RACHAEL O'MEARA: Hi, everyone.
I'm Rachael O'Meara.
I'm really excited today to be hosting an Authors at Google
event, Talks at Google.
We have Marianne Williamson here today, and she's here to
talk about her latest work, "How to Overcome Financial
Stress and Live a Life of Abundance".
Marianne, if you aren't familiar with her work, is one
of our greatest spiritual leaders right now, motivator,
a lecturer, in general, someone who is making a big
difference in the world.
So if anyone here is familiar with her work, that's awesome.
And if not, hopefully you'll come away from today learning
a few things about how you can live a life of abundance.
Her latest book-- it's called "The Law of Divine
Compensation"--
is available in the back.
And "Return to Love", which is one of her earlier works, is
also available in the back.
And I'll just leave with this comment.
I think it's really important at Google that we bring in
authors that challenge what we think, and speakers who have
open agendas and really just make a difference in our
culture at Google to really be pushing the envelope and
figuring out what's best, what we can do and how we can help.
So Marianne is here for that reason today.
And if anyone saw the movie "Coach Carter", she has a
quote in there that I really enjoy and I wanted to share
with you before we get started.
So what is in the movie is the following, and this is
Marianne's quote.
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that
most frightens us".
So with that, I'll leave you with Marianne.
Thanks.
[APPLAUSE]
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: Thank you, Rachael.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for having me.
I tell you, I forget that I had told Rachael I would be
talking about abundance and financial stress.
We'll get there, because I'm going to instead go with what,
since apparently I wrote that email, I've been thinking
about that I want to share with you.
But as you'll also recognize, it's all one big
conversation anyway.
So let's start with this conversation about creativity
and leadership.
Creativity, the way the Western mind usually thinks of
creating something, we think of ourselves as being
generative.
And we think, I need to go create something.
Certainly at a company like this, you're thinking about
that a lot.
We got to create something.
Now a lot of this has to do with, you could talk about it
as a worldly perspective versus a more spiritual
perspective.
In a very real way, it's a more Western perspective
rather than an Eastern perspective.
The idea of creativity being generative is a
very Western concept.
It's like the thought that if you bring a blank document up
on your screen and you've got to figure out
what to write on it.
What am I going to create on this document?
A more spiritual or metaphysical prospective says,
there's already a file.
And your job is to download the file.
And it is an undelete-able file.
And it is creativity itself.
Hemingway was famous for having talked about how unless
the story was writing itself, he put the pencil down.
He would write, he said, every day for as long a period of
time as the story seemed to be writing itself through him.
Once he felt that that was no longer happening, he put the
pencil down.
And of course, in that fabulous book, "Letters to a
Young Poet", the poet Rilke, when asked by the young poet,
how do I know if I should be a poet even?
Rilke's response was, only be a poet if you have to.
Only if it is the calling that is within you that is
undeniable.
Also in the Eastern religions, in Zen Buddhism, of course,
whereas in the Western mind we think of learning everything I
need to learn so that then I can make something happen, the
highest creative moment in Zen Buddhism is the empty mind.
The Zen mind in Buddhism is called the beginner's mind.
So the practice of the East, or the practice of
spirituality, is to take all that you've learned, you learn
it just so that then you can forget it.
Now it's still there, so that's not a reason to not
become educated.
It's not a reason to not read the books and
get the skill set.
But the practice of the creative mind is to enter into
the moment without that clutter.
In the I Ching they talk about presenting an empty
rice bowl to God.
An empty rice bowl.
Now it's the same thing., the idea of an empty rice bowl,
because it's said in the east that the Dao will
fill the rice bowl.
But if you enter in the moment thinking you already know,
then that higher force of creativity, by whatever you
call it, cannot work through you.
It does actually have a corresponding metaphysical
principle in the New Testament, when Jesus said, be
as little children.
Because in the course in miracles, he says, what that
means is little children know that they do not know, and so
they are teachable.
Where adults too often walk into a situation thinking that
they do know, and so they're not teachable, which I think,
by the way, is even more of a psychic crisis for males than
females in our society.
Because men are so bred--
we're all embarrassed to say that we don't know, but men,
particularly, it's almost like they must act like they know.
And that particular aspect of the mind is actually very
detrimental to us.
Because the mind that thinks it knows is not the mind that
ultimately knows.
Because the mind that ultimately knows is the mind
that, as it were, is receptive to a higher
vibration of knowledge.
Now leadership fits in to that.
Because in the Dao to Ching, Lao Tzu said, to be a
follower-- the way to be a leader of men--
is to be a follower of the Dao.
So if you think of yourself-- it's counter intuitive--
if you're thinking of yourself as here to follow something
higher, you manifest as a leader among other people.
If you act like someone who's trying to be a leader, people
kind of wonder what your game is.
Because like, what are you trying to do?
Because particularly today, with this switch over out of
the top down model, we're moving into the idea of-- we
have moved into the idea of leadership as someone who
holds a space for the brilliance of others.
Now if-- that's what leadership is.
Leadership is I hold the space, I
assume you're brilliant.
That's the best thing-- if you're a leader on a team, the
best thing you can do is to assume that
everybody there is a genius.
Now the notion, metaphysically.
Is that all minds are joined, that on a level of energy and
mind, there's really no place where you stop and I start.
Everybody subconsciously knows everything.
If I'm sitting in a room with you-- this goes way beyond
behavior modification--
because if I'm sitting in a room with you, no matter how
nice I'm being to you, if I really assume you have some
real limits, you know that on some level, whether you even
consciously know it or not.
But if I'm assuming that you, like everyone, has only
scratched the surface of genius that lies inside all of
us, that is the word salute.
That's what salute means.
I salute you.
I re-cognize that, recognize that in you.
And in my presence--
it's kind of like when you go to therapy, and you might be
at a therapeutic session and at the end of the session, you
say to your therapist, oh, thank you, thank you.
This was so good for me.
Thank you.
The therapist had hardly said a word.
You ever had those times?
It was the quality of their compassion and non-judgment.
In the presence, that's what their skill set was.
The quality of their compassion and non-judgment
called you.
And so if a leader is simply assuming that you're a genius,
assuming that genius lies within you, that you have the
potential for greatness, it literally, in the presence of
that person who is assuming the best in you, you will rise
to that level.
Now, once again, I wasn't seeking to lead you.
I was seeking to follow an inner light.
Now you can talk about that inner light or inner
understanding in secular terms or religious
terms, spiritual terms.
It's so irrelevant, the language that we use.
The point is that we're beginning to understand that
there are-- what did I say, we use 10% of the brain cells--
that there are expanded dimensions of consciousness,
and that when we enter into those dimensions of
consciousness, whether it's through meditation,
mindfulness, which is like the politically correct way of
expressing meditation today, prayer, whatever our practice
is, the idea is that we literally-- it's a conversion.
It's just like converting in electricity.
You're converting into the wisdom mind.
You're converting out of the strategic mind.
You're converting out of the formulaic mind.
And this is what people are finally beginning to
understand.
When you're converting out of the rational, or beyond the
rational, you're not going into the irrational, you're
just going into the non-rational.
The non-rational is not irrational.
Look at nature.
Look at how nature always takes care
of its young, right?
What is rational about a society of geniuses that
spends so much more effort on keeping people down, harming
people we don't like, incarcerating if they mess up?
What's rational about this?
It is insane.
So if you get a bunch of rational, so-called rational,
people together who do not have a sense of serving a
higher good, you come up with irrational actions and
irrational behavior.
And that is where we have come to in our society and in our
civilization, even when you look at something like
technology.
Technology, the idea of the material plane from a
spiritual perspective is that there's nothing on the
spiritual plane that is either holy or unholy, high minded or
low minded, except as the mind ascribes purpose to it.
Nobody needs to be reminded in this room the incredibly good
things that technology can do for the world.
But nobody needs to be reminded in this room either
the very destructive ways that people can use
technology, as well.
This is where Western civilization,
particularly, is.
This is where we are.
We have all this, but the crisis now is the crisis of
significance and the crisis of importance.
And will we use what we have done in our society over the
last 40 years or so is that we have taken the prodigious
genius and education and capacity of generations of
Americans, the most privileged in a very long time, and used
it primarily for unimportant ends.
And there are a lot of sociological and political
reasons for that, but the analysis of how we got here is
not as important as that we start anew.
And in starting anew, we're really moving out-- many
people are moving out of the sense of I don't know, I'll do
whatever I want to do.
Now the I don't know, I'll do whatever I want to do-- when
you look at the Middle Ages, the Middle Ages was dominated
by a church structure that was imprisoning and
limiting to the mind.
And it had a particular world view, and anybody who didn't
toe the line with their world view was cast out, at best,
and tortured and killed, at worse.
The Enlightenment, the 18th Century
enlightenment, was so important.
And this country was founded of it. it was the idea of, no,
the human being of themselves, without a church sitting on
top of them, can use reasoning, can do
whatever they want.
But Heidl said, it's thesis, antithesis, synthesis.
Because now we realized we had taken what is really a
positive character, a logical image of the rugged
individualist, and we've taken it so far that now we're like
the cancer cell which has gone insane.
And instead of recognizing its natural intelligence which
would lead it to collaborate with other cells for the
healthy functioning of the organ, the cancer cell is a
cell that says, I don't want to do that.
I'm want to go do my own thing.
I don't want to just collaborate with other cells
to serve the healthy functioning of the spleen.
I want to go do my own thing.
And that is malignant.
And it just gathers other sick cells around it.
That forms a mass, which is then destructive, not only to
that organ, but to the entire system and
ultimately, to itself.
And that is where the Western mind has gone.
An individualist mentality has become malignant mentality.
It's one thing to be an individual and to know that
I'm a unique expression, as all of us are.
That's a beautiful thing.
But even the rose knows it's part of a larger garden.
You have the rose and you have the tulip and you have the
peony and you have the daisy and all that.
But then there's this thing called the garden, and they
all belong within the garden.
The malignant thinking of Western consciousness is that
we have thought, it's just about me.
We've put competition above collaboration.
We have forgotten that there's a bigger purpose here than
just me getting what I want.
So I think that's this era of history that we're in.
Because we realize--
and I think that there is an awakening in our society, and
I think, around the world, of people recognizing that
whatever mentality has been dominating things has taken
us, literally, not figuratively, literally, to
the brink of disaster.
Literally.
There are so many stress points.
There are so many very, very grim probability vectors for
the next 20 years.
And I think that all that's--
I wouldn't say all that's needed, but really the primary
foundational thing that's needed is that shift in
thinking, from I don't have these toys.
You here--
if this were something happening centuries ago,
Google would be seen as a wizard school, like Hogwarts.
You are carrying--
this is wizardry.
This is what would have been called wizardry.
But the issue that you would see, if it was centuries ago,
there would be a conversation, is it the dark arts or the
light arts?
And I think the blessing on a company like this, from a
metaphysical perspective, is that there already is the
conversation, we want to make people's lives better.
But even that, I think the next iteration is beyond
making just individuals' lives better.
How are we going to keep this ship that we're on from
hitting the iceberg?
Now Rachael mentioned my last book, "The Law of Divine
Compensation".
So in that I talk about a principle I want
to move into now.
From the metaphysical perspective--
and meta means beyond.
So there's the physical, as above, so below.
The notion is that there are objective, discernible laws of
the internal realms of consciousness, just as there
are objective, discernible laws of the external world.
Gravity, thermodynamics.
Same with the internal phenomenon.
Nothing in this world, even the mysteries, are not
mysterious if you understand them.
The notion of a self-organizing universe is
that you see certain imprints in nature.
The embryo, the way it becomes a baby.
The bud, the way it becomes a blossom.
The acorn, the way it becomes an oak tree.
A little acorn is programmed within.
A little acorn is already carrying a blueprint by which
it will one day turn into an oak tree, a huge oak tree.
The embryo.
You have one sperm.
You have one egg.
And even though we can make pictures of it, the mystery by
which it is programmed, somehow those cells are going
to divide and become a brain and become a heart and become
lungs and become eyeballs and become skull and become hair
and become skin and become a vascular system.
I mean, it's phenomenal.
And it's going to be put in this tiny little package to
come out through woman's legs.
I mean, the whole thing is a level of genius that is so
beyond anything that we have come up with.
The metaphysical notion is that it is not just the cells
and an embryo becoming a baby.
It is not just the bud becoming a blossom or the
acorn becoming the oak tree, but that every single aspect
of nature, there is an imprint of self-organization.
Not only self-organization, but self-correction.
What that means is, just as the cell is programmed, its
own native intelligence, when it is sane.
We've already talked about an insane cell.
It's called a cancer-ed cell.
But a sane cell is recognizing its natural programming by
which it collaborates with the other cells to serve the
healthy functioning.
From a metaphysical perspective, you and I are all
cells, also naturally programmed to collaborate with
others in order to serve the healthy functioning of the
total organism, which is life on the planet as we know it.
We had been taught an insane perspective.
And that's what Gandhi said.
The problem with the world is humanity's out his mind.
So when we are not thinking, how can I
serve, we are insane.
And when we do think, how can I serve, it literally performs
a conversion in the brain.
So if you go into any meeting--
and this is what--
I love what's happening in the world today, because what
people are doing today is that they're casting on to what I'm
about to say, it's woo woo.
But actually ripping it off and turning it into all kinds
of leadership seminars and stuff like that, and say, but
we're not woo woo.
When actually, they're saying the exact same things that the
people they call woo woo were saying.
This projection onto love and spirituality,
it's just woo woo.
It's light brain.
It's fuzzy brain thinking.
As though, like I said, it's really intelligent to just
incarcerate everybody that acts out of their desperation
or bomb people who dare to disagree with you, right?
So that's really saying.
But the idea here is that when your attitude, your
perspective is, before you walk into a meeting, that you
just send your peace to everybody
who's going to be there.
You send your love before you.
For some people, that's saying a prayer.
For some people, it's a blessing.
For some people, just sending peace, sending good energy,
wishing you the best, beneficent, namaste.
That's another thing with Americans.
If we say it in another language, we'll accept it.
[LAUGHTER]
Particularly in Northern California.
Fine.
Whatever.
Whatever it does for you.
The love in me salutes the love in you.
The Christ in me salutes Christ.
God in me salutes God in you.
The Buddha within me salutes the Buddha within you.
It truly does not matter.
It's that the wisdom in me and the love in me and the
goodness in me--
you will literally have a different meeting.
And what it does is it plugs everybody into their natural
intelligence.
Now the idea of the law of divine compensation is not
only is the universe self-organizing, which means
just as every cell in the embryo is already programmed
to turn into the baby, that perspective holds that you and
I are already programmed, each and every one of us, to become
fully self-actualized.
The oak tree is the full
self-actualization of the acorn.
And the blossom is the full self-actualization of the bud.
And the baby is the full
self-actualization of the embryo.
The person you're capable of being is your
self-actualized self.
And you are programmed to be the man or the woman that you
are capable of being on this planet, this lifetime, no less
than the embryo is programmed to be the baby.
But the difference between us and the acorn and the embryo
is that you and I can say, no, I don't want to.
That's what free will means.
I don't have to.
I don't have to think the thoughts of complete service
and compassion and love.
I can say, no, I'm only here for myself.
I'm only here to get something.
And I have an idea of what I need to make happen, which is
always based on something that happened in my past that I
need to compensate for, that's why I think I
need to make it happen.
Therefore, my core belief is that things really aren't good
enough already.
Therefore, no matter what I do, I will recreate a
situation in which things are not good enough already.
So the attitude of, I'm only here to love is
hardly woo woo thinking.
It's the most sophisticated thinking.
I have no agenda.
I'm empty.
How can I serve?
Wow, you're incredible.
And dear God, if there's any part of me that can't see how
incredible she is, please remove that obstruction, in
whatever language.
And then you are literally in a parallel universe of
possibility.
And that's what's happening on the planet, I think, is that
we are seeking, some in religious and spiritual ways,
and some in secular ways, to return to that natural
intelligence, whether it's through mindfulness, whether
it's through meditation, whether it's
through spiritual practice.
And even more importantly that we remember that when you do
meditate, when you do align yourself with these kinds of
ideas, the point is not just to be there while you're doing
your practice, it's what happens when you open your
eyes, you go back into the world.
So that if I'm in a business meeting with you, I'm looking
at you, thinking, the love in me salutes the love in you.
If I'm in a business meeting with you, I'm thinking, wow,
boy, my judgments are really high.
That's blocking the possibilities that could
happen here.
I'm really willing to see this differently.
You train your brain.
You train your mind into a different perspective.
The universe is self-organizing, yes.
It's also self-correcting.
And that means that just like once that baby, once the
embryo turns into the baby, once the body is born and the
lungs continue to breathe and the heart continues to beat,
the body also has an immune system, so that if injury or
illness enters into the system, the immune system is
there to take care of the problem.
We also, the psychic bloodstream, as it were, of
humanity, we also have an immune system.
An immune system takes the form of conscience, remorse,
moral concern and so forth.
That's why it's such a conversation in a society
about sociopaths.
Sociopaths and narcissists.
They're cancerous cells.
It's a malignant mentality, because it's only
concerned for self.
There's a lot of talk in society today, don't feel bad.
With some people in some situations, feel bad.
Because only a sociopath would not feel bad in this moment.
Conscience is there for a reason.
Remorse is there for a reason.
Nature provides us with these things as a way of bells are
ringing and lights are flashing.
No, it's not OK.
It's not OK that 17,000 children are starving on this
planet every day.
It's not OK.
It's not OK that America has 2.4 million people
incarcerated, that there are more African American men
incarcerated today than there were enslaved in 1850.
It's not OK.
It's not OK that one in four American
children are food insecure.
It's not OK.
That's not something that a Google thing is going to come
up on your computer and say, it's not OK.
It's not OK.
But if you say it's not OK, then when you consider the
wizardry of things like Google and the extraordinary
technological advances that have come about, then we can
handle all those problems.
And that's why a place like this is so important.
I heard a man say not too long ago-- he is a medical doctor--
and he was dealing with these extraordinary machines that
are doing all the stuff with the stem cells and the genome.
And it's just amazing what medical research
is coming up with.
But he was talking about the irony, and he's so right.
The work we do to save one life, and then we so casually
destroy many.
That is an insanity factor, and no machine can fix that.
But when we allow our hearts and minds to be aligned and we
become deeply rational--
there's a line in the course in miracles where it says,
love restores reason and not the other way around.
And we see that all the technological and material
resources, such as a Google, such as technology, are here
to be used in service to that, then there's nothing
that we cannot do.
Now the issue of abundance is that that is the abundance.
That is the abundance.
This mentality is the abundant.
And when you are living in that internal abundance,
Martin Luther King said, you are surrounded by cosmic
companionship.
When you're just trying to make things happen, you're not
creating anything.
You're making something.
You're staying on the mortal plane and you're at the effect
and will continue to be at the effect of the laws of chaos
and randomness.
And good luck and I hope you do well.
When you convert to, I'm here no more and no less than any
other human being for purposes much greater than my mortal
mind has any idea, I carry within me no more and no less
infinite potential for brilliance and genius.
I am programmed no more and no less than every other person
to be the highest actualization of my
possibility on this planet, manifest
creatively in this lifetime.
And that as I do that, I will naturally just as cells find
themselves in the presence of other cells who know to
collaborate with them to do what they do for the healthy
functioning of the body, to the extent that I'm living at
that higher frequency of possibility, I will then
naturally resonate with people who also play
in the higher game.
And we are all programmed, not necessarily through what our
rational mind can determine, but through our hearts, with
the rational mind in service to that.
And then not only do we actualize, but we become a
huge corrective force for a planet that is
absolutely in trouble.
Many years ago, when I was a teenager, I was accosted in my
house, a man who broke into my parents' home.
And when this happened, and I was in my bedroom and he came
in the door, I had an experience where
every cell was alive.
Every cell was alive.
And I really had an experience how the human is programmed
when there is real disaster.
Every cell of me was alive.
I was catapulted into behavior--
and what 17-year-old girl even knows, right?
And I think that that's what's happening on this planet.
I feel it.
There's a quickening.
I used to think, just, God, we would all say,
Americans are so asleep.
I don't think we're asleep anymore.
I think there's a critical mass-- there's enough people
who, like, get the--
it's like storm warnings.
And now, for us, remember we are programmed to be able to
handle this.
An immune system knows what to do.
And AIDS was a fascinating metaphysical, just as cancer
is a fascinating representation of where
consciousness has gone off, so is a suppressed immune system.
We have forgotten, we are the immune system.
And when we see ourselves that way and just have that action
within, it sparks something.
It sparks something in the heart and it sparks something
in the brain, and it makes other people perceive us
differently.
Then what will happen, I think, is
that we'll get going.
And there is no doubt.
I think we've already started.
I just think we need to step it up.
And obviously, companies like this, and anything that has to
do with technology, is part of what not only can go right in
individual's lives, but can be used in a collective way
beyond anything you've even come up with yet to turn the
ship around, so that collectively we do more than
we're doing now.
What we're doing now is that one force, people and forces
in America, seem determined to just throw us over the cliff.
Another force is trying hard to keep us from the cliff.
What we need to do is just walk in a
different direction entirely.
And the universe is not only organized and knows how to
organize and it is self-organizing, but within
the infinity of spiritual substance, there are also the
capacity to compensate for any lack or any
problem, when it exists.
And that divine compensation not only makes sure that you
personally are taken care of, but something much more
important happens than just that you are financially and
career-wise taken care of.
And that's that we become a generation that saves the
entire species from global catastrophe, which it is
absolutely not unreasonable to consider possible, if not
probable, at this time.
Does that make sense?
So what I'd like to do, since there's a microphone right
there, what I'd like to do with the time we have left is
for anybody who wants to, come to the mic to either bring up
a topic or ask a question within this, and
we'll talk about it.
From a spiritual perspective, this idea of the shift, the
conversion, the shift from fear to love is nothing short
of a miracle.
Because that miracle has to do with the reprogramming of
thought system so that possibilities exist within
time and space that would otherwise have not existed.
AUDIENCE: So thank you for all of that great insight.
For folks who are looking to start that conversation, like
you said, here at Google, we've got a lot of analytical
minds and outside of Google, there's just
all types of folks.
So how do you just start it, if there's a question that
maybe you know others that might be interested or even
not even close to where this is right now, what you're
talking about, they're just not in that mindset.
Can you give us some tips on how would you start that?
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: OK.
Now this is what's interesting here.
Self-organizing universe.
Each of us are cells, so each of us has natural
intelligence.
Each of us has a part to play.
Like every cell in the body has a part to play.
Not only does it have its part to play, but no other
cell has that part.
So that's true of each of us.
Now, no cell says to the other cell, I know
what you should do.
Because the guidance for every cell comes to that cell.
You start with the idea that wherever you are, that's it.
Every situation you're in, whoever you're talking to,
whatever the circumstance.
If you are just standing there, there to be of service,
there to be empty, there to be of service, there
to not have an agenda.
Because that's what we've done in our society--
you're taught that the way to really handle a business
meeting is to go in beforehand, what's your
intention, what's the result you want,
which sounds so lovely.
It's so dark, because it really means, how can I
exploit you?
How can I control you?
How can I manipulate you, and how can i use you
to get what I want?
It has turned human interaction transactional.
There's nothing beautiful about that.
There's nothing enlightened about that.
So instead, we walk into any situation--
and remember, I'm not trying to generate anything.
Creativity, the intelligence, the higher intelligence of the
universe, knows exactly how you and I meeting in this
conversation can best be used, how it fits into you learning
what you need to learn, how it fits into me learning what I
need to learn.
If you and I trigger each other, that's no
less, by the way.
All I need to know is that this situation is an
invitation to me to rise to the highest version of myself
that I can be, to be kind, to just be available, to be in
the present with you.
And then life will take us wherever we best serve.
And literally, it comes out of quote-unquote left field.
Out of the blue.
When people say to you, I just met him out of the blue.
We just happened to be talking.
When you live that way and you see it and things just happen,
that's why it is Hogwarts.
It is.
It's like, oh, just what I needed just
happened to be there.
Why?
Because I wasn't trying to make something happen, she and
I were just talking and being kind and compassionate, really
caring about each other.
And next thing I know, you, who is exactly what we needed,
just happened to be sitting there.
The chaotic universe is the one that occurs, OK, now what
is it we need and how can we get it, and who can we find?
I mean, there's an aspect of that, if it's of service to
the higher.
Does that makes sense?
So it's none of my business what any of you
are supposed to do.
It's none of your business what I'm supposed to do.
All we're talking about is showing up in any room you
happen to be in, knowing that the universe, whenever
anybody's consciousness is how can I serve and I'm available
today, use me.
Use my hands.
Use my feet.
And it goes without saying, the universe
can use smart people.
A lot of them.
Necessary.
Now.
Doesn't that make sense?
Hello.
Yes.
AUDIENCE: I often find myself being conflicted when a
thought comes to my mind that say I need to serve.
For example, animals.
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: Serve what?
AUDIENCE: Animals.
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: Animals.
AUDIENCE: Or any gods, for that matter.
The thought that comes to my mind is that a, yes, you are
trying to be present and you're working on yourself.
Is this a calling that's coming from that truth or
higher self, or whatever you might want to call it?
Or is it just your mind, your smart cell in your mind just
saying, just presenting you another
way of feeling fulfilled?
So for instance, the thought might say, OK, you need to--
you really like helping animals, so you should do it.
But then, another thought comes that that could also be
an egoic thing.
How do you know it's coming from your true self, or is it
your purpose--
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: It's love for another-- it's love and
the end of suffering for another sentient being.
The ego does not want you to give yourself to love and the
diminishment of suffering of other sentient beings.
Any voice that is leading to love and the end of suffering
for other sentient beings is the voice of spirit.
Now if you have some egoic motivations around it, like,
oh, those people who-- like me if I do that,
then you check that.
But the impulse--
and by the way, I want to say this.
You have now been in a room where for 30 minutes, we've
spoken these kinds of ideas.
It's very difficult to lie to yourself.
When you're in a room, ideas grow
stronger when being shared.
This is a good time to listen to yourself.
You said serving animals three times.
Yes, that's what your heart is leading you to do.
That's your assignment.
And we all have different assignments.
Some cells are supposed to be working with the spleen, some
on the liver, some on the heart.
Your assignment is animals.
Somebody else's assignment is the environment.
Somebody else's assignment is sex trafficking.
Somebody else's assignment is hunger and poverty.
Somebody else's assignment is--
because every cell is directed to go where it
could be best of use.
AUDIENCE: That's helpful.
And also, if you could talk about, a lot of texts, in
different ways, say that no matter what action you do, it
doesn't matter.
It all comes down to, again, the consciousness with
which you do it.
So irrespective of whether I do this or not, should I
always be centered on that?
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: Only an entitled, narcissistic era of
Americans could say such a thing.
17,000 children on this planet starve to death every day.
In addition to that, there are 15,000 adults who are dying.
There are a billion people living on this planet on a
dollar and a half, and less, a day.
There are a billion above that living on $2 and less a day.
This is why the world looks at us and can't figure out what
we're thinking.
It doesn't matter what we do.
Yeah, that's real easy for us to say here, isn't it, because
we're all pretty much making it.
See, that's the thing.
The club in America, and in most of Western civilization,
if you're in the club, it's a great place.
I love the club.
The club's been good to me.
Not enough people can get into the club these days.
And some of the things that are happening outside the club
are genuinely horrific.
So the last thing that we need to be saying to ourselves or
to each other is that what we do doesn't really matter, as
long as we have what, loving intention.
What does that even mean?
And there are people getting paid to say that.
What?
How easy can it get?
Oh, that's cool.
I don't have to do anything to help anybody.
I don't have to do anything to stop oppression or injustice,
or human suffering, because I'm just thinking love.
There is nothing spiritual, nothing spiritual about that,
nothing high minded about that.
There is no legitimate, serious spiritual path that
ever makes you feel like you have a pass, you get a pass,
on addressing the suffering of other living things.
AUDIENCE: What are some things you do to
maintain your presence?
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: Well, I'm a student
of a course in miracles.
There are many, many serious spiritual
paths on this planet.
Some of them are religious.
Some of them are spiritual.
Some of them are pretty secular.
It doesn't matter the language.
If it's in a secular--
If it's in a spiritual or religious context, it will, by
definition, involve daily prayer and meditation.
Because the idea here is that the consciousness of the human
race is dominated by fear.
And so enlightenment is an unlearning of the thought
system of fear and accepting, instead, the thought system
that's actually natural to us, which is that we love each
other and we want to connect.
But we are taught from the time we are born on this
planet, we're taught, we're separate from each other, that
there's only so much abundance, so we have to
compete to get some, which is what that book, "Law of Divine
Compensation", is about.
Rather than converting to the thought system that there's
more than enough for everybody.
And if you get the goods, it's not like there's less than me.
So for me to just bless you, if I don't rejoice that you
got abundance, then what I'm programming my mind to
self-sabotage any time abundance comes to me.
Because once I realize there's only of us here, if I begrudge
you, I'll begrudge myself.
So you walk around knowing that
there's enough for everybody.
But this is more than an intellectual shift, more than
a rational shift, because it's so at odds.
So it really is a retraining process.
Just like you go to the gym to work your muscles.
And let's say I'm working my arms.
OK.
And I have to do accumulated repetitions.
Why?
Because after a certain age, my muscles are headed down.
So I work against gravity for the anti-gravitational force.
That's how you build your physical muscles so
that you can move.
Spiritual exercise is the opposite.
You're working on your capacity to be still.
So you do spiritual exercises, forgiveness, compassion work,
meditation, prayer, transcendental--
that there's so many.
Here in this part of the country, they're everywhere.
Different--
and if you don't know--
many people in a position where you know what your
spiritual path is, but you know you
haven't been doing it.
A lot of people with their spiritual paths are kind of
like, I paid the dues at the gym.
I just don't go.
Other people in this room might be thinking, I don't
even know what mine would be.
If you and your heart make a movement towards I'd be
interested, books will fall at your feet.
And then when we do that, we're honing
our attitudinal muscles.
We're honing our attitudinal muscles, so that if I see you
and I see something Id be tempted to
judge, I don't judge.
Or if I do judge, I stop and go, oh.
And then the interesting thing about that is whereas physical
musculature gives you the you can move, you can move,
spiritual musculature, attitudinal musculature gives
you the capacity to be still.
You have impulse control.
You don't say that stupid thing.
You don't send that dumb text.
You don't push the send button when my--
technology has really given us more power to blow it.
Because, I'm going to tell him right now.
No, don't send that text.
Right, right.
Pardon?
AUDIENCE: We have "un you send" at Google.
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: Good.
Good.
Yeah, I know.
But then, doesn't it say-- then it says that you undid
something, so the person knows that you unsent it.
I've been there.
OK.
I know what you were going to--
OK.
But the other thing about that illness is not only impulse
control, but the wisdom mind can get through the clutter.
There's a term in both Judaism and Christianity, the small,
still voice within.
We meditate because the ego mind, the voice of the world,
speaks first and it speaks loudest.
And we meditate to cultivate a capacity for a wisdom voice.
It's that feeling of, oh, I just got this great idea.
I got it.
I'm sure that happens here at Google every day.
In various places, somebody says, oh my God, I got it.
Well, hundreds of years ago, they would have said, the muse
spoke to them.
It's the same thing.
This relates a little bit--
but it was fascinating to me.
I read an article in the newspaper about a bunch of
brain scientists from MIT and Harvard and all over, some of
the greatest brain scientists, who got together.
And they were having a meeting about Alzheimer's.
Well, not specifically Alzheimer's, about memory loss
in older people.
And they were working on a theory.
And this theory was the idea that not all memory loss is a
devolutionary factor in the functioning of the brain.
But rather, they were talking about the idea that as the
brain gets older, in its genius it would say, I don't
need any more of those details.
I get the pattern.
I don't need those details.
I already jumped to the higher understanding of what the
pattern is.
And all these brain scientists were all excited about this.
Everybody at the table was talking about it, because they
were all getting it, and they were all recognizing this, and
really turned on by this idea that there's something in the
brain that seems to be weaker, but it's actually stronger and
it said that it dropped the details for a reason, because
it's recognizing the higher patterns.
And they're all excited.
And somebody said, oh my God, what do we call this?
This is amazing.
What do we call this?
And all of a sudden, it was just silent.
Because everybody got it at the same time.
Somebody threw up their pencil and went, wisdom.
And that's what we're after.
But we don't have time to wait 'til we're old to be wise.
Thank you.
AUDIENCE: I want to know, when you talk about the law of
divine compensation and you compare it with the law of
gravity, there must be some strong conviction that you
have that that's a real law that has some basis for its
functioning and you have convinced yourself that that
really exists and may perhaps some
mechanism by which it works.
So I wonder if you could give us some of that insight which
you believe that this is a true law that can be--
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: The only arbiter of that conviction is
experience.
And I can't give that to you.
So I would say to you, for instance, why don't you try it
some time, just in case.
Now conviction is a force multiplier.
So a lot of people, for instance, there might be some
people in this room who, let's say, have been through
recovery, the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.
There are many times--
I always say, in my work, people don't come to me
because things are going well.
Oftentimes, when things are going well in people's lives,
they listen to people like me and think we're a bunch of woo
woo crazy people.
But then they get diagnosed with cancer, or their child is
on heroin, or their wife goes through rehab, or they get
divorced, or whatever.
And there's something that happens when we're like on our
knees, and we're willing to hear things that maybe we were
not interested in hearing before.
And then we recognize, because it cannot not happen, whether
it's the course in miracles or 12 steps of Alcoholics
Anonymous, these steps cannot not work, any more than when
you go to the gym.
I mean, if you do it, it's going to work.
If I do enough leg lifts, my thighs are going to change.
It's going to not not work.
You don't say that I have such faith in the gym.
I just know how it works.
If you go through enough in your own life where you feel
you really messed up, and you tried to be a better person,
you tried to clean things up, you tried to be more loving,
you took responsibility for your life, you made amends
where you needed to, you apologized for it, you try to
be more integrous, you try to be more responsible, you try
to be more reliable, your life changes.
And then it's not just that you believe it, it's that you
experience it.
Belief doesn't mean anything.
There are people who say they believe in God and kill people
in the name of God.
And there are people who don't even believe in God, but they
love each other and they stand on love.
So they're conspiring with divinity, even if they don't
yet believe in it.
It's not about belief.
It's about experience.
So where do I get my conviction?
My experience.
My conviction.
My life.
I notice that when I do my best to practice what I
preach, my life really works.
And when I don't practice what I preach, those are the
moments when I experience chaos, disorder and
unhappiness.
So I'm pretty convinced.
Does that make sense?
AUDIENCE: Thank you for all you are.
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: Thank you.
AUDIENCE: And for all the inspiration you
bring to the world.
And I've seen you already.
And so my question is about presence.
But the question is more about how do you deprogram yourself
from fear to love, from scarcity to abundance?
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: OK.
Enlightenment, the course in miracles as alignment, begins
as an abstract intellectual construct.
We all know these principles by now, love, compassion,
blah, blah, blah.
But that is so counter to the thinking of the world.
It's easy to sit in a room talking about how we should
all love each other.
It's when we go out of this room, that life is constant
temptation.
So the spiritual journey is the abstraction, taking the
journey from the head to the heart.
And that is what that attitude we're honing, you're honing
new attitudinal muscles.
And just like with the physical gym, the repetitions,
the accumulated repetitions of that which opposes gravity,
after a certain age, whether it's your physical muscles or
your thought ones, if you're not working on keeping them
up, they're headed down.
And you accumulated repetitions, and that's what a
serious spiritual path is.
And that's what meditation is.
And that's what prayer is.
I'm a student of the course in miracles.
The course does not claim to be for everybody.
If it's for you, you know it.
There is some path for everybody.
There are the world's great religions that have, they all
have their mystical teachings which are at the core, so
separate from the organized dogma and doctrine.
There are meditation paths.
Every person--
there is, like I said, if you're interested in it, it'll
occur to you.
It'll be at somebody's house.
It'll be a book on the floor, whatever.
But it does take daily practice.
And I think that a very important issue that's also
very similar to physical exercise, you never get to a
point where you've done so much physical exercise that
you look in the mirror and go, cool, I don't
have to do that anymore.
On any day that you stop doing it, the muscles
will head back down.
And the same until you're, I guess, the level of the avatar
or the enlightened master or something, which I'm not, so I
can't know.
But I know at the level beneath that, the fact that
you did it yesterday, then maybe you ought to do it
today, because today will be a whole new set of temptations.
And the higher you get, the higher the study.
So the way life operates, in my experience and everybody I
know, is hey, you're doing really well.
God, that was really nice the way you handled that.
That was really great.
You were really dignified, elegant, wise.
How's that?
Because it comes from left field, you get triggered, and
then you go later, oh.
But in a real spirit journey, the word try
is not a bad word.
We all fall off the spiritual wagon.
We say things.
We do things.
Not our best moments.
We get up, and even that becomes part of
what teaches us.
Because we really want to do it better next time, and life
will always give us the opportunity.
But that's where the whole idea of atonement comes in.
The atonement principle is an amazing principle that you get
a cosmic reset when you admit what you've done wrong.
You acknowledge, you take
responsibility for your mistakes.
And then--
this is where in a religious narrative, this is where
Buddha came 500 years before Jesus.
Buddha talked about action has a reaction.
Every action has a reaction.
And then Jesus said, yes, but in a moment of grace, the
karma is burned.
So the Eastern religions are really into the recognition
that every action has a reaction.
Every thought creates form at some level.
Every thought determines how you will then behave.
Every action will have a consequence.
And that is the great gift of the Eastern perspective.
The Western perspective is, and I can do something about
it if I don't like that, that I can, that I can interrupt
the pattern of karma through atonement, through recognizing
the mistake I made, through asking forgiveness through
whatever the practice is.
And that's really where-- and whole nations need atonement
sometimes, just like individuals do.
And that's very much where the United States is.
Germany really--
you have to give it to Germany.
Germany flat out owned it.
And I say that as a Jew.
So Jews are very aware of that.
They owned it.
From the reparations to the museums, to the everything.
They owned it.
And that, I think, from the metaphysical perspective, is
one of the reasons why Germany is doing so well today.
The universe supported it.
The United States, for whatever reason, takes this
corporate, never apologize, never explain and never
apologized.
Terrible.
But whether it has to do with our refusal to apologize for
slavery, our refusal to apologize for Vietnam, our
refusal to apologize for Iraq, we won't allow ourselves.
As individuals we will, but the nation has some terrible
karma, because of this infantile belief that if I
accept responsibility, I'm somehow--
that that's weakness.
When in fact, spiritually, for an individual and for a
nation, that's strength.
AUDIENCE: Thank you so much for coming today.
You've come up in my life outside of work and it's
really special to have you here at work.
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: Thank you so much.
AUDIENCE: I wanted to actually ask about your experience of
integrating or speaking this language in environments or
communities where the language isn't spoken.
How do you practice that?
What has your experience been?
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: So much has changed
in the last 30 years.
I mean, when I started my career, people would hear the
things I was saying and go, oh, my God I've never even
heard these things.
I've never even thought about these things.
Today people go, oh, that's exactly what we were talking
about yesterday.
That's so interesting.
It has become a mainstream conversation.
Now, your friends, if you can't talk it, now
you're like, so--
and then, whether you talk about it in spiritual terms or
secular terms, it's not that difficult, because it's just
about love.
It's about compassion.
So for people for whom the word God would seem like a
freak, you don't use the word God.
God himself doesn't care.
It's just a word.
It's love.
It's the experience of our loving each other.
Like in "Les Miserables" where it say to love another person
is to see the face of God.
So more and more, I find it easier and easier, because
it's really hit a tipping point in the culture.
It's mainstream, which is, I think, a very good thing.
Does that make sense?
Don't you find that?
Sometimes we have to just change-- if you can't drop
your jargon, then you're not deep enough into
the inquiry, anyway.
AUDIENCE: I was curious, I recently started learning
about Viktor Frankl and logotherapy.
And he talks about the purpose or meaning in life.
So I wonder how much of that had an experience or influence
on your thoughts or not?
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: Very much so, of course, as I think it's
a classic in anybody's development of this
understanding.
There's only one truth spoken in many different ways.
And I think Viktor Frankl is one of those people who,
because of his own personal experience and his own
personal suffering, has had tremendous, obviously, moral
authority and effect on generations.
And yes, he has been on mine, as there's nothing like
someone who's been there and says this stuff works.
AUDIENCE: Thank you so much for coming.
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: Thank you.
God bless, everybody.
Thank you so much for having me.
Thank you.