A Return to Love CD

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Summary: Brings high and lofty ideals down to earth.
Review: A book called "A Course In Miracles" is unique in it's degree of wisdom.But, people sometimes experience it as an affront to their current belief system.Though it's authors have great wisdom, they didn't master 'people skills'.The book can leave some wondering "This isn't a cult thing, is it?".Because, the 'high and lofty' ideals can feel "too good to be true".That's where "A Return To Love" comes in.Marianne Williamson brings these high and lofty ideals 'down to earth'.
In ACIM, the 'personality/individuality/emotion' element is nowhere near as well represented as the 'spirit/God' element is.But when your 'personal/individual/emotional' side is included equally well, the void and alienation feeling disappears.Though this book isn't perfect in this respect, it is still far less intimidating than ACIM.Which is not to say that ACIM ideals intend for our individual self to be left out.No, it's merely a communication gap that the authors haven't quite yet accounted for.M.Williamson is a mediator between ACIM ideals and a majority population.Only a minority of people could go 'straight to' ACIM.Because of "A Return To Love", many people who initially felt ACIM to be in competition with their own wisdom, will now feel less threatened.Williamson is moreso a 'people person' whose book is a beneficial option/addition to "A Course In Miracles".The best offering of "A Return To Love" though, is its approach to 'positive thinking'.(Though its not always 'refered' to, it does underlay the book).
"Positive thinking" really is neither 'positive' nor 'negative'.It is 'truthful' thinking.(Williamson shows her faith in this fact via her sombre expression on the cover photo).She is well aware that 'love' equally accompanies our sad emotions as it does our happy ones.She does away with the 'sentimental' definition of peace and harmony, replacing it with a permanently helpful 'unconditional' definition.
In closing: This author brings a very lofty and intellectual piece of work down to earth, making it easier to relate to.Though not perfect, it does aim wiser than many self-help books.

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Summary: The most Mind Stirring, Soul Touching Audio Book Ever
Review: I first came upon this Audio book about 4 or 5 years ago, and have yet to find an Audio book that reaches as deep into you as this one does. A Return to Love is a great Book, but it is a truly incredible Audio book! The tone of her voice, and the way it's spoken is so perfect, that you hear every word, and feel she is talking directly to YOU! I have listened to 100's of Audio books over the years, and have not found anything close to this one. Deepak, Millman, Lucado, Dyers, and as much as I hate to say it, even Mariannes other audios don't hold the magic this one does. If someone has found an audio that gets as deep into your soul as this one does, PLEASE write me and let me know what it is. And Marianne, Please consider doing an Unabridged version of the audio. If you have not listened to this audio book yet, and are looking for some spiritual enlightenment, you have no idea what your missing out on here! Buy the Tape, even if you have read the book!!! Time and time again, I have gone back and listened to this tape, and it never loses a bit of the magic I felt the first time I heard it. This Audio will remind you of so much you have forgotten through the years. The best Audio book I have EVER listened too!

Rating:
Summary: The most Mind Stirring, Soul Touching Audio Book EVER!
Review: I first came upon this Audio book about 8 years ago, and have yet to find an Audio book that reaches as deep into you as this one does. A Return to Love is a great Book, but it is a truly incredible Audio book! The tone of her voice, and the way it's spoken is so PERFECT, that you hear every word, and feel she is talking directly to "YOU"! I have listened to 100's of Audio books over the years, and STILL have not found anything close to this one. Deepak, Millman, Lucado, Dyers, Bach and as much as I hate to say it, even Mariannes other audios don't hold the magic this one does. If someone has found an audio that gets as deep into your soul as this one does, PLEASE write me and let me know what it is.
If you have not listened to this audio book yet, and are looking for some spiritual enlightenment, you have no idea what your missing out on here! Buy the Tape, even if you have read the book!!! Time and time again, I have gone back and listened to this tape, and it never loses a bit of the magic I felt the first time I heard it. This Audio will remind you of so much you have forgotten through the years. The best Audio book I have EVER, EVER listened too!
I have given these Tapes out many, many times as gifts to friends and got many people to listen to them, and I have yet to come across anyone that is not entirely blown away and touched deeply by them. This is an Audio Book you will listen to AGAIN, AND AGAIN AND AGAIN. ~~~~~ "MARIANNE, PLEASE DO AN UNABRIDGED VERSION OF THIS AUDIO BOOK!!!!"

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Summary: A Life Changing Book
Review: Ignore the 11/13/02 review by the closed-minded Christian Science snob! A Return to Love will change your life if you are open minded. You need not be a student of A Course in Miracles to be transformed by this book, though if you don't consider yourself a spiritual person, this might not be the best book for you, since it deals so much with the presence of (God as) Love in our lives. I read it long before I got involved in religion and metaphysics and I was and still am very moved by it. This is a book about the healing and transforming power of Love and how to practice it in your daily life. Ms. Williamson has been-there-done-that and her intelligent and very hip writing style is far from preachy. I've read it over and over since the 1980's and it gets better every time. Can't recommend it highly enough!

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Summary: A wonderful testimony of the power of A Course in Miracles
Review: The Spirit had prompted me to buy A Course in Miracles three years before I read Marianne's book Return to Love. However, the Course was like Greek to me so I let it sit on the shelf. Sometimes when I passed by that shelf it felt like the book was trying to jump into my arms. I keep saying to myself, "later, I'll read it later." Then in 1993 after reading Marianne's account of the Course's message I thought, "If she can do it, I can do it." She helped me believe I could understand the Course. I decided then that even if it took the rest of my life, I would never stop trying. Well I'm happy to say that it didn't take my whole life. I can now read and understand the Course myself. It has saved my life!!!! I am eternally grateful for Marianne's courageous example. Thank you Marianne!!!!!

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Summary: Brilliant, inspired, practical spiritual wisdom
Review: This book is packed with profound and practical spiritual truths. Marianne Williamson is writing with deep compassion and obviously has considerable first-hand experience of the principles she's writing about.

The basic message here is that we are all perfect expressions of love, and that the energy of love and God is all there is. Anything else is an illusion. All the judgments of oneself and others, feelings of superiority and inferiority and so on fall away if one chooses a path of unconditional surrender to God's will, that being the truth of who one is. Many practical examples of how to apply this approach are presented. I found the chapters on relationships and work particularly interesting.

As someone who struggled to get to grips with the original "A Course In Miracles" in the 1980s, I thank Marianne Williamson for giving us a more accessible version of the same powerful truths. As with the original text, some people (e.g. me!) may be a bit uncomfortable with some of the use of Christian terminology, but God and God's love are being re-defined here, in a similar fashion to Neale Donald Walsch's extraordinary "Conversations With God" books. Masterful stuff!

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Summary: All you need is love.
Review: Whether by coincidence or miracle, I was prompted to read Marianne Williamson's book after three different friends asked me last week if I'd ever read RETURN TO LOVE. First published ten years ago in 1992, Williamson's book integrates spiritual principles drawn from A Course in Miracles with personal growth and interpersonal relations, to teach us not only how to realize our divine nature, but how to embody that nature in human form. Her book, Williamson writes in the Preface, "is about the practice of love, as a strength and not a weakness, as a daily answer to the problems that confront us. How is love a practical solution? This book is written as a guide to the miraculous application of love as a balm on every wound. Whether our psychic pain is in the area of relationships, health, career, or elsewhere, love is a potent force, the cure, the Answer" (pp. xviii-xix). Love is the answer, she tells us, to our relationships with "money, the body, work, sex, death, ourselves, and one another" (p. 84).

Okay, so it's like the Beatles told us when they sang, "All you need is love." We were born with love, but replaced that love with fear of life. "The spiritual journey is the reliquishment--or unlearning--of fear and the acceptance of love back into our hearts," Williamson writes. "Love is the essential existential fact. It is our ultimate reality and our purpose on earth. To be consciously aware of it, to experience love in ourselves and others is the meaning of life" (p. xxii). Returning to love is "the personal journey from pretense to self, from pain to inner peace" (p. 25). Williamson's message is just that simple.

Well, almost that simple. "The goal of spiritual practice is full recovery," Williamson observes, "and the only thing you need to recover from is a fractured sense of self" (p. 150). For me, this point raises one small criticism of Williamson's book--more of a concern, really. Williamson confides that she was "a total mess" (p. xv) and "a total basket case" (p. 11) when she first encountered A Course in Miracles. "I had what is commonly called a nervous breakdown," she says. "A certain amount of desperation is usually necessary before we're ready for God," (p. 11). Although she readily observes that many people in our culture turn to spirituality while suffering from psychological wounds including self-loathing, addictions, fears, obsession, compulsion, depression, and violence (p. 7), and although she immerses her reader into the relationship between personal growth and spiritual development, I wonder if there are other important issues which she has not fully explored in her book, namely, the extent to which the practice she advocates really requires its practitioners to deal with their personal and emotional wounds. Or would they also benefit from a course of psychotherapy integrated into their spiritual practice to assist them in fully recovering from their "fractured sense of self"?

To change the effects in our life, Williamson encourages us to "change our mind about the world" (p. 66), and forgive the past (p. 71). All in all, RETURN TO LOVE offers a life-affirming approach to spiritual and personal growth, and will appeal to anyone interested in becoming a mature, authentic person, while also discovering love as our true, essential human nature.

G. Merritt