Tears to Triumph

by Marianne Williamson

  From a spiritual perspective, humanity has a heart disease. To heal a broken leg, we don’t just take a painkiller—we have to reset the bone. And to heal our broken hearts, we can’t just take a painkiller either—we have to reset our thinking.

  SOUL INJURY

  The root of most suffering does not lie at the level of brain chemistry but at the level of consciousness, and a scientific worldview that does not acknowledge the power of consciousness cannot fully heal us. Emotional trauma becomes a physical trauma to the brain because it is a spiritual trauma.

  The severe depression of a returning war veteran, for instance, is sometimes due to brain injury—but not always. It is often primarily due to soul injury. When a young person has been injured in war, when people have tried to kill him, when he has witnessed the horrors of battle, and when he has been trained to be a killing machine and to live with the aftermath of what he might have had to do—how can his soul not suffer? The grieving mother of a soldier who had recently committed suicide—a young man I had once known as a funny, brilliant kid so filled with a zest for life I was sure he would do great things someday—said to me through her tears, “Oh Marianne, they tried to turn him into someone I didn’t raise him to be.” They had to, of course, but what a tragedy this leaves us with.

  All of us wish to see our suffering veterans healed. And there are extraordinary professionals throughout our country working with them, and healing them, in a myriad of ways. But those who would argue that a widespread use of antidepressants among our veterans is necessary given the high suicide rate among them (almost one every hour, according to a 2013 investigation by the Department of Veterans Affairs) might consider the countervailing factor of a known suicide risk among people who take antidepressants. This risk applies particularly to those age twenty-nine or younger, which includes the vast majority of our veterans. No external medicine alone can solve the problems of memories such as those dealt with by our returning soldiers.

  These men and women need spiritual medicine, which means not only the comfort of God, but also the love of their fellow human beings. They need human kindness, prayer, therapy, meditation, a society that proves through economic and social policies toward veterans that it actually gives a damn (not just political rhetoric and easy words like “Thank you for your service”), perhaps an apology for having sent so many of them to wars that never should have been fought, and some sign—anywhere—that we are seriously considering alternatives to war.

  Spirituality isn’t some quaint stepchild of an intelligent worldview, or the only option for those of us not smart enough to understand the facts of the real world. Spirituality reflects the most sophisticated mindset and the most powerful force available for the transformation of human suffering—whether someone is taking medication or not. That is why learning the basics of a spiritual worldview—and the mental, emotional, and behavioral principles that this entails—is key to reclaiming our inner peace.

  Darkness cannot exist in the presence of light. Meditation is a path to light. Forgiveness is a key to light. Prayer is a path to light. Those are powers that give comfort to the soul, providing what no earthly remedy can. And they are the powers we most need to develop now. They heal our lives by healing our thoughts; and it is in learning to change our thinking that we learn to change our lives. As it is written in Romans 12:2, “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Renewing our minds, we will renew the world.

  FOUR

  The Miraculous Universe

  Learning the basic tenets of the spiritual universe is the first step in the path to enlightenment. First we learn the principles; then we go through the process of trying to apply them in both our personal and collective experience.

  Everyone is on a spiritual journey; most people just don’t know it. Spirituality refers not to some theological dynamic outside ourselves, but to how we choose to use our minds. The spiritual path is the path of the heart; at every moment, we’re either walking the path of love and creating happiness, or swerving from it and creating suffering. Every thought we think leads deeper into love or deeper into fear.

  Love is sane, and fear is not. The loving mind is the “right mind”; the word “right-eous” refers to “right use.” In the words of Mahatma Gandhi, “The problem with the world today is that humanity is not in its right mind.”

  The spiritual universe is the Mind of God. Miracles are the thoughts of love, extended from the Mind of God through the mind of humans and out into the world. God is Love, and as God’s children, so are we. Our purpose on earth is to think as God thinks, which means to love as God loves. When our minds are attuned to love, things unfold miraculously. Loving thought creates loving feelings, and loving feelings create loving behavior. In this way we create happiness for ourselves and for those around us.

  Obviously, life doesn’t always go like that. But it should. For love is in fact our natural state, from which we have veered as a species and to which all of us long to return. In ways both large and small—from the small deviations from love that mar the landscapes of our personal relationships, to the horrors of war and genocide—humanity plays out a spiritual love/hate relationship with our true selves. We’re one with love, we turn away from love, and ultimately we return to love. That’s pretty much all there is.

  When our minds are not attuned to love, the natural fabric of the universe is rent. But the universe is both self-organizing and self-correcting. When lost in the illusion of fear, we can return to love and thus return to peace. Each of us has been imbued with an Internal Teacher, a guide who’s been authorized by God to pave a path home for us when we’re lost in the pain of worldly illusion. We can call this force by many names (one of which is the Holy Spirit), but we cannot call on it in vain.

  The miracle is a divine intercession on behalf of our spirit, restoring the celestial order. Miracles break us free of chains that otherwise bind us by lifting us above the fixed limitations of the mortal world. The ego’s chains are not material, but mental; they’re simply our fixed beliefs about the three-dimensional world. By transitioning from faith in the power of our disasters to faith in the power of God to heal them, we release the power of miracles to work on our behalf.

  But in order to work miracles, good intentions are not enough. We need to do more than intend to see things differently; we must be willing to see things differently. “Dear God, I am willing to see this differently” is the most powerful prayer for miraculous transformation. Where the ego insists that the world should be different, the spirit seeks to see the world differently. Only then does the world really change. We can’t ask God for the “miracle” of things happening the way we want them to happen; the miracle is when we think about things the way God would have us think about them.

  Spirit blesses, while the ego blames. Spirit forgives, while the ego attacks. Spirit allows, while the ego defends. Spirit is fully available in the present, while the ego is attached to past or future. In every moment we make a decision, consciously or unconsciously, whether to be host to God or hostage to the ego.

  And the choice isn’t always easy. Your spouse has left you after twenty-five years—where is the miracle there? Your child has died of a drug overdose—where is the miracle there? You have lost your job and don’t know how you’ll support your family—where is the miracle there? Your doctor says you have only six months to live—where is the miracle there? You don’t know whether you’ll get the use of your legs back—where is the miracle there? You can’t escape the memories of past trauma—where is the miracle there?

  The world will offer you many ways to numb your pain, to fortify your anger, and thus to deepen your despair. You can always find people to agree with you that you’ve been victimized, and on the mortal plane, you may have been. You can always find people to agree with you that a situation is hopeless, and from a rational perspective, it might seem that way. All of us to a greater or lesser degree go through experiences about which, from a worldly perspective, we ha
ve every right to feel angry, victimized, or agonizingly hopeless.

  Yet even then we have a choice. We can build a case against those who hurt us—dooming ourselves to pain and self-pity. We can insist that no matter what anyone says, there is no hope in a situation going forward—dooming ourselves to complete despair. We can face the world with negativity and blame, defensiveness and attack, condemnation and anger—dooming ourselves to a cold and isolated existence.

  Or we can have a miracle instead.

  This choice to see a miracle means repudiating the ego’s thought system. It is the choice to stand our attitudinal ground despite the ego’s insistence that we’re at the mercy of a fear-laden world. This is the metaphysical meaning of Jesus’s words, “Satan, get thee behind me.” Your feelings of hopelessness are the ego’s prize, the pathways of its dark and bitter kingdom. But with God’s help you can rise above the ego. His light dispels the darkness and delivers us from the pain we feel there. He lifts us above the torment and the agony of the ego’s world.

  I once asked a woman whose husband had left her what she thought might make her feel better, and her response was threefold: that her estranged husband’s new relationship would fail; that he would wake up and realize that he’d been a fool and would return to her; or that something awful would happen to him or to the new woman in his life! She laughed, but she was crying too.

  All of us on some level can understand her answer. But in truth, such thoughts as those will only exacerbate her pain. The most powerful thought is a prayerful thought. When I’m praying for you, I’m praying for my own peace of mind. I can only have for myself what I am willing to wish for you.

  I asked this woman whether she’d like a prayerful alternative to her current thoughts about her husband. And her response was perfect: “If a prayer might release me from the hell I’m in, then please, let’s say it.”

  Dear God,

  Please bless my former love,

  Who has decided to move away from me.

  Despite my resistance, I bless his path

  And pray that he be happy.

  Remove my temptation to judge him

  Or to control him,

  For binding him to my judgment

  But binds me to my suffering.

  Help me to forgive him, God,

  And thus forgive myself.

  Free him from my hooks, dear God,

  And free me from my pain.

  Amen

  Prayer is the conduit of miracles. It shifts the universe by shifting us. The ego has an endless array of options by which to treat the problems it creates. But none of them do anything but drive us deeper into despair. One thing the ego will never suggest is that love is always the answer, because love is the ego’s dissolution and it knows it. It feeds on lovelessness for its survival, yet its survival is our destruction.

  The ego views forgiveness as weakness and attack as strength. But love is not weakness; it is the power of God. The problem isn’t whether or not love works miracles; the problem is how much we resist love.

  It’s easy enough to have faith in love when everyone around us is being nice and things are going the way we want them to. But life is a learning process through which we’re constantly challenged to love more deeply. The universe is intentional and will not be done with us until we’ve gotten to the place where love, and only love, is our reality. We’re not on this earth to just hang around; we’re here to actualize our enlightened potential. And the universe will make sure we do.

  So yes, people will be unkind to us; and yes, things won’t always turn out the way we wish; and yes, there are tragedies in the world. But God’s store of miracles is infinite, and by standing for love we learn to call them forth. There is nothing that our holiness, or “whole mind,” cannot do. Holiness is the embodiment of the love that transforms all those experiences and releases us from our torment.

  The search for holiness isn’t pink and gauzy; it’s tough and gritty. We don’t pretend not to be angry when we’re angry; we surrender our anger into the hands of God and tell Him we’re willing not to be. We don’t deny our tears when we’ve been abandoned or betrayed; we pray for the happiness of the person who hurt us, as an act of generosity toward ourselves. We don’t pretend that we’re not afraid or lonely; we place our fear and loneliness in God’s hands. All of this is a process and none of it is easy. Many tears have lined the paths of saints.

  But God is with us during the difficult times as much as during any other. As we walk through the darkest nights of our souls, we are bolstered, should we care to be, by the power of faith that we are not alone.

  FAITH

  During times of emotional darkness, what does it actually mean to have faith?

  Faith is a unique psychological orientation, a powerful reminder of the light of God that exists beyond the darkness. Faith helps us during periods of depression and sadness because it gives us the patience to endure. We understand that if we do the inner work, the work will pay off. Faith isn’t blind, it’s visionary. A pilot who cannot see the horizon does not conclude that the horizon isn’t there. Faith is like the pilot then flying on instruments. As the Bible tells us, “Blessed are those who do not see but have faith anyway.”

  Faith is an aspect of consciousness; we’re constantly applying our faith to one world or the other. Our problem is that we tend to have more faith in the power of cancer to kill us than we have faith in the power of God to heal us.

  There’s a divine order to the spiritual universe, and chaos of any kind is temporary. Faith is simply recognizing this. Whatever the ego casts down, God will ultimately lift back up. This is not just a belief; it’s spiritual intelligence. And spiritual intelligence gives us strength and fortitude. Faith as a container for our emotions is important because it gives us certainty in the face of uncertainty. During times of suffering it keeps us above the emotional waterline, giving us the strength to endure by knowing that whatever it is, this too shall pass. There is a huge emotional difference between “I’m depressed and I feel like this pain will never end” and “I’m depressed but I know that I’ll get through this.” It can be very dark on certain nights, but there is no question whether dawn will come. No matter what has happened in our lives, miracles are possible. The universe works like a GPS. Even if a wrong turn gets taken on the way to your destination, the GPS will simply recalibrate and provide another route. The destination is inner peace. Tough times occur, but they ultimately cannot and will not last as long as we choose love.

  GOD’S INTELLIGENCE

  The universe is alive, imbued with a natural intelligence guiding all things toward their highest good. This intelligence turns an embryo into a baby, a bud into a blossom, and an acorn into an oak tree. When we allow it to, it guides us to becoming the highest version of ourselves, living lives of happiness and peace. Learning how to align ourselves with this natural intelligence is the most intelligent thing we can possibly do.

  In the Introduction to A Course in Miracles, it is written:

  Nothing real can be threatened.

  Nothing unreal exists.

  Herein lies the peace of God.

  Only love is ultimately real, and anything else is a temporary illusion manufactured by the mind. What is not love does not actually exist.

  Obviously, such thinking runs counter to material evidence. Looking around, we perceive the world with our physical senses—all of which report that the world is very real indeed. Yet what the body’s senses report to us as “real world” is in fact a giant, collective, mortal hallucination. In the words of Albert Einstein, “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” The material world is but a veil in front of a world that is more true, more real, more beautiful. It is a vast veil of illusion, created by the ego not to illuminate, but to hide, the world that lies beyond it.

  Everything that causes us to suffer—from the most heinous abuses to the loss of a loved one—is happening within a realm of illusion. Such suffering is o
ur human experience and should be respected as such, but the human experience alone is not the ultimate truth of who we are. We are beings of a world more real than this one; it is the world beyond the veil. The spiritual world is a universe of love and love only, where nothing but eternal peace and harmony exist.

  The self that suffers, therefore, is not the real you. The world can throw terrible things your way, but it cannot change the reality of who you are. Who you really are is a being of love, completely unaffected by the lovelessness of the world.

  The journey of enlightenment is a journey to a transformed sense of self, a conversion to a different sense of who we are and what the world is for. Although the ego argues that we are limited, guilty, temporary, vulnerable beings grasping for little bits of happiness within a world of scarcity, a spiritual worldview says we are none of those things. In God, we are innocent. We are abundant. We are complete. We are eternal.

  And in remembering these things, we are happy at last. For they are more than abstractions. They are explosions of light.

  CLOSING THE GAP

  The mortal self—defined by the body, described in terms of worldly circumstances, and at the effect of the material world—is but an aspect of who we are. In fact, the body is like a wall we have built around an invisible self. That invisible self—be it called the Christ, or Buddha Mind, or shekinah, or by any other name—is who we essentially, fundamentally, and eternally are. You are not a body, but an eternal spirit. You were alive before your physical birth, and you will be alive beyond your physical death. What God creates cannot be uncreated.