Marianne Williamson

28:33It felt like every cell and every finger was awakened in a state of alertness. And I feel like how the planet is now. There's a wake up, wake up, wake up. And the torment that says over every blade of grass, there is an angel bent over whispering, grow, grow, grow right now. It's almost like, now. So I'm feeling that and the lessons are much more challenging than anything I've ever had in my life actually. But I don't sense that I'm alone in that. I think everyone is feeling like, oh my God, this is it. When you went to meet me, would we call them the writers of the book? Oh, Helen Schuchman and Bill Thetford.

29:16I met Bill Thetford. I never met Helen Schuchman. I worked at the office with Bob Scutch, who is still with us. I had a little apartment on Central Park South in New York. When she came, which was maybe she would come to be with for lunch or something like every two weeks or so, he would make me leave. She had a thing about not meeting the students of the course or anything. So he would make me leave. So I never got to meet her. Bill Thetford, however, went out to Tiburon, which is where Jerry lived and where the scutches moved and all that stuff with Judy Scutch and Bob Witts on and stuff. And so I did get to meet Bill Thetford.

29:57What was the group of people like telling me about all of them? They were wonderful. Then there was Wopnik, Ken Wopnik, and Ken was different. But Bob and Judy, Judy was divine. When I think of how Judy was to me. So here I am with the characteristic over -zealousness of the new student. And I would say the kinds of things to her that we've all heard people say, oh, I have this great idea. I'm with Bob, Bob, Bob. And I remember how she would always just go, wow, that sounds great. I always felt taken seriously by her even when there was nothing to take serious. And I would always remember that because she will model something so profound for me.

30:35Then there was stuff with my book, when my book came out with Wopnik and it was not very nice, but that was just Tim. And Bill, this is my favorite tour about Bill. But I wasn't there for this, but it's a kind of famous story within the course of miracles world. He did, I don't know if it was daily or weekly course of miracles, study group, Interburon. And one day he hadn't gotten there yet. To me, by the way, this is such a perfect demonstration of the course. So he hadn't gotten there yet and they were talking about a particular page or particular paragraph. I don't know what it was. And one group of people said it means this, and another group of people says it means that.

31:15So the story goes that he walked into the room and everybody said, oh, Bill, we're so glad you're here. We're so glad you're here. We're on page 86 of the text or whatever. And it says this and it says that. And nobody can decide if they think it means this and that means that. And it's really causing some attention and we're so glad that you're here because we really need you to tell us, Bill, what do you think it means? And his response was, wow, how about that page of I were you? Amazing. Amazing. You meet Buddha on the road, kill him. Yeah. Amazing. God himself would not have you use God to separate yourself from me, tell them.

31:51Ever there's a trick of being. Yeah. Tell me about Manly Peahol. Well, I didn't know him. He was the big boss. I did meet him and he was giving talks. I don't know if it was Sunday morning. He was a very, very big man. And I was working at the philosophical society where he, there was this big book, The Secret History of the United States, which was I was really enamored by. But in those days, you know, it's like I was the girl in the office at Foundation for Anapace. And I was the girl in the office at Los Felos. He was the great man. And I didn't have any personal interaction. I think I got him coffee a couple of times, you know.

32:29But I remember just being there. And because it was a book publishing, which I assume it still is. There was this amazing library room and catalog and all of his things. But that book particularly, you know, but it was just for me. It was so many things. It was the set books. Did you ever read the set books? I never had. Oh, wow. Nature, personal reality. You know, the course in miracles is, I've never met anyone for whom the course in miracles is the introductory material to the world of metaphysics. So all of those things were important to me. And then when I went to the course of, so much was understandable, it would not have been had I not read all those other things first.

33:09And the metaphysical beginnings of this country, I mean, they were all, you know, they were free medicines. And Benjamin Franklin was a Rosa Crucion. Look at the dollar bill, the great seal of the United States, is the great pyramid, a geese with the top stone return and the eye of Horace, the novice orders, the Chlorim, new order of ages. So those guys knew things. Do you have a spiritual practice? Course in miracles. I also do TM. But I'm not religious, well, you're not religious with any of them, but I'm not ritualistic or anything with TM, whereas I am with the course in miracles for a book every morning.

33:40From the time you started lecturing, have you ever stopped? At this point in my life, I have more discipline than the course we talk about in terms of discipline. I'm more disciplined right now than at any other time, because there is no serious religious or spiritual tradition that does not emphasize the power of the morning. When you wake up in the morning is when you first take in the consciousness that will dominate the day. Particularly today, we are assaulted by so much ultimately meaningless and unimportant material, assaulting us. So if you wake up in the morning and the first thing you do is Twitter or a news site or Instagram or TikTok, there's no mystery why you're depressed by noon.

34:30But if you ground yourself in the morning in what is ultimately true, then I'm not saying you'll never fall off the spiritual wagon but getting yourself back on is much easier. Aren't you a meditator? Isn't that true? So at this point, you know there's no, as you know, there's no should about it. It's just if you don't feel your house with light at the beginning of the day, darkness will settle in. Those thoughts are going to go somewhere. They're eager to go into extension, love, creativity, or into neurosis and pathology and fear. These books are not written with a... You should believe this, they're written with it just thought you might like to know.

35:12This is how consciousness operates. Yeah, you can participate or not. Yeah, yeah. But the last thing it is is Kukie. I'll tell you what's Kukie is, what's the insanity that is dominating the world today. You talk about light in the morning. I think of it literally getting out into the sun to start the day. It changes everything. Nature, this all evolved over millions and millions of years. So everything, it's a perfect ecosystem. Nature, what it does for us. Just looking at that. Tell me about where you grew up. Houston. What was life like? I had a very magical father. And a very wonderful mother, but a traditional mother.

35:53My father was like a cross between William Conzler and Sorba the Greek. He was amazing. He took his deviant mom to show us what war was. Wow. Yeah. My father was one of those warriors. I don't make them like that anymore. And described the area. Was it rural or suburban? It's suburban Houston. Various, you know, externally 50s house, wife, type stuff. But my parents traveled all over the world all the time and took us during the summer. So I traveled all over the world as a child. And people would say to my father, why are you doing this? Your kids will never remember all this. And he would say it'll get under their skin.

36:39And he was right. There's just so much propaganda. American propaganda, particularly militaristic propaganda. I was never vulnerable to. Because if when you're a little kid, you get that people are the same everywhere. Later, you don't even have to explain it. It's like they experienced it.

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38:37Tell me about the law of divine compensation. Well, it's just the idea that God is this ocean of love, right? And it's all that is and we are ideas on the mind of God. So when you think a loveless thought, you deviate from the truth and you. The universe works like a GPS that you take a wrong turn. Immediately your path is recalibrated. If you atone, get it. And the law of divine compensation is you swerved. In the next moment you have the opportunity to get it right. And the other aspect of that, that book is about money. And particularly the idea of divine compensation. You know, I think the purpose of money is so that you won't have to think about money.

39:29So I think everything like you were talking about the sunlight. I think the universe is set up to support us when we are in the line with the truth of who we are. And we are taught ideas about money that have to do with such struggle and worldliness. And if you think of it in terms of divine compensation, I felt that way even when we returned to love came out. Because I wrote Return to Love while I was doing all the age work. And every single day there was a support group. And the things I was doing at that time and the last thing that ever was part of any of that was money. And then when we returned to love came out and it was more money than I had ever seen.

40:07It was the fifth largest book that year selling book. I've felt in my gut that that was the universal payment for the work I've done for years without ever thinking about money. I never made as much money as I made before even knew what bestseller meant. I remember once watching an interview with Richard Geer talking about Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. And he was talking about what a brilliant performance she gave. He says because she doesn't know yet. Nobody's told her what you're supposed to be able to do and not do. And then he said she'll learn. It's that beginner's luck which is also Zen Buddhist, empty mind concepts and mind, empty mind.

40:53And you have that line at the beginning of your book. The state you get in in which it occurs naturally. It's not about what gets created in that state. It's about the space that you inhabit where the next best thing is inevitable. The universe is naturally creative. Yes. Everything. Every relationship. Every podcast. Every book. It's all a creative act. If you are allowing yourself to be a portal for. That which is good and holy and true and we're taught. The resistance to that. Of the ego mind, the non loving mind. Tell me about the new book. My new book. Yeah. Well, about five years ago. Harper one had asked me there was an editor there, a wonderful man in Mickey, Maldon.

41:42He said, you know, the biggest demographic out there. And I'd known this a lot. I mean, I think the success of my career as a lecturer and author has been in large part based about this because a lot of people when they turned away from organized religion did not mean to be turning away from God. They felt they ended up throwing away the baby with the bath water. But he said it's interesting how many people come into book sorts and they want to book about Jesus. But not necessarily a book about Christianity. So would you be interested in writing a book about Jesus separate from Christianity per se?

42:20So definitely I'm your girl. It's a student of course in miracles. So I contracted to write that book and I was very nervous about it. Certainly it seems like the most important topic you could possibly type on. Better not get this one wrong. And then I had this idea that I should run for president. So I said to the publisher, if we got one little problem, we got to deal with things of what I said, I'm going to run for president. And we're all really. I said, yeah, it's for what would you like to do? I said, well, everybody runs for president. I mean, almost everybody, nine cents a book. I actually write a book, a campaign book.

43:01So I wrote this book called Politics of Love. That was much more where my mind was at that time. And then later I ran for president and then when that was over, they said, hello, how about that Jesus book now? It's called the mystic Jesus, the mind of love. And I hope it's good. It's published in May. So I haven't yet had the experience of anyone. You know, you probably know this about your own book. You know in the first 15 minutes. It's like when you meet a person. You know it had taught immediately. You know, you can get the feeling of things people say. And it was an honor to have a chance to write it.

43:45And it's about a Jesus which cannot be monopolized by any institution or specific religious set of dog law or doctrine, universal Christ. You know, when in the early days, there were the gnawstick. I don't know if you've ever read a wonderful book by Elaine Pagels, the Gnawstick Gospel, which was really a book that blew my mind about the ecclesiastic Christians and then the Gnawsticks. So you could think of the course of miracles as Gnawstick, the mystical tradition. One sees the church as the kind of broker and external doctrine and dogma and institution. And then the mystic tradition is much more direct to the loss of the heart and the direct experience of the divine.

44:32So that's what the book is about. There was a historical Jesus. Jesus was the Christ. So the idea metaphysically and spiritually is whether you call it the Shikina as in Judaism or the Buddha mind or the Christ, the idea that this divine essence where our connection with God is. One of complete unity exists in all of us through meditation, through prayer. Through forgiveness. Through love. It is both received and given and that when that occurs, life works. This line in the book, I thought we had a deal. Yeah. You know, we tell that story. Please tell through me. Jesus is at the Calctaw Party.

45:19So I had, in about 1980, 79, 80, I had an experience that today would be called a Novus breakdown. And I had already started doing the course. As a matter of fact, I was living in Houston. And I could not stop crying. And my mother had a friend who was an art therapist. An art therapist. Named Buzz, Buzz Cohen. So my mother was a very traditional woman. For instance, if you had said to my mother, you should maybe go to therapy. Why? I'm not crazy. I mean, that's all fast when we're talking. So I cannot stop crying. I'm definitely in the middle of a breakdown. And my mother comes into my room and she says, Buzz tells me that you're in trouble.

46:08And I went, yeah, I'm on me. And she said, Anne, that we need to help you. And I said, yeah, thank you. And she said, Buzz says that you should go see someone. And I said, that would be lovely. And she said, but I don't want any of this California stuff. She had this thing. I don't know this California stuff you too. I mean, I've been doing the course of miracles in New York, but to her, it was California time stuff. She said, I want you to see a doctor, a medical psychiatrist, a Jewish psychiatrist. And I said, okay, mommy, just anyone. Okay. So she comes back to you. She says, Buzz tells me that there's this man.

46:49And his name was Dr. Mark Valverde in Houston. And she's the one you'll go see. So I went to see him. And I said to him at the very beginning, now this is 1980 in Houston, Texas. And I went into his office and for one of the first things I said, I know that I'm in trouble. And I know that I need to see someone, but I just want you to know that I'm a student of a book called The Course in Miracles. And if you're going to tell me that that's just cookie crazy stuff, and that I need a real psychiatric help, but that's not it, then this is not going to work. And he leaned over his desk and he said to me, I just completed the workbook.

47:26Amazing. So during that time, which I do think of him as having saved my life, I must say, well, she'll such gratitude to that man forever. But during that time, I'd wake up in the middle of the night and I would feel this presence at the end of my bed. It was a shadowy figure. It wasn't like, oh my god, someone's in the room. Very tall, very skinny. Sitting perpendicular, not looking at me, but present. And I would always sense it there. And I began to sense this presence. And, you know, the course, the longer you study it, the deeper your understanding of it. You never outgrow it. But you know, the course isn't trying to get you to believe in Jesus.

48:10It's not even trying to get you to believe in God. It's just trying to get us to believe in one another. And as far as Jesus is concerned, the word, you know, it says, you do not have to believe in me for this material to have any meaning for you. But if you do this, a little more I can do for you, something like that. And as I walked through that horrifying period of my life, I did begin to feel that it's as though I was accompanied by a presence. And I had said to God during that period of time, when I was in deep trouble psychologically. I remember saying, if you will put my life back together, I will give the rest of my life to you.

48:52Because it was like Humpty Dumpty might not ever be put back together again. And I felt like the psychiatrist was like my skull exploded. I felt like he treated it like a priceless vase, Greek vase, and he pains daygainly. We're going to put your skull back together. But I felt when my skull got put back together, something was in there that had not been there before. And I said to God, you know, we all have conversations in our own heart, something about if you, because I knew I was in trouble. And I could see the looks on the faces of my family, the fear in their eyes. I'd become a pathetic person.

49:28Nobody knew what to do with me and a family system like mine. I remember my cousin of mine told me a few years ago, my father said to her during that time, which I didn't even know. I don't know what to do with him, a flicked child. But I could see in people's eyes, it was really scary for me. I didn't stop crying. I mean, I needed help. And I got help. And the spiritual was not at odds with the psychiatric. So I said to God something about if you will help me, I will give you the rest of my life. And then one boy and I said to, you know, this presence, I said, you know, I wasn't thinking of it in terms of, you know, the course doesn't have this rigid grandiosity stuff with it.

50:07But this sense of, I wanted to go back to life. And I didn't really want to be thinking about God all the time, because during that time, the belief that God would help me was what enabled me to take my next breath. And then it was like, thank you very much. I'm fine. And I know there are a lot of people here to help now. And thank you so much. It was like I was trying to blow them off of them. And then I went to this cocktail party. It was in Houston and it was at a big house in River Oaks. And there were these rooms and you just went from room to room. And I saw these three men. And they were all in either tux, I think tuxedos.

50:44It was a very fancy cocktail party. And I must have had a spontaneous hallucination, a jade dream. But I know the mystics would call it a spontaneous, you know, mystical experience. You can call it whatever you want. Three men. And I look. And one of them turns at me in this waking dream, whatever. There was clear who he was. And he looked at me. And with no emotion whatsoever, he said, I thought we had a deal. And that was it for me in my life. It was a moment to find everything that would come to pass.

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52:49Do you think the reason you were in the debilitated condition was you're unusually sensitive? No, I'm human. And it was a tragic experience that would have thrown anyone into some level of disrepair. But I think we're all sensitive. You know, I love the line in the course that all of the children have got a special and none of the children have got a special. I don't subscribe to any of this, some of us are in power. And that's just grandiosity. All of us are going through what's happening in this world right now. And I think spiritual superiority is one of the shadows to avoid. Yeah. You know, they call it a mental health crisis.

53:35It's a spiritual crisis. But clearly it has a grip of this society. This is what's again why one of the reasons I ran for president and I have run for president, am running still technically, is because you have 70 % of Americans who live with chronic economic anxiety. The majority of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. The majority of Americans cannot absorb a $1 ,000 unexpected expenditure. Now, I remember the 70s. During the 70s the average American couple could afford a house and could afford a car and could afford a yearly vacation. And one parent could stay home with the kids that they wanted.

54:13And they could afford to send their kids to college. And one salary could support a family of four. That was called a thriving middle class. So the level of economic despair for the majority of Americans there is no wiggle room. And I meet these people all the time. So what the system says to people such as myself, clergy, counselors, et cetera, can you help them survive the pain of this injustice? And my response is why don't we just end the injustice? When the age crisis happened in the 1980s, what would happen for me and then what continued to happen in my life is that the joke used to be, most people don't call me a re -amb because things are going well.

55:06So I had what I think of as really a privilege of being with people sometimes in their darkest hours. The test results came back. It's cancer or it's AIDS or your child is on heroin or someone you love just died suddenly or whatever it is. But at that time when my career began, and I think this was true not just that my career was true of America, a time of crisis was the exception. It wasn't the rule. And around the year 2000, I began to meet more and more people whose conditions in life were such that the crisis was the rule, not the exception. It wasn't just that the test results came back and you had cancer.

55:46It was that you don't have any health insurance. And we've now developed as a society, it's par my crisis. It's a permanent state of crisis, whereas I had always felt that my working with people on a personal growth, spiritual consciousness level was the way I could be of greatest help. I began to realize, especially when I went to Michigan in the late 1990s, how many of the problems that people experience in this country are at least in part to bad public policy. So I began to realize that at a certain point we need to do more than just try to help people survive difficulties. We need to remove some of those difficulties.

56:26There's a line in the new book, I'm determined to see this differently. The course of miracle says that's the most powerful, it's like the most powerful affirmation I am willing to see this differently. So we are not always in control of what's happened, but where we are 100 % responsible is where we stand in the midst of what's happening, how we choose to hold what's happening. Are you going to see it as an opportunity for a miracle? Are you going to see it as an opportunity to look within yourself? Am I not forgiving? Or are you going to play this the way you might have played it in the past?

57:03And things didn't work so well. Every situation is part of what the course of miracle is called a highly individualized curriculum. If you played it well last time, are you playing it even better today? And if you didn't play it well last time, could you play it better today? Was your heart closed? Were you standing in victim? Were you not giving everything? Were you not thinking about the other person? Well guess what? The situation back. Your choice. So I am willing to see this differently. Is a recognition of the primacy of your consciousness in any situation. Because every thought the course has creates form on some level.

57:38And the altar is inside your mind. So what you put on the altar is then altered. If I put our relationship, let's say, on the altar. It's a way of saying, may my thoughts about you, may my thoughts about me, and may our thoughts about us and our purpose here be lifted to the highest place. Above the low -level thought forms that dominate the world, which will constantly tempt us to separate ourselves from each other, to withhold love from each other, to judge and to attack and to separate. Let's talk about miracles in general. In our culture, miracles are things that can't happen. In the course, miracles are natural and always occurring.

58:19It's a perception of love. And as I said before, when we are in a state of love, infinite possibilities are open. As you just said, and that's a line in the course, miracles are natural when they do not occur. Something has gone wrong. Did you read CS Lewis's book on miracles? I think by the time I read that book, I was already into it all, you know what I mean? I mean, to me, he had much more effect on my childhood, Limewitz and the wardrobe and all that, right? He opened up the space of the mystical for me in the line with me. The maze. Right? The maze. Yeah, so I would say he was very formative, but by the time I was an adult reading that, he had already taken me to where I needed to be.

59:01You know what I was saying? Yeah, tell me about your relationship to Leonardo's painting of Jesus. That was an amazing experience. So I was living in New York. It was about the time, like, six years ago, I'd read in the paper about this painting that they had found and finally all the experts had said, yes, it's actually a Leonardo. And it's a picture of Jesus very dressed and very anachronistically in these Renaissance robes, and he's holding, you know, an orb. And I just read about it just from a place of, wow, they kind of knew Leonardo. Wow, cool. You know, it was nothing more than that. And my friend Maria had a friend who worked at Christie's.

59:40I was living in New York and I was living in Midtown. And she said, you know, if you heard about this Leonardo, I said, yeah, I was reading about it. She said, well, it's actually Christie's, which was just a few blocks away. And she said, my friend works there. And I want to go see it. She said, we could go. Would you be interested in seeing it? Yeah, I think that would be cool. And we went, and it was at the end of the time, before it was being taken away. So by the time we went there, there were only like five or six people in line. The room was practically empty. And then we came up to the picture.

1:00:08And I've traveled to the great museums of the world. I've seen so many great religious paintings. When I looked at this picture, I had this experience. And it was like I was transported. And I saw these two words. And somehow I saw that these two words were what he is. And the words were tender and power. So, tenderness, like I think the way I wrote it in the book, like a billion babies kisses. Like just think of any tender moment possible, all of it, that that's what he is. And power so great that it's the power to manage universes. I got that consciousness. And of course, you know, the course says, you're an idea in the mind of God.

1:01:07So it's, is that infinite tenderness and infinite power. And it was extraordinary. And I don't know if I was there for a minute. It was two minutes. I don't know. And then they came and they took the painting away. And I started reading on the internet. I was really curious who bought it. It was a mystery buyer. And later in the day, it was announced to a buyer. And it was MBS.

1:01:37That the prince in Saudi Arabia, Muhammad bin Salman. And I, it was before the Khashoggi murder. But we already knew who he was. And he is apparently building a Louvre of the Middle East. And this will be star treasure. And at first I was so like, oh, how awful that he of all people would get it. And then I realized, no, how perfect. Who needs it more? And then when I was writing the book, my friend Andrea Kagan, who helps me with editing often, she's a literary muse for me. You know, when I was talking about that, we were writing and I was writing that part. She said, oh, I had a very similar experience.

1:02:27So really, she said it was at the Vatican. I don't know how long ago it was. Apparently years ago, she said, I had that same experience where I looked at a picture of him and I was transported into a place beyond it. She said that what she saw was all the people in the world. She said he is all people in the world. But the way she described it was very similar in terms of deliverance to her level of perception. Tell me more about putting the book together. Well, you know, over in the 16th, 16th books at this point, I think writing is very difficult. I'm one of those people. I don't know what yours was.

1:03:09If you're not pregnant, you're not pregnant. If it's not there, it's not there. And then it gets there. Is that how you felt? With that one, I was particularly, there was a man named Robert Perry and his wife Emily Bennington, who know a lot about the course of miracles. And Robert is written books. And so was she. And I asked him for his help with his perception of Jesus in the course and some of the lines written in first person like, I am the atonement. Excuse me. Excuse me. I remember reading that that first time I saw like, what? Who is this again? And then I called Andrea. I work well with the literary babysitter.

1:03:48Yeah. You know, just, can we sit and talk this through? And how you can do it like you know, you've written, but you just hope it's a value to someone. Absolutely. Who would you say is Jesus today? Well, I think he is to everyone who he is to them. You know, my book is about the mystic Jesus. Obviously, there was a historical Jesus. And there are people who are experts in the life of the historical Jesus. You can go to Israel. And I even talked in that book about my experience at the church of the supple current. You know, I respect all that. But I'm Jewish. I didn't write a book about Christianity.

1:04:27I didn't write a book about the Christian Jesus. That's not what this book is. And I don't think that everyone feels called to Jesus. I don't think everyone feels called to God. You know, the course in America says, some people conspire with God who do not believe in Him. The issue is love. Loving people are doing the work of what I think of as God, whether they believe in God or not. The course in America says, belief is ultimately meaningless. Experience is what matters. Experience if I love in one another, there are being a space of possibility for one another. So the course in America says, Jesus is someone who lived on the earth, but thought only the thoughts of heaven.

1:05:07And he, therefore, became one with the mind of God. And I think of him, and I think I used this image in the book, in a lot of books he's called an evolutionary elder brother. And the course says he's not the only one who has actualized the full human potential, which is oneness with the divine. You know, whether it's the Christian cross or the Jewish star of David, they're both symbols for an intersection, you know, the vertical and the horizontal, the axis with God and the axis of the world. And I think of him, and I think that's the image I used in this book, I think I used it, return to love as well, if you are sketching and Picasso walks in.

1:05:48And Picasso says, well, you know, if you want me to look at your sketches and work with you a little, would you say, no, if you're a musician and Beethoven walked in, he said, you want me to listen to a few bars, would you say, no? I think of him the highest art of living. He has actualized it, and I think he has been given the authority by God to help others who so choose. And I don't think there's any should to it. And when he said, no, man, come out under the father, but for me, I think but through unconditional love. And unconditional love has nothing to do with your belief. Yeah. That's what I believe.

1:06:29Tell me about the workbook. Well, the course of miracles says the workbook is the crux of the course. So the course of miracles says enlightenment begins as abstract understanding. And then it makes a journey without distance from the head to the heart. So, you know, if you've read the course of miracles as many times as I have, if simply abstract knowing of the principles was enough to make you an enlightened master, I'd be an enlightened master. I'm not, however, because it has to do with application. So, the workbook is 365 days of meditation exercises. And it's a very specific curriculum. And the first half of the year has to do with dismantling a thought system based on fear.

1:07:16And the second half has to do with substituting for that a thought system based on love. I think of it much like going to the gym. You are reworking your muscles. You are strengthening your muscles and reforming your physical body. The same is true with your attitudinal muscles. Psychic meditation. If I do physical exercise, it's to strengthen me so that I can run across the yard. Spiritual exercise is so that I can remain non -reactive and still. Your external muscles are about movement. Your internal muscles are about stillness, right? And non -reactivity and being a magnet and all of that, rather than the dynamism of physical movement.

1:07:58So, you never get to look in the mirror. You know, say I really like where I am. I don't have to exercise anymore. And you never get with spiritual exercise. I said, oh, I'm there now. I'm cool. I don't need to do it anymore. And once again, it's not a should. It's just I'm aware from experience what a mess I can make of things. If I don't particularly in the morning, ground myself in peace and inner peace.

1:08:28Is it true to say that the course is internal work and that the external changes happen because our perception changes? Well, the perception leads to behavioral change and all thought. Everybody subconsciously knows everything. So, I think differently, if you are looking at me and I just get a patronizing vibe, condescending vibe, it's how other people feel. So, if I haven't changed my thought, or let's say if I do change my thought, your perception of me will be different. What you say to me will be different. How you behave towards me will be different in that. So, yes, it's about internal change, but all internal change has external consequences because all that's going on out there is a screen.

1:09:14If you go to a movie and you don't like the plot, you don't get to go to the screen, it's coming from the projector. And once you realize that, you realize my external life is not going to change unless and until I change my perception. And we are the projectors. Absolutely. And all that's just the manifestation. Describe miracle -mindedness. Miracle -mindedness is the thinking grounded in a thought system based on love. Now, I look at my little granddaughter. She's almost 11 months. And I see how she is like when she's lying at her father's arms. With her mother too, but it's different. I've noticed this particular woman with her father.

1:09:57She's in such bliss. And she's in bliss with her mother too, but it's a different thing I notice. And what I notice about her body is there's nothing in her little consciousness yet that has perceived her life. Danger. That is the natural state. Right? But no matter how much her parents love her and they do, you get to a point in life where you cannot completely protect them from some of the machinations of the world. But a heartbreak apparently and the art of parenting and all of that. So she will be inundated by that no matter how much she is loved. And the course of miracle says that enlightenment is not a learning.

1:10:43It's an unlearning. Miracle -mindedness is the mental habit that you develop of perceiving with love. For instance, the course of miracle says, no matter what someone says to you, you can perceive it one of two ways. You can perceive it as an attack, a judgment, and you're going to attack back. The wheel of suffering is Buddha -watsai. But the course says, everything someone says to you is either love or a call for love. Either way, the appropriate response is love. If you say something loving to me, it's very easy for me to see the appropriate response, a loving response. But if you say something unloving to me, the course of miracles would say, something in your life could have been a childhood, could have been adulthood, whenever it was.

1:11:34Something broke, and you went into a place where you don't see how to be loving and get your needs met. It's almost like a muscle cramp. And so instead of loving you, that person is attacking you, judging you, blaming you. They have fallen asleep to who they are. And in their sleep state, not knowing who they are, they don't see who you are either. But you don't have to fall asleep with them. Because somebody's personality behind that is the truth of who they are. So you can choose, miracle -mindedness means your choice to extend your perception beyond what they just said or did to what your heart knows to be true.

1:12:18So you are going to stay alive and awake to who they are, even when they have clearly fallen asleep to who they are and who you are. As you remain awake to who they are, that awakens them. That's miracle -mindedness. Now, the issue is a lot easier said than done. And that goes back to the whole concept of the Holy Spirit, Jesus, whatever you call it, in the Eurangibokas called the thought adjuster, where you can say, and I've said it many times in my life, okay, I get that she's a perfect child of God, but she just came across like a perfect bitch to me. Now, I am willing to see her innocence, but I need some help here, because I can't do it by myself.

1:13:03Now, I told a story, I think I'm returning to love, one of the most dramatic examples of this. It was during the 1980s, and the reason I remember it was during the 1980s was because I had on these acrylic fingernails. I was lecturing in LA, and there was a woman who came to my lectures on Saturday morning, and she did acrylics. So I would go to her house, and she put my acrylic fingernails on. One day I'm there, and she has the three girlfriends, and they're talking. And there's just one woman. And every time she spoke, it was like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. It felt so affected to me. And would you please get me that I just thought, oh my God, who is this chap?

1:13:52And I just was raging in judgment about the way she was talking. Meanwhile, I'm not stupid. I get the irony. This girl holding my hand at the moment, during the acrylics comes to my lectures, all about being so loving and enlightenment. You know, I get the irony if she only knew. So I say a little prayer. I am willing to see this differently. Within probably sooner than five minutes, one of the girls says to the girl who was speaking that way, are they ever going to let your father out of prison? And I'm hearing them talk. Her father, it had been one of those cases like worst type of things you've ever, that you see on TV.

1:14:33This man held this girl and her little brother in a dungeon, their entire childhood. Like one of the worst you've ever heard of, right? Now they're just talking. She didn't know how to talk. She gets out. She's a teenager. And had to learn how to talk. So five minutes before, what had elicited me, such judgment, now elicited me, such compassion and I'm so impressed. And it's the same girl saying the same things the same way I had changed. Your story changed about her. Right. Right. It was all in my mind. Yeah. My judgment, but I had prayed, I'm willing to see this differently. Now, this is how the course of miracles would sit.

1:15:26That would have happened whether I've said the prayer or not. But with the prayer, I opened myself to understanding what was going on here. And that's where we miss a lot of miracles. Miracles are always happening. I think there's a metaphysical principle also. Whatever you need is right there. I missed a couple of profound within a worldly sense, professional opportunities. Why? It was so easy. It didn't occur to me. What it was, it's like we were so taught to think it has to come to a struggle. When really the greatest creativity and the greatest comes through, just love and play. And in two cases, how could you miss that?

1:16:12Well, part of it was a lack of more of a sophistication. But it was more than that. It was not realizing to be open to every moment this could be. Yeah. And now you have a story about what could have been, and maybe you're being protected from something that would have been terrible. You don't know. And kind of things so. However. You don't know. I think writing the forward to the power of now would have been fine. I don't think I think doing that project with hope would have been fine. But, but there is something else about that from a Course in Miracles perspective. If there was a miracle that could have happened, and either you, through your lovelessness, or someone else through their lovelessness, blocked the way, the Course in Miracles says, the miracle is held in trust for you by the Holy Spirit until you are ready to receive.

1:17:04Wow. That's beautiful. So when you have either forgiven the other person for blocking it, or forgiven your self for blocking it, and usually in life it's both. Although in those cases it was totally me. It'll happen in another form. It happens in another place that happens to other people. So I think that's beautiful. The Holy Spirit being what the Course in Miracles calls the eternal connecting link between God and His separated sons. Beautiful. I love that story. That in that moment, the Course says, we were talking before about happened millions of years ago, and that millions of years ago, in time, we had that first thought of separations from love.

1:17:43So the Course says, love being God has the answer to every problem, the moment the problem occurs. So if you started thinking a non -loving thought, God couldn't force you back because love doesn't force, but the Course says, God placed within your mind a place of consciousness that will be there forever because once God creates something, it can't be uncreated. Which will guide you back, should you choose? As a matter of fact, we're talking about Jesus. In fact, they didn't put this in the book. I wish I had. I'm fortunate enough to have another printing. I want to put this in because this is so fabulous.

1:18:18I can't believe I hadn't thought of it. He says, I am not an ego -oriented teacher. I look forward to the day when you won't have to ask me to help you get to the loving thought. Because sometimes the evidence of the world is so great. You can't get there yourself. He said, when we get there, and this is so incredible, because the Holy Spirit was created by God, it cannot be uncreated. He says, at that point, when you don't need me to help you anymore, I will remain there as your friend. So beautiful. Do you think the physical Jesus walked on the planet? The mystical Jesus of your book and the Christian Jesus of the Bible are all the same character?

1:19:06I'm not an expert on the Bible. And I think that there are people who would have a fascinating take on the answer to that question and on not that person. Have you ever had any conversations with any Christian scholars about Jesus comparing notes? I've had conversations with Christian scholars about the course in miracles, yes. What's their take? They're not a monolith. I mean, there are many Christian scholars. I don't mean to generalize. Organized institutions, including religions, tend to calcify and an arrogant set's in. And particularly, not with all, but with some dispensations of Christianity, everything that's going to be said has already been said.

1:19:51So we don't want to hear about your book that came out in the 1970s. I see. You mentioned the morning being a powerful child. But there are other times of the day that are special for any reason before sleep. Well, I think the course in miracles talks about morning and sleep. Does the GM talk about maybe late in the afternoon? Yeah, before dinner, usually, it's recommended for the second meditation. Also in the set books, it talks about how your life, when you're awake and asleep, they are two distinctly separate. There are times during the middle of the night, with the negative violence, et cetera, when you should be awake.

1:20:26And there are times in late afternoon, when you should be asleep. Basically, what it describes is kind of the Mediterranean cultures with the CSTIS. He says, you're awake for too long at one time. And we feel it in our bodies. And then in the middle of the night, and I thought that is exactly, even though he doesn't say it, it's like that Mediterranean culture. And I know a lot of us. I know I'm not the only person who wakes up at, you know, 415 and some of the most creative times in the hours and the quiet. He says, you're waking hours should be more dream -like, and your dreams should be more wakeful.

1:21:00Wow, that's beautiful. That's great. What can we do to build our spiritual muscles? Meditation, prayer, practice. I think there's a path for everyone. And, you know, you know your path when you find it. I've always said in my lectures, there are three groups of people here. One of you is hearing what I'm saying, and going, yeah, but she's right. I do it and she's absolutely right. My path is this or that. She's right. The other second group is saying, she's right, and I do know what my path is and I should do it in a more disciplined way. Remember the word disciple and discipline came from the same word.

1:21:39And then there's another group. The thing, I am open. It sounds right. I just don't know what it would be. To you, I say, be alert because books are going to fall like the feet in the next few days.

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