Whether the Sikhs want to worship in Wisconsin or the Christians want to worship in Texas or the Jews want to worship in New York, we're living under the magnificent umbrella of a Constitution that says we can.
— Marianne Williamson
Over the years, many people on a spiritual journey have asked me why I keep going on about politics, and many people involved in politics have asked me why I keep going on about spirituality.
Viewing Israelis and Palestinians from a psychological perspective, they would both be seen as victims of abuse; that is how they both understandably feel, and it's how they both understandably behave. The Jewish psyche is in victimized reaction to the Holocaust, and the Palestinian psyche is in victimized reaction to the Israelis.
We incarcerate more African-American men today than were slaves in 1850.
Presidential campaigns are exhausting. Once they're over, we all heave a sigh of relief that we have our lives back, the constant emails and news reports no longer harangue us, and the topic even turns at times to something else entirely.
People don't live in Los Angeles because we are tied to the same old, same old. We live in Los Angeles because of the intoxicating energy of new beginnings that permeate our city.
The Founders didn't mention political parties when they wrote the Constitution, and George Washington in essence warned us against them in his Farewell Address.
There's a certain je ne sais quoi that Americans have in spades - a we-can-do-anything spirit that makes so many things possible for all of us. We're rugged individualists, aspirational in nature, and we like to think for ourselves.
As all of us are only too aware, the loud and frantic voices of the outer world easily drown out the small, still loving voice within.
Prayer is the medium of miracles; in whatever way works for you, pray right now.
I've known Dennis Kucinich for a long time, and I don't think I have illusions about him. Sometimes I find him pompous, male chauvinistic, intellectually unbending. But he is a good man, and a serious one.
Certainly there is such a thing as chemical depression, and for that, obviously, there are issues that psychotherapists are much more expert at speaking to, but I think there is a low-grade depression that actually prevails in our society. And most of us feel it.
I love prayer candles, and I use them often.
Now if you know what makes one person's life change, then you know what makes a nation change - because a nation is simply a large group of individuals.
It doesn't take money to turn off the television and cultivate real bonding time.
I'm an author. And writers write books. And writing books is a full-time career.
The same group of New York pseudo-intellectuals who've put down prayer are the same ones who put down L.A.
Everyone archetypally is a parent to future generations.
I believe the Israelis have been wronged, but they also have a lot to apologize for. And I believe the Palestinians have been wronged, but they have a lot to apologize for, as well.
The mortal mind alone cannot devise an answer to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, because the true answer lies on a level of consciousness that's beyond our mortal thinking. Quite simply, when it comes to Israel and the Palestinians, we need a miracle.
The primary social contract between the people of the United States and their government - quaint though it might seem to even mention it at this point - is that ours is to be a government 'of the people, by the people, for the people.'
If I just want to 'start a conversation,' I don't need to run for office. As a matter of fact, it could be argued that many people are more open to hearing you if you're not running for office.
Many times in life, we say we want change but are then terrified when the opportunity for it arrives.
A threat to our freedom is a threat to our freedom, whether from a terrorist or from a trade deal.
Whatever it is that leads human beings to hate, to destroy, and to kill has taken on a collective force like never before, as technology and globalization now give it the capacity to not just strike, but to strike us all, together, as one.
Old Newtonian physics claimed that things have an objective reality separate from our perception of them. Quantum physics, and particularly Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, reveal that, as our perception of an object changes, the object itself literally changes.
You get enough people agreeing in consciousness that Mexico is a dangerous place, and that dangerous thought will make it so.
People are starting to wake up to the fact that a media/political party-complex basically decide our candidate, then create the illusion for the rest of us that in fact we're the ones who did the deciding.
In most of our situations in life, if we take a good honest look at our lives, we are holding to small, limiting thoughts, cynical thoughts.
If you're trained in metaphysics, you don't see the world as distinct from yourself. You are one with the world.
In my first book, 'A Return to Love', I wrote about things in the outer world that need to change - how we need to ameliorate deep poverty, heal the earth, end war.
The ego mind both professes its desire for love and does everything possible to repel it, or if it gets here anyway, to sabotage it. That is why dealing with issues like control, anger, and neediness is the most important work in preparing ourselves for love.
When I was just writing books and giving lectures, if people disagreed, they just didn't buy your book or attend your lectures. But, if you're leading a congregation, people feel they have the right to tell you what you should or shouldn't talk about. And that hasn't always been easy for me.
Charles Manson ate apples. That doesn't mean I'm not going to.
People on a spiritual path - personal growth, spiritual practice, recovery, yoga and so forth - are the last people who should be sitting out the social and political issues of our day.
Allopathic doctors used to laugh condescendingly at those who posited that psychological, emotional and spiritual factors were important contributors to the sickness as well as healing of the body.
The holidays are only holy if we make them so.
Americans are good people, and at times we can be wise. But we're often under-informed by media, misinformed by our government and ill-served by both.
I know politics is emotionally brutal; I've already had experience with the reality of smear campaigns, so I understand there will not be a path of roses laid before me.
Major political parties have a role, but they are incapable of initiating fundamental change because they are fundamentally tied to the status quo. They are the status quo.
When it comes to politics today, the devils' not in the details; the devil's in the big picture, more often than not just hiding in plain sight.
We live in a world of constant juxtaposition between joy that's possible and pain that's all too common. We hope for love and success and abundance, but we never quite forget that there is always lurking the possibility of disaster.
Sometimes a miracle is a change in material conditions, such as physical healing. At other times, it is a psychological or emotional change.
In 2004, Kucinich was the only presidential candidate who warned that a war in Iraq would be completely disastrous. I remember how mocked he was when he predicted hand-to-hand combat in Baghdad. I remember Candy Crowley, and other reporters as well, treating his views on the impending war as ridiculous, out there, almost insane.
There is nothing that a military machine can do to work a miracle.
My self healing lies in praying for those who have harmed me.
When my sister was diagnosed with cancer in 1989, her doctor told her that the cancer had probably been in her system for 10 years. By the time cancer's diagnosed, it's usually been around for quite a while.
Love is all around us all the time. Love is the ethers that we swim in. Love is the amniotic fluid of the soul.
Many people are despairing of the possibility of finding love. And some of the people who are despairing the most are in their thirties and forties and looking just great.
The Latin root of the word 'politics' means 'of the people.' Politics is about something bigger than electoral politics; in that sense, I feel like I'm already involved.
