Stand Up, Speak Out!: Marianne Williamson at TEDxTraverseCity

it's the local evacuation - thank you for having me for this very inspiring day my favorite quote from Albert Einstein is that there are two ways to live your life you can live your life as though nothing is a miracle or you can live your life as though everything is a miracle and which it is of course what they call the difference and that's because how we perceive of the world we are experiencing has tremendous influence on what we will then experience now everybody knows that there are objective discernible laws of external phenomenon but not everyone realizes that there are also objective discernible laws of internal phenomenon if I'm holding a book I understand the law of gravity it's not that I have faith in the law of gravity I understand the law of gravity so if I'm holding a book I release my fingers I simply know that the book will fall to the ground well beginning to understand the laws that rule the dimension beyond this the dimension of consciousness some people think of these in spiritual or religious terms some people think of this in terms of thought the science of consciousness it doesn't so much matter for our purposes here how we see that aspect of it the point is the idea that that dimension exists just as I can have faith in laws like gravity or the law of thermodynamics I can have any faith in the laws of consciousness and my faith in the law of gravity does not make me blind it makes me visionary it's simply something that I know not something that I just believe something that I understand the same is true with the laws of consciousness faith is not blind faith is visionary I simply understand how things work now there is a law on the outside called the law of cause and effect and there's a law on the inside called the law of cause and effect the law of cause and effect when it applies to consciousness has to do with the fact that everything we think because it then affects how we behave then affects our world now another aspect of ultimate reality in that which begins in the realm of consciousness but then is imprinted on everything externally as well is the idea that the universe is both self-organizing and self-correcting look at how an embryo turns into a baby look at how a bud turns into a blossom look at how an acorn turns into an oak tree now science might be able to describe science might be able to actually objectively explain the mechanisms by which those things occur but science of course cannot understand ah'd explain the mystery behind the fact that it occurs at all and it occurs because once that egg and sperm come together and there is some entelechy there is some natural intelligence by which every cell is guided is actually programmed to divide and out of that comes brains and hearts and skulls and eyeballs all those things that make a baby and then even once that baby is born those cells continue with their natural intelligence their natural entelechy to make the heart continue to be to make the lungs continue to breathe just as there is something programmed inside that acorn by which it becomes the oak tree and the idea in the realm of consciousness is the idea that not only is this true in the physical world that every cell is programmed to go to the next best thing in this infinite intelligence of nature by which all things thrive but that that is true of our spiritual intelligence as well now what happens and when a cell decides that it doesn't want to be part of that natural organizing what happens when a cell says I don't want to what happens when a cell says instead of just doing my thing to contribute to the healthy functioning of the organism I don't want to just contribute to the lungs I don't want to just contribute to the blood I want to go over here and do my own thing that is a cancer cell isn't it a cell that has separated itself from its natural intelligence a cell that has said I don't want to collaborate I don't want to be part of the larger organizing structure rather I want to go do my own thing I want to surround myself by other cells as sick as I am who themselves don't want to collaborate to the greater functioning of the whole and we will build our own mass own Kingdom and we know what that is of course we know that that's a malignancy we know that it's a mass we know that it's a tumor and we know that if undealt with it threatens the entire organism and that it was created to serve and it also seeks at that point to destroy itself now what is the difference between you and me and the embryo that is programmed to turn into the baby what is the difference between you and me and the bud that is programmed to turn into the blossom what is the difference between you and me in that acorn that is programmed to turn into the oak tree the difference you and I can say no you and I can say I don't want to you and I can say no this isn't about my collaborating this is about my doing what I want to do and that consciousness is a spiritual malignancy and that consciousness by which we have forgotten by which justice a a cell in the body that has gone insane that's what a cancer cell is it's a cell that has gone insane it's that it's been disconnected from its natural intelligence it doesn't remember what it is supposed to do and that consciousness which is both spiritually malignant and spiritually destructive just as it is materially malignant and materially destructive biologically that consciousness now dominates too much of the human race however and this is interesting because we've seen so much of it here today in the universal principle that goes along with the idea that the universe is self-organizing is that the universe is also self-correcting so the body not only is programmed to work but the body is also programmed to take care of things should there be illness or injury you know if you have a cut on your finger and your secret somebody says oh it's very red well actually the fact that it's very red is a good sign because it means that all the red blood cells have rushed rushed in to handle the problem so both in terms of biological and natural processes as well as in terms of spiritual processes there is something about the natural intelligence of the heart and the mind that is both self-organizing and self-correcting what that means is that when there is a terrible problem when thinking and behave has taken us to a place which is malignant which is even maladaptive for our survival there is also something in us which is programmed to correct the system you know we all learned when we were children about how how evolution works we learned that if there is a species that is behaving in a way that is not adapted for its own survival that one of two things is going to occur either there will be a mutation and there will then be a line of development that has to do with survivable and sustainable behavior and that will become a trajectory that the species then takes or the species will go extinct and it could be argued of course that the way the human race has been behaving certainly in the last 50 or 60 years is literally maladaptive for our survival we fight too much and we fight with weapons of mass destruction and that could cause global catastrophes unlike anything that has ever existed on the planet before we have taken the lack of reverence and the desecration of our environment lack of reverence in the sense of the sacred quality of our home this planet Earth we have desecrated it used it only for our purposes rather than from a consciousness of collaboration and responsibility which you see in the cells of the body we have done so much that now we are faced with stress points we are faced with stress points such as the global the global implications of weather change the global implications of the nuclear arms race the global implications of the corruption of our food supply etc however what's occurring is that there is an uprising among the red blood cells of the human race and that is us it is as it were a collective mutation now one of the things you find in any advanced mammalian species that survives and thrives among other things and this has been alluded to here today is the fierce behavior of the adult female of the species when she senses that there is a threat to her cubs look at a mama bear look at a tiger look at him lion you know you might go out into the wilderness and they say well there are some black bears out there but they should be okay just don't get near the Cubs because that will make mama bear really fierce now nobody says the mama bear when she becomes absolutely fierce or the lion or the tiger when she becomes absolutely fierce because something threatens her cubs no one calls her strident and no one says that she has anger issues do you know even among even among the hyenas even among the hyenas which is a female dominant species the adult female hyenas actually encircle the Cubs while they're feeding and will not let the adult males get anywhere near the food until the babies have been fed ladies and gentlemen particularly ladies surely the women of America could do better than the hyenas well we are living with today as a threat to the human cub to the human child we have 17,000 children on this planet who starve every day 17,000 children on this planet who starve every day here in the United States even we have one in four children our food insecure somebody was telling me during one of the breaks one in four American girls are at some point or another abused one in six American boys and the relative complacency of the adult female of our species in the face of this much of a threat to the to the human young actually displays for all intents and purposes a species not intending to survive and that goes back to the fact that the lioness doesn't think about whether or not she's going to protect her cubs a tiger doesn't think about whether or not she's going to protect her cubs and the cell doesn't think about whether or not it's going to work on behalf of the larger functioning of the whole we think and what we think makes all the difference now if we think with love it's like one filter on their camera if we think without love or fear it's another fear on our camera and when Einstein said either nothing as a miracle or everything in a mirror is a miracle in that area where nothing is a miracle that means something has gone awry something is chaotic something is disordered something has no meaning and even as Jennifer Fox was saying here today that's what children want children want to feel there's a sense of meaning to all this and guess what so do adults there's been a lot of talk this morning about the infinite potential of children but you know what there's infinite potential in adults as well and given the glow catastrophic implications of the probabilities and the trajectories of probable horror that now face the human race we absolutely cannot wait for the kids to grow up to take it from here all systems breakdown means all systems response all of us no matter what our age are needed now and it was very very interesting how Jackson was talking about how in Africa the grandmothers honored the grandmothers are revered and it's the grandmothers who are the self-correcting principal very very interesting well the grandmothers would be the self-correcting principal in any in any culture that is in in its own state of curve of understanding of the natural intelligence that imbue soul consciousness we can talk about how we don't treat our elders with enough respect and with enough honor in our society certainly that we could make that argument but I think it's also true that elders will earn greater respect in the United States we will be treated with greater honor when we act more honorably you know somebody told me that fifty is the age at which you just don't care what they think anymore I think 60 is age at which no matter what anybody thinks you're going to say what you think and at a time at a time of the kind of global threats that we are facing now it is not being an alarmist to say that something is very wrong and we must all wake up quickly and act if in fact the times are alarming now what does that mean and what makes it happen well you can liken the state of humanity today to the Titanic you know the Titanic is on its way to the iceberg I think that's why we all relate to the Titanic not just because it was a good movie but because it's an archetype we all get it it's like we're on the Titanic we're headed towards that iceberg and then the iceberg could take many different forms it could be a biological disaster it could be a weather catastrophe it could be a nuclear catastrophe the point really isn't what form would crashing into the iceberg take what matters is that we must turn this ship around and we must turn it around now how are we going to do that well the probability vectors are quite grim listen to the environmental scientists talking today the if you look at these things only from the left-brain perspective only from a rational perspective ladies and gentlemen things are very grim and it could be argued that in many many areas it's already too late to turn this thing around what we need is a force multiplier now let's talk about this I have never I can't even conceive of a kind of sort of you know sometimes when it's convenient committed terrorists these people are committed they have shown in horrifying ways that the worldview that they feel needs to be effectuated on the planet they will do anything it takes to do it and every time there is some terrorist incident the president whoever the president is calls it's some cowardly acts that will not be tolerated ladies and gentlemen I I could call these acts evil I could call them unconscionable I don't know about cowardly the truth of the matter is hatred has a perverse kind of courage on the other hand a lot of us and I know I've been one myself at times where you know kind of sorta sometimes when it's convenient committed to love and so what's happening is not that there are more people who hate on the planet than who love it's not that there are more people who would consciously or unconsciously do destructive things to the planet then there are people who want to do wonderful creative things on the planet it's that hatred has been turned into a political and social force and it is time now for us to do what Gandhi said and what Gandhi did and what King then brought to the United States based on the teachings of of Gandhi we must turn love into a social and political force it's not enough as much genius as there is and has been displayed in such amazing ways here today when when Jackson was talking about what he's doing in Uganda when Stephen was talking about what he's doing in in the Bronx when Jennifer was talking about what she's doing with her school this is a revolution of love that is now occurring and that love is a force multiplier and Einstein said that time and space are illusions of consciousness so ladies and gentlemen there's only one thing that's going to be able to turn this ship around and it's not just that we come up with the technological answers you know Jackson could have stayed in New York and become an investment banker science cannot explain makes us make the choices that we make the choices that we make that come from love however lift us up to be able to do things that we ultimately otherwise could not do and that is what I believe is happening on the planet today it is a name it is a collective understanding and it is an understanding with the realization that there is genius yes within every child but there is also genius within every adult they used to tell us Oh once the brain cells have died they can't regenerate now they're saying boots actually they can sometimes we feel oh I messed up my life it's all over I'll never be abused oh yes you can that is the story today Redemption whether you think of Redemption and secular terms or in religious terms change transformation and we have no time to waste and as we do that and as each of us return to that natural intelligent thats the gate name of the game today self-correction look at the United States itself we've made some big mistakes in our history but we have tended to self-correct yes we had slaves but we got rid of them we we abolish slavery yes we did not give women the right to vote but then we did and that's the time of that's the moment on we in which we live that's the era of our history of this country and that's the era of this history of our history of our species we have really gotten out of line here we have really deviated from our natural intelligence we use more money to figure out ways to kill each other than ways to heal each other and to help each other we do more to compete than to collaborate we have more fear in the air than we have fear in love but you know what that was then and this is now today in this moment each of us through Awakening and we're reminded by people like Steven written by people like Jackson this is what can happen we can all do it but all of us are necessary to be the immune cells in the psychic bloodstream of humanity that's the issue that is what is happening now love that is the force multiplier it will turn the ship around I can't promise that if we all awaken to this collective force field a possibility that is on the earth today none of us can promise that you'll that in our lifetime all war will be gone and all unnecessary suffering can be gone but we do know this if we do what we can do right now we will die knowing we did our part and in that case we will know we kicked out and we'll die happy thank you very good

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 233,462

Keywords: ted talks, power, activism, ted talk, ted x, tedx, tedx talks, tedx talk, women, ted

Id: KHRE10ZiYjM

Length: 17min 44sec (1064 seconds)

Published: Fri May 31 2013