Russell Brand & Marianne Williamson | Under The Skin Full Episode

on this episode of ember the skin from luminary I speak to Marianne Williamson the Democratic presidential candidate it's a fascinating conversation brought to us by luminary go-to luminary now subscribe get the app there's a one-month free and there's also sneaky ways are getting three months free but I suggest you you sign up if you want to hear more content like this and much of the other great content that luminary offer thank you very much Marianne Williamson thank you for joining me Russell Brand on under the skin we're having this conversation a wellness festival the world spring event what obligation do you feel when you're addressing an audience particularly in the field of personal development first of all thank you for having me all right yeah thanks I have always felt in my career a profound sense of responsibility because when you are talking about spiritual issues you are talking about someone's psyche and people are holding a space for the possibility that you're saying something that will deeply affect the way they look at the world and how they behave in the world that so that has always seemed to me very serious today probably even more so because of the state of the world and our need to rise to the occasion of saving our democracy and saving our planet in time when did you begin when did you begin your journey in this area of personal and spiritual development how does it happen I was always very interested in spiritual topic starting even when I was like a teenager and my mother you saw his joke about how when I was a little girl how my prayers when I'm so long so I always had this interest in anything philosophical or religious or spiritual and then I was very much a child of the 60s and the 70s where we would you know we would read Ram Dass and the II Ching and do spiritual things in the morning and go to anti-war protests in the afternoon so it was very much part of my generational outlook of that time that there was the spiritual philosophical revolution and this cultural sexual political revolution it was all going on at the same time it was all of one I was very curious because obviously now there's a sort of bifurcation of those two ideas that activism is regarded as kind of a sick secular issue with the assumption that what we're dealing with is a material and political conversation and spirituality increasingly has become regarded as either extreme or irrelevant do you how do you feel that we can change people's perception of spirituality so there is neither of those things well I don't I have never felt nor do I that it's my job to change anybody's perception of anything no no I think with spirituality just like when talking about recovery I think it's attraction not promotion so I don't think of myself as here to change anyone I'm just here to sing the song that I feel in my heart but to me I can talk about spiritually not as an effort to change anyone else but to me spirituality that bifurcation you're talking about is unspiritual Ghandi said anyone who doesn't think religion has anything to do with politics doesn't understand religion very no serious religious or spiritual path gives anyone a pass on addressing the suffering of other sentient beings so this sort of perverse an artificial notion of spirituality that has grown up in the last few decades very much as you and I were determined earlier this ethos of only in modern capitalist America could you possibly dream up by spirituality which actually gives itself a pass and uses this notion of spirituality as a justification for political disengagement the good news is that people are I think waking up to the what the Course in Miracles would call wrong mindedness of this well I'm going to ask you about that wrong mindedness in a minute I've even written it down on my notes here it makes me wonder Marianne how insidious and all-encompassing this ideology within which we unconsciously live is for us to unlink Allah accept ideas as such as the a political nature of spirituality it makes me think it's everywhere and everything that we kind of lis breathing an invisible gas that we're bewildered by an invisible ideology well I think if we're old enough we remember a time when this sociopathic economic perspective did not yet dominate everything and if you were born after a certain period of time you don't remember a time when that would have been considered insane so now you don't even realize that you people are brought up to just so inundated by this monstrosity born of Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand this this this trickle-down economic perspective that says market forces matter market forces rule it's really which amounts to doesn't matter who has to die doesn't matter what happens to be done to the planet and we're all in lockstep with it now and that's why I think those of us who were older and remember a time when no I take I take seriously my role as keeper of the story there was a time when it was understood that capitalism too had to have an ethic I had to have ethics court corporation should have ethics our economy should have ethics that money should not be the bottom line that love should be the bottom line and if it's not the spiritual communities taking that stance you know we should be the biggest grown-ups in the room we should not be these infantilized people who were standing over on the on the on the sidelines acting like well we we don't we don't we don't talk about that what that means they've got you that's that's not liberation that's the essence of having been co-opted by that very sociopathic system I was very interesting it was actually thinking for a moment of sort of some of the Civil Rights icon of the previous century like the you already mentioned Gandhi where there's a fusion of spirituality and politics is total and entirely accepted and Martin Luther King and Malcolm X in this country and abolition emerged from the Quakers really so all the great social justice movements certainly in this country and as you were talking about Gandhi emerge from the spiritual and religious impulse I wonder how the spiritual can be reintroduced into the political yeah I'm going to try my best and do it very well I must say thank you very much see I'll tell you that someone survives me with a blanket in coffee almost like the Gandhi no it's been taken a little too seriously a blankets arrived from the sidelines and lovely Thank You Marion I'm really excited to meet you as you know I'm a person is in abstinence-based recovery I believe in the 12-step principles can you tell me please a little about the course of miracles and how the ideas in the course of miracles fused with 12-step recovery because a lot of people I've noticed to recovery I admire bang into your course of miracle stuff I think there is one truth with a capital T and it's spoken in many different ways many different religious and spiritual traditions and one of the things that's exciting about studying comparative religion and spirituality is that you see how all these different paths dovetail you're in an AAA meeting you're at a Course in Miracles group you're at a Kabbalah lecture you're Tibetan Buddhism and it's all like yeah right it's all the same all the same there's just this one truth and as you and I were talking about earlier I think particularly when it comes to the 11th step through prayer through meditation and through practice I think one of the you know the Course in Miracles is not a religion just like a is not a religion there is no Dogma or there's and there's no doctrine but there are principles and these principles in that just like in a a these principles in in the Course in Miracles are talked about as tools in your problems repertoire at a certain point you know the principles you've read the course you've read the big book you've done the steps then the issue is to the best of our ability on any given day practicing what we already know I think that at conferences like this one unlike what was true when my career began most people now we've all read the same books we've all listened to the same tapes the era of data collection is over we get what the principles are now the principles in themselves are simple life though is complicated he says in the Course in Miracles my way is not different but it is excuse me I'm sorry my way is not difficult but it is different so that's the the zeitgeist of this moment is not coming to hear from you or from me or from anyone who's speaking here things we don't already know now we're all joining together in order to access more deeply the things we do know and a deeper discussion of how the things we know apply to everything and also the changes inside ourselves that are necessary in order to bring about the external changes that are necessary in order to turn the ship of humanity's fate around in time so you're saying that the knowledge already exists within us but we need to learn how to activate it I think sometimes that for a long time in my own life I was unable to transcend certain behaviors I found the idea of living without pleasure or living without distraction very frightening and I think in a way to be not to contradict you but to challenge a little I feel like I didn't personally have the knowledge I I wasn't aware of the possibility of living a life that was outside of the false ideals of a materialistic society I thought that the only opportunity for success was personal success I thought the only possibility of happiness was kind of a the approval of others adulation of others and as through fortune circumstance and chance I experienced it of approval and success and the emptiness remained unaddressed I only then through crisis and personal Cataclysm began to consider the idea that other paths might be available and to be honest I didn't have I didn't feel like I had access to the kind of mentorship that I needed I don't know if that's because I'm particularly myopic or stupid although I would consider both possibilities like where where are those mentors where are those methods you know if you think of like those some of the religions that we've touched on they seem obvious gated by obvious conflict in this time it seems difficult I think to access some of the very simple principles that you've already talked about well I totally agree with you but the point is then you did find the 12 steps I mean to me that's what the 12 steps represent that's what the Course in Miracles represent everyone has a temperamental propensity for one particular path or another and sometimes that has to do with where your particular areas of challenge are but the point is that you did find 12 steps that I did find a Course in Miracles and by the way when you said you used to I don't see myself as someone who now I get it all the time I mean I've faced those challenges to my ability to practice what I preach almost every day honestly because I think if you as a proper out their personal development guru person as much as we admit the gap that still exists us between us and the enlightened self most of us would do well to give ourselves credit for the for how much we have achieved so particularly as a woman now I'm not gonna say I'm just a wreck and not with American women pretending we're porcelain dolls we're not porcelain dolls and we are not weak and we are not wrecks and that's important however yes I'm on the path I think of myself in course in miracles' terms as a good intermediate student what where do you experience fail ability pardon where do you experience fail ability men really the men the codependency I don't know lied lied it recently and it just shocked me that I didn't I don't think of myself as uh I don't think of that as being an issue for me but in a particular situation I lied and he knew I was lying and he knows I lied and one point he said you're lying I wish I just said dah and it's been a real a crisis for me that I that I could have fallen into such panic that's fascinating yeah because you know like obviously you and I we're speaking to each other at the con in the context of azor well-being festival and I'm you know I'm very aware of my own FAL ability sometimes that extends to the point and it's interesting that you kind of saw or at least reframed my previous comments about being particular to sex because I perhaps this is a white male is just evidence of my privilege reject those categorizations because I feel that my own femininity is oppressed by any toxic masculinity that is present I feel that my own FAL ability in a prayer and I feel that personally oppressed by any system that doesn't honor all of the energies that make up human beings but but perhaps more to this point I feel when I'm licensed to talk to people about personal development or helping people I think oh my god what am I going to tell people I'm a nutcase you know I'm capable of having a breakdown on an airplane lashing out in traffic I mean for me it's a tightrope that I walk I think that when you are a public person as you are and as I am our willingness to a priest to not only appreciate but demonstrate not only what those nuances are but our willingness to try to get it right in a public space is important and I don't want to pander but I think you do a beautiful job actually that's nice of you to say so Maryanne thank you very much I'm very very I'm flattered and I'll probably isolate that clip and play as a mantra possibly try to edit as if that was the sum total of their interview just continually repeated one like a couple of years ago I am got more involved in British politics I saw what happened was therefore what will happen if I just say what I think is true continually on the internet what will happen and what will happen is I can now conclude it I'll have a mental breakdown and I'll be attacked to a point that's difficult for me to bear you I notice a very politically vocal how do you propose to remain in the conversation about politics at a time when media is used so brutally to attack and undermine individuals that oppose their dominant narratives I think about what some women and that question just fell out of my face I think about what women in many parts of the world go through who can't even leave the house without a male relative who can't leave the house without completely covered even if that's not their choice who can't make decisions about their own lives without being punished sometimes severely even to the point of stoning and I think what the hell are you afraid of Mary and they're going to throw tomatoes out you would say mean things about you in People magazine who are you if that will stop you who are you if being embarrassed or being humiliated will stop you I think every woman in a in a free society and that's only about 20% of the peoples of the world we should think of ourselves as speaking not only for ourselves but for every woman out there who cannot speak for herself a good idea but also gainsayers and contradicts the kind of presumed idea of our time that our journeys are very individualistic now I'm a visitor in the United States of America in spite of my current green card status but I will say that this perhaps is the I can't think of a culture where individualism is more worship where the idea that you make your own luck that you make your own fortune the rags-to-riches the idea of personal success success is so embedded and doesn't matter all the deep DNA stitching of that ideology to a very do a great degree prevent us thinking in terms of collective identity prevent us thinking well you know what's happening to people in the Yemen is our responsibility or the history of african-american people or former colonized nations is our responsibility because don't least just think well basically I want to sort myself out I mean we're at a festival in a sense there's about individual wellness okay Ralph then why don't we all Club together right so out in Saudi Arabia well anytime in life with any strength you have to watch out with the shadow watch out for the flipside so in America one of our strengths one of our characterological strengths is what you just referred to it's rugged individualism anybody can make it you can do whatever you want but that has become unbalanced and it has been used to legitimize a selfishness I mean even in our crab we take old fast and selfishness and we call it self-care now I mean there is such a thing as self-care but some of the things justified a self-care that we used to call it selfishness and we have legitimized over the last 50 years in America we have taken this idea of rugged individualism and we have made it too much legitimization of rugged narcissism but I think many people in America realized this this is when I said before Milton Friedman hooked up with an rant yeah that has it's a perverted sense when it's really all for me and to hell with what it you know what happens to other people that is the disease the belief that it's all about you you know in the human body every cell is assigned to other cells to collaborate with those cells in order to serve the healthy functioning of the whole when a cell goes off on its own disconnects from that collaborative matrix doesn't remember know this is about working with other cells to serve the healthy functioning of the whole goes off to do its own thing that's called cancer that's malignant in the body and it's malignant in in consciousness and that's what's happened from a spiritual metaphysical perspective that's what's happened to the human race we have been infected with a malignant consciousness it's all about me and that's so what the United States is dealing with now is and I do think you know a country is not a particle it's a wave so let's talk in terms of what we are realizing and I think many people are realizing where this mentality has gotten us particularly to the extent to which it infuses our economics to the extent to which money has such an undue influence on our on our government that it's in service as handmaiden to that economic system which is basically sociopathic because a sociopath has no empathy a sociopath has no remorse a sociopath just wants what they want and so you have the sociopathic ethos this is now that it's infused our economics it's deep in the bones of how we're operating and that's why it needs to be named it needs to be called forth and it needs to be changed when that's interesting what you say there about the shadow I'm very interested in understanding politics from a psychoanalytical perspective is a new wave of analysis that relies heavily on Jungian psychoanalysis to understand so for example gender or sexual politics depending on which tone is more appropriate and my feeling is that all culture or civilization passes through the consciousness of human individuals and is ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny or is if allowed to recapitulate and hurt anyone what no cousin is that's that's the genesis the Jeanette the behavior of group but it's the same it's mirrored in yeah yeah right like so like so ultimately these energies or these trends or traits must exist at the level of an individual I've been thinking a lot about you know American politics and it does seem particularly you know I mean England and this is going on there as well but like there's a kind of a vivid nurse lurid nurse to American politics at present but my question is that are these events not necessarily anomalous but merely exaggerations merely greater revelations of conditions that have always been present yeah to put bluntly whilst on earth Donald Trump might seem especially terrifying is he merely not merely an amplification of conditions and ideologies that have long existed well two things first of all if you have two major political parties both of whom set the idea of the businessman up to be God then it shouldn't surprise anyone from a metaphysical perspective that the worst kind of devilish perversion of that image would appear on the scene that was created by that but secondly we had reached a point in our society where we thought we had a consensus it's not like anyone thought racism bigotry anti-semitism homophobia misogyny xenophobia didn't exist in America but we thought we had reached a consensus that there were lines passed which we would not go we thought we had reached a consensus but no major political institution in any political party etc would give a serious political megaphone to those forces one party thought well we'll bring a man just because they'll vote for us and then we'll moderate them once they get in which didn't work and also with social media and then you have someone like a president Trump who's willing to harness all that for political purposes and you have the kind of crisis that we have now but once again and I think that those of us in the spiritual community a lot to look at in ourselves because none of this came out of nowhere none of this could have happened had we not taken democracy for granted had we not thought somebody else you know I'm not political somebody else I'll handle that that's what we've learned about this we've learned how naive we were you can never take democracy for granted it's just like health and that's why this is a perfect place to be discussing this you have to take care of your nutrition you have to take care of your exercise you have to take care of your spiritual path your lifestyle all kinds of things you can't not cultivate health just wait till sickness almost inevitably arises and seek through allopathic means alone to just eradicate or suppress the symptoms that model of allopathic medicine has now given way to an integrative approach we need to do that with society you can't not cultivate justice not cultivate mercy not cultivate democracy not cultivate compassion not look at mass incarceration because it's not in your neighborhood not look at wealth inequality because it's not in your neighborhood not look at what's happening to the food supply because you can drink green juice you can't you can't do that and then be all shocked when this explosion of dysfunction and anti-democratic assault happens now it's the 11th hour we can we can handle this I think we're gonna move through this but we have to change and that includes taking responsibility as citizens for our part and it getting to this point we have to change Martin Luther King said there have to be we need quantitative external quantitative changes in our circumstances and qualitative changes in our souls we all have to be the immune cells now and I think this awakening is happening I'm not saying this from a place of thinking it's not happening because I think actually it is happening I think that the Trump phenomenon and the crisis in our democracy right now has caused a lot of awakening but this awakening must be permanent eyes because if we don't first of all if we don't have this awakening we won't defeat these forces even temporarily if we are temporary with our wakening then even if we let's say defeat the that hydrant has many heads we have to remain awake citizenship has to become a part of our sense of what it is to be a conscious human being on a whole new level for the sake of your children in the second line I really like that rant [Applause] most immediate response to Donald Trump is a kind of in what he would refer to as the mainstream media a kind of nostalgia to return to what immediately preceded a kind of fading of previous the previous president and without an acknowledgment the the conditions that immediately preceded this time led to this time and the what's needed is the kind of radical solutions the kind of radical change in perspective that you've just Illustrated my fear is people are not learning the relevant lessons of this time people are keen to retain sort of just five years ago when things were a bit nicer first of all you can't look in somebody else's heart and know what relevant lessons they have learned so there you can look in their newspapers and read what they're writing and I am and what they're saying is brock obama was nice well I think this I think that a lot of mainstream media in the United States knows that it has blood on its hands hmm knows that they treated this man like he was a joke les Moonves said bad for America but it's good for CBS they didn't they they treated it like it was a clown at the beginning of the election season Bernie Sanders had as many people at his rallies as did Donald Trump but they kept showing Donald Trump all day every day because it made ratings go up they they helped to create a Frankenstein and then couldn't couldn't uncreate it and I what I see is a lot of people in media actually trying to make up I think there's actually some very good writing going on right now yeah I do and also we have the fact that if like everything else it all became a corporate matrix that that that dominated most most of our media outlets as we know so that we got to a point several years ago where the same kind of article that would have gotten a punitive prize 15 years ago got the reporter fired now because the cap the corporate chieftain who owned the newspaper actually owned the factory that the article was writing about how it was polluting the environment so it all has become this putrid toxicity underlying everything the fact that there has been this corporate takeover not only of our political system in our economic system but even the American mind mmm and also that's an indication of what we sort of touched upon before that we're living invisibly in extremists times that extremism is not necessarily observable because you don't look around thinking something's extreme if it's all you've ever known you think of it as normal can you tell me what you like please when he was a little kid because I want to know how you came to have this spiritual perspective can tell me about early experiences of God or where it is you want to call it do you like I mean I'm not really a pushy guy I say this to you particularly because you're British a lot of what we just talked about implies correctly that Americans slept for way too long i Churchill himself said you can always count on the Americans to do the right thing after they have exhausted every other option mm-hmm so our historical narrative and Europeans are very aware of this is such that we are often slow to get there but we slam it like nobody's business once we do may I say I worry about things like that because in the same sight isn't that in a way of hearing to the idea that the research thing is in America and American ideology and if you have a sort of a national identity even in a quite a pleasant way such as that they're ultimately at one end of it there is it leads to a kind of us or a supremacism or an elite and when in effect the United Kingdom America all these things are merely economic confections with some sort of there's a root in history but perhaps these are the very kind of ideas that we need to overthrow the genuinely look at this is a global community genuinely democratize the world genuinely give people authority and power and look at who does America serve who benefits from America who benefits from the UK whose benefit from the last century from industrialization to the technological revolution other than these elites that continues to be in power regardless of what sort of noise comes out of the president's face nothing that I just said in any way implied better a rose is not a peony they're both flowers America has a lot to atone for but we shouldn't have to apologize for every little thing either America needs to apologize I think it's made up yeah but well but I think there are things that are British I think there are things that are Italian I think there are aspects of this woman's personality that is different from mine different your personality different than mine and I do think that countries have characterological have characterological tendencies like I was just in Ireland you think of all the Irish writers when I'm in Italy it's like what do these people it's like they see color we don't see I mean this is I think every person they're our talents in there I don't think any nation is better than any other nation because I don't believe that any people are special than any other people but I do think that you can talk about the history of a person and you can talk about the history of a nation and that's all I was just talking about I was talking about what has happened so far and a kind of characterological tendency that is simply fact it doesn't make us better or worse I think that we clearly have demonstrated both yes I wonder what kind of radical ideas will have to enter the mainstream in order for us to transcend the kind of bipartisan or dualistic politics that we under but this is what's interesting to me you said what has to enter the mainstream I think we get too concerned with the majority the majority didn't wake up one day and say let's free the slaves the majority didn't wake up one day and say let's give women the right to vote it society changes because a small group of people usually consider Regus radicals by the status quo of their time have a better idea it's just like in evolution of a species if if the if the collective behavioral patterns are maladaptive for the survival of the species then it will either go extinct or it will change so there's the introduction of the mutation and then the mutation is never the the majority but it's the only survivable option so what's happening in the world is that our collective behavioral patterns are maladaptive for survival of our species and all the great avatars and spiritual wisdoms they are the mutation they show another possibility so we don't I I think sometimes we worry too much about the mainstream the mainstream the abolitionists were not the mainstream the women's suffragettes were not the mainstream the civil rights was not the mainstream don't worry about the horizontal stay with the vertical say what you think and conviction becomes a fort of a force multiplier and I think people such as yourself I think I like to think any of us who do work in the public that are stating a certain something it you just laying it down on the vertical that's what hate does hate has conviction in the world today far more people love than hate but hate hates with conviction we need to demonstrate behind our love the same kind of conviction that is now being demonstrated by hate and we need to be willing to say it we need to be willing to point out the lovelessness in our economics in our society in our politics as well as in our hearts and not care how many people agree with us that's the thing that's just sales mentality this is just like lay it down because it's the right thing to do Martin Luther King said your life begins to end on the day's you stop talking about things that matter and then it doesn't even matter linen when they said to linen with a Russian Revolution you'll never be able to convince the masses he said I need ten good men who understand what I'm talking about and this community alone man we get this we can help tip things in a really big way yes I agree with you but also Marianne I feel that you know I feel that there is a kind of I think it is fair to say that there is a kind of lethargy and my personal principles lead me to feel that um yeah I guess I have us of a sense that I have a good tremendous of faith in human nature I believe that what will be revealed as their information comes to the forefront as knowledge becomes wisdom is that people will recognize that their own lives are not their best lives I suppose I spent and quite like I grew up in a pretty ordinary community a place called Essex and for American shorthand that's New Jersey I say you know what's Essex I don't know what it means it means New Jersey I'm from New Jersey but an English version of it everyone's absolutely bloody delightful to tell you the truth and like you said you know people are love is more prevalent in most people's lives than hate and when hate becomes more prevalent in my own life I could not be relieved of it more quickly I crave freedom from it I want the light I want the light and when I talk of the mainstream ice in a sense I'm talking about a portal portal through which the information can be conveyed as opposed to saw a you know a majority sway of opinion I know the most Doric democracies are governed by a pretty small army and a pretty powerful media and some private prisons it's not like you know it's not ninety percent of the people out marching the streets managing minorities it's like passiveness but you know when if I feel when I feel like how are we going to bring about radical change how are we going to for example just off the top of my head and I'm taking a risk saying this out loud really how are we gonna make people think that God or love or whatever words you want to use is more important than the things that tether us to material things through fear how are we gonna meet if that kind of psychic change without challenging ideas that have been around for a long time like their preeminence and importance of economics like the idea of identifying with the nation-state like the idea of even being governed by your own fear so when I talk about bringing these ideas into the mainstream it's not like I sort of imagined a tiki torch wielding horde marching through the streets singing the name of Christ and Muhammad in Yunus and although how that work is a harmony I'm thinking instead how do we bring how do we popularize these ideas how do we articulate them even if it's not you know even though I want Sesame Street replaced or the x-factor to replace be replaced with some sort of esoteric spiritual bloody idea look I'm saying how do we make these things clear how do we make these things accessible what new ideas are we willing to embrace you know and and blaze it time to start talking about God do that we need America do we need England what do we need I think we are doing it right now I think you are doing it I'm doing it we're doing it I think everybody in their own way is doing it I think it's happening you said how do we do that without challenging no we can't do it without challenging the point I think that this is where the spiritual community is is you can't you know you can't go right to the resurrection and ignore the crucifixion we need to get out of denial and go into transcendence transcendence is not where you deny all those awful things that you just listed about economics nation states and so forth the point is we have to name it and I think it is happening when you say how do we do it you're being led to do it I'm being led to do it and I'm assuming everybody in the audience in their own way is being led to do it the fact that people wanted to listen to this podcast they know you're doing it and they know I'm doing it so that by definition means that you're part of that conversation with Seane corn she's doing it so every who here isn't doing it's happening and I think that the more we hold with a loving in the loving context that we have to look just like in a you have to look in in Catholicism you have confession in Judaism you have the day of Yom Kippur in a a you have to take a brutally honest look at your on character defects you can't heal with looking at our character defects and the socio-political and economic issues that you refer to are the car our collective a character defects and the issue is to create a safe place for the conversation where we do look at them so that the changes can be made hey Marianne tell us about when you was like a little girl cuz well right years ago I said will you do it you said you would know it's got a big long conversation got very political very spiritual and now I want to know when you was a kid how you fought about God or love or how you even turn those things or if you're afraid of talking about I mean I think suppose you are I'm Jewish my mother I already said my mother's it's kind of family Laura that I took a long time saying my prayer sitting up that she come back I was still talk do you remember that yeah I do kind of what you're saying I remember I had I had it all figured out I had I said the Lord's Prayer I said the Shema that Jewish Shema how's that go ashen my Israel at an oil hey no I'd annoy a hard here o Israel the Lord our God the Lord is one amen we might take a moment to think about the synagogue that was experience a mass shooting today in Pittsburgh and the policeman also who died you know whether it's shootings in schools or churches or synagogues or anywhere else these ancient viral barbarisms continue to appear among us so when I was a child the thing I remember most not most but something I remember is that my parents had a friend who was going to have open-heart surgery and I had it all planned that the night before I was gonna pray for him and I forgot I fell asleep and he died the next day and I was in horror I thought it was because I forgot to pray for him by myself still dear don't still blame yourself no I don't really think that my forgetting to pray for him no I don't but I was a child do you know you have a little child mind that Mac wedded you to this significance of prayer yeah I always had that well I was raised in a conservative Jewish home so it was very traditional in that sense and then when I was in I remember I took my first philosophy class when I was 14 I went off to a summer school and I remember looking at the it Felix Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and I remember the that the pamphlet said philosophical approaches to the question of God I said oh I just was in and then I was very into astrology in the eaching I've always been equally attracted to East and West esoteric exoteric you can talk to me about st. Augustine you can talk to me about the Daoists and loud so you can talk to me about the itching or Chinese astrology as you know it's all exciting to me yeah what is that what do you think that impulse was when you're a kid what do you think that was well no it's just kind of like we were talking before about nations everybody has their temperamental you know some people can paint some people can draw some people and I just don't have that talent you know we all have our our Dharma where that I'm about that not about that other people are about that so you've just felt a sort of a yearning for the unknowable and you always hear yeah I always always yes I've always been a mystic yeah who were your first good hookups you know let people before our can go today my grandfather because I used to go to Temple with my grandfather on see a Jewish man he's taking us and look and when the ark would open and you genuflect he would cry and so I used to look at him and I and so did I cry because he was crying or did I cry because I don't know I've always wondered why do i why does it make me cry with it because pops cried I don't know I think that you and I were talking before about how we mentor our children and our grandchildren and I've always just had that thing see your grandpa your pops he was an early mentor for you in his sincerity he said it's in that sense he was a lovely lovely man but I just remember when you asked that I would go to when I was at synagogue with him and I remember how he would cry when the ark opened and so I would cry so I just sometimes asked myself would you've cried anyway you can well probably not because you imagine a kind of a resonance they're using that tune with the kind of a wordless sentimental beautiful connection to whatever that meant to him and you could feel that the resonance of that you could feel you know my grandparents and I think this is such a such a big topic for us now so many of us including in the spiritual community have lived history and politics from the neck up so think about what this means the Holocaust was over in 1945 I was born in 1952 so if I was you know if I was a temple with my grandfather when I was just a little girl the Holocaust hadn't been over that long so the story of the immigrant the story of people who survived it's the emotion and the depth of that that needs to be passed on that's what's sick about America today so we don't realize that we're so easily vulnerable to this horrifying propaganda about caravanners what do you think these people coming up from Guatemala and Honduras and El Salvador are except what our ancestors were unless you're a descendant of slaves who obviously was forcibly brought here from Africa or Native Americans who were here for thousands of years before we got here then that means your ancestors came over here with that same level of despair that same level of sacrifice to get here to hope for a better life and so I think it's so important that every generation passes on not only the stories of our history of the human race but also particulars and groups or else or else we we become we become automata in our living the whole person reality you know I see Sean over there and I was looking at your Instagram and about people I was just in Mississippi in South Carolina and people who are going to the plantations we're in the midst of a huge reeducation process you know after the Holocaust part of the reconciliation with Jews on the part of Germany was continuous Holocaust education we haven't had that here and so which we need you know people American kids grow up reading maybe a paragraph about slavery in the civil rights movement so now we are taking our our education and we're taking it down to the level of to a cellular level of experience and emotion and psychology and understanding that's an example of what I meant when I said I think it is happening the issue is will it happen enough it happening fast enough and we'll know more about that on the morning of November 7th oh because there'll be midterm elections yeah okay so more inquiries of this nature how did your spiritual education continue from these early experiences and curiosities the visual and emotional experiences with your grandfather how do you feel that your spiritual perspective was formed well my my sense of values definitely came and a sense of God and connection to values came from my family but my religious education I found with institutional Judaism what you find a lot with institutional Christianity I learned some religious things but I didn't learn the spiritual meat of my own religion I'm not saying my religion doesn't have spiritual meat but it's not what I learned so for me I kept I picked up any book the set books were very significant to me life in teachings of the Masters of the Far East ROM das all the things that every Alan Watts all the stuff that everybody was reading at that time but it was when I picked up the Course in Miracles which doesn't claim to be for everybody but if it's who you you know it what I got from the Course in Miracles and I was in my mid-20s at the time I'm not saying that this had not been in other things that I read but for whatever reason I didn't get it from other things I'd read and that's that there is no coming to God except through the person in front of you that that is you know the Course in Miracles says belief in God is doesn't mean anything it's the experience of God and the experience of God is our love for each other on the course it says some people conspire with God who do not yet believe in him it's like you and I were talking before about atheism and so forth so I learned that loving other people everything is secondary and my capacity to reach across the wall that separates me from others through my own judgment through my own attack thoughts through my own failure to take responsibility self-righteousness or whatever that work on myself is the spiritual work Oh to prepare yourself so that you are able to feel God or love or whatever word convenient in your relationships with other people this is this is the experience of God tell us more well the Course in Miracles says there is no getting to heaven that says heaven is entered two by two you cannot get there unless you take someone with you and heaven is not a condition or a place but an awareness of our oneness so the course is not trying to get us to believe in God it's trying to get us to believe in each other if you're in front of me you're my spiritual lesson and you're my path to God the course says everyone you meet will either be your Crucifier or your Savior depending on what you choose to be to them on my own like just literally on my own moment a moment feel like a lot of my life was somehow this ossification of loneliness of dreadful solitude pain of loneliness I revisit it somehow often when alone even briefly intermittently like a you know arrived here it's late I go to the room and I feel sort of headachy and post-flight II and alone and I have to remember that when I talk to other people if I prepare myself in the manner in which you have described that I will feel God and love in other people even in just mmm incident or communication like when I talk to a person excuse me do you know if there's an a yoga here and the person really takes oh yeah let me try and find it I think oh yeah people are beautiful sometimes on my own and I get pretty scared like that I feel like you know that I'm gonna be attacked or people won't be beautiful or the world won't take care of me he have you over time being able to cultivate a sense of this faith in God through relationships that will is sustainable even in periods of Solitude suffering pain and endurance yes how did that happen and when I have been these times of pain I wonder when was the time of wilderness for you or the my I wrote a book called tears to triumph which is exactly about that about the application of spiritual principles to human despair one of the issues that has been very that I've been very passionate about is talking about the sociopathic economics and how even human pain will be turned into a profit Center if there's money to be made for some corporation I'm very concerned about what I think of as the psychotherapeutic psychopharmacological industrial complex which has chosen for the sake of a billion dollar industry to medicalize human despair and the truth of the matter is depression and I'm not talking about bipolar or or schizophrenia that's outside my lane outside my purview but the normal spectrum of human despair is my lane because the real spiritual path does not just take a yellow smiley face like this and put it over everything you'll be happy to be happy Buddha would not have begun his path of enlightenment and until he he crossed his father's walls and saw suffering for the first time Moses was sent by God to the Israelites because they were suffering in in Egypt as slaves and Jesus suffered on the cross so the real spiritual outlook recognizes the suffering of the human condition when we're living outside the context of our love for each other so that you know if you if you had a heartbreak a divorce financial failure or bankruptcy lost someone you love these things are painful but they're not mental illnesses and what us and that's why in that book I write this is what Buddhism says this is what the Old Testament says this is what the New Testament says hey or anything else you you that's why you keep coming back because it's a rough day today it recognize it's a rough day today it's recognized it's a rough day today and if you're left on your own god knows what your mind might lead you to do so when you know principles whatever your path is and you practice them so you asked about myself okay Maryann and I've I've lived two periods of time that by any by any means today would be called clinical depression but even that's such a scam all that means that somebody in a clinic set it there is no blood test right but if you've been there you you know it okay Maryann number one you don't even think this is gonna be done quickly so none of this like just you know today people say well your mother died a month ago are you over it yet no okay it's gonna take time number two who are the safe people who can accompany you on this who aren't gonna say who aren't good you know who are the people who bear witness to your agony during this time you probably want to get a lot of what are the the movies and the and the what are the things that you're going to need to support you make sure you have a lot of bubble bath make sure that you stay with your meditation even though you don't want to stay with your prayer work make sure you show up for other people you will be you will have a tendency to isolate during this period of time you must not do that you must get up and work your subconscious will put aside your despair while you're showing up for other people and then when you come back from that you'll go back to crying again there is an art to navigating despair there is an art to navigating depression and the spiritual spiritual principles lead us there there are seasons of life I quote in that book from yoga where he says let me not squander the hour of my pain that's even like right now everybody doesn't want to be depressed excuse me given what's happening in this country today and given what's happening in this world if you're not depressed who are you we these are very sobering times these are very sobering times somebody sent bombs to all the major to all the major critics of the president yesterday he shot a synagogue today look at what's happening and that's just just in America this week so when you when you recognize the depth of the serious problems confronting us sober people are sober you know these are sobering times not everything is rah-rah that's why even in in our community too often there is this infantilization too many women acting like girls too many men acting like boys at least in America it's a crisis of adulthood and I think now a deep recognition of our own suffering and you don't want to desensitize yourself to your own suffering if I desensitize myself to my own suffering I'm more likely to be insensitive to the suffering of others I remember when we when we when we invaded Iraq and all these women these this is rain of fire on their homes and their children that they couldn't protect and their their husbands they couldn't protect their something could protect their the way they'd done nothing to us they'd had nothing to do with 9/11 and even if they had weapons of mass destruction we do business with people who do have weapons of mass destruction every day and I would say to people this is terrible this is terrible and they would give me the most facile answers so we have to bear witness to our own agony and and be with people who bear witness to others because we have an agonized world we have to address mmm I like these the way that these personal coordinates for coping with despair knowing that when you're in that terrain of agony to have some disciplines or principles that will be applied when you're in that absolutely I wonder do you think Mariana there is a limit that's being exceeded to how applicable these principles are I mean in terms of scale that in a way we're being sort of tested anthropologically like how can like if me if we were the only people in the world this couple of hundred people in this room that perhaps we would be able to organize ourselves support the flaws fail ability and vulnerability in each other to recognize that none of us are perfect there that sharing and democracy would be the best way for us to govern this small society as that scales up to hundreds of millions of people and naturally an ascendant elite establishes systems beneficial to them regardless of the consequence as you spoke of earlier with the sociopathic objectives of domination regardless of the consequences how do you even think it's possible to apply these principles on a social level or do you think the obstacles that are presented by the truly powerful are as things stand at the moment insurmountable meaning that we have to bring about revolutionary change in order to live principled lives President Kennedy said those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable there is a revolution going on there does need to be a revolution but it is a peaceful revolution and I think it's happening I think it's happening inside people I think that the Wellness community is a large part of that I'm assuming that two of every person who is here and I know for a fact that we are all being led to each other some of the people I'm experiencing this in this room some of the people are in this room we're also coming together for more public more collective things don't count us out III it's the 11th hour but it's not midnight yet I also remind you even here in the United States Gore won and I remind you that Hillary Clinton got three million more votes we are being at this point we are being terrorized by a minority and it's important for us to remember that so this extreme right-wing force field in America today and I realize it's happening it's a global threat but I believe in every country in the world that the yearning of the human heart to be free of this is F everywhere and it's inside and it's outside and yes I believe it's happening it's like that that line the moral arc of the universe is long but it bends towards justice the Course in Miracles says God's will has never not been done we are going to overthrow the tyranny of a sociopathic economic ordering principle the way it's going to happen because it is - out of alignment with nature the only issue is how much suffering is going to happen first and the choice that choice is up to you and me and as long as people like yourself Russell the very fact that you're you know you were to place in your life you could use your fame only for frivolous silly things but you're choosing not to and there are millions of people doing the same where let's let's let's not forget to give credit where credit's due we're in the middle of this we're doing it and I think we're gonna pull this off mara and Williams and everyone [Applause] we will bring this podcaster conclusion as the women and men in the room stand to applaud you Mary Ann Williams and thank you very much for that education now you're wonderful thanks for watching this podcast and going all the way to the end of it was usually kind of to click the bell when I'll be there they're there and they're subscribing so that we can infiltrate your serenity and peace of mind with jangling bells and buzzers thank you

Channel: Russell Brand

Views: 322,123

Rating: 4.6620994 out of 5

Keywords: Russell Brand, Brand Russell, BrandThe, Russell Brand video, Russell Brand news, Russell Brand revolution, Russell Brand politics, news review, marianne williamson, 2020 election, democratic debates, marianne williamson president, presidential campaign, presidential race, 2020 debates, Russell Brand podcast, Russell Brand Marianne Williamson, Marianne Williamson politics, marianne williamson video

Id: 8mP4As8FJAc

Length: 61min 3sec (3663 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 05 2019

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[u/Dhoof]

I really dig Russell.

[u/Serinous]

I think Russel Brand has the world’s most annoying voice. Can’t stand him.

[u/[deleted]]

I love Russell Brand