've lost my brain cells. It doesn't mean I don't realize that you're over there and I'm over here. It doesn't mean that I don't appreciate the three dimensions of it all. It doesn't mean I don't appreciate that you're a man and I'm a woman and that you've got your experience and I've got mine and you've collected your data, as you said, and I've collected mine

and how cool that we can share it. I get that. I don't become stupid when I realize our spiritual wonder. The image that the course uses that I think is very, for me, very psychologically illuminating is the image of where it says the course, the course says you're like a sunbeam in the sun thinking you're separate from other sunbeams and you are like a wave in the ocean thinking you are separate from other waves. So think about the psychological difference.

If you're a wave in the ocean, think about the psychological difference of thinking, I'm just one wave. Surrounded by all that water, how could I not live in constant fear that I'm going to be annihilated? Some other waves are going to be bigger. I'm not even going to exist. Versus, I'm one with all the other waves.

One with the ocean. It moves. I move. I move. I move. It moves. I'm completely safe here. I'm one with the ocean. That's the difference. So, you know, I think there's so many ways that we talk about how if you accept the spiritual truth, somehow you'll become stupid.

I think that you are more comfortable in the body and more purposeful within the body when you know you're not your body, when you know that this is a suit of clothes that we wear for a while. And it's a priceless suit of clothes. And this three-dimensional drama is magnificent. And let me tell you something. You get that the more and more, the older you get.

Because you have more and more of a sense. I'm not going to be on this island for a moment. forever. Right? So it's magnificent. But knowing that it is not the eternal truth, freeze you. The course of miracle says, physical birth is not the beginning of your life, but a continuation of your life. Physical death is not the end of your life, but a continuation of your life. So it doesn't mean you don't appreciate this and enjoy this. It means actually counterintuitively you do so with greater freedom and with greater comfort. You sit within your body more comfortably when you know you're not your body. And then also, you realize all the ways in which the body is programmed. You know,

the Holy Spirit, I think, speaks to us through our subconscious mind. Your body is programmed to get it right on this planet. We know how to do it. Yeah, it's like the referencing our first innocence. when you're born, you see a six-month-year-old baby and see the primordial purity that's just in there, right? And then we go and we live life and we have our conditioning and the returning to Christ is the second innocence we discover. And I think that there's something really unique and unmatched through the really challenging pivotal moments of redefining ourselves in our own personal Armageddon, I've heard you refer to, and our own crucifixion and resurrection. There's something unique in what it enlocks in all of us individually and wisdom we can share and grace we can give to others.

So what do you feel is the mystical understanding of the crucifixion and resurrection? What you just said is so interesting because you refer to what would be the psychological significance of the three days between the crucifixion and the resurrection. So the crucifixion metaphysically is the energy pattern by which Fear or ego seeks to fuck you up, whether it's in your own mind, sabotaging, undermining you, like the things you say, I can't believe I was so stupid, or other people tripping you up, attacking you or whatever. Or it could be, you know, for some people, it's the experience of your divorce, it's experience

of illness, it's experience of getting sober, it's experience of grieving a loved one. it's the things that happen on this earth that tempt us to stuck in over-identification with what's happening in the world, failing to recognize the larger peace and love that's available to us no matter what. The consciousness that we have while in the midst of the crucifixion, notice once again with the story of Jesus, so there's somebody crucified to his left, crucified to his right, but we're not taught that they resurrected. The purity of his mind, so the course in miracle says, miracles occur naturally as expressions of love, that in the presence of love, the universe works like a GPS.

You take a wrong turn, away from love, the universe automatically recalibrates your roots. So there's the consciousness of love. I will continue to have faith. I will continue to try to love that person no matter what they did. I will atone from my mistakes. I will forgive others for theirs. I will really try to work this. I will really try to work that this two shall pass.

I will really try to take responsibility. I will really try to do all the inner work that at this point, we all pretty much intellectually know it's the work to be done. Then the body goes into the tomb. And that tomb, my friend and Sandy calls it tomb time. You're crying. You're grieving. The time to be heartbroken.

is when your heart is breaking. You're crying, you're processing, you're doing your work, you're in that darkened tomb space. And then three days later, the symbolic three days, just like the symbolic 40 years in the Old Testament, the women come to retrieve the body. And there are angels, i.e. thoughts of God in the mystical tradition, and they say to her, to them, to the women,

he's not here. he's risen. What that means, along with what you were saying, you're not even the same person. Your molecular structure is different. You're not triggered by the same things. You're healed of things you didn't used to be healed of. You're ready for life in a different way. You are transformed as a person.

That's what resurrection is. Resurrection is the return to sane thinking. That's what the course of miracles is, to return to your right mind. And when you've returned to your right mind, the detritus of the wrong-minded, neurotic, pathological stuff, it just falls away. It's like in the presence of that light of understanding who you are and understanding who other people are, the darkness falls away. And that's the twice born. And that's the resurrection. And that is, you were mentioning the Armageddon before, that has tremendous collective applicability.

well. Yeah, I just, whether you call it the dark night of the soul or the fear of the crucifixion, it just seems like, you know, many people that I've, you know, supported or talked to that have been through like really immense, huge, deep moments of depression or loss of someone, there is the fear of entering the darkness and not knowing if we'll make it out on the other side, the real actuality of an ego death, you know? And on the same token's other side of the coin, there is the fear of the light that's on the other side of it and that we have within us. And you speak to this so powerfully as well. So for those that are experiencing or they anticipate one day will be coming their own personal dark night, you know,

and they have the fear of the ego death and the power of their own light. What do you save them? Well, you're saying really important stuff there. When you said we're afraid of the darkness, afraid of going into the darkness because we're afraid we'll never get out. What we should be afraid of is not going into it when it's time to go into it. And that's how much damage these psychological myths are that dominate the modern world. Happy, be happy, be happy, this cheap yellow smiley face. That's what's dysfunctional. You know, when I was going through something very difficult, I called my friend Mary Morrissey.

I don't know if you've ever met Mary. She's this incredible minister and teacher. and she was talking to me about how she had gone through something very difficult and just would walk on the beach and she was reading St. John's Dark Night of the Soul. And the thing about the Dark Night of the Soul, she said is number one. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. And that when you allow yourself to go through the Dark Night of the Soul, you actually come to embrace it

because you come to recognize aspects of yourself that you didn't even know. know we're there. So this idea that we have, once again, it's a big lie that's been promulgated in our society, that there's something wrong about being sad. Sometimes there are things to be sad about. I've been saying in my lectures for years, looking at the conditions of the world, if you're not depressed about that, who are you? How superficial you must be if you're not crying about some of what's going on. Sometimes psychological and emotional pain are like physical pain.

They're necessary. They're a message. They are not a dysfunctional response, but a functional response. You know, my friend David Kessler, who does all the grief work, he called me one day. He said, did you see that article in the New York Times? I said, yeah, I know the one you mean. It was this

absurd article about how long you should cry after someone you love died. And if it's up to this point, These self-described wise men said, now if it's that long, it's normal. If it's not, you should go on medication. It's like, who are these people to say

how long someone's processing should be? I mean, if we're talking about years, then obviously there's something to look at there. But that's not what it was saying. And the idea of moving into the cave, moving into the tomb. I used to say in my grief support groups, this is a grief support group,

not a grief denial group. You know, I've heard people say, you know, somebody will call somebody up and say, your mother died two months ago, aren't you ready? Can't we just go to the movies now? That's what's sick, right? So I think that this allowing oneself, the grander.

I wrote a book called Tears to Triumph. And at the beginning of the book, I put a quote from Roca, let me not squander the hour of my pain. It's powerful. Let me not squander. There are things I'm learning here. I know I've been through a lot in my life,

and those are sacred times too. Those are sacred times too. It feels in those moments, there's an immense opportunity unlike any other time to unravel some jewels within yourself. And sometimes they're painful. It's painful getting there. Yeah, if you only hadn't been so stupid. Yeah, if you only had prayed about that one.

Yeah, if you only hadn't acted so quickly. If you only hadn't only been thinking about yourself. Yeah, if you only hadn't behaved so recklessly or irresponsibly, yeah. Maybe if you had thought more about yourself, maybe you'd have more faith. in yourself. Maybe if you had taken the whole project more seriously. Yeah, you get to jewels on the other side of it. In AA, they say every problem comes bearing its own solution, but it comes bearing its own solution in that. It will ultimately take you to realizing the person that you had chosen not to be. And even when other people did it to you, you know,

the course of miracle says, you have to take 100% responsibility for your. experience. And if you don't, the price you will pay is that you can't change it. So sometimes you'll feel like, look, this was 90% their stuff. Well, we're going to have to look at the 10% that's yours. Because, and I've seen this so often in my life, yeah, they did it to you, Marianne, but you let them in the room. You let them, what were you doing, letting that person anywhere near this project? It's such a fine line between taking responsibility and furthering the guilt cycle. Interesting.

Okay, so that's the issue of remorse and regret. So sometimes when people say, oh, don't feel bad. No, no, no, no, no. You have to let yourself feel bad. Only a psychopath, only a sociopath feels no remorse and no regret. Right. But the issue is the ego mind wants you to hold on to it and just bludgeon yourself, bludgeon yourself.

Really, there's, you want to feel it, as the course of miracle says, look at the crucifixion, but do not dwell on it. And you can feel it. You can feel when, okay, this is processing it, this is indulging it. Yeah. This is allowing myself to experience it, processing, this is spewing it. So if you become conscious of the seasons of your own life and despair, you also know, okay, and now it's time. Get up, take what you learned, and be a better person now.

Yeah, it's a really powerful reminder. being also coupled with the grace of the gray area where it's not as easily clear if we should stay in the muck or it's time to get up and out. It's part of the messy human process. But the principle of atonement is a very important thing that people realize and the power of taking responsibility and feeling the feelings.

An individual, like you said, without any empathy or feeling of remorse is a sociopath, right? So we need to acknowledge where we've been, where we've missed. But what is atonement? What does that mean and how it's a principle really for spiritual growth? It's where you admit, I got it wrong, I did it wrong. So the Catholics have confession as they go along.

The Jews have one holy list of the year, Yom Kippur. And Alcoholics Anonymous, you admit the exact nature of your character defects. It's where you go back to the moment. And you say, I did it. I did it. I did it. do that. I didn't do that, whatever it was. And you realize that even though you chose wrongly, you admit you chose wrongly, but from a miraculous and a miracle-minded perspective, you know in this

moment I can choose again. And I can in my moment now get, I wasn't prayerful, I wasn't responsible. This did not, that decision of what I said or what I did or what I didn't do did not emerge from the holiness in me, the wholeness in me, the love in me, the truth in me. And then from a mystical perspective, you give it to God now and say, I choose again. And then what I love is that then the course says, I will not feel guilty for the Holy Spirit will undo all consequences of my wrong decision if I will let him. And I choose to let him by allowing him to decide for God for me.

might not be the same situation might not be the same people might not be the same location but something will come around in your life and you'll realize I'm getting the chance to get it right where I got it wrong before and things will be undone in kind of amazing ways

how do you perceive the difference between thinking like the Holy Spirit and Father are like these kind of external amorphous things that grant us grace and that they'll transmute things for us versus like these are energies realities within our self.

Well yeah, even your body language you pointed up. The question of miracles says one day you will realize there is nothing outside yourself. It's all mind. It's all aspects of mind. So that's once again the weaponized doctrine and dogma is there's something outside yourself judging you.

No, there's just something the mind of love that loves you no matter what. And if you made a mistake, you know, beginning to show mercy to yourself is no different than showing mercy to others. You got it wrong. Life's heart. It was complicated. And it's blasphemous to just keep bludgeoning ourselves. Just like it's blasphemous to keep judging others.

And also it's delaying the time. That's what God really wants from you. Get out there and be better next time. Mm-hmm. You know? Yeah. As it relates to the moments where it's difficult to do that, you know, like Joseph, Campbell's, the cave you fear to enter holes, the treasure you seek, just rings so resonant

with me. And what I try and my intention also with like this podcast and platform is to help and remind people to take responsibility for their life. It's like a really big theme. In Romans 12, too, I believe it's do not be conformed by the pattern of this world, but transform by the renewing of your mind. And I talk about that in the Mystic Jesus. I think I quote that one, the renewal of your mind. And also, I think getting older, you know, you just take so much for granted when you're younger. And when you're older and you look back and you realize, I didn't realize I didn't take my life seriously enough or I didn't take other people's lives seriously enough. I didn't take that relationship seriously enough. Other people's relationships seriously enough.

And look at the state of the world. You know, I've said to people who would have thought we'd be nostalgic from the 1970, You know, we just had no idea now between climate and wars and militarism and our political system and fascism and corruption. We're like, wow, how did we let this happen? We know how we let this happen. We were not deep. We surrendered our best thinking, our deeper, our deeper, seriousness about life.

But it's not the, it's not the, it's not midnight yet. It's the 11th hour and I think there's a sense of urgency. I think so much of what you and I are talking about here today, once again, we've all read the same books, we've all listened to the same tapes. We get it. We get it up here. The Courts and Miracle says that enlightenment begins as an abstract concept and then begins the journey without distance from the head to the heart.

There is what we know, the prince of life. that we know, and I think even you and me having this conversation today, I'm sure there are a lot of people for whom nothing we're talking about is new information, but rather we're having these conversations to be able to embrace more deeply and experience more deeply the concepts that by now most of us already know. It's living, living it, especially we all have our blind spots. And so your life experience is not going to come around to honor your comfort zones. It's going to come around to bust your comfort zones to make obvious to you your blind spot.

So I think it feels hard for so many people right now because everybody's going through their little piece of the crucified world. But we have to remember this is all purposeful and it's all taking us to who we need to be because we need to develop the characterological aspect of self to endure these times and to transform these times. Everything happening is a reflection of who we have been. So if we don't like what's happening, we have to become someone other than who we have been, the renewal of the mind to know that we were conforming to the patterns of the

world and this is what we got. Okay? Have a renewal of the mind be different now. Jesus is one portal. There are different names on it, but you find that portal and emerge, wiser, stronger, more capable because we have a world to save. The Coorsi of Miracle says that the people who've lived on this earth, this is amazing to me, it says that the people who've lived on the earth who've achieved the most, have achieved, like think about the people who have achieved the most, right, have achieved a fraction of what all of us are capable of. That's how early this is in our evolutionary journey, right? Isn't that just mine by, that was just far goes my mind? Who was it, George Elliott? Who says it's never too late to become who you might have been?

I love that. And after doing over 100 podcasts, I'm sure I'll continue to do hundreds of more. there's so many of these themes that come up that are similar or the same. That's one truth spoken in many different ways. Yeah, and I think just the nature of the human developmental journey is that awareness is like a spiral staircase, meaning we revisit core neuroses and patterns

hopefully with greater levels of understanding and skill. The Eastern philosophies would say it's not like a spiral, that it is a spiral. It's only the Western mind that has this linear time thing. And the Eastern mind says, no, it's a spiral, which is a much, I think, wise, a more profound way of seeing time. So much of what I think we all can understand of Jesus being an unconditionally loving being. And if you're going to, I guess, correlate enlightenment with some sort of embodiment of unconditional love,

there are many times where experiencing conditional love, like experiencing who we're not internally, externally, is like a guiding force to realizing who we are. And so experiencing conditional love can help us realize, no, this is actually unconditional love is this other thing. And I would just like to ask you personally, I guess, for your own life and journey. And the journey of approaching more unconditional love as like a day-to-day waking, living consciousness.

What have you found in your own personal journey has been like the most difficult parts of yourself to love. Difficult parts of myself to love? Well, I think you come to understand about yourself as well as other people. Where you're bad is not where you're bad, it's where you're wounded.

And so there might be aspects of self that we don't want to look at because we think, well, if that's true about me, it's unbad. And then you realize I would have had to have been very hurt in my life to have developed that as a coping mechanism.

I grew up. a generation of women who had to claw our way into certain rooms in ways that younger women don't. The door just opens for them now because every generation was served by the generation before. So I know differently than a lot of women I know. We grew fangs instead of fingernails instead of fingernails. And then when the door opened easily, we grew things instead of fingernails. And then when the door opened, enough, we were still, it's almost like we said, okay, I can take my claws off now, but they had become hardened. And so I developed hardened parts of my personality that didn't have to be hard. But I saw where to come from, and I saw a lot of it as a generational thing. And a woman

pays such a price for this, because if you're a man, certain aspects of personality are seen so much differently. And there's so much misogyny and all that, so much ancient, almost witch burning and all that. That's a whole other topic, but a really big thing for women, let me tell you. Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely more societally rewarded

or seen as acceptable for a man to be callous and tough and strong and all those things. Whether or not, you know, they will still suffer that in a different way, I suppose, as well. Well, I think it differently than you just said, because I think it's just masculine. I don't think any of us should suffer from it. I don't think any of us should suffer from, I mean, look, when it comes over into impatience or demanding qualities or, you know, I'm just not going to take this or something, yes,

obviously we can all work on our style. But we have to be really careful today, because everybody's, become so precious that nobody has permission to say this is how it needs to be yeah yeah suppose you know if there is anything that's like a toxic masculinity there's toxic femininity as well you know there there is that boundary setting providership energy that the masculinity is to bring in the book uh this is the difference between mary and jesus jesus is the divine masculine you know we've enough with the toxic masculinity in a way. We're so tired enough with a constant analysis. You can't get to the light by constantly analyzing the darkness. We have become, you know, we talk so much about toxic masculinity.

I think that's why that show, nobody wants this, is so popular right now because there's a man, he's hot, he's cool, but he's also so good. And everybody is so hungry for that right now. Can we talk about doing it right? Can we talk about divine masculine in men as well as women? I was just thinking that thing on the Internet. And I don't know if it's real estate the business meeting where the boss, it's a Zoom, and the boss says to a woman who's in the meeting, hey, you're going to have to come on, and I don't know if it stays.

Probably somebody's laughing at me right now, Marianne at stage. But whatever it is, it's true. It's like Jack Kerouac said it's true, even if it didn't happen. So there are two people at this business meeting and the boss and this one woman. And he says, hey, you're going to have to come on, you know, turn your video on. And she says, I can't. I'm at a tanning salon. And he says, no, no, no, no, no.

You need to be at this meeting. And she starts talking about how she doesn't want to be and whatever. And he says, no, it's in the rules of the company that you have to be here or whatever. He says, I have said this to you several times. I'm tired of this, I'm going to at her, whatever. And she says, you do that, and I'll say, you attacked me. No, he told her what the rules are. Yeah.

So, you know, this idea that, you're attacking me. Yeah. No, I didn't attack you. I told you. I mean, it is very true that the world is starving for healthy, conscious, divine masculine leadership. Yeah. Absolutely.

And, you know, I think so much, I mean, you can't ignore the interplay of both polarities and how they both affect each other, right? Like how there is not a lot of healthy conscious men because of the mothers, right? And because of the environment they grew up in as well and because of their fathers. And it's like all intertwined, I feel like so strongly. And I've been doing more men's work recently, you know, like helping like men's groups and in my own. And there is a deep call that I at least notice within the men to really show up as best. as they can as a conscious leader for their self, for their family community in the world.

And there have been people throughout history that are great examples of that, Jesus being one. And I think the world absolutely needs more of them right now. Not only that, I think that there's been this craziness in the culture of making men wrong for being masculine. I see a lot of stuff that, you know, no, he's just being a man. And he's, you know, I think Pat Allen's work is really amazing. And she talks about in any system, there's the masculine and the feminine, and within any human being, there's the masculine and the feminine. And within every relationship, there's the masculine and the feminine. It has nothing to do with sex or sexuality.

And what I've learned, when I'm at work, let's say I'm at a lecture, okay, I'm the masculine element and the feminine element is the audience. It wouldn't be happening if I weren't there. It wouldn't be happening if they weren't there. But the social contract is, and that's what you're here for, what do I think? But if I'm in that same mentality later at night with a lover, let's say, after the talk, that same mentality would not work because I'm a heterosexual woman and I want to be feminine in the relationship. That's not that my thoughts don't matter, but it's a different. sense of where you're coming from when you are more surrendered to the leadership of someone.

Not that you, not that, you know, you don't, you'd let somebody, you know, lead you off a bridge. Right. But that you realize somebody gets to be the masculine partner in this moment. Yeah, that fluidity of identity being what's needed in a moment. And not who we were in a previous one. the chorus says that human behavior can be boiled down as either love or a call for love. Yeah, that's what the course says. The course says that we should interpret all human behavior as either love or a call for love.

So if someone is behaving unkindly towards me, the course of miracle says that in that moment, it's the wires got crossed. They don't know how to love me, show me love in that moment and get their needs met. They fell asleep to who I am. So the course of miracle says, forgiveness is when I realize, yes, I can base my sense of this relationship on the evidence of my senses. What they just said to me, what I heard them say, the look on their face, the tone in their voice, I can do that. But the court says you are erred to the laws that prevail within the world you identify with. So if I think what you did to me was unkind, and that's my perception of it, then I will experience it as uncons.

kind. Forgiveness is where I am willing to extend my perception beyond what my physical sense is perceived to what my heart knows to be true, which is you love me and in that moment you fell asleep to who I am. And if I base my perception of you on what you're doing, then I'm falling asleep to who you are and I'm falling asleep to who I am. If I'm willing to just remain awake to who you are for my own sake, then that is a miraculous corrective device right there.

It doesn't mean I'm necessarily supposed to continue in any kind of relationship with you necessarily, have lunch with you, do business with you, but it means I don't have to remain on that wheel of suffering of the constant back and forth between us. I think it's a really useful framework just for living life when we experience resistance. in our life, which is inevitable to a degree, we're going to be able to use that perception as like how I'm interacting in the situation, am I calling for love or am I coming from love? And same for somebody else. Is there a subtle request or validation that they need from love or are they acting from

love? And I've heard you speak to forgiveness, which you mentioned as from the, at least perspective of the true self is like the last delusion in terms of. course, America says forgiveness is an illusion, but it's the illusion that leads beyond illusion. It's the illusion that leads beyond illusion. Yeah, yeah. Because it's an illusion because it's still something we're going through in this world, but it takes us into the world beyond this world, which is beyond concept. But let's talk about Jesus in terms of that, okay? So you and I might have lunch, and I tell you, you know, I'm really, I'm really pissed because such and such happened.

And you might look at me and go, you're bigger than this. Come on, give it up. Come on. And I go, thank you for saying that. That's exactly what I needed. But it might be something where it's not so simple. It's just lighten up. It was a serious wound. It was a serious betrayal.

It was a serious undermining. It was a serious theft. It was a serious hurt. Okay? But the principle is the same. I have to be willing to get off that cross. I have to be willing to see it differently. So if it's such a trigger or a wound that it's like,

I can't do it myself, you say to Jesus. Okay. Now, I know you're all perfect and stuff and like you're completely actualized and pure perception. And I know that miracles occur when the mind is purified. I'm not there. Okay. I think what she did to me or what he did to me, blah, blah, blah. But I'm willing to see it as you did. So he says in the course, my mind joined with your mind can shine away the ego. So you say to Jesus, all right, I'm willing. I'm willing. I'm willing. to see her the way you see her, to see him, to hear him, to experience this on the other side in the resurrected state. So then Jesus is over here, and Jesus is, okay, great. And then he looks at the person and he goes, I don't know, I like her.

He's like, I like her. And you go, well, I'd be willing to like her. And he says, allow me in. Allow me in. And there's a story. I wrote it in one of my other books, but to me, many years ago, and I think it was in the 1980s. But I remember it when it was

because I was getting acrylic fingernails. And there was a woman who came to my lectures and she did these acrylic fingernails and I would go to her house. I went there one day and she had some girlfriends there. And they were all talking and I didn't know these people. I'm just having my nails done and these women are talking

and there's this one woman. who when she speaks is like fingernails on a blackboard for me. It sounded so affected to me. And so I think that what you should do, I don't even know. I don't remember the specifics, but I remember that I had wild judgment on the tone of this woman's voice. Okay. But I also realized the irony that here this woman,

who is working on my fingernails, thinks I'm beyond that, you know? She probably has no idea what I'm thinking. So I do, you know, I've learned a long time ago. If I practice what I preach, my life works well. And I said, God, I'm willing to see her differently. That's the course says the moment of power. Salvation, changing of your mind begins when you consider the possibility. There might be a better way.

I'm willing to see this differently. Just in my heart, silence. I don't know if it was two minutes later, three minutes later, five minutes later. One of the people said to the woman whose voice I had such judgment on, is it true that they let your father out of jail? Now, I'm just listening. And it was, I come to understand, one of those cases like you see on television

where a man had two children, one of whom was this young woman, and he literally brought them up in a dungeon, literally. They did not know how to talk. It was one of those really horrible situations. She was, what, I don't know, 18, 20, something like that. By the time someone rescued them, she had had to learn how to talk. Her tone of voice didn't change.

I changed. Ten minutes before, I was like, what's with this chick? My God. To such admiration for her bravery, for her bravery, for her effort? She didn't change. I changed. By definition, when you're judging someone, the courts in miracle says you're wrong even if you're right.

You don't see the whole thing. And so the court says, it is the purpose of your life to learn to think as God thinks. What are you thinking God would not be thinking about that person? What is God thinking that you're not thinking about that person? And if you can't see, ask. It's such a powerful story. I take that example that you just gave and you can put that and project that understanding

to everything, every single person that you encounter in life. You look at the dominoes from a thousand ancestors back and every single behavior and action and thought and word up into the moment of anyone's life that cultivated them to be who they are, how they think, how they act, then you would have perfect understanding as to why they are transgressing you or other people in the way they are. course, people need to be held accountable for their actions. And at the same token, you can't judge and understand something at the same time. Absolutely. And so... The course of Miracle says, you think you need to understand someone to judge whether or not,

decide whether or not they're worthy of your love. But I tell you, until you love them, you can't understand them. So if we had Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in a room for 24 hours and the space was created, where they felt perfect permission, just tell us the story of of their lives. We would be deeply in love with both of them by the end of the day. Our politics might not have changed. We still have strong feelings

about who should exercise the leverages of power. And I think that's what's so much worse today. Nobody gives anybody the benefit of the doubt today. And that has tremendous repercussions in terms of our collective decision-making, political. I think another useful tool that I found, I think it was in my conversation with Dr. John D. Martini in terms of talking about human behavior and values and judgment in particular. Like when you judge anything that somebody does to reflect on where you've exhibited that behavior or thought to varying degrees in your own life, it diffuses the judgment immediately, I feel like.

I've had that so much with young women. Oh, look at how that outfit she's. got on and oh my god the way she's throwing her sexuality around me. Marianne, think back a few years. Those women are nothing compared to who you were. So, you know, it's like getting older really does that one. It's like, oops, I forgot a few years back. Yeah.

Yeah, it's so funny how smaller bandwidth can be for accepting things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It wasn't just me. I was much worth. You've done so much amazing work. over your career, spreading these messages of love and reminders of our own power and light. What do you feel like if you had to boil down from your previous 16 books and all the seminars and teachings you've been doing, what do you boil down to your core message?

Try to forgive the whole thing. You know, I don't see it was my message. I write about great religious and spiritual traditions and themes. universal themes, and they do come down to love one another. And then life works. And when we don't, it doesn't. Once again, I think when he says on the course, my way is not difficult, it's just different.

Simple enough, but life is complicated. When you hear God cannot do for us what he cannot do through us, how does that change in your life? It means you're responsible. You know, it's like you can't say, dear God, I'm going to stay with this dysfunctional behavior, but I don't want to experience all the craziness that results from it. No, he's not going to, he set up the law of cause and effect for your protection. And he's not going to change it.

Once God sets up a law, it's nothing God creates is changeable. So every thought has a cause, every action has a reaction. So I can't say, God, make this wonderful, unless I'm willing to say, God, show me my part in this. I am willing to change on the level of cause. And that's what he says. Jesus says, in the course, he says, I can't, you know, just change the effects in your life. But if you will allow me to and if you will request it so that I'm not violating your free will, I will help you on the level of cause.

I will help you change your mind. I will help you change your mind. And I'm also going to put a magnifying glass on the places where you're not yet the person I need you to be. So it's, you know, a spiritual detox is like a physical detox. Stuff has to come up in order to be released. But that's how we become. Like you said, the hidden jewel of who you are behind all that. It's a a mask, we grow masks and they harden. They become emotional psychological postures and they hide the truth of who we are too often. The message and symbol of Christ is so powerful. I was just in Brazil and the went to the Christos, the Christ statue, you know. And throughout so many different ancient wisdom traditions,

there is the balance of polarities and in the center. And Rosicrucian traditions, you know, the armonic and luciferic impulses within us, the masculine and feminine, yin, yang. And for those that strive to seek a life of alignment, it's so much of it is just aligning what you think, how you act and who you are in the world. And I'm just curious what your thoughts are on any mystical interpretations that you feel like

we haven't covered today that would support people realizing that alignment and coming into center in the Christ energy. I think there are different concepts and jargons and languages that are always fun to go over. but I don't think that the sort of dilettant quality of, oh, and this says that, and this says that is as important right now as going deep with one that really speaks to you. And the course of miracles does not claim to have a monopoly on truth. No particular journey, spiritual journey, has a monopoly on truth. But the mystic Jesus is one portal.

and for me understanding it more deeply that Mary is a symbol of the sleeping beauty within all of us, which is also the fairy tales tell the same story. The course of miracle says, in the Bible it says that Adam fell asleep and nowhere does it say that he woke up. And we're living at a time when it's time to initiate this great awakening, awakening from the slumber. An angel tells Mary, wake up, go to the roof.

You have to go to the higher mind because down here it's all the assault of cacophony of social media and the events of the world. You can't hear go up onto the roof. Go to the higher mind, meditate, get silent, walk through nature. The angel Gabriel, the thoughts of God, tell her you were going to give birth. Your humanness is going to be impregnated by God. And we're all pregnant now with that new birth of self. mothered by our humanness, fathered by God, and that is the Christ. It's neither male nor female.

The divine masculine is Joseph. You'll know when to get out of town, when to come back, when it's safe. Herod, the ego, will be coming after you. We want to kill this little baby, and you will be told how to navigate all this, which is Joseph. And as you grow into this beingness and you have your bar mitzvah, which Jesus had in the temple, you will be ready and your ministry. You will do things like turning the loaves into fishes, right? Because abundance will occur naturally according to your need.

And you will be able to heal the sick, which is exactly the stuff that's happening right now. You will be able to raise the dead, the dead in places in ourselves. And the ego is going to come after you. And you're going to experience it. and as you hold your unconsciousness, I remember once, I had had a breakup. My best friend who has since died. I was in a romantic relationship for a long time. We broke up, and I'm crying and crying and crying.

And he starts like he's reading from a Mary Ann Williams and book to me. The relationship is eternal, it's just changing form. The love he gave you is real. The love you gave him is real. The love can never be destroyed, nothing else. And every time he would say this, I would cry. cry louder. Right?

And he just kept saying it, and I just kept crying, and he kept saying it. And at one point he said, should I shut up? And I said, please don't shut up. In other words, let me cry. There was nothing in him that was coming across, like, you shouldn't cry because it was while you are crying, download this. While you are crying, it's like, while you're sick, walk around listening to these tapes or whatever.

And then God's will has never not been done. It has already occurred. The fact, well, the course of miracles, you know, one of the things before I ever read the course, I never understood this idea that you were bad. So if Jesus suffers, God has, you know, he died for your sins. What? You're bad. Jesus, you suffer a lot.

I'll feel better. What kind of God, right? And so the way it's presented in the course is that Jesus, it's the last, useless journey, he demonstrated the complete nullification of ego and destructiveness and fear. So he says in the course, I don't need you to join me in crucifixion. That's done. Join me in resurrection. And I think that's where we are now. I think it's really important that we remember the conversation that you and I have been having today is happening all over the world. not the same language, same system, same whatever.

There's this collective yearning, the Arundt-Darie Roy line, a new world struggling to be born. We're not alone. You know, so many times I see this in audiences, somebody will express some deep pain. And I'll ask people, I'll say, think right now, please, of the deepest pain that you've ever experienced, the deepest suffering you've ever experienced. Please bring it to your mind. And then I'll say, it is statistically reasonable to assume that the person to your right has suffered that much as well. It is statistically reasonable to assume that the person to your left has suffered that much as well in front of you and behind you and so forth.

Now look at the room again because there's going to be a different room. If you really look around the room and you go, as much as I've suffered so have they, your heart opens. And that's what's happening. We're all yearning to be better. We're yearning for the world to be okay. You have to be a real dolt right now to not get this. This is a serious moment. But the good news is people want.

They want, there's a yearning, and I saw it when I ran for president. The problem is not the people. People are ready to rise to a noble, a noble cause and a noble. People want that. We're hardwired to create the good, the true, the beautiful, the holy. And so whether it comes to a secular, religious, spiritual, whatever, if you do it, it works. And you go to the gym, it works. You do the lectures of the course, it works.

You read books like this. You take it in. You allow those aha moments to illumine your thinking. It works. You go to AA. You go to the meetings. It works. and I think that that's where we need to be with each other now.

I think we need to be a whole, we have been so trained by modernity in the last few years to just embellish your wounds, your trauma, you're enough. And I know from trauma. I know from trauma. But at a certain point, the question has got to be, what great thing are you doing and how can I help? We've been infantilized.

We've allowed ourselves to be infantilized. I think the higher consciousness movement, we've actually contributed to it. And we will not, literally, we will not get out of here alive, or at least our great kids will. Unless men stop acting like boys and women stop acting like girls. And we support each other in that. And yes, I can have compassion for your pain and so call you to be your strength. And know that I see your strength. I see the part of you that's going to heal from this.

I see the part of you that's going to move through this and even be more of a man, more of a woman, more of a human being. That's what we need to be right now. And there's an urgency in the air, and we were born for this. And that's what I believe is happening right now. I think so often we're under the illusion, especially in the higher consciousness community,

there's like this illusion of once I'm healed or to a certain point, then I'll be able to serve or support others, which I understand where that's coming from. And, like, of course, if you're ill, like you can't really help somebody physically, you know? and so much of our healing comes in the service to others. Absolutely. And and you learn from your failures as well as your successes.

And that's just a delay technique. Once I'm an enlightened master, I'll show up. None of us can wait until that. But also, God doesn't love you less in the places where you're wounded. God doesn't love you less and God doesn't have less use for you. It's like it's the story of the prodigal son. The father is more excited to see the son who left and came back. When a bone is broken, it's stronger in those places.

It's like that book Alice Miller, the drama of the gifted child. Have you ever read that? It's a classic. Probably love it. She says a lot of times people who weren't listened to as children become therapists because they really get how important it is for people to be listened to. so they become very good listeners. And like you said, you're healing, you're serving while you're healing,

and that's part of the way you heal. The Course of Miracle says you're not perfect or you wouldn't have been born, but it is your mission to become perfect here. We have to evolve into the next stage of humanity. This is a very perilous time if we don't, but a time of such truly amazing possibilities. You know, there was a man, I can't remember his name at the moment. He's very well known in the ministerial field.

He was the minister at a very famous church in New York, Riverside Church. And I was on a panel with him many years ago. And we were talking about biblical symbols and trials and tribulations, and we're living in a time of trials and tribulations. And he said, but the time of trials and tribulation is also a time of signs and wonders. And one last thing. You talked about Armageddon.

We touched on it. So the traditional interpretation is there's going to be this great cataclysm, this great catastrophe, after which, after this global war, there will be a thousand years apiece and Jesus will return. The course of miracle says the second coming is when he shall be perceived. He never went away. The truth of who you are. Simply we're going to see it in one another. But the issue of Armageddon is, for one person, their divorce was their Armageddon.

It's like we talked about crucifixion. For another person, they're getting sober was their Armageddon. For another person, grief over the lost one, like we were talking about. The idea here is that we get wiser from these things. So if we take the wisdom you got from going through your Armageddon and the wisdom you got from going through your Armageddon and the wisdom you got from going through your Armageddon and the wisdom I've gotten from going to my arm again, and we pool it, we can form a field of wisdom so great that we will prevent the great global cataclysm because it won't be necessary. We got it. We each had ate our piece of it. Like in Hinduism, they talk about it. Kali eats it. You had to eat it. You had to digest it. You had to masticate. It wasn't, you know, but you got it and you let go everything except the nourishment of it. And I think that's what's happening.

happening. And that's it. I love it. Yeah, we got to sink our teeth into life and really discover what is our unique puzzle piece to contribute. Like you all said, we all have our unique wisdom based off of our own experience. I don't even think we have to figure it out, just be in the moment of it. It's not about figuring it out. I think figuring it out is almost the way of trying to distance from it. It's a revelatory process. Yeah, revelatory, yeah. I always love talking to you I love talking to you too I have great respect for you

thank you oh likewise thank you and we have another little talk tomorrow we're going to go give yeah yeah yeah is there any last words you have that you'd like to share with our audience

understanding the context of this conversation anything else you want to add I just always like leave that space in case there is well I do give some online classes about these kinds of things yeah people can find out about that at Maryan.com yeah

I'm writing a lot about my thoughts, not only about spirituality, but also politics on my substack. And just thanks. Thank you. And you guys can check out The Mystic Jesus also, which is your new book, The Mind of Love, which is exciting. We'll leave links always down in the description of the Lord. Yeah, I got a plug.

And yeah, until next time, everyone take care. Let us know in which ways, as always, this was uniquely impactful for you. And what your relationship is with Jesus, because I think it's ever evolving. And there is this resurgence of people discovering the true energy of Christ. And so Marianne, thanks for those powerful reminders today. And everyone, until next time, be well.