An Infinite Ocean of Love

by Marianne Williamson

In the words of Albert Einstein, “We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.” There is a quantum field that lies beyond the limits of the world as we
understand it. Our rational mind cannot grasp it fully, for it is beyond the understanding of the mortal mind. The heart, however, is totally at home there.

Miracle-mindedness returns the mind to its proper function, which means alignment with and service to love. The Mind of God is an infinite ocean of loving thought, and when we think with love we are thinking with God. The purpose of our lives is to learn to think as God thinks.

Every thought is a cause that leads to an effect; the world is like a screen onto which are projected the nature of our thoughts. The Law of Cause and Effect was created for our protection, for as long as we think with love, then love is reflected back to us.

But that’s not what is going on here, at least not usually. Humanity is dominated by a loveless thought system, the ego’s playground, emerging from the mistaken thought that we are separate. The belief in separation leads to all manner of chaos. Like a cancer cell that has disconnected from its collaborative function, our thoughts are prone to separating themselves from their divine purpose. That itself is the essential problem: we’ve been infected by the malignant thought that “it’s all about me.” Thinking we are separate, we then consistently attack what and whom we were born to love.

The separation itself is an illusion of consciousness, for on the level of the spirit there’s no place where you start and I stop. We’re like waves in the ocean thinking we are separate from other waves. Obviously, there is no place where one wave stops and another wave starts. Yet think of the psychological difference between thinking of yourself as a wave that is separate from the rest of the ocean versus thinking of yourself as one with it.

If I think of myself as one wave separate from every other, how can I not feel powerless in relation to the rest of the ocean? How can I not live in constant fear of annihilation, terrified a wave that is bigger than I am, will overwhelm me at any moment? Why would I not then defend my separateness, believing that without it I will cease to exist?

On the other hand, if I think of myself as one with the other waves, how could I not feel safe and powerful? Identifying with the power of the ocean itself, I have no reason to fear, because I know that I am part of it.

Believing we are separate, yet knowing in our hearts that we are not, we suffer. Our entire existence is a fixed double bind. We are left with no sense of meaning, higher identity, or purpose. The world as we have come to know it—a realm of disordered thoughts, manufactured chaos, and disconnected events—is not who we are, and we cannot feel safe within it.

This is a deadly game, but it is a game we’re playing with ourselves. With our loveless thoughts we have concocted a loveless world. In closing our hearts we have blinded our eyes. But God did not do this to us; we did it to ourselves.

There is a way to escape this pain. Yet it’s something the ego will not tolerate. Escape lies in surrendering the belief that we are separate, which the ego finds intolerable because the end of the separation is the death of the ego. It becomes vicious in its drive to preserve its life. In its panicked, hysterical drive to perpetuate itself, the ego takes out all the stops to convince us that the separation is real and that our oneness is the illusion. It insists everyone is guilty, even ourselves. It insists we are isolated specks of nothingness afloat in a random, uncaring universe.

How could this not produce a deep and abiding anxiety, routinely suppressed yet always haunting us? And from that place of spiritual ignorance, uninformed of who we are and who we are to each other, we make endlessly foolish decisions. Insisting the separation is real, we look to the material world for comfort when our over-identification with it is the actual source of our discomfort. We build our mental prison, then seek to decorate it with gold.

We use our minds to attack and defend when the purpose of our lives is to love and bless—all this in an unconscious drive to perpetuate the separation that is the engine of our despair. 

Ah, but from this insanity we are miraculously saved.

Excerpted with permission from THE MYSTIC JESUS: The Mind of Love, ©2024.

For more than four decades, Marianne Williamson has been a leader of spiritually progressive circles. She is the author of 16 books, four of which have been #1 New York Times best sellers. Williamson’s latest book, THE MYSTIC JESUS: The Mind of Love, is available online and at bookstores everywhere. Find her at www.marianne.com or @MarianneWilliamson.