Spiritual Insights from Marianne Williamson on the Mind of Love and The Course in Miracles

I’m excited to share this special episode with Marianne Williamson, a beloved teacher of A Course in Miracles, as we dive deep into the foundations of Soul Recovery. Together, we explore the profound transformation that comes from letting go of judgment, choosing love over fear, and embracing forgiveness as a path to true spiritual healing. Marianne offers beautiful insights into how our grievance and attack thoughts keep us stuck, and how healing begins with love and connection.

She speaks to the challenge of living a spiritual life in today’s world and how we can bring compassion and grace into our daily practice by seeing the love and innocence in others. In our heartfelt conversation, we discuss the universal teachings of A Course in Miracles, highlighting the spiritual journey we all share, as described in her latest book The Mystic Jesus – The Mind of Love. I know this conversation will inspire you on your own path to peace. https://marianne.com/

Join Rev Rachel and the community for the FREE Soul Recovery Support Group on the 1st Monday of every month for a quick live mini workshop with Rev Rachel, time for questions and then meeting in small groups to connect and share your Soul Recovery.  Next group is Monday October 7th from 6 to 7PM Mountain Time. Same link each month, register on the website www.recoveryoursoul.net!!! 

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not allied or representative of any organizations or religions, but is based on the opinions and experience of Rev. Rachel Harrison. The host claims no responsibility to any person or entity for any liability, loss, or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly as a result of the use, application, or interpretation of the information presented herein. Take what you need and leave the rest.

Chapters

• 0:00 The Foundations of Soul Recovery
• 10:08 Transforming Thought Systems Through Self-Reflection
• 20:35 Transforming Through Soul Recovery Support
• 26:04 Exploring Universal Spiritual Truths
• 34:48 Embracing Grace and Self-Reflection
• 51:05 Empowering Women in Higher Consciousness

Transcript

Rev Rachel Harrison: 0:31

If you've been listening to the Recover your Soul podcast for a while, you've heard some of the foundational elements of soul recovery. They're around not having judgment for anyone in the situation, for learning how to choose love over fear. It's around learning how to open to forgiveness, to understand the value of a spiritual practice to change how you perceive the world. Well, one of the ways that I have come into this knowing for myself is I am a student of the Course in Miracles, among other modalities, including being raised Buddhist, attending a metaphysical church for over 20 years, and when I finally stepped into my soul recovery journey over six years ago and took A Course in Miracles for an entire year, it took everything that I had been bringing in for all those years and it really put it into my heart and changed how I related to everything. It was a foundational piece of my soul recovery journey, and so today I am so, so excited to bring you one of the great Course in Miracles teachers, marianne Williamson, who has been teaching the course through her amazing books that take a book that can be a little heavy and hard to understand and put it into concepts and terms that allow you to live those principles Principles and her latest book, the Mystic Jesus, the Mind of Love, is another one of those fabulous opportunities to read and understand spiritual principles. It was a complete thrill for me to be able to interview Marianne and I know that you're going to love the episode Enjoy.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 2:12

Welcome to the Recover your Soul podcast a spiritual path to a happy and healthy life. My name is Reverend Rachel Harrison. I started Recover your Soul after having profound changes in my life from my recovery of alcoholism, codependency and control addiction. I was guided to share the tools and principles of spirituality and soul recovery to help others transform their lives, as mine was transformed. For us to overcome external circumstances, we need to turn the attention to ourselves, focusing on our inner change and healing. Positive results in our lives will follow. Welcome to Recover your Soul. I'm Rev Rachel and I am thrilled and honored today because I have the absolute privilege of having Marianne Williamson, who is a well-known author, speaker, teacher, expert on the Course in Miracles, liver of this radical way of being in conscious love, here on the podcast today to share her wisdom and to share her new book, mystic Jesus, which is fabulous. Welcome, oh, thank you. Thank you for having me.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 3:25

My community is really based on codependence and learning how to step out of that from. Maybe they have people in their lives who are addicts. I'm a recovered alcoholic and recovered codependent, and so the people in the soul recovery community have come to me because they step in thinking that something on the outside is the problem and then when they walk through the door of soul recovery they realize it is around their own awakening. And for me the Course in Miracles was foundational.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 3:54

I started taking the course originally about six years ago at a unity church and then my second year I did the whole year of lessons through your videos and that was really transformational for me, and so I think that soul recovery has really brought in my foundations of Buddhism, my years of unity. It's really heavy on the teachings of the Course in Miracles, all the spiritual modalities to come in and find our wholeness. And one of the things that I think was most foundational for me was to really understand the concept of grievance and attack and to look at that from this new perspective. I'd love, with that lead in around who my people are, to really talk about this incredible, transformational way of seeing grievance and attack in a new way.

Marianne Williamson: 4:47

Well, grievance and attack thoughts are a big part of what the Course in Miracles is In terms of you're talking about your community and what they're into. You know we're all broken people and we like to name our particular form of brokenness with codependency or addiction or a particular form of truth a soul recovery. There's one brokenness and there's one truth, and that truth is broken in many different ways and the brokenness takes many different forms. But we want to be careful with that because we can make our brokenness a form of specialness, and specialness is ego. My suffering is different than your suffering. Nobody's suffering is any different than anybody else's and nobody's soul medicine is different than anybody else's. Nobody can brand their soul medicine. Do you know what I'm saying? We're broken people because we're living on a planet that is dominated by a thought system based on disconnection from love, and love in whatever form. And every teacher comes, it's like a kaleidoscope your particular experiences, as you said, your own addiction journey, buddhism, course in Miracles, whatever. But it's really not about soul recovery, it's about you. Do you know what I mean? Women don't have to feel that we have to come up. What am I going to name my brand thing? It's you. It's you as a minister of God, and that itself is a form of recovery. That who we are is enough. That who we are is enough.

Marianne Williamson: 6:10

Now, what the Course in Miracles says is that from the time we are very young, we are taught a thought system that is unnatural to us, and that thought system that is unnatural to us is a perspective in which we see ourselves as separate rather than one with God, with each other, and therefore even disconnected from ourselves for a called neurosis separation from love. So the Course in Miracles says that the mind, which is the belief in separation, has tools that it uses to keep us in a constant state of disconnection or separation. And from a metaphysical perspective, the description of that state is hell, anxiety, depression, constant, a level of aloneness that we can't quite put our finger on. But one of the things I love in the Course in Miracles, rachel, is where it talks about you're like a sunbeam, thinking you're separate from other sunbeams. You're like a wave in the ocean thinking you're separate from other waves. So the image of the wave being separate, if you think about it psychologically. So if I think of myself as a wave separate from the rest of the ocean, how could I not live in constant terror, that I'm going to be annihilated at any moment by other waves. If I think of myself as one with every other wave, then I identify not with my separation, I am a separate wave in this whole ocean. How could I not live in terror? Or hey, I'm one with the ocean. There's no place where I stop and it starts and it moves. I move, I move, it moves. So the psychological shift is from thinking of ourselves as separate, what the Course in Miracles calls body identification, to spirit identification, in which we recognize our oneness.

Marianne Williamson: 8:12

Now, as I said, the ego mind, which is your own mind's, turned against you, right. So the spirit in you is your own love, coming into you from God every moment, extending outward into the world. Which sounds natural, because it is. But we've been taught to think unnaturally and we've been taught to think in a way that fosters the separation. And we've been taught to think in a way that fosters the separation. Anything I do that perceives your guilt, by definition, perceives you as separate from me. So the ego mind is constant attack and defense, attack and defense. So that we grow up on this planet, and at a very early age.

Marianne Williamson: 9:04

The Course says natural thinking, loving thinking feels unnatural to you, and unnatural thinking, ie natural thinking, unnatural thinking feels natural. So we just attack all the time and grievance is a way of complaining. Right, I have a grievance, which you know. We're both human, I mean, we understand it. They did this to me, they did that to me. Well, that grievance? The Course in Miracles says you can have a grievance or you can have a miracle. You cannot have both, because miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. Right, miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. And when you really are in that state of love, I see no difference, you and me. Only love is real. So whatever happened that I have a grievance about didn't really happen. Because if it wasn't love within the realm of illusion, by my identifying with whatever happened to me.

Marianne Williamson: 10:00

I'm keeping myself stuck in the realm where? Because I believe that I will be at the effect of what happened to me. So that's the grievance issue. And the attack issue is because there's only one of us here, attacking, judging, blaming, attacking. The Course in Miracles says it's like holding a sword over the other person's head, but really, because there's only one of us here, it's falling on your own. So you know, the Course in Miracles says you become generous out of self-interest.

Marianne Williamson: 10:28

If I have a grievance, that means I'm first of all. Whatever I have a grievance about happened in the past, and so if I bring it into the present, of course, as I'm bringing shadow figures from the present in the present, the universe is ready to begin again, but it can't begin again. If I bring the grievances and if I attack, I'm only attacking myself. So it's really all this, what you call soul recovery, any of this enlightenment journey, is dismantling this thought system of fear that is actually our self-hatred, posing as our self-love, absolutely and accepting, like you said, it's a radical love. It is, you're right, it's radical on this planet, but this planet is dominated by a thought system that is radically insane. Actually, what you and I are talking about what you're teaching, what you're. All of this is actually common sense. So you can have a grievance or you can have a miracle. You cannot have both. And anytime you're attacking, you know the golden rule do unto others as you would have others do to you. They will either attack you back or this is a great one, let's say, the person that you're attacking is too evolved to attack you back. You know what the Course in Roca said Even if they don't attack you back, you'll feel like they did. You can't escape it.

Marianne Williamson: 11:50

And the other thing that, once again, as we all know, it's not even what you say, it's what you even think, it's not even just behavioral modification. I mean, that's the beginning. Don't send that text, don't pick up the phone, don't write that letter, don't do it. But ultimately it's also addressing that it's in your mind. And I surrender this very thought. And I'm willing to see this differently, because you know you talk about things being foundational to your life. You've mentioned the word foundational. Foundational to all of this in our individual lives is, ultimately, it's the thoughts themselves that have to be transformed, or you're going to end up betraying yourself at some moment when you didn't really change your thoughts. You just changed your behavior. You're going to end up doing or saying something self-sabotaging.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 12:41

I resonate so much with all of it. I was a unity student. The third principle in unity is your life is what you think and feel and believe it is. And I knew that and I was into law of attraction and I was into all these things, but I was so caught up in what my inside wanted to be different, and I think the thing that's happened for me the Course in Miracles that is so beautiful is that it's moved actually how I think, not just how I behave, but truly what is resonating within me to choose to see it another way. One of the things I love about the course is that it says let me see this differently. And when I started to ask to truly see things differently, everything that I had thought was horrible my husband, who I didn't like, the way he was with my kids, or how I didn't like this or I didn't like that All of a sudden I just had so much love and grace for everything.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 13:41

But it's very complicated to be in the world where things are happening. I think a lot of people with the Course they get really stuck in. The words in the Course are pretty heavy, which is why your books are phenomenal, by the way, because you break it down into a way that's really digestible and spoken in a way that just is so pure and true that you go yeah, I can do that. I can do this next step, I can see it this next way. But it is so hard to be spiritual in this world that feels dark and overwhelming. And yet I know that the answer is to always be shining the light and to always be seeing it a different way and to always choose forgiveness and to always choose love. But it isn't easy.

Marianne Williamson: 14:24

No, it's much easier said than done, but I think that you know so much of what you said is really what we are all dealing with. First of all, when you were talking about let me see this differently, the Course in Miracles says your greatest power to change the world is that you can change your mind about the world. And, of course, the most powerful thing in any situation is, as you said. I am willing to see this differently. I am willing to see this differently. There are two parallel universes, and one universe is ultimate reality, which is everybody's love and everybody's here to love and be loved. And we're all confused and we all get it wrong sometimes. Not only do we get it wrong, but the people who just did whatever they did that we didn't like get it wrong sometimes. Whatever they did that we didn't like get it wrong sometimes. And if we base our sense of what is real on what people say and what people do and all the things going on in this three-dimensional reality, it is a very imperfect world. It becomes very complicated. But there is another reality which is real. So that world I just described is real with a little R. Real with a big R means that we can choose, not that it, like you said, it's complicated, it's hard. This is a world that's filled with confusion and illusion, but in any situation, we can say I am willing to see beyond what my physical senses perceive, to the innocence in every person in this situation, and I am willing to pray that I forgive everyone here and that I see only the innocence in them and they see only the innocence in me, and I'm willing to pray that love so infuses the situation, that miracles occur, rather than a continuation of this drama.

Marianne Williamson: 16:09

Now, the key, as you know, because you're, of course, a miracle student is the morning, because we wake up in the morning and you download the thought system that's going to dominate your day. I think this is why social media is so. It's the ego's weapon. If we're not careful, if you wake up in the morning, the first thing you do is go to TikTok or Instagram or the news, any of it. You are saying here take my mind. Take my mind, because every possible thing to make me feel bad about myself or about the world, I'm mainlining it. I'm mainlining it. If you and the Course in Miracles has five minutes spent in the morning with the Holy Spirit, it's enough to guarantee he will be in charge of your thought form throughout the day. And it's not just in the Course in Miracles, it's any religious or spiritual path I've ever read about talks about the morning. So, just like you wake up and take a shower, you take a bath, you don't like yesterday's dirt on your body.

Marianne Williamson: 17:11

When we take even those five minutes to align whether it's the Course in Miracles, transcendental Meditation, buddhist Meditation, mindfulness, whatever it is say, I am grounding myself in my ultimate identity and my ultimate purpose. I am here to shine the light that is the light of the world. It is the essence of who I am. It is the essence of who everyone is. That's another one I love in the course. All of the children of God are special and none of the children of God are special and I am here to salute that light gracefully my whole day. I dedicate my entire day to being a space where love prevails in my contact and encounter with anyone. And then you know, you mentioned a few minutes ago that you did the Course in Miracles for a year. Well, I don't know what your other practices are, of course, and I assume you're doing others, but I know, as a Course in Miracles student, whatever it is, you don't ever get to look in the mirror at the gym and say, okay, I'm cool now, I don't have to do this anymore.

Marianne Williamson: 18:15

It's every day, right For the rest of your life, forever. Because just like there's physical gravity, right so at my age, man, if I don't work these muscles they're going down. So it's constant repetition right Of that which is anti-gravitational, and there's emotional gravity and psychological gravity, mental gravity, soul gravity. Come on, this makes you angry. Come on, this makes you a victim. Come on, they don't love you, you know, they don't like you. Come on, they're not good, whatever it is.

Marianne Williamson: 18:47

And so we have to work to keep our attitudinal muscles up. But when we do, the reward is profound. You know that's heaven. You know that's the real metaphysical meaning of heaven and hell. Hell is what the ego makes of all that separation stuff, and heaven is our awareness of our oneness that we're only here to love.

Marianne Williamson: 19:10

And then the beauty of something like your podcast, let's say, is that the Course in Miracles says an idea grows stronger when it's shared. So people are listening to you, and when they listen to you, whether it's your coaching or your podcast or whatever you are literally reminding them, they are literally recognizing, recognizing the soul truth that all of us have etched on our hearts but which this world is constantly tempting us to forget. And then the beauty of the work that someone like yourself is doing is that then, after the podcast, it's like a time release capsule, because at a certain point, rachel, I'm sure you'd agree, we've all read the same books, we've all listened to the tapes. We get it intellectually. At a certain point we get it abstractly. Like you said, you're in unit. Well, you got it.

Marianne Williamson: 20:06

But the Course in Miracles says enlightenment begins as abstract concept and then takes a journey without distance from the head to the heart, and that journey is your own life experience. The course says each of us has a highly individualized curriculum and it's all lessons. And let me tell you do I know about that? We all do, because the universe is constantly giving you things and saying, yeah, really miss love, how'd you do with that one? You're not a victim, huh. You're not betrayed. Huh, you're cool. Everything's good when you're like seething or whatever. But I think my sense, rachel, is that everybody right now is really going through it, because the universe, the world as we know it, really needs us to transform all that. The state of the world is not in a good place, but the state of the world is just a reflection of who we are at present and the world's going to change as we change, and that's why we're here, right.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 21:01

Are you ready to step into your soul recovery? Well, I am here to support you as your spiritual coach. Visit the website to book one-on-one coaching sessions with me as we transform your life through working the nine steps of soul recovery. You can also choose to work the steps on your own through the modules at your own pace. I'm excited to also be announcing that there are retreats every year, both in Colorado and other places in the country, workshops and events, and I hope that you also will join us the first Monday of every month from 6 to 7pm Mountain Standard Time for the free Zoom support group. This is an amazing place for us to connect, learn and share our stories. And don't forget to join the private Facebook group for soul recovery inspiration connection, answering each other's questions and giving shout outs. I thank you for supporting this podcast, either by being a Patreon member, apple podcast subscriber and getting that extra episode every Friday, or by your one time donations or your small monthly donations that are found in the show notes. You are helping spread the soul recovery message and supporting this community. Visit the website recoveryoursoulnet for dates, times, everything that's happening, register for the support group and how to stay connected. Together, we can do the work that will recover your soul. Yeah, absolutely.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 22:22

You know this part of taking spirituality and these concepts into your life on a daily basis. I love the Course in Miracles has a new app, and I love the new app because I have basically read some part of the course every day since I picked up the book six years ago, coming in and knowing that you are setting the intention for whatever the day is and starting to take your power back and not allowing the craziness of the small our world to be what impacts us, but to make decisions. For me, it's transformed everything within me because I'm not fighting, I'm not in this place of resistance, I'm in this place of kindness and love and awareness, and from that then I feel like I have more capacity to be with what is uncomfortable or hard, and in that space then I can catch myself when I'm going back to an old pattern, you know, and those releasing of those patterns is so powerful, but you need the tools that you get from spirituality and so you find whatever voice works for you to do that.

Marianne Williamson: 23:43

Well, yeah, I mean, if you do your exercises in the morning, that doesn't mean you're going to be an enlightened master all day, but it does mean, like you said, when something does tempt you to fall off the spiritual wagon, first of all if you've done your work with your practice. Like you said, you need to find your practice. But if you do it, if you have your toolbox, your problem-solving repertoire, as the Course in Miracles said, the chances of your falling off the wagon being really tempted into all those ego default positions throughout the day, the chances of your falling are greatly reduced. But number two, as you said, much greater chance that you'll be able to recognize and get yourself back up as soon as possible, and that of itself is a big deal that you won't have done something really stupid before you catch yourself.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 24:34

Exactly, I was going to go right to your book. So, mystic Jesus, thank you for sending me a copy. I appreciate it. I was raised Buddhist and I'm Unity and my son, my younger son, who's 25 now he found more traditional Christianity really felt more connected to him, and so he's always gone to those churches and Jesus is like his person right, like he always relates to Jesus, and I told him I was going to interview you and he listened to your book in the last couple days and he loved it. So this 25 year old he just said.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 25:07

He said this is everything. This is what I think, and it really gave him voice to be able to love the Jesus that he loves from the metaphysical standpoint that he was raised with, but also to open to his love of Jesus. I think it's a gorgeous book in that system of there's so much, oh, there's so much like energy around the word Jesus. So tell me a little bit about how you came to write the book and, for those people who are wondering how to open to higher power, what this means, I'd love for you to be able to share the mystic Jesus with us.

Marianne Williamson: 25:47

Well, thank you, and first of all, I'm so happy to hear that story about your son. His name is Bodhi too, which is thank you and first of all, I'm so happy to hear that story about your son.

Marianne Williamson: 25:53

His name is Bodhi too, which is, you know, that's pretty funny. Actually. That's great and a great name. So tell him I'm very happy, and it makes me happy to hear that In the book I talk about my own journey.

Marianne Williamson: 26:04

I'm Jewish and I had studied when I was in college comparative religions. So I had studied a lot of Christian theology. I'd read St Thomas and Aquinas and I'd read St Augustine and all kinds of things. So within that context I loved it. But when I was in my mid-20s I was at a cocktail party in New York City I don't know if it was a cocktail party, we were too young to think of cocktail parties but at a party, sitting around at a table in New York, and I saw the Course in Miracles.

Marianne Williamson: 26:33

Now today it's not that unusual to see a book that does not have an author listed on the title on the front. But in those days, what? And I opened it up and the first page says this is A Course in Miracles. This is required reading, a required course. You're like what? What do you mean required? What book says it's required reading, a required course? They're like what, what do you mean required? What book says it's required reading? Later you come to understand. It's not saying this form of the spiritual journey is required, but that the spiritual journey is you're going to go through it in life, whether you like it or not. Everybody's on a spiritual path. Some people just don't know it.

Marianne Williamson: 27:08

I opened the book, I started reading through it. I thought it was fascinating, but I saw all these traditional Christian terms and, being Jewish, I just thought, well, you know, this is a Christian book, right? You know, I was brought up. We don't read that book, honey. We read the other one. We read the other Bible. It wasn't even bad, it was just they read that we read this, right.

Marianne Williamson: 27:34

A year later I picked it up again and I was in a place in my life where I so didn't care about what the language was. As soon as I started reading a few pages, it was speaking to me in a way that was so beyond theology or abstraction. It was like, oh, that's what I'm doing. Because, you know, the course is not a religion, it is a psychological mind training based on universal spiritual things. So, as a Buddhist, you know, the whole idea of the world is illusion. Hello, right, endless compassion is the answer. Hello, I mean, these are universal spiritual themes at the heart of all the great religious and spiritual teachings.

Marianne Williamson: 28:10

When I did that because I had not been taught anything about these words and Jesus, jews I mean Jesus was a Jew. Jews don't have anything about Jesus. That's negative. We have some historical experiences of Christianity, the whole other thing, but Jews don't associate. Jews certainly see the distinction between Christianity and the history of Christianity, programs, et cetera and Jesus. So I was actually blessed by the fact that all this was new to me and because Holy Spirit, christ, jesus, salvation, all these things resurrection, crucifixion were being presented to me within a psychotherapeutic, metaphysical context, I was like this is the coolest thing in the world. So then my mind went to oh wow, I bet that's what my Christian friends sit around and talk about all day and they're just being polite and so that's why they don't talk about it in front of me. I understand. So I started saying to some Christian friends hey guys, you know, like let's talk about the resurrection.

Marianne Williamson: 29:15

And they were like what has happened to you? And I realized that many of my friends who had grown up Christian had more ambivalence and more things to get over. I was learning new terms and more things to get over. I was learning new terms. They were having to unlearn interpretations of those things. So I used to say there's something in this book to offend just about everybody. You know what I'm saying, because it is a radical rethinking of not only these terms, although, look, in many cases traditional Christians, such as your son, they see this as a kind of fulfillment of what they're already into, depending on where they are. I mean, there's Christianity and then there's Christianity.

Marianne Williamson: 30:05

For me, I have never felt because the Course does make it clear it's not a religion. My experience has been what many people's experience is Wherever you are, whatever your path is, it only deepens it. It doesn't say stop being the religion that you are, because it doesn't present Jesus as a religious figure. It presents him as a universal spiritual force. Nobody gets to own outer space, yet, thank God, nobody gets to own the breeze.

Marianne Williamson: 30:37

You know something that foundational you would say to who we are? Literally a name, just one name. Of course, it's not the only name. It is a name for that space of love we all share. Nobody gets to own that, and so we have lived through an era of history where it's monopolized by one church, when really the entire human race. It's a gift, just like Buddha, just like any religious or spiritual scripture tells these deep, essential truths, this kaleidoscope you and I were talking about, and so I was able to embrace the course without any sense that therefore I will be a different religion or anything like that. That has been my story, but everybody has their own. I love your sons. I really love it when I hear of traditional Christians who recognize in the course only further illumination of what they already know.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 31:40

When I was in unity we would talk about the Christ consciousness, that there is this consciousness within us and that if we look at Jesus as somebody who embodied pure love, pure compassion, pure forgiveness forgiveness which is not forgiveness which is I'm still going to hold on to the pain and say it's okay now, but really release the pain and accept that everything is as it's supposed to be and that we're overlooking it. There is no wrong that happened. It's really our interpretation, our experience of it. I always just say to people we're just souls having this curriculum. I always just say to people we're just souls having this curriculum, this experience of life, and if we can see from compassion and that's the piece that I feel like the mystic Jesus really comes in and brings, and I love that you talk about how it's not owned by any one particular voice and so the fact that and as I was listening to your reading of the book and I was thinking about you being Jewish, you know, and this really tender, you can hear it in your voice this tender love and holding and knowing that you are surrounded by this embrace in the word Jesus, to me was really beautiful because I think there's so much fear in it, and the course offers us always to choose love over fear, always choose love over fear.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 33:13

When I first started the course, I was caught up in all the terminology too, and I didn't like the he's and I didn't like that this is, and I didn't like that that's. And the more that I've gotten to, the course is just words anyway. It's just words, words are but symbols.

Marianne Williamson: 33:26

at their best, they're just symbols you know.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 33:28

So it doesn't even matter. People get attached to the he, he, he everywhere. Those are just words anyway. So, opening to the concepts on even larger scales of not even having the words have the symbols, but just feeling the feelings and letting that pour in.

Marianne Williamson: 33:45

There's one thing you said that I think that we in our work need to perhaps revisit a little bit. Forgiveness, as you said in the Course in Miracles, is not the old-fashioned kind of forgiveness. I'm spiritual, you're a jerk, but I forgive you. That's just further judgment. But you said nothing is really wrong and everything is as it should be. I think we need to look at that. Some things are wrong, some things are really wrong. Terrible, terrible humanitarian transgressions that is true Evil really in the world. And I don't think you'd look at something like the Holocaust and say that is as it should be. So where do we take that? And I think we take it to what you were saying, which is it's happening within this realm of illusion. But what is amazing about the Course is it says God has an answer to every problem the moment the problem occurred, almost like.

Marianne Williamson: 34:48

I always use the image of the GPS. Sometimes we take a wrong turn, sometimes humanity takes a wrong turn. It was wrong, wrong-minded, as the course would say. The course goes right-minded, wrong-minded, but the GPS will automatically recalibrate. So for me, nothing is wrong that can't be made right through the grace of God. However, if we over-identify with the wrong, then we aren't a space for the recalibration or the divine correction, right? So what is wrong is, metaphysically, the crucifixion. The crucifixion is, and I think sometimes in the higher consciousness community there's a temptation to over, you know, jump over the crucifixion, go right to the resurrection, which is, we know, that's not resurrection, that's denial, right, that's not transcendence. So I love the line in the course where it says look at the crucifixion but do not dwell on it.

Marianne Williamson: 35:53

I think that's so interesting. It's like you were talking about addiction, right? Hello, you got some things you got to look at. If somebody's on a 12-step program, you're going to have to look at some things. It's not going to be fun and it wasn't all as it should be. You made some real mistakes and you're going to have to atone and you're going to have to amend. You know what I mean? It's the grittiness and God can give you new life. So I think, particularly at this time in the world, I think that that's and also working as you do as well with people with really serious problems that there's a difference between. The Course in Miracles actually talks about positive denial. Negative denial is oh, just pink paint over it, there's nothing wrong. Positive denial is oh, I don't deny that it happened within this world. I deny its power over me.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 36:45

That is a foundational unity principle as well. Well, there's one truth.

Marianne Williamson: 36:50

One truth spoken many different ways. I ministered at a unity church for six years. One truth, spoken in many different ways. You know, when you were saying earlier that you had studied unity and then went and got your metaphysical, you're better off and I don't say that with any judgment of unity principles or anything like that but I have experienced in my life. You know, the more density, the more material structure, organization, boards of directors, all that you know.

Marianne Williamson: 37:24

The Course in Miracles talks about a holy relationship and a special relationship and it says that in a special relationship it's like a picture and it has a very Baroque frame and those rubies and those diamonds are inset. But those rubies are your blood and those diamonds are your tears and the picture is small compared to the. It all becomes about the frame. That's what organized religion so often does. It becomes about the frame and then it talks about a holy relationship where it's about the picture and I always think of it as a kind of Scandinavian frame. It's a very light, just enough to hold it together. So I think even with unity principles you see it, with any the ideas are great. The material structures can become problematical for people and weigh us down and bring in all kinds of ego considerations. Not that there aren't wonderful people doing wonderful work there.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 38:18

So I think the fact that we're the day of the priestess Mm-hmm, I agree, I agree and I love that you said that, because what I loved about the studies that I did was that it wasn't bogged down. It was pure metaphysics and I was so immersed in the teachings and I was having these healings and these transmissions and I was so inspired, by just opening my heart and all the life that I'd lived and all the things that I had been through, that I actually don't think that any accreditation is what tells you who you are Right. So the accreditation is the frame and ultimately you can have all that knowledge and if you're not holding that in your heart, this opportunity, I loved that. The end of the Course in Miracles it says we are all teachers of God.

Marianne Williamson: 39:14

That's exactly. I'm among the ministers of God. What makes us teachers to teachers to demonstrate, and what makes us ministers of God is not that we're doing coaching or any of this stuff is it's that we're trying to be the women. We're trying to demonstrate, we're trying to practice what we preach the form of somebody's ministry. One person has a business. One person is an artist. One person is a scientist. One person is a teacher. Those are ministries too, if they are used. You're being a mother is a ministry. You're being a mother is a ministry. Your being a wife is a ministry. Everything is a ministry if it's a conduit and a channel through which we seek to extend the love of God that is within us. Now, that's not to say that people who receive the accreditation have any less of that. It's just that sometimes, with these institutions, we then have to get so bogged down in the worldly considerations that it makes it harder. Yeah, yeah.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 40:12

And I love that you're talking about the ministry in the small things, because I think that there's so much push, especially you talked about social media earlier so much comparison, so much you know.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 40:23

For me my number one thing is to be of service. My absolute number one center of my being is to share light, and it work to do. But I feel like I've made progress in ways that has truly transformed how I see, how I interact with people, how I, how I think and so from that I can share. And so when we do that in small ways in our family or just showing up in your work life as somebody who has gentleness in their heart, it really starts to butterfly out and affect in such profound ways that people don't know and they don't give themselves credit for the value that they have of holding their heart in that way.

Marianne Williamson: 41:18

Well, of course, the miracle says that the purpose of our lives is to think as God thinks, and God is the thought of love for all living things, past, present and future. And that is service to be in any situation, that I'm only here to love and to forgive. And we will be given, as part of our lessons, situations involving people who tempt us to another place, and sometimes it's a process learning how to get there. You know, I got a text about three days ago from someone and I haven't responded yet because I have not yet found the place within myself to answer lovingly and authentically. Answer lovingly and authentically. So sometimes it takes. Oh, I'm willing to be the vehicle for the love here, but if I just say I'm great, thank you, that wouldn't be love. If I say, how do you think I am, that wouldn't be love.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 42:22

I love your honesty in that, because I think that we can think that there's some perfectionism or there's some people that's been there or they've gotten it, and I think the truth is no one who knows my work thinks I'm coming from that place.

Marianne Williamson: 42:35

I think you know that's not the model, that's not the zeitgeist of this moment. There are the perfected ones Jesus and others and that certainly has a role, but people like us, we're just the handmaidens who sweep up around the throne. Do you know what I'm saying? And that was speaking for myself. And that's plenty grand enough. Of course, the miracles talked about grandeur versus grandiosity. Grandiosity is a look at me. Grandeur is is I'm. I'm trying my best. And I'll tell you something else, one of the things that I've seen throughout my career people can smell it if you're trying. They don't. People in my career, in my work, people aren't expecting you to be perfect, but they're expecting you to make a good effort at it, and they can smell it when you're not and when you make a mistake. That's okay if you just acknowledge it.

Marianne Williamson: 43:37

But there's a profound perceptual power in a group of people, mm-hmm, that he has actualized that potential divinity within all of us, which is the truth of who we are. He has actualized it to such an extent where he is never tempted to go into any place other than pure love, seeing through all illusion, which is why, in his presence. The sick became healed In his presence. Water became wine In his presence. Sick became healed in his presence. Water became wine in his presence. You can walk on the water, because he sees through. He does not see himself. Is that the effect of the world? So the world sees him. He sees himself only at the effect of god. So the world becomes his, his. He gets to master rather than being at the effect of the state of the world.

Marianne Williamson: 44:24

Then what the Course in Miracles says is that, his having achieved that state, he is then authorized by God himself to help you and me, should we be on the rocks and confused. He says my mind, joined with your mind, can shine away the ego. But he also says I cannot take from you what you will not give to me. You know you were talking about addiction and recovery. You know when you have to admit your character defects and you have to own it.

Marianne Williamson: 44:55

That's why sometimes, when you ask that the Holy Spirit come into your life, it seems that things actually get worse rather than better. So the Course in Miracles says actually your life didn't get worse, it's just that you were so anesthetized to what your own life was before you didn't see it. The Holy Spirit, out of mercy for you, has put a magnifying glass on your own stuff so that you can see it. And then you can hand it over to the Holy Spirit and say I'm willing to be different. Please take this from me. Please remove the roots of whatever trauma, whatever wound, whatever sent me in this direction, in my personality, or whatever leading to these consequences. I get it, I get that I'm a cause, but I don't know how to change. Please help me. And that is the divine power of Jesus. And obviously that is the divine power of Jesus, and obviously that is so, not nothing.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 45:47

We could talk forever, because I love everything you have to say, One of these aspects of looking at ourselves from that perception, like that awakening, where you wake up and you see how asleep you've been, you see how your ego has taken over, you see how you've had grievance, you see how you've been this, see how your ego has taken over, you see how you've had grievance, you see how you've been.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 46:07

This beauty and I think offered both by Mystic Jesus and the Course in Miracles is this gentleness of releasing it and letting it go. And I think so often how the Course talks about the past and how you interact with the past and allow it to teach you, instead of allow it to be around guilt or shame. And that was profound for me to really let go of the past in a way that was deep and real, because I've had incredible difficulty. But I hardly ever think of it or bring it up unless I'm using it as a teaching tool. And even then I'm conscientious of how I speak about it, because those choices of how I bring it up will manifest in how I am today.

Marianne Williamson: 46:55

Well, the Course in Miracles reminds us that the past is only in your mind and the future is only in your mind. And in the past all the love you gave was real. All the love others gave you was real. Nothing else exists. Because in the introduction to the Course it says the Course can be summed up very simply in this way Nothing real can be threatened, nothing unreal exists. Love is real. Everything else is part of the illusion. Part of the illusion is the time-space continuum.

Marianne Williamson: 47:28

So in the past, the Course in Miracles says one of the lessons is give me your past so I can change your mind about it. For you, the lesson is the past is over. It can touch me, not Most of the demons, the thoughts of fear that jump up and get us. You did this, they did that, you embarrassed yourself, you failed, you messed up, what they did to you, right, and all that stuff. Well, the Course says if you bring that into the present, in the present, the holy instant, the universe is always. God is always new beginnings, god is always ready to begin again. That recalibration, that GPS. But if you take that into the present, you think that's what's real. You will act on it, victim, complainer, angry, whatever, then you will subconsciously create a future just like the past and your ego will say see, nothing ever changes. And that's why one of the lessons is when he says I placed the future in the hands of God. That's why it's all about this moment, what the Course in Miracles calls the holy instant. But if I'm bringing, like you said at the beginning, grievances, any of that, so once again, like you said, easier said than done.

Marianne Williamson: 48:46

But the Course also says the Holy Spirit will respond fully to your slightest invitation. Just be willing, help me see this through different eyes. I am willing to forgive this person, I am willing to see the innocence in this person, I am willing to let this go. And this is where Jesus comes in. If you feel that portal that you say I can't do this by myself, it's too big, and I am willing to have you overshadow my consciousness and lift me so that I can see through your eyes, and I can see through your eyes and I can hear through your ears. And really that's the miracle, a complete transformation of perception on our part, so that our lives can be different. And I think for all of us who are students of these things, as you were saying we're teachers, we're students, it's all the same.

Marianne Williamson: 49:47

When you have seen these kinds of miracles in your life, I think there is a sense in the world today that what it says in the Course, when I am healed, I am not healed alone. We are all going through our individual. You know, it's like the image of the apocalypse, right, we're all going through our individual armageddons and if we now I think the time now is let's pull the wisdom. You went through your armageddon, I went through my armageddon, somebody else it was cancer, somebody else it was recovery, somebodyageddon, somebody else it was cancer, somebody else it was recovery, somebody else it was bankruptcy, somebody else it was the loss of a loved one, whatever caused such transformation. And now we pull that and we can transform the world so that we don't have to manifest a global Armageddon in the form of global catastrophe, which is an option if we do not do this work on some level, I agree.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 50:50

I agree. I love how you said that, because I do think that this is an individual and joint, because we are the waves expressing in the ocean and we are the ocean, you know, and it's just this awareness of the connection of all of it. Thank you so much for coming and spending time with me today. To meet you in person is a dream.

Marianne Williamson: 51:13

And I'm honored. Well, I'm honored and I acknowledge you and I thank you and good luck with your work and all of the people who are gaining from your knowledge and your wisdom, and I hope your own ministry just grows and prospers and becomes ever brighter and more beautiful for you and for everyone around you. And you tell your son I said hello.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 51:33

I will Thank you so, so much and all the links of the book and what is going on currently for me and will be in the show notes. I have such gratitude for us women really, who are out sharing our voice and our strength and stepping out in higher consciousness and changing radically how we show up in the world and really offering healing. So I'm proud to be sitting at this table with you. Thank you, god bless you, honey. Thank you, thank you for listening and I hope that that helps support your soul recovery process. I just wanted to give you a quick reminder that every Friday is the Recover your Soul bonus podcast and this is available both to Apple podcast subscribers for $3.99 a month, or it's available for both free and paid Patreon members. So as a Patreon member, you can choose. Do you want to support the podcast with $5, $10, or $25 a month? Totally volunteer. But to let you know that if you want to listen to those bonus episodes incredible interviews, wonderful book studies you don't have to be a paid member. You can access them in the first week or two that they're available free on Patreon.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 52:47

This community is so important to me and I want you to know I treat it with love and consideration. If you want coaching, I'm here for you. You want to come to a retreat? I'm here for you. You want to come to the free Soul Recovery Support Group? The community is here for you. Watch us on Facebook, instagram, follow us on all the social media for daily inspiration. Be part of the Facebook group. And one of the most important things is that you share this podcast with people that you think that it will resonate with, that you think that they're interested. Give it five stars, give it a review. We are growing this community together because together we can do the work that will recover your soul.