Marianne Williamson
Marianne Williamson
Marianne Deborah Williamson is an American spiritual teacher, author and lecturer. She has published eleven books, including four New York Times number one bestsellers. She is the founder of Project Angel Food, a meals-on-wheels program that serves homebound people with AIDS in the Los Angeles area, and the co-founder of The Peace Alliance, a grassroots campaign supporting legislation to establish a United States Department of Peace. She serves on the Board of Directors of the RESULTS organization, which works to...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionSelf-Help Author
Date of Birth8 July 1952
CityHouston, TX
CountryUnited States of America
The Latin root of the word 'politics' means 'of the people.' Politics is about something bigger than electoral politics; in that sense, I feel like I'm already involved.
Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do.
To bear witness to all the unnecessary suffering on the planet and make ourselves available to service - whatever that means for each of us. We go deep in our personal relationships in America, but we need to go deep in our public relationships as well.
Forgiveness is key to enchanted love because it is key to living right, period. It is the capacity to see beyond the veil of personality and worldly illusions. No one is perfect or attractive every day. Forgiveness means we are capable of relating to someone on a deeper level than the ordinary self. And that we are committed to doing so no matter what the appearances are, no matter what the situation is.
There is no way that carrying fifty or sixty extra pounds is easy on your heart, your lungs, or your liver. That's a fact. Every person in the world, no matter what size, shape, or form they are, deserves respect and love. But that doesn't mean we are supposed to pretend that something is healthy when in fact it is not.
I realize that the curriculum is my life on any given day. At this point, more than anything, my spiritual path means looking at every circumstance and trying to see my part in where it's good and where it's not so good.
The end does not justify the means. If we try to be someone we are not in order to achieve a result, then the result cannot help but be something other than what we intended.
Forgiving the past means remembering the love there, and releasing all the rest as the illusion that it really was.
It's difficult to be alive in America today and truly be in denial anymore. It's not hip to be unconscious or uninvolved. One of our great strengths is that we're an optimistic people, but that doesn't mean we don't have sad days.
Our most meaningful conversations go on late at night when we're on the phone with our friends or talking to our lovers.
The love within us is meant to extend outward. The closer we grow to our inner light, we feel a natural urge to share it. We all long for meaningful work, some creative endeavor that will be our ministry, by which the energies within us might flow out to help heal the world.
Gandhi said the end is inherent in the means, which means you cannot create any more peace than you yourself have attained. An angry generation will not bring peace.
The world is in trouble. Many have prayed. God sent help. God sent you.
Whatever outrageous dream keeps flowing across your mind, allow it to live inside you. Don't deflect it, diminish it, invalidate it or come up with some excuse for why it can't happen. This will allow it to explain itself to you - why it's there, what it means, and what if anything you should do about it.