"A Return to Love"

Marianne Williamson in Super Soul Sunday,

20 years after the "A Return to Love"

Pages 190-192

As I interpret the Course, "our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us." We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn´t serve the world. There´s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won´t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It´s not just in some of us; it´s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we´re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
A miracle worker is an artist of the soul. There´s no higher art than living a good life. An artist informs the world of what´s available behind the masks we all wear. That´s what we´re all here to do. The reason so many of us are obsessed with becoming stars is because we´re not yet starring in our own lives. The cosmic spotlight isn´t pointed at you; it radiates from within you. I used to feel like I was waiting for someone to discover me, to "produce" me, like Lana Turner at the drugstore.
Ultimately I realized that the person I was waiting for was myself. If we wait for the world´s permission to shine, we will never receive it. The ego doesn´t give that permission. Only God does, and He has already done so. He has sent you here as His personal representative and is asking you to channel His love into the world. Are you waiting for a more important job? There isn´t one.

There is a plan for each of us, and each of us is precious. As we open our hearts more and more, we´re moved in the directions in which we´re supposed to go. Our gifts well up inside of us and extend of their own accord. We accomplich effortlessly.

How could Leonardo da Vinci not have painted? How could Shakespeare not have written? In Letter to a Young Poet, Rilke tells a young writer to write only if he has to. We are to do what there is a deep psychological and emotional imperative for us to do. That´s our point of power, the source of our brilliance. Our power is not rationally or willfully called forth. It´s a divine dispensation, an act of grace.
  - Marianne Williamson-