Tears to Triumph

by Marianne Williamson

  Michelangelo felt God had already created a great statue such as the Pietà, or David, and the sculptor’s job was simply to get rid of the excess marble surrounding it. So all of us have within us the eternal self, the perfect self, the unchangeable self that is God’s creation. Enlightenment means dissolving the fearful thoughts that surround and obscure it.

  One name for this shared self is Jesus. He was one in whom all fear-based thought was dissolved; thus he became one with the Christ. By remembering him, we remember who we really are.

  CRUCIFIXION

  We come into this world as innocent beings, yearning to love and yearning to receive love, but the ego has its way with all of us. It seeks to crucify our innocence, to invalidate our love, to make us suffer, and to kill us if it can. It is the aspect of the mind that repudiates God.

  The suffering of Jesus on the cross symbolizes all the suffering the ego has ever caused or ever will. One human being—suffering through the worst torture, while completely loving those who tortured him—broke the ego’s sword in half. Because all minds are joined, when anyone achieves anything, their achievement becomes available for everyone. Jesus broke the ego’s spell by surrendering his mind so completely to God, and the spell is now broken for everyone.

  The body is the level of the crucifixion; the spirit is the level of the resurrection. Jesus demonstrates the power of love to overcome our crucifixions. The spiritual lesson in any situation does not have to do with what has been done to us, but with how we interpret what has been done to us. We experience ourselves as beholden to whichever universe we choose to identify with. If I identify only with the three-dimensional universe, then the ego will have its way with me; but if I identify with the spiritual universe, the ego is powerless to affect me.

  Each of us is responsible for what we choose to think. If I identify only with my body, then I’m identifying with my weakness and will interpret the world in a way that fortifies my sense of weakness; but if I identify with the Christ, I am identifying with my strength and will interpret the world in a way that fortifies my sense of strength. Whether my crucifixion is in the area of health, relationships, money and career, or anything else does not matter. The crucifixion takes many different forms but the resurrection is formless. There is only one real problem and one real answer. God’s Answer is the same no matter the particularity of the problem. In any situation, as I remove my barriers to love I invoke the miraculous power of God to transform it. Crucifixion is the energy pattern by which the ego seeks to ruin our lives. Resurrection is the return to love and thus the overriding of ego.

  That is why love is always the answer. It doesn’t necessarily feel that in any situation the question “Who do I need to forgive?” is relevant to the exercise of my power and the return of deep sanity. But it is. Only when I am in a state of pure love am I in my power, for only that is the power of God. And from that, all miracles follow.

  RESURRECTION

  The resurrection is not just an article of faith but an existential fact. It is simply a description of how the universe operates—life always reasserting itself even when the forces of death and darkness have temporarily prevailed. It is an otherworldly event that recreates the world. Like a tiny flower growing through cracks in broken cement, peace of mind emerges at last after periods of grief have ravaged the heart. Time and time again, love reappears after even the most crushing events. And though in time our bodies are finally let go, in fact there is no time, and in God there is no death.

  Jesus said, “Take heart, for I have overcome the world.” He did not say, “Don’t worry; I’ve fixed everything.” To fix and to overcome are two distinctly different things. To fix is to change things on the worldly plane; to overcome is to evolve beyond the consciousness of this world entirely.

  To some, Jesus is a teacher; to some, he is a transmission. He is either or both in our lives, whichever we choose. The genuine spiritual experience is one in which we move beyond mere intellectual understanding to a visceral change within us.

  Some ask, “But you don’t believe the resurrection actually occurred physically! You do think it’s just a metaphor, right?” But such argument is facile. The resurrection is a psychic reality, whether it occurred physically or not. It is more than a symbol or an idea. It is a spiritual imprint of infinite possibility, accomplished by one and now available to all.

  Faith in the resurrection is simply a recognition of how the universe operates. For miracles, being of God, are natural. There are objective, discernible laws of the internal universe, just as there are objective, discernible laws of the external universe. Just as physical gravity weighs things down, love is a spiritual antigravitational force ensuring that whatever goes down will ultimately rise back up. Ego pulls all things down, and then—wherever love is present—they are lifted back up again. But we must align our minds with love in order for the principle to appear operative in our lives.

  If we choose to believe this truth cannot be true, then it still remains true but we are blinded to it. Miracles are always available, but if our inner eye is closed then we cannot see. Opportunities appear and we do not recognize them; help arrives but we don’t appreciate it so we fail to take advantage of the miracle it offers; love stands in front of us but we let it slip away. A Course in Miracles says we’re like people in a very bright room, holding our fingers in front of our eyes and complaining that it is dark in here.

  Jesus’s complete surrender to God—or correction of perception—made him one with the Atonement. According to A Course in Miracles, he has been authorized by God to be an Elder Brother to those who call on him for help as we journey on the path of our own enlightenment. In remembering him, we remember God. In remembering his power, we remember our own. His mind, when joined with our mind, shines away the ego. Any condition of crucifixion in our lives is then miraculously transformed.

  But it takes three days, of course.

  And what does this mean? It means that as we change our thinking during the time of deepest darkness, we initiate the process by which light will reassert itself. It takes time within the linear plane—this period symbolized by the forty years the Israelites spent in the desert and the three days between the crucifixion and resurrection—for worldly conditions to catch up with our change in consciousness. Spirit having readjusted our thinking on the level of cause, effects then automatically change. While living in the world, we think thoughts that are not of this world, which gives us mastery within it.

  When we keep our hearts open even when they’re breaking, when we seek to love others even when they have denied us their love, we are thinking like Jesus and share his resurrection. Jesus will—if we request it—lend us his power, join his mind with ours to shine away the ego, stand in the breach between our ego and spirit, and thus save us from the insanity of the ego mind. That is what it means to say Jesus casts out demons: when our minds are surrendered to his care, we are lifted beyond our neuroses and pathologies and fear.

  How does he heal the sick and raise the dead? When the leper stood before Jesus, he stood before someone whose mind had been healed of worldly illusion. Jesus saw not only with the physical eye but with the inner eye, the spiritual eye, the vision of the Holy Spirit. When he looked at the leper, he saw through the illusion of a sick body to the perfect being, the Christ, within the man. As with Moses, Jesus’s alignment with the Mind of God bestowed upon him the power to lift all things to divine right order. In A Course in Miracles it says that miracles arise from conviction. Jesus simply didn’t believe in leprosy, because he knew that only love is real. His mind so convinced, in his presence the leper could not believe in it either—and so the leper was healed.

  That’s what it means to be a miracle-worker: to be the presence of the Alternative, one whose mind has been so healed of the illusions of the world that in our presence, illusions are dissolved. We look to the great spiritual masters of the world who have accomplished this, those such as Jesus, as elder brothers and sisters,
as teachers, as beacons of what is possible for us.

  In A Course in Miracles it is said that Jesus didn’t have anything we don’t have, that he simply didn’t have anything else. That he dwelled in a state that is potential within us all. That as we ask him to enter our minds, he will help to guide us to that state too. The crucifixion is a personal event, a human story; but the resurrection is a spiritual fact, a collective field of infinite possibility that all of us share. We can spiritually leapfrog over the regions of suffering and experience the glory of suffering’s end.

  Both crucifixion and resurrection are extraordinary powers at work in our lives, just as they were in the life of Jesus. They are psychic realities, the understanding of which adds depth to the understanding of our own lives. With this understanding, we gain the ability to more wisely navigate our experience of the world. To not feel our suffering is to deny the crucifixion; but to not let go of it is to deny the resurrection. Though we might have fallen, we will yet rise.

  EASTER

  Easter is the symbol of the resurrection, the crowning accomplishment of the forgiving mind. It represents the triumph of love and the healing potential within every moment. It represents a reason to hope when all hope seems lost, the potential for light that exists within even the deepest darkness, and the possibility for new beginnings that seem impossible when all has gone wrong.

  As a principle, resurrection does not require our recognition in order to exist. But as a practical reality, it requires our willingness in order to manifest. Our openness to infinite possibility—the willingness to consider that there might be another way, that a miracle might be possible—makes us available to miracles. We become pregnant with possibilities, once having allowed the thought of infinite possibility to penetrate our consciousness.

  Where parts of us have died—to hope, to growth, to creativity—God restores our crucified selves to new life, restoring the cosmic order to situations in which even the most horrifying chaos reigned before.

  Human suffering is inevitable in a world that is permeated with illusion and fear, yet through the power of forgiveness we can and do transform it. With every prayer, every moment of faith, every act of mercy, every instant of contrition, every effort at forgiveness, in time we move beyond our suffering. We die to who we used to be and are reborn as who we are meant to be, thus lifted above darkness and ignorance and death.

  Each of us goes through this—we all have our own crucifixions, our own battles and trials and tribulations. But each of us has within us as well the potential for resurrection, as an indwelling God both calls us out of darkness and delivers us to light. Resurrection, salvation, and enlightenment are the same.

  Three days after Jesus was crucified, the women who were closest to him went to the tomb to claim his body, but they did not find it. Suddenly two angels appeared and said to them: “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He isn’t here, but has been raised” (Luke 24:5–6).

  What does this mean, metaphysically? It means that once we have survived a personal crisis and been delivered to a higher level of understanding, the part of our personality that was crucified by the event no longer exists. God nullifies the effects of that which made us cry. We don’t just “work through” our issues; we are “saved” from them.

  The angels’ announcement that Christ’s dead body does not exist, that the crucified Christ has risen, means that the aspect of yourself that self-sabotaged, or was victim to someone else’s sabotage, need no longer appear within your personality. Your neurotic patterns, your bitterness and hopelessness; such aspects of self, when healed by God, are transmuted into who you are now. You are no longer stuck in fear, no longer blinded by ego, and no longer nailed to the cross of your own crucifixion. “Hallelujah!” seems too small a word.

  Understanding anew, we become new. We are not just improved; we are changed. This process is both an awakening and a journey, as we emerge from the torment of facing our own demons into the light of having faced them down.

  The benefits of the journey are cumulative. We become different because of what we’ve been through. We become wiser, nobler, more humble, and more aware. We become more peaceful and more open to the miracles of life. The holiest work of all is finding this wholeness within, where all the broken pieces of our selves have converged in forgiveness and love. Such is the miracle of redemption: transformation and personal rebirth.

  JESUS AS SAVIOR

  Having been “saved” from ego consciousness, Jesus now has the role of savior to those of us still lost within it. He is someone who, having risen above illusions in his own mind, has been authorized by God to help anyone who calls to him to do the same. The ego’s exclusive, fear-based interpretation of the story of Jesus has been one of the great tragic ironies of the world. As it says in A Course in Miracles, “some bitter idols have been made of him who came only to be brother to the world.” We testify to the power of Jesus in our lives by demonstrating his love, and we testify to his resurrection by living it.

  To follow Jesus means to love as he loved, for unconditional love is our one and only salvation. To teach is to demonstrate. Jesus does not ask us to be martyrs for him, but teachers—people who demonstrate the healing that occurs when our minds are made whole in God. When he said to his disciples, “Go into the countryside and teach my gospel,” he did not mean, “Go out into the world and hit people over the head with our book.” He meant, “Go out into the world and be love.” That is the same thing as enjoining us to go out into the world and work miracles, for as we think with love, miracles occur naturally. Anyone who loves the world is a savior of the world.

  All genuine spiritual paths are paths of spiritual salvation in that they’re a healing of the mind. Salvation is when we learn to think as God thinks. Having actualized the consciousness of the divine that is potential in us all, Jesus now has the power to help us rise to the vibrational frequency of that consciousness, should we ask him to. When the mind is filled with light, there is no darkness. When the mind is one with Christ, the ego does not exist.

  It’s in vogue these days to simply say, “Just change your thoughts!” But such a change isn’t always easy, and certainly not when we’re in the grips of a depressing time in our lives. We can’t just analyze our depression and expect it to dissolve. There are times when we need a miracle to help us rise above our tears. We need help in going from what we know abstractly to what we actually feel. Jesus is one of the powers that can deliver us from the grips of fear and into the arms of love.

  THE DIVINE MIND

  It was the mind of Buddha that awakened under the Bodhi tree. It was the mind of Moses that channeled God’s power to part the Red Sea. And it was the mind of Jesus that channeled God’s power. The mind when unaligned with God is the cause of all suffering; the mind when aligned with God is the cause of suffering’s end.

  Two men were crucified with Jesus, one to his left and one to his right. But there is no tale of their resurrections. Why? Because their minds, theoretically, were not illumined. Jesus did not speak of hate for his accusers, or blame those around him. He loved even those who hated him. His mind was so purely aligned with the unconditionally loving Spirit of God that all the power of God was given unto him. He is the “light of the world” because he is the light inside our minds.

  Jesus is a portal, as are all great spiritual systems. They are doors to a field of inexpressible love and power. But the portal means nothing if we don’t walk through it. Our aspiration as spiritual seekers is to lift our consciousness so close to God’s that we become masters, not slaves, of the mortal world—just like the Buddhist monk who calmly defied the warlord, like Moses parting the Red Sea, and like Jesus rising from the dead.

  To the sufferer, this is not a matter of theology or metaphysics; it is a matter of surviving an experience. Regardless of what name is on the door through which we pass on our way to God, opening the door makes all the difference. No words are more powerful than “Dear God, I choose
to come into You. Please come into me. Amen.”

  The miracle is that God will come in, for He is already there. And when we see that, we are amazed by the light in Him and in our selves. Our amazement then turns into joy, our tears turn into triumph, and peace returns at last.

  I have borne witness to much agony in my life. I have seen, and I have experienced, the pain of heartbreak. Yet in the lives of others, as in my own life as well, I have seen deep darkness turn into light. I have seen hope again in the eyes of those who formerly had none. I have glimpsed how the universe operates. I have seen the glory of God. I am a witness to resurrection. I know in my heart that it is true.

  TWELVE

  Tears to Triumph

  No one book or healing session or religious service is going to stop all our tears. The spiritual medicine that heals our sadness is not a pill or a shot; it’s an internal process of awakening from a dream that is posing as reality. Given that our entire culture is predicated on thoughts that separate us, belittle us even to ourselves, and breed fear of anyone and everything, it is no surprise so many people feel as though they live under a very dark cloud.

  Your true self knows you are one with the universe, created in the perfect image of God, eternally innocent, blessed and protected, here only to love and forgive. This true self, by whatever name we call it, is obscured beneath layers of illusion. At this point your true self is so used to crouching within the cage to which the ego has assigned it, it’s as though it has forgotten how to stand forth in glory. We lack the psychological skill sets that lead to joy.

  We cultivate the emotional habits of sadness more than the emotional habits of happiness. We’ve been so trained to think thoughts of fear and attack that the mental musculature to support our joy has shriveled.

  And it is up to each of us to rebuild those muscles, no different than it is up to us to strengthen the muscles of our bodies. We generally agree that we are responsible for many things about our lives, but somehow not our emotions. In fact, happiness derives from a decision we make. We might not be happy today, but as long as we’ve developed the musculature of happiness then we will find the internal strength to return to it.