For all my talk about how important it is to meditate - and as much as I believe it - I find myself on certain days avoiding it.

It goes something like this. First I look at the day’s lesson from A Course in Miracles. That’s not hard. I welcome it. Then I read the lesson, which on most days feels wonderful yet on some days I meet with various degrees of avoidance technique. “I have to read that article about how the war in Iran is over but it’s not really over” - which I actually don’t - or, “I need to take that powder in case acid reflux kicks in” - which I actually don’t - or, “I need to see if my daughter wrote back about Sunday yet,” which I really don’t. All that before I can even begin to make myself concentrate.

That’s when you realize how powerful the ego is. There are days when it feels as though anything would be easier that just sitting there for fifteen minutes with your eyes closed, saying nothing, doing nothing. What is it the part of the mind that would rather do anything else? If anything, that part of the mind is why we need to do it.

After all my years of practice, this should not still be happening. So one of my tricks when those days arrive — and I’m sure I’m not the only one — is this: I set the alarm on my phone for exactly the time the meditation calls for. I tell myself, You’re going to do this. You’re not going to open your eyes again until that alarm goes off. Just do it. In other words, I erase choice. If the alarm hasn’t gone off yet, there’s no excuse for opening my eyes to check the clock for whether or not it’s time!

What follows when we do that, of course -- and it doesn’t even take that long — is that the initial anxiety floats up and dissolves. It’s like removing the top layer of fat on top of soup that’s been refrigerated. In A Course in Miracles, it says we have to go through a ring of fear in our approach to God. All we have to do is stay with it, exercising even the slightest discipline. That ring is only hot air. It’s like you’re on an airplane and when the clouds part, the sky is blue again.

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The change we need in the world will not be achieved by changes on the horizontal level so much as by changes on the vertical. I was in a conversation the other day that made me happy, and as I listened to the other person I thought, “This is only happening because my meditations have gone deeper.” Why? Because it put me in greater alignment with the kinds of things that had to happen, both externally and internally, to result in that conversation.

Many people these days have a feeling there’s some next big step in front of them, but they don’t know what it is. Many have said to me, “Yeah, I have to figure that out.” Yet “figuring things out” is part of the model of thought that got us here; it’s not the model that will rescue us now. It’s part of our brain power, of course, but we need soul power as well these days. We don’t have to figure things out so much as we need to surrender them to a Higher Power. This is the Zen concept of an empty rice bowl. Present an empty rice bowl to God so He can fill it for you. Out of the no-thing comes all things. The most powerful aspects of consciousness right now are Humility, Availability, and Receptivity. They will do more to birth the new than will anything we can figure out.

Often when I’ve lectured about the importance of daily meditation, I’ve sensed there were three groups of people in the room. There are those who meditate regularly and nod their heads when I speak of its importance. The second are those who agree with the concept, know what kind of meditation practice works for them, and are reminded they’d probably have a happier life if they did it more regularly. A third group seems present too: people who don’t need convincing so much as they simply don’t know where to start. There are many varieties of meditation techniques, after all: Buddhist meditation, Kabbalistic meditation, Transcendental Meditation, secular meditation techniques, the lessons in the Workbook of A Course in Miracles, and so forth. Any google search or walk through a bookstore reveals that. If you’d like to meditate but don’t know where to start, say a simple prayer in your heart and within days techniques will start to fall at your feet. Someone will mention a class, a book, a teacher, a video, and then all of a sudden you’ll be off and running. Or I should say, you’ll be off and sitting!

Some days you’ll crave meditation, and other days you might resist it. But regardless how you feel about doing it, you’ll always feel better for having done so.. We coddle our pain too easily these days, when in fact there is something right in front of us that can do so much to assuage it. The Opponent is not out there, after all; it’s in our mind. And its peak experience is our suffering. It would rather you do anything in the world but sit down, shut up, say your mantra, and love God.

Stand up for yourself. Do. it. anyway.

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*Don’t forget the Silent Minute for world peace that many of us practice every night, 6pm PT/ 9pm ET. The feeling you get, knowing you are joined in doing this with people all over the world, is very moving. Join us!

I just completed a journey that took me around the world. I went from London to Abu Dhabi to New Delhi to Sydney to Melbourne Brisbane to Los Angeles to Chicago to North Carolina to Miami to New York then back to London to see family.

The picture above is at a restaurant in Los Angeles with my bestie Frances Fisher, feeling love like I received from so many great people on my trip. I’m deeply grateful for the experience. I was constantly amazed by the sheer wonderfulness of those I was with. These days the gap is so heartbreaking between the horror so many are experiencing, and the sheer beauty of people and the world around us. I feel what so many seem to be going through these days, as though we’re in this huge in-between zone - not quite who we were, but not yet who we’re in the midst of becoming.

I guess we’re always that, by definition, but today feels somewhat different. We really are in that imaginal soup between the caterpillar and the butterfly, aren’t we? Something is brewing. Something new is being born in all of us. I felt it literally all over the world. It’s not always comfortable standing on the shifting ground that is the world today, but we have to have faith. The acorn becomes the oak tree and the bud becomes the flower, with no help from us. Creation is always giving birth to more of itself, to some miraculous next step. God specializes in new beginnings.

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As I write this, I’m nine minutes away from that one minute of silence for the world at 6 PM West Coast time, 9 PM East Coast time and 2 AM London time. Whatever power is going to close the gap between what is and what could be, it’s not outside us but within. Heaven and earth shall be as one when first they are one within us.

To say there’s a new activation within the subconscious mind of humanity, people are gathering in clusters of enlightened thought and behavior, and UFOs might be filling our skies, is at some essential level all the same thing. Mystical knowing sees past differences; we separate and categorize layers of existence that are unified in realms that our eyes can’t see.

The darkness of the world is no match for all the Light now streaming down from the higher regions of consciousness. But the only way to see the light is to extend it to others. There is a plan for the salvation of the world, designed by nature and by Nature’s God, including everyone and now unfolding in all our lives.

In any given moment, we just need to remember. Be the light. Be the good. Be the love.

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Whichever way you enter into the mystery of Easter, I hope this has been for you a beautiful holiday. Given the chaos in the world right now, I think everyone would appreciate a miracle or two. And what is a miracle? A miracle is a shift in perception. As we shift our perceptions from fear to love, that change on the level of Cause produces miraculous Effects.

I hope my talk was meaningful for you. The point is this: We too can rise.

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Myths, fairy tales and religious scripture give more clues to what’s happening, and how to navigate what’s happening, than does the ego-based thinking we’ve all been trained to rely upon. A fear-based thought system brought humanity to this perilous point; a love-based thought system will save us from going over the cliff. Dismantling an old thought system and replacing it with a new one is the journey of enlightenment, now seen to be more relevant to our practical existence than many would have thought.

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Both Passover and Easter are stories of that journey, and I look forward to discussing them with you this coming Easter Sunday. My online talk is free. If you’re interested in the metaphysics and psychological significance of Easter, I hope you’ll join me. There is so much more to the story than is revealed in doctrine and dogma. Our goal is the resurrection of hope, the healing of the mind, and a profound change of heart. I hope my talk on Sunday will contribute to them all.

The story of Easter , when we understand it truly, is a source of happiness that the world cannot bestow.

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I’ll see you there!

x

Marianne

Dear friends,

A Course in Miracles is not a religion. It’s a “psychological mind training” that reverses a thought system based on fear and replaces it with a thought system based on love. It uses traditional Christian terminology but in decidedly nontraditional, psychotherapeutic ways.

The words crucifixion and resurrection are examples.

From a metaphysical perspective, crucifixion is a word that describes the power of fear to destroy us. Resurrection describes how love saves us from the grips of fear, in our lives and in our world. In that sense, according to A Course in Miracles, resurrection is a return to our right mind.

I will be discussing the metaphysics of Easter on the holiday this year. Please join me on Sunday, April 5, at 3 PM ET / 12PM PT for a free online talk in which I will discuss the resurrection of the modern mind.

Holiness means wholeness, and the world today is clearly broken. We make it whole by healing our minds.

I hope you’ll join me online for a deeper inquiry into the overcoming of the world, the role of Jesus as an internal Teacher, and the meaning of salvation when the only thing to be saved from is the fear-based thinking that dominates the world.

Wishing you peace and blessings,
Marianne

Sometimes the best advice we can give ourselves is to get over ourselves. An almost cult like thinking of chronic self-reference has trained us to isolate rather than love.

For decades we’ve been influenced by a strange belief that we always have to be on guard not to care too much about other people’s needs because to do so might sabotage our own. Thinking we’re practicing healthy self-care, we behave in ways that from another perspective were simply selfish. Thinking we’re practicing healthy boundaries, we find ourselves building walls between us that we would have been better off trying to dissolve. We’re told that other people’s needs must never, ever come before our own.

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In truth, the belief that we are separate from other people underlies the pain in our lives. Spiritually we’re all one, and we’re here to learn to love one another - not only to love ourselves. The point of life is not to guard against a dangerous world, but in fact to learn to love it. What we give to others we are giving to ourselves, and what we withhold from others we are withholding from ourselves.

The only life we’re here to monitor is our own. Constantly pointing at other people‘s mistakes does not free us, but rather imprisons us inside an isolated kingdom of toxic self-regard. Blast a room with love before you get there. Go into a space with an attitude of blessing on everyone and everything. Try to encounter everyone with a Namaste consciousness. You’ll find everything you need will fall into place by divine intelligence A world of beauty and peace opens up to us when we learn to bless instead of blame.

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My first book, A RETURN TO LOVE, was published in 1992 and was America’s fifth bestselling book that year. I remember that time as though it was yesterday — from writing the book, to its publication, to being on The Oprah Winfrey Show, to watching the book find its way into the hands of readers around the world.

This one paragraph from the book has had its own life, of course:

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. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. You’re playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Many people have told me over the years how much that paragraph has meant to them. I always say to them, “If you like the paragraph, you’ll love the book! It has lots of paragraphs!”

Please join me for a six-week seminar on A RETURN TO LOVE, starting March 3. The book continues to be a way that many people access the most simple truths of A Course in Miracles. Books might age, but miracles do not.

Get all the details and register here.

Paid Subscribers receive 15% off your registration. Founding members receive 25% off or can choose to access this series for free. See details below!

If you’re looking for a deeper understanding of the principles of A Course in Miracles, I hope you’ll join me.

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Click the YouTube link above at 5pm PT / 8pm ET on Tuesday, January 6th to tune in.

Whenever I write something about the power of prayer, someone inevitably reminds me that "Prayer isn’t enough, we have to take action too!” I always tilt my head when I hear that. I’ve rarely heard anyone respond to someone’s suggestion of an action by saying, “But action isn’t enough, we have to pray too!”

The truth is, there are both internal and external powers. Together, the power of loving action and the power of loving consciousness bring light to a darkened world.

Brandan Robertson, Brian Recker and I asked some highly respected religious and spiritual leaders to join us in an online Prayer Rally for America, and it’s happening tonight.

What a perfect moment this is for a collective wave of prayer. January 6th isn’t just the anniversary of an awful day at the nation’s Capitol. Let’s make it a starting point for a miraculous opening and a new way forward.

Let’s pray.

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Abraham Lincoln said these words about his relationship with God: "My greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.” It’s fascinating to me that he didn’t say his greatest concern was to have God be on his side, but rather the other way around.

Let’s see the rally tonight as a way to ask that we be on God’s side. We pray to be the people we need to be, to do the things we need to do to save our country and repair our world. We pray that our thoughts and feelings be lifted up, that our footsteps be aligned with the highest flow of justice and love. From that place, and in that place, ways of hatred and destruction are cast from our midst.

In the presence of love, miracles occur naturally. We gain the ability to lift up the world as we ourselves are lifted up. Intercessions from a thought system beyond our own create breakthroughs that had not been possible.

Please join us and help spread the word.

I’ll see you there….

We are living at an extraordinary moment in history, a fundamental phase transition from one era of human evolution to another. The moment is critical and perilous, for like any species we live at the effect of the laws of evolution. If a species reaches a point where its collective behavioral patterns are maladaptive for its survival, then one of two things will happen. Our species will evolve in a more sustainable direction, or we will go extinct.

That inflection point is where are today; humanity’s collective behavioral patterns are literally maladaptive for our survival. The way we treat ourselves, the earth, and each other are so spiritually and morally out of alignment with the ways of our true nature, they represent a threat to our survival. From the systemic abuse of the earth to weapons of mass destruction hanging like a Sword of Damocles above us, our path ahead is increasingly perilous should we not fundamentally change direction. But can we, really? Can we change the suicidal patterns of our collective behavior in time to save ourselves? Can we interrupt our current trajectory and evolve to a higher state of being? Like any species that has strayed from a sustainable path, we face a choice between evolution or extinction.

We all learned as children how evolution works. An evolutionary leap, when it occurs, is accomplished through the introduction of a mutation. That’s when a member of an endangered species demonstrates a more sustainable way forward, creating an opening, a space of possibility for others to do the same. If enough other members of the species mimic the behavior of the mutation, the species can evolve and survive.

In what ways does humanity need to evolve today, and what would signify an evolutionary mutation? Our current evolutionary imperative is not merely physical, but spiritual. It’s not as though we need a sixth finger on each hand, or a set of eyes in the back of our head. The only physical aspect of humanity’s functioning that must change now is our brain. For to survive the next hundred years, we will need to learn to think differently. Collectively, it’s as though humanity has a mental disorder. In the words of Mahatma Gandhi, “The problem with the world is that humanity is not in its right mind.”

Albert Einstein asserted that we wouldn’t solve the problems of the world from the level of thinking we were at when we created them, and somewhere in our hearts we know this is true. A mechanistic, rationalistic, soulless mindset we’ve inherited from previous centuries has taken us down a dangerous path. It has left us in a state where we are disconnected from ourselves, from nature, and from each other. It’s time to reclaim ethical and spiritual dimensions of life – not only personally, but collectively - without which human civilization might not survive.

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I heard the late neuroscientist Dr. James Doty tell a story about a connecting link between the human brain and heart. He said that while we used to think of the brain as the intelligence center of the body, scientists now recognize a highway, a partnership of sorts, between brain and heart. That partnership - not the brain alone - forms the intelligence center of the body.

A needed partnership between brain and heart applies not only to the body, but to every aspect of our lives. Indeed it applies to civilization itself. The brain without the heart can be brilliant, but it can also be brilliantly dangerous. In the words of Martin Luther King Jr., “Power without love is reckless and abusive, but love without power is sentimental and anemic.” The relationship between brain and heart is a yin and yang between spirituality and reason, a partnership without which we will be incapable of saving ourselves. Spirituality is simply the path of the heart, and the heart, while non-rational, is not irrational. In A Course in Miracles it says, “Love restores reason and not the other way around.”

There is nothing rational about a path of species suicide, yet it can legitimately be argued that that is exactly what we are engaged in. Destroying our habitat, we will in time destroy ourselves. Spending more of our resources on ways to destroy others than on ways to make peace with others, we are paving the way to our inevitable doom. And it’s not as though people aren’t feeling this. When as many young people as now choose not to have children because they feel it would be irresponsible to bring a younger generation into the world, we are very much in trouble.

But such a devolutionary path is not inevitable. We can still change our ways. We can indeed evolve. The evolutionary leap now needed is a shift to a higher state of love - a love that moves beyond mere personal interaction, to become a large-scale force that animates our collective as well as individual behavior. It means moving from economic, social, and political systems of abuse and exploitation – whether of other people or of the earth itself – to systems that honor nature and display compassion for all sentient beings. It emerges from an understanding 1) that what we’re doing now is unsustainable, and 2) that another way is possible.

Some mock the idea as naïve, to suggest humanity could make love our new bottom line. I contend that what’s naïve is to assume humanity will even survive another hundred years if we don’t at least try.

There is currently an impulse to do that, and on a global scale. I’ve had many experiences around the world, and one thing that’s clear to me is that the people of the world are not the problem. The problem lies in economic, social, and political systems that too often suppress the angels of our better nature. And unfortunately, things are getting worse and not better. Our common sense, our decency, and our respect for nature are too often muffled by technological, economic, and authoritarian forces that seek control and domination. Humanity is at a fork in the road.

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The solution is a critical mass of humanity adopting the ways of a spiritual mutation. Such a shift has been demonstrated by great saints, spiritual leaders, and religious figures throughout human history. In all its expressions, it represents a shift to the ways of radical love. Its message is inherent in the universal spiritual themes at the heart of the great religious and spiritual traditions of the world. Its highest expression is that we should love each other as we so love ourselves.

The evolutionary leap from an unsustainable to a sustainable path for humanity is a transition from Homo Sapiens to what I call Homo Divinicus. It means the spiritual awakening, or enlightenment, of the human race. Enough human beings will achieve a state of consciousness in which a thought system of separation and fear – the one now dominating the world - has been replaced by a thought system of unity and love. What’s important to remember is that this is our only survivable option. In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., “we will learn to live together as brothers or we will die together as fools.”

There is no broad stroke that is going to make this happen, no entity or institution that can declare it for the world. Rather, it is a process of awakening that arises within the individual. In A Course in Miracles, it says “In the Bible, it says that Adam fell asleep. But nowhere does it say that he woke up.” Well, he better wake up now. For in his sleep, he began dreaming. And our dreams have turned into nightmares.

That is the challenge that lies before us, and by accepting it for ourselves we accept it for the world. For every life is part of the whole. According to A Course in Miracles, there are no neutral thoughts; all thought creates form on some level. With every thought we think, we are either part of the devolutionary trend now headed for the abyss, or the evolutionary spiraling upwards into a new way of being on the planet.

Right now, we are at the effect of collective nightmares that an unconscious, soulless aspect of humanity has manifested upon the earth. But as it’s often said in Alcoholics Anonymous, “every problem comes bearing its own solution.” It could be said humanity is bottoming out right now, and most of us are feeling at the effect of the chaos. There is meaning in even this, however. This need not be the end. In fact it can become an era of a great rebirth, a great awakening, and a new evolutionary chapter. The question before each of us is, are we willing to change? The ways of the past are what got us here, they are not the ways that will redeem us.

We can learn to endure these times, to transcend them, and to transform them. A Course in Miracles says our problem is not that we do not believe in love, but that we do not believe in love only. From faith, from atonement, and from forgiveness, we will achieve powers we have not known before. With prayer and meditation we will expand our consciousness. We will use our minds the way they were created to be used: to serve the ways of love, with the purpose of healing the world. That is the evolutionary mutation of this moment. We will learn to think differently. And the world will be reborn.

Dear God,

On this holy day

May new Light appear.

We surrender our hearts

as womb and manger,

Divine Child reborn

in us.

May the Light of Christ

shining deep within

cast out all darkness

from ourselves and from the world.

From the depths of the universe

from this holy place within our minds

may miracles unfold naturally

to repair all things

to heal all wounds

and replace all fear with Love.

Dear God,

today may the world be blessed.

May our bodies and souls

be illumined this day

by the Light of One who showed the way.

Please use as as Your conduits.

May this day be a day of sacred activation,

a higher vibration and frequency of Love,

that lifts us to the Holy Place.

May his birth remind us,

his power repair us,

and his guidance be given us

as we face the days ahead.

May infinite Light shine through us

and impress itself

upon the ethers of the world.

Like infants, we shall not look back.

The past is over,

the future emerging now from blazing Light

born into the world this day.

Oh holy day.

Within that Light there is only Love,

nothing else exists.

We claim it now.

For God is the kingdom in us

Love is the power in us

God is the glory in us

forever and forever.

So shall it be

according to God’s purposes,

and according to our willingness

that he who was born so long ago

shall today be reborn in us.

Amen

Christmas is more than a holiday; it’s a portal.

I hope the video here provides meaningful insight for you. In A Course in Miracles it says “ideas grow stronger when they are shared.” I am honored to share Course principles through my writing and speaking.

If you’re interested in a deeper study of A Course in Miracles, you can receive my recording of the material every day, plus my commentary sent into your inbox. 2026 will undoubtedly be a year in which greater grounding in spiritual truth will bolster our emotional strength and increase our peace of mind.

The program also includes a monthly Q&A Zoom call. Bonuses are provided when you sign up now.

Wishing you love and peace as we move toward Christmas Day.

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A mindful Christmas is one in which we look beyond the surface of things. When we lift our gaze beyond the dogmas and doctrines that can obscure their universal truth, the deeper meaning of ancient religious narratives begins to shine through. The metaphysical understanding of such stories opens a vast frontier of spiritual insight and illumination, regardless of our professed religion or whether or not we’re even religious.

Humanity’s sky seems very darkened this year, and the Star of Bethlehem sybolizes a beam of light, or deeper understanding. It guides us individually and collectively toward a higher realm of perception and the birth of a new sense of self.

Join us for The Metaphysics of Christmas, next Thursday, December 18 at 5pm PT / 8pm ET.

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The birth of Christ is a process that unfolds in the landscape of our psyche. Every element of the Nativity — Mary, Joseph, the Star of Bethlehem, the shepherd, the kings, and even Herod — mirrors an aspect of our inner world. The more deeply we understand the story, the more deeply we understand ourselves.

If this interests you, I’ll hope you’ll join me. We’ll weave spiritual understanding with practical application — revealing Christmas as a sacred passage, a psychological renewal, and doorway to a light not of this world.

Join me for this FREE online event here.

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Hey, everyone.

I know some of you are here for the spiritual content and some for the political. Obviously, I’m here for both:)

On Saturday I’m doing an all-day workshop on Miracle-Minded Relationships. I’d like to describe it a bit...

In A Course in Miracles we’re told that the thought system now dominating the world is one of fear and separation. That perceptual framework has caused havoc not only on our inner lives but on the world at large.

Our healing, and the evolution of the species, involves dismantling that thought system and replacing it with one based on love and a realization of our oneness. On the physical plane, obviously we are separate. But on the spiritual plane we are not.

Applying that shift in perception - from constriction and fear to openness and love - is indeed a miracle. It changes how we see things, think about things, and act on things. Because our thoughts are reflected in our outer world, a shift in thinking changes everything.

Relationships are where all this gets worked out. Truth is simple enough but life is complicated. In every relationship, either the fear-based ego or the Voice for Love guides the direction of our lives . A Course in Miracles teaches that every situation is a relationship, so applying a miracle-minded approach to relationships means the transformation of every circumstance.

From forgiveness, to letting go the past, to a deeper understanding of why we’re here on earth, the work we’ll do on Saturday will be deep and enlightening. It’s the honor of my life to speak and write about the principles of A Course in Miracles. The Course is not a religion, but a psychological mind training based on universal spiritual themes at the heart of all the great religions of the world.

If any relationship or circumstance in your life is not as it should be, think of joining us on Saturday (the recording will be made available). And if you want your good relationships to even get better, you still might find some insights that are helpful. We’ll dig deep and have fun in the process.

That’s it! Wishing you all good things…

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And remember: paid Subscribers receive a Member discount. Join below to become a paid Subscriber and access your special pricing for this event.

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One of my biggest weaknesses has been arriving too late, not to appointments but to my life. The mental energy we give to what happened in the past, or what might happen in the future, is a thief that robs the present of its glory. In the present lies each seed of new beginnings, the potential for every wonderful thing, too often cluttered with the detritus of our obsession with past or future.

What is it about simply sitting here, thinking through what is happening right now, that we so resist? From a spiritual perspective, it’s obvious. A moment truly present to our lives is a moment in which we have no need of the ego’s filter. There is no grasping, yearning, victimization, or frantic obsession - for the very reason that there is no ego. Past and present are lived as through a glass darkly, while in the present we see everything…if only we will look.

In the present, eternity intersects linear time. It’s like a tiny aperture of light that closes or opens, according to the attention that we give it and the focus through which we view it. Seen through the eyes of the ego, it is nothing but a dumpster for replaying old images, carrying shadow figures from the past into the present, and assuming the future will be no different. Seen through the eyes of spirit, it is life in the garden of infinite good.

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The rules of consciousness are no different than the rules of the outer world. To learn them is to know how to navigate life in a way that serves us rather than depletes us. The rules of life are simple, though life itself is very complicated. The point is not to do something, get something, or go somewhere; the point is to try to open our eyes. The tiniest tincture of truth has the power to remove the dust that blinds us.

As I was writing the above, I had a powerful moment. I’m on a couch, my legs stretched before me, facing a window. Gazing up for a moment, I realized how much I had not been seeing. Yes, I thought the window was beautiful and I appreciated the view outside. I told a friend yesterday how much sun came in on a beautiful day, how great this must be in Spring or Summer or Autumn when the leaves are on the trees.

But in the moment when I looked up just now, I realized there was so much more to see. What’s winter, Marianne? Chopped liver? Had I really looked at those branches, their shapes, the way they are perfectly placed in proximity to one another? The dance they do while remaining perfectly still. The incredible shapes and designs of nature, never, not even one of them the same. The view of the sky as it peers through the branches … a view that will be unavailable, by the way, once the leaves are on the trees. Had I taken a moment to marvel at the fact that I am here, in this place, safe and protected at this moment in my life?

And that’s just the beginning. Nature is the entry way; people are the living room. It’s a metaphysical principle that everything you need in life is either here, or on the way. We simply don’t know where to look when we refuse to look at where we are.

Who are the people in our lives, right now? Have we shown up fully, as impeccably as possible, in response to every personal or professional responsibility? Concerned so much with what we might not be getting, are we paying enough attention to what we’re not giving? Are we forgiving and letting go past grievances, or nursing them at the ego’s behest?

Every moment, every situation, hold within them the seeds of a miracle. The miracle is the rising up of consciousness, the shift into love, the alignment of any moment with a better version of ourselves. Every moment presents a choice, made consciously or unconsciously, but it is definitely a choice. It’s an invitation to be better than we were, should we choose to accept it. It’s also a temptation to remain as we were; to indulge the default egoic positions that have defined our past and will, if allowed, recreate it in the future.

Love is a mental habit, and so is fear. Forgiveness is a mental habit, and so is blame. Strength is a mental habit, and so is weakness. Happiness is a mental habit, and so is suffering. We have attitudinal muscles, and it’s our own responsibility to hone them no differently than we hone our bodies. Nothing and no one can do that for us. We are not victims of the world we see. We are its co-creators.

That window is there. What I choose to see through it is entirely up to me. And that is what I’ve learned in my life. Don’t just do something. Sit there and try to see.

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Tatiana Schlossberg’s essay about her leukemia diagnosis, A Battle With My Blood, was published in The New Yorker yesterday (the anniversary of her grandfather John F. Kennedy’s assassination). It’s one of the most brilliant pieces of memoir I’ve ever read.

In recent years, both my great-niece and one of my closest friends died of the acute leukemia now plaguing Schlossberg. What most moved me in her piece is how she integrated medical facts into her personal story and vice versa. It’s an amazingly full spectrum description not only of her experience, but that of so many who suffer as she does. My friend Bruce was also at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York, and I saw firsthand the heroism and compassion that go on there every day. My sister died of breast cancer in 1994, and I witnessed the heartbreak of a mother having to leave her small children. I can only imagine the tears that fell from Tatiana’s eyes as she wrote.

Given that Schlossberg is Caroline Kennedy’s daughter, her diagnosis feels like family news to millions of America. But this essay is going to speak to many, many people beyond that. I’ve never seen anyone nail the emotional complexities of a terminal diagnosis so brilliantly since John Gunther’s memoir Death Be Not Proud. Whether her life be short or long, she has given the world a gift.

Everyone is talking about Schlossberg’s “terminal” diagnosis, and obviously the medical facts of her case support that. But I believe in miracles, I’ve seen those as well, so I don’t want to describe her situation that way. I hold open the possibility that she will have one of those spontaneous remissions that, while unexplained, do clearly occur.

One of the more painful aspects of Tatiana’s article is her heartache at not having had the chance to live out her full potential. As an author she had wanted to write a book about the oceans, how knowing more about them could help the world. I hope someone can convince her that with this essay she did help the world. Her words are searing truths that go straight to the heart and her words will never die.

May she and her family be comforted in this hour of their agony.

Dear God,

Please restore Tatiana

to the fullness of her life.

Amen

As we head toward the end of November, Thanksgiving is upon us. From there we’ll officially be starting the holiday season, with Hannukah and Christmas only a month away.

The material trappings of the holiday season can be like syrup that devours the waffle. Such trappings can drown out the spiritual meaning of the holidays, making them less holy-days and more anxiety ridden days. Where will we be? Who will we be with? What do we have to do, with whom and where? And what do we have to buy?

We all know none of that is what the holidays are supposed to be. Particularly now, with the world so clearly out of whack, our souls are craving something more.

The true meaning of Christmas and Hannukah are like nuggets of gold wrapped in layers of cloth, with too many mistaking the cloth for what’s wrapped inside it. In fact, both holidays are about miracles - both in our hearts and in the world. They’re about divine intercessions from a thought system beyond our own. They’re about a God who rescues humanity from our own self-destructive impulses. They’re about the birth of something new inside us. They’re a deeper truth than the world bestows.

Take the dogma and the doctrine out of it. Take the political shenanigans out of it. Take the institutional corruption out of it. There is spiritual truth at the heart of the holidays. When we get a glimpse of that truth, something changes inside us. We see what we hadn’t seen before, and know things we hadn’t known before. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, /Than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” wrote Shakespeare. Humanity is like a baby just beginning to look around the room.

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We’re living at a time when we are drowned in information yet starving for truth. Data, it turns out, is only a starting point for wisdom. The message of this moment is to go deeper. Go deeper than what your physical senses reveal to you, deeper than what the rational mind itself can even know. “Love restores reason, and not the other way around.” (ACIM) A clearer understanding of what the world is going through today is provided by mythology, spirituality, poetry and philosophy than by any set of worldly knowledge. We are the problem, and only we can save us. We save ourselves when we re-align our consciousness with something bigger than ourselves.

That is the meaning of Christmas, and also the meaning of Hannukah. They represent a renewal of the mind, a renewal of the heart, and thus a renewal the world. They signal the next stage of our evolution as a species, which isn’t physical but spiritual. In the words of French philosopher Teilhard de Chardin, “Someday, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love. Then for the second time in the history of the world, we will have discovered fire“

Our greatest power to change the world lies in our power to think about it differently. In expanding our consciousness beyond an over-identification with the physical world, we reclaim our spiritual identity. Our wholeness. And that is what our holiness is: a state where we are whole. Having been stricken - simply living in this world - by a fractured sense of self, we have manifested a fractured world. In reconnecting the mind with the heart, we remember who we are and we remember why we’re here. Having repaired our sense of self, we begin to repair the world.

To me, these words from A Course in Miracles go straight to the heart of things:

Your holiness reverses all the laws of the world. It is beyond every restriction of time, space, distance, and limits of any kind. Your holiness is totally unlimited in its power because it establishes you as a Son of God, at one with the Mind of his Creator.

Through your holiness the power of God is made manifest. Through your holiness the power of God is made available. And there is nothing the power of God cannot do. Your holiness, then, can remove all pain, can end all sorrow, and can solve all problems. It can do so in connection with yourself and with anyone else. It is equal in it power to help anyone because it is equal in its power to save anyone.

If you are holy, so is everything God created. You are holy because all things He created are holy. And all things He created are holy because you are. (WB-58)

The holidays should not be mindless; they should be mindful. Indeed, they can be miraculous. Embraced at the depths from which they call to us, they are portals of understanding that help usher in a more beautiful world.

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Note:

If you’re looking to curl up in a chair with a good book this holiday season, I hope you’ll find inspiration in a couple of mine: A RETURN TO LOVE: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles and THE MYSTIC JESUS: The Mind of Love. Check out Marianne.com for the various offerings available there, including an upcoming class on MIRACLE-MINDED RELATIONSHIPS (remember the paid subscriber discount) and my newest published work, MIDLIFE AWAKENING: Creating a Miraculous Next Chapter.

Wishing you magic and miracles in the days that lie ahead…

Every day, in fact every moment of our lives is like a plane either taking off or staying stuck on the runway. And nothing keeps the plane from taking off more than too much weight in its cargo hold. All that weight is our unprocessed grief, the unforgiven mistakes, our lack of acceptance that things went the way they went.

All of that is the stuff of the past, and there are two distinctly different ways to interpret it. We will see our past through the lens of fear or through the lens of love. The ego uses the past as an excuse to endlessly bludgeon yourself. It will never allow you to escape the pain, because your pain is its peak experience. The Voice for Love on the other hand would reinterpret your past, gently and with forgiveness. It frees you to begin again.

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The past is over, existing only in our minds. Yet the mind is a battlefield, the ego dragging shadow figures from the past into every present moment so the future will be just like it. The ego then yells, “See, I told you! Nothing ever changes!” Through it the past and future exist as a continuum, with the present having nary a chance to come between them and intervene.

Yet we needn’t be hostage to the ego; we can instead be host to God. There is one point where God’s time intersects linear time and that is in the present. The present moment is our place of power, the zone of the miraculous. It’s our sacred opportunity to atone for our errors and forgive others for theirs. In that lies its power to redeem us, to rescue us from the ego’s punishment and its savage attacks. We call it anxiety, but it is so much more. There is a place in all our minds that hates God, hates us, and hates others. It is the malignant cell that is bent on destruction. Only the Love of the Divine has the power to dissolve it.

Dorothy poured water over the wicked witch, and the wicked witch dissolved. Jesus says “Satan get thee behind me” and hateful thoughts are stopped in their tracks. In A Course in Miracles, he says, “Give me your past so I can change your mind about it for you.” There is a Higher Power in all of us, an all-powerful Love that goes by many names. It will not impose itself upon us, for that would be violating our free will. Yet should we ask for its help, it will respond to our slightest invitation. It intercedes on behalf of our holiness. It rescues us from the ego’s clutches. It delivers us from the most painful nights in ways that nothing else can do.

It doesn’t matter what you call it. Just call. The past needn’t be the source of your agony. In the words of A Course in Miracles, “The past is over. It can touch you not.”

Dear God,

I give to you my past.

I am willing to see it differently.

I am willing to forgive myself and others.

Please show me how.

Amen

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*from Midlife Awakening

Those of us who have experienced the most – its good as well as its bad - have greater knowledge of the beasts of chaos and unruliness that threaten the earth today. We’ve learned the hard way that the darkness of the world is a reflection of the darkness inside us. We’ll learn to tame the beast of the world by taming it within ourselves.

When we’re young, we’re powerful in a physical sense. The strength of youth is not earned so much as given to you as a gift from nature. It serves a role that belongs specifically to the young: to procreate and build external structures that support material life.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “As I age my beauty steals inward.” And so does ours. But we’re responsibility for making it visible. We can still be beautiful, but in a different kind of way. And the beauty of age isn’t simply given to us, as it was in our youth; it has to be earned. And it is often earned as much through suffering as through joy. Our failures as well as our successes, if processed and alchemized into the stuff of true character, can ultimately strengthen rather than weaken us. Our physical muscles cannot help us carry the weight of the world’s emotional pain—only spiritual musculature, often built through accumulated repetitions of heartache, can do that. This isn’t a deficiency in nature’s plan, but an economy in nature’s plan. We weren’t being beaten down; we were being honed.

And if we’re willing to accept it, age endows us with a spiritual elixir. Having seen the darkness in ourselves and others, we’ve become more humble before the light. Having been brought out of darkness, we’ve developed a devotion to He Who delivered us. Having made serious mistakes, we know how much forgiveness matters. Having suffered, we feel more compassion for the suffering of others. They’re not just abstractions to us anymore; they are principles that have infused our flesh. And they are the very things that make us more beautiful. They were not our defeats but our victories. We are strong now in ways we could not have been before. And our strength is needed. We are entering a time when our internal strengths, more than our external ones, will be humanity’s most important sources of renewal and repair. Layers of false power have given way to something far more real.

Whatever powers we might lose with age are small compared to the powers we stand to gain. There’s a profound satisfaction in finally giving up something meaningless, for no other reason than that we did it to the max and now we’re ready to move on. Midlife is about surrendering things that no longer matter, not because our lives are in decline but because they’re on an incline. Traveling upward, we simply let go of some baggage. Maybe there’s more natural wisdom in what’s happening to us now than we think. Of all those things we can’t remember, is it possible that any of them are completely unimportant? Could it be that nature is demanding rather than just requesting that we simplify? The only way we can peacefully age is if we have respect for the demands of the experience.

It’s almost embarrassing to admit, but sometimes it’s a relief to get to finally slow down. You realize “slower” is not necessarily “worse than.” The speed of our former years was not as constructive as it appeared to be. Moving too fast, we often missed a lot. Many of us made big mistakes we might not have made if we hadn’t been moving through life so quickly.

I remember when I was young hearing Otis Redding sing, “Sitting here resting my bones . . . ,” and thinking, Who needs to rest their bones? Now of course I know. And when I first had the thought one day that I was just sitting there resting my bones, I panicked. I thought it was all over if my bones were tired! But then I realized something else, like a guilty secret: I was enjoying just sitting there. I wasn’t attending a Buddhist retreat trying to enjoy just sitting; I really was enjoying it! I was enjoying the kinetic experience of a rocking chair in a way I had never thought possible. (“Oh, these things are actually helpful! Who knew?”) I didn’t feel the need to get up, to go somewhere else, or to do anything at all. With less adrenaline came less distraction. I felt no need to justify my existence by achieving or performing a thing. And that’s when I realized, This is very different but it isn’t bad.

Sometimes what we appear to have lost is simply something it was time to leave behind. Perhaps our system just lets something go, our having moved through the experience and now needing it no more. A friend of mine was sitting once with two of his best friends, a couple he’d partied long and hard with during the l960s. At about ten in the evening the couple’s twenty-something daughter came home, saw them on the couch, and admonished them, “You guys are so boring! You never go out!” To which all three responded in unison, “We were out, and now we’re in.”

The mind is its own kind of dance floor. What a mature generation could do from our rocking chairs could literally rock the world. If in fact the highest, most creative work is the work of consciousness, then in slowing down we’re not doing less; we’re doing more. Having slowed down physically, we’re in a better space to rev up psychically. We are becoming contemplative. We are shifting from the outer to the inner not in order to begin our demise, but to reseed and regreen the consciousness of the planet. And that’s what is happening now: We’re going slower in order to go deeper, in order to go faster in the direction of urgently needed change.

Dear God,

When I rest may I rest in You.

Transform my weariness

into readiness for something new.

I open my heart

and pray for Your guidance.

At last, I am ready

to change.

Amen

The words above are from my newly published MIDLIFE AWAKENING: Creating a Miraculous Next chapter. If they speak to you, I hope you’ll check out the book.

Age arrives with lots to process. But sometimes it’s the most weary heart that has medicine to give the world.

I hope the meditation at the end of this video helps you shift your perceptions beyond fear to love. Afterwards, try to remain several more minutes in that space of Light beyond the body.

Love is the ultimate Answer, revealing our oneness in a realm beyond what we can see with our physical eyes. Nothing less will do. It’s the next stage of our humanity. It will save us from ourselves.

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Bless Charlie Kirk and those who loved him.

Remove the scourge of hatred from our nation.

May the ways of violence cease…

Amen