Tears to Triumph

by Marianne Williamson

  It is a radical commitment to try to remember who we are in a world that does all it can, every moment of every day, to persuade us that we are who we really aren’t and that we aren’t who we really are. The world as we know it is organized around the denial of spiritual sight, treating bodies as real and spirit as fantasy. It rests on the presupposition that only what happens externally matters. As such, our modern civilization is spiritually blind. It is ignorant of the deeper reality and meaning of life. It is asleep to the deeper dynamics and evolutionary imperatives of human existence, and in its sleep it has produced nightmares for individuals and for the entire species.

  The ravages produced by our spiritual ignorance are now being experienced on massive scales, producing deep psychological and emotional problems in individuals and seemingly unstoppable environmental and political destructiveness in the world. But such problems are not causes; they are effects that have resulted from a state of humanity in which we have become dissociated from what we truly are. Separated from who we are, we become neurotic at best and genuinely insane at worst.

  The ego mind, the delusional self, seeks every moment of every day to annihilate God’s creation. Which means its goal is to annihilate you. Within this world, the ego can have devastating effects. All of this is happening within a vast illusion, but the effects of the illusion feel very real while we are in the midst of it. The role of the miracle-worker is not to ignore the darkness but to dispel it.

  The ego’s world is as depressing as it is insane, of course. It posits us as temporary beings, when in fact we’re eternal. It posits us as separate from God, when in fact we are thoughts within His Mind. It posits us as separate from each other, when in fact we are created as one and remain as one. To heal our depression, we must close the mental gap between that which is the ego’s view of ourselves and others, and God’s view of ourselves and others. This is the only salvation from sadness and pain.

  The ego is our own mental energy turned against us. Yet just as darkness is nothing but the absence of light, so fear is nothing but the absence of love. The ego is simply a mental miscreation, the delusional thought that we are not who in fact we are. In its mad belief that we are separate, it persuades us that we are alone . . . and endangered . . . and unloved. Of course we are depressed. And the healing of our depression lies in remembering who we are.

  We are perfect, innocent children of God. That is God’s Reality, and God’s Reality is changeless. Moreover, we were created as one and on the level of spirit we are one. The ego is vigilant in its efforts to make us forget we are perfect, to make us forget we are innocent, and to make us forget we are one. The anxiety and mental anguish this forgetfulness produces is the real meaning of the word “hell.” The awareness of our oneness and the peace this pronounces is the meaning of the word “heaven.” Hell is not our natural habitat. Heaven is where we come from and where we belong—not just after we die, but every moment of every day.

  THE GREAT LIE

  Henry David Thoreau wrote that “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” From a spiritual perspective, that despair is rooted in a delusion: the inaccurate perception that any part of life is separate from any other part. The misperception is maintained by the evidence of the physical senses, which experience reality in physical rather than spiritual terms, thus positing us as separate when in fact we are not. This central, pernicious belief in separation obliterates love and induces fear, by leading us to experience ourselves as separate from what, and from whom, we cannot in fact be separate. This delusion is the source of our despair because, on the level of thought, it cuts the oneness of our being into billions of separate pieces and thus violates our most fundamental sense of self.

  We are, according to A Course in Miracles, like sunbeams thinking we are separate from the sun or waves in the ocean thinking we’re separate from other waves. Let’s consider what that means psychologically. If I’m a wave in the ocean and I think I’m separate from all the other waves, then how could I not be afraid of the ocean? How could I not feel powerless? How could I not be terrified that at any moment I might be overwhelmed by other waves? But if I think of myself as I really am—not separate at all from other waves—then I know that I am safe in the ocean and that the power of the ocean is my power too.

  All suffering derives from our false attachment to the kingdom of the personal self. Pain is inevitable as long as we see ourselves as separate from the rest of life. Cells in the body that separate from their natural intelligence, forgetting their function and going off to form their own kingdoms, are called cancer cells. They’re malignant, having broken off from the great collaborative dance of life. And that is what has happened to humanity; we’ve been infected by a spiritual malignancy, in which, like cancer cells, we’ve forgotten that our function is to collaborate with other cells in order to foster the greater life of which we are all a part. Instead, we’ve been led to believe that there is no higher good than doing whatever we want to do—with no sense of greater responsibility to the whole of which we are part. And the power with which we are intended to create becomes a power by which we destroy.

  Fearful attitudes, rooted in the belief in separation and forming a social toxicity that is poisoning our world, pervade every aspect of our society. Such toxicity is destructive to our psyches and even to our bodies. Whether it’s violence on TV or the violence of war, conflict between neighbors or conflict between races, it feels at times as though fear is everywhere and love is practically nowhere.

  We grasp for love as though we’re gasping for air, yet too often we cannot find it. We’re lured into false beliefs about who we are and who we are to each other—essentially believing that we are ultimately nothing and we are nothing to each other; such beliefs accumulate to the point of becoming a massive, unquestioned lie that spreads across the consciousness of humanity like a blanket of doom. The lie is fortified so completely, so constantly, and so chronically that it seems like it must be true. But a ubiquitous lie is still a lie.

  The lie is fortified everywhere. Our religions, our economies, our nationalities, our sexualities, our politics, our cultures: the ego uses all as evidence of our separateness and warns us constantly, “Do not trust each other!” We are taught to fear rather than to love one another. We perceive a world of scarcity—of lack, of danger—and from that perception we conclude that we must compete to get our needs met at the expense of whomever else. In truth, it is our perception of separation that creates the scarcity to begin with.

  So what is the source of the lie, and how can it be removed? The truth is, it comes from no specific place because it comes from everywhere. It is simply human consciousness devoid of love. The ego mind is the psychological meaning of the devil’s lair, but there is no physical devil’s lair where all the lies of the world are concocted. Fear is the power of our minds turned against ourselves—the loveless, disassociated, despairing self. It’s our self-hatred posing as self-love.

  Given the fact that fear rather than love prevails within the dominant thought system on the planet today, it is not surprising that so many of us are depressed: the organizing principles of modern civilization dislodge us spiritually from our place in the universe. A fear-based, materially obsessed mentality has leached a sense of spiritual purpose from the bones of our civilization, and this hurts us.

  We do not—and cannot—emotionally fit into a world in which no transcendent meaning is ascribed to the experience of being human; in which no deep connection or mutual responsibility is presupposed in our connection to other living things; in which more forces exist to separate us than to unite us; and in which our worth is determined primarily by external factors. This maelstrom of diseased thinking—diseased in that none of it fosters love and all of it fosters fear—has turned our civilization into a petri dish of social pathology. It is a collective problem whose consequences we experience on an individual level.

  And how could it be otherwise? How could a civilization that so ma
rginalizes love not leave people heartbroken? The deep emotional suffering so rampant among us is a disease of the spirit and will not be healed on a material level. It will be healed only when addressed on a spiritual level.

  A spiritual disease demands a spiritual solution, and a spiritual solution does not numb or avoid our suffering. To numb or avoid suffering is to fail to expose its source to the light of conscious awareness. If we are unaware of our pain, we cannot surrender it, and only pain surrendered is pain dissolved.

  God will not take from us what we will not release to Him; to do so would be to violate our free will. Spiritual toxins must be brought to the surface in order to be released. They are released as a part of an emotional detoxification process, without which they remain within us to damage our lives. Our modern worldview does not recognize the emotional toxicity at its core. Our mechanistic, rationalistic, overly secularized worldview is toxic; therefore, our worldview needs to be healed before our suffering can be.

  THE PATH TO HEALING

  The genius of nature applies to both body and mind.

  This extraordinary natural intelligence is obvious in the workings of our biological systems. In the creation of the human body, egg cell and sperm are first joined in a cellular marriage out of which arises a mind-boggling process of cell creation and division. Cells emerge and divide to become muscles, skin, organs, and blood. Brains, lungs, livers, hearts, fingernails, genitals, eyeballs, tongues, toes—all develop from billions and billions of tiny cells that are guided to collaborate with other cells in an infinitely creative process leading to the birth of a baby. Then, even after the birth, these processes continue in a way that supports the body in functioning and thriving as an independent being.

  Notice that at no time does nature rely on you or me to do any of that. We ourselves did not author this process. The natural intelligence guiding our biological functioning simply is. And whether we think of this genius in spiritual or secular terms, the point is that this same genius applies to our psychological and emotional functioning as well. Just as biologically we are programmed to be born, spiritually we are programmed to be happy. Divine intelligence but uses the body as a means to a more creative end.

  This is nature’s intention and the purpose of our lives: that we grow and thrive not only biologically, but also spiritually. Nature’s intelligence leads us to our highest creativity, goodness, and joy. The issue isn’t whether or not this intelligence exists, but only whether or not we follow it. Connected to that intelligence, which is love itself, we are guided to wholeness and inner peace. Disconnected from it, we are guided by ego into the darkness of chaos and pain. Free will simply means that the choice is up to us.

  The mind is part of a perfectly orchestrated ecosystem, just as is the physical body. It has inbuilt mechanisms of survival, just as does the physical body. And it has ways to repair itself, just as does the physical body. The body would not survive were it not able to absorb a certain amount of injury, and neither would the mind. Both are imbued with brilliant immune systems, mechanisms of repair by which they heal injury and resist disease.

  When we suffer an emotional trauma, we might feel as though we’ve been beaten up—because in a way we have been, either by ourselves, by others, or by life. Our inner selves have been bruised, and we need time to heal. When healing physically, we need to be gentle with our bodies; when healing emotionally, we need to be gentle with our hearts. Anyone who is depressed understands that the inner self can be in pain as great as any pain of the physical body.

  A certain amount of sickness and pain is simply a part of life, and a certain amount of heartbreak is a part of life as well. It takes time to recover from a physical injury, and it takes time to recover from an emotional one. Our understanding this, and allowing for it, is simply part of living wisely. The period of time during which the mind is absorbing and processing loss, disappointment, and fear is not a disease. Feeling that loss, disappointment, and fear doesn’t necessarily mean that something is wrong. It simply means we are bruised and need time to heal.

  People didn’t just start dying recently. People didn’t just start experiencing catastrophic situations recently. People didn’t just start enduring heartbreak recently. Over time, when faced with challenges and threats to our survival, we have adapted to meet threats on both external and internal levels. Both body and mind have developed immune systems, and the basis of the mind’s immune system is grief. Grief allows us to process incrementally what might be too shocking to the system to have to process all at once.

  Grief over the normal losses of life should not be avoided, but accepted and embraced. It is a process—not an event—best served when we surrender to it fully. When our feelings have been deeply hurt, we need to settle into what might be a painful period with full understanding that this is going to be hard but we will get through it. We need to stock up on whatever helps us make it through; and gather people around us who are healthy, supportive, compassionate companions while we process our loss and move through our feelings. The grief will come in waves, and it will take as long as it takes. The last thing we need to do is tell ourselves to hurry, to get on with it, to push through, to “get over it.” We wouldn’t do that with our bodies, and we shouldn’t do it with our souls.

  One of the neuroses of modernity is the impulse to rush what should not be rushed. We have taken the dictates of a business model and imposed them onto everything. If something makes us less “productive” for a period of time, then surely something must be wrong. But ultimately, what could be more productive than moving beyond deep debilitating sorrow and reclaiming our inner peace?

  The right time to be heartbroken is when the heart is breaking. Just as an expectant mother sometimes serves her pregnancy best by resting comfortably, her feet up and drinking a cup of chamomile tea; so during times of grief we, too, are gestating the next phase of our lives and serve the process best simply by allowing it to be. We need to rest into who we are and where we are; in being gentle with ourselves, we make greater space for the gigantic processes of personal transformation that are occurring deep inside us. Spiritually, we are always dying and we are always being born.

  Feeling appropriate respect for grief, we give ourselves greater permission to go through it. I remember when far more credence was given to the experience of deep grief; people weren’t expected to simply bounce back quickly after the death of a loved one. Family members might have worn black (which was unusual back then) for a year to signal their mourning. It was simply understood that people wouldn’t be themselves for a while, and they felt permission to not be themselves. Today, people are apt to feel guilty for grieving, after someone says to them: “It’s been a month since your mother died. Aren’t you over it yet?” At such a time, it’s more than okay—in fact, it’s very healthy—to say, “No, I’m not, and I probably won’t be for a while.”

  We are not machines. We are human beings. And when we’re grieving, we’re moving through a profound and significant experience. A sorrowful time can be a sacred time. Respecting the heart when we are in pain, seeking to walk through the experience very close to God, doesn’t immediately make us less sad; but it makes our sadness begin to make sense. Dwelling in a sacred universe gives us a different emotional perspective, one in which life is ascribed a deeper meaning because we choose to see it from a deeper perspective. We choose to see all things, even our suffering, within the context of how deeply we might learn to love.

  No matter what happens in life, it is our choice whether to play it deep or to play it shallow. And whenever we play life deep, we feel our feelings deeply. Times of great sadness might open up painful wounds that were buried before. They might be wounds that are not just ours, but generational or societal. Suffering through them with our hearts wide open is not for sissies, but for seekers. Those wounds were keeping us from being who we’re capable of being, and their coming up to be healed is part of our journey to enlightenment.

  During that proc
ess, if we are forced to burn through what might seem at times like unbearable pain, we might weep. And that’s okay.

  FIVE

  A Culture of Depression

  There exists a spiritual vacuum at the heart of our society, the natural consequence of which is a low-level sadness. The very worldview that permeates our civilization is depressing. A mechanistic interpretation of the world teaches us to see people as machines, not as multidimensional beings—as bodies, but not as spirits. This mindset denies who and what we actually are. We live with endless, tiny repudiations of our true nature throughout the day every day of our lives.

  Simply living in today’s world is emotionally traumatic. But our emotional disconnection from each other, from ourselves, from nature, from God—indeed, from any sense of transcendent reality—is not one specific violent event. Rather, it is the consistent, rolling trauma of living in a world so disconnected from love. We are not just depressed about specific incidents, and we are not just depressed as individuals. We are depressed collectively.

  Collective issues run through our personal dramas:

  ~Someone is depressed over a breakup or divorce. The collective issue is, why do we commonly find relationships so hard to make work?

  ~Someone is depressed over the loss of a loved one. The collective issue is, why do we give ourselves so little permission to grieve?

  ~Someone is depressed over the loss of money or career. The collective question is, why have we acquiesced to the creation of an economy in which the majority of people are so financially squeezed?

  ~Someone is depressed over a child having died of a drug overdose. The collective issue is, what kind of society have we created that so many young people are rushing to drugs to begin with?

  ~Someone is depressed over past trauma or abuse. The collective issue is, what is the spiritual vacuum at the heart of our society that so little attention, comfort, hope, and inspiration are available to those who suffer?