![[title]](http://i.imgur.com/voySXPa.png "[title]")
stanford university. [applause] thank you and good evening. i am professor harry elam, thevice provost for undergraduate education at stanford. and on behalf of thepresident and the provost, i welcome you to tonight'svery special rathbun lecture with our featuredspeaker, miss oprah winfrey. now, i got to tell you thatyou're in for a special treat.
she spoke to studentsthis afternoon, and the generosity, thecommitment, the concern she had in termsof the issues she spoke about touchedall of us there and will touch you tonight. the harry andamelia rathbun fund for exploring what leadsto a meaningful life was made possible by anendowment established in 2006 by the foundation forglobal community, which
was directed by the rathbuns'son, richard rathbun. "harry's last lecture," as it'saffectionately been called, is the title tonight. and a s someone named harry,i think it's a great name. the rathbun fundsupports the mission of the office of religious lifeby helping students and others discover and reflect uponissues of meaning and purpose during their time of potentiallymonumental growth in character and spirit here at college.
in this day andage, when students are driven by thepace of technology and the pressures toachieve, the increasing concerns over employmentafter college, it is all the more importantto have time to reflect, the space to think,not only about yourself but about the greatworld around you. the rathbun fund has createdboth a timeless and timely opportunity to helpstanford deepen the student
experience with a focuson thoughtful inquiry, the pursuit ofethical engagement, and a dedication to making theworld a better place to live. and now to tell you moreabout the rathbun lecture and to introduce tonight'sesteemed speaker, it is my pleasure to introducethe dean of religious life, dr. jane shaw. welcome to memorial church,this extraordinary sacred space that jane stanford put atthe heart of our campus,
and welcome to the2015 rathbun lecture. all that we dohere in this space, in the circle, which isour interfaith space, and at windhover, our recentlyopened contemplation center, is designed to exploretogether as a body, as a community what it meansto lead a meaningful life. in our work as the officefor religious life, we encourage membersof this university to explore bothspirituality and religion.
we support the workingout of ethical values and we host discussions, artsevents, and of course, worship, all designed to help us thinkand practice a meaningful life. for exploring what leadsto such a meaningful life generously supportsmuch of our work. it was made possible by anendowment established in 2006 by the foundationfor global community. the centerpiece is thisvisiting fellow program, which brings notable,experienced, and wise people
to campus each year. it is our pleasure this eveningto welcome and thank the board members and participants inthe foundation for global community, many of whomare here with us tonight and some may bewatching at home. and in particular, we warmlywelcome harry and amelia's son, richard rathbun, his wife lacey,and their two children, ryan and milo. we're so delighted youcould join us tonight.
and now, it is myvery great pleasure, and of course, my privilege, tointroduce the rathbun visiting fellow for 2015, oprah winfrey. [applause and cheers] she has to have a littlemore of an introduction than that, because she hadso many accomplishments. she's known to usas the talk show host, who changed the verynature of interviewing on her show the oprah winfreyshow, which ran for 25 years.
she's known to us asa brilliant actor, who especially starred infilms such as the color purple and the butler. she has harpoproductions and produced the extraordinary film, selma. she's the founderof o magazine, which has 16 million readersthroughout the world. she is an acclaimedauthor herself, with a passion for reading,who has, through her book club,
encouraged so manyothers to discover the pleasure of imaginativelyentering the worlds of others through books. she's won many awards forall her incredible work, including many emmys and mostrecently the presidential medal of freedom. she's an exceptionallygenerous philanthropist who has founded a girls'school in south africa. miss winfrey'saccomplishments are many,
and she would saythat they all emerged from her deep sense of spiritand her spiritual life. so she is with ustonight here to give us the rathbun lecture as one ofthe great spiritual leaders of our time. she encourages millionsto explore what it means to have a spiritual life. and that, she's told us today,is her very, very favorite thing to do.
you can catch her havingprobing conversations with other spiritualleaders on sunday mornings on her super soul sundaytelevision program. you can read her wisdomin her most recent book, what i know for sure. you can engage in deeplearning in her life class as it goes on touraround the country. but this evening, we arefortunate, we are blessed, and we are truly grateful thatshe will be speaking to us
about what leads toa meaningful life. distinguished guests,students, faculty, staff, miss oprah winfrey. that was great. hi, y'all. woo! [applause continue] y'all just don't even know whatthis means to me to be standing in this hall.
in 1970, beforeyou were you even a thought in the mind of godor in the seed of your parents, i was in an oratorical contestas a junior at east high school. and the great victory forus as a state champions was to have our nationalchampionship here at stanford in this very church. [crowd awing] and as i stand her today,i lost the contest,
but i won the prize. [crowd cheering] wow, i know, i came in today andi went, oh my gosh, i made it. dean shaw, thatintroduction moves me, because one of mygoals as a human being has been to evolveto the point of being a student in thespiritual realm enough that i could beable to bestow some of my knowledge, the informationi've gathered over the years
from thousands ofinterviews in such a way that i could callmyself a teacher. and i dared not call myselfa teacher until hearing it from you, and because youhave said i'm a teacher and you are here atstanford, i believe you. i'm going to take that. so thank you. it's been an amazingday here with you all. first of all, i have one ofmy south african daughters,
i have 20 girls in collegein the united states and one of them, [? shadai, ?]is here at stanford. and she's a sophomore. and we came to stanford ithink late 2011 or early 2012, i can't remember. i remember landing onthe campus with her and we didn't know if shewas going to get in yet. as we got into the car andwe're pulling away she said, momma o, these are my people.
and i can understand why. just being here in thepresence of such energetic, stimulated brilliance makesus all want to be better. so i wish i could havegone to this school and i'm thrilled that ihave one of my daughters who does go to this school. i love everything thathappens here in the bubble. and i'm really excited,really excited to be a part of the harryrathbun lecture series,
because i have spent hundredsand hundreds and hundreds and thousands hours talking tospiritual leaders and teachers, and not just spiritualleaders and teachers who have been deemed so, butthousands of people who came from levels of dysfunction, whocame from levels of pain, who were suffering, who werechallenged in their progression in trying to be the besthuman beings they could be. and they allowedthemselves the opportunity to come on our show,the oprah winfrey show
and share their stories. i am one who believes inthe sharing of stories. i believe in the processof sharing, period, because i know that all lifegets better when you share it. and those thousandsof people who have been guests on theshow and many of them were also audience membershave been my greatest teachers. and i would say thatone of my gifts, and it's everybody's jobto know what your gift is.
so when i talk about my gift i'mnot bragging, it's just fact. it's just a fact, it's a gift. hey, he, ha, yes. one of my gifts thati've had since i was a little girl growingup in mississippi, being raised on a tiny littleacre farm with my grandmother, is that i knew howto pay attention. i was a great observer of life. and i grew up believing thati was, indeed, for sure,
god's child. it's because every sundayi sat in our little church down the road, a dirt road fromwhere my grandmother lived, no running water,no electricity. i was saying this to my greatniece who's eight the other day and she said, it sounds likelittle house on the prairie. and i go, it kind of was. no running water, noelectricity, but the church is down the road from us,and we could hear the singing
as i was getting dressedfor sunday school. and i'd always sit onthe left hand side, the left pew in the second row. and i would listen to thepreacher preach about the lord, thy god is a lovinggod, and sometimes he would say the lordthy god is a jealous god. but most important, i heardhim say, you are god's child and through god allthings are possible. and i literally took him athis word, so that by the time
i had to leave my grandmotherbecause she became ill and i was sent to live inmilwaukee with my mother who had other children, i gotbeat up on the playground because when people wouldask me, who's your daddy? i would say, jesus is my daddy. sometimes he's my brother,and god is my father. but what i now know and havelearned that my view of god, although i callthat god in a box and although my visionof god has expanded
to be inclusive of all things. all, all, god isall, god is law, god is all, in all things,not just the guy sitting up with the beard. and now that that viewof god has expanded, i still understand how importantit was for a little colored girl-- we weren'teven black yet, not to mentionafrican american-- you know what i mean, harry.
a little coloredgirl in mississippi for whom there was no visionof hope or possibility, my grandmother'sgreatest desire for me as she had been amaid and her mother before her had been amaid, her greatest desire was that i would grow up oneday and be able to do the same. and she wished for methat i would be able to. and she used to say, i hopeyou get some good white folks when you grow up.
i hope you get good whitefolks who treat you good. so my grandmother had no ideaof the life that i now lead, with good white folkswho are working for me. she just wouldn't get it. [cheering] she wouldn't get it. she wouldn't get it, butsomehow i think she must know. and she's up around inthe spirit realm saying, lord, have mercy.
i didn't see it. but i now know that having thatbelief system, that something greater than me was in chargeof my destiny, of my fate, that it wasn't just me alonehaving to survive for myself is the thing, is the value, isthe rock that has sustained me. so my vision, myperception, my understanding of what it means tobe a universal citizen has grown as icame to understand acts 17:28, my favorite bibleverse that says, "in god i move
and breathe and have my being." so my every attemptin life has been, since i was a littlegirl, to be in that space that i call god, to literallylive in the breath that is god. to live in the breathand allow the breath to breathe me as god. and that is thereason i see i have been able to manage fame, handlethe success, grow in grace, grow in the wisdom and glorythat is offered by that space
that i know to be god, becausein god i live and breathe, i move and breathe,and i have my being. in everything that ido and all that i am comes up and out fromthe center of that space, even when i didn'tknow what to call it. so i have paidattention to my life, because i understand that mylife, just like your life, is always speaking to you,where you are, in the language, with the people, with thecircumstances and experiences
that you can understandand interpret if you are willing tosee that always life, god is speaking to you. now it took me a while toactually really get this and to understandit, but once i did i started payingattention to everything. and one of thereasons why i can now accept the fact that i can offermy gatherings of information and wisdom and call myselfa spiritual teacher,
is that every single person whoever came on my show-- and i hear there was like37,000 guess i've talked to-- a lot of themcame from dysfunction and a lot of them wouldn'tappear to be teachers, but every one ofthem had something to say that wasmeaningful and valuable and that i coulduse to grow myself into the best of myself, whichis what all of our jobs are. your number one job is tobecome more of yourself
and to grow yourself intothe best of yourself. and so i had a lot of greatteachers, as we all do. i mean, old boyfriends aresome of the best teachers. woo, boy i got adoctorate degree from one. i'll tell you about that later. but i was doing an oprahshow about a decade ago. one of my greatest teacherswas a man named john diaz. we were doing a showcalled "would you survive"? and on tuesdayoctober 31, in 2000,
singapore airlines flight 006,a boeing 747 from taipei to los angeles took off with179 souls aboard. four crew and 79 passengersperished in that flight, a total of 83 fatalities. there was a typhoon rollingthrough at the time, and the plane wentdown the wrong runway. now what's interesting,john diaz was on that plane, and he had had several, several,several indications-- which i'll talk about later--whispers that he
shouldn't have gotten on theplane, but he did anyway. he got on the planeand he managed to be one of the survivors. and on the oprah showi was asking him, do you think it was-- whatdo you think it was that you were one of the survivors? and i said, do you think itwas your position on the plane? because he was in first classand he was sitting on the right next to an exit door.
he said, yes, ithink it might have been the position of the plane,and also my quick thinking, he says. and the fact that ididn't stop moving. so i said, you don't believe? you're not a religious man? you don't believe thatthere was some kind of divine interventiongoing on there? he goes, no, i'm nota religious person.
i do not believe itwas anything divine. i don't believe that. i did see, he said, as i gotknocked back into the plane, that it looked likedante's inferno with people strapped intotheir seats and just burning. and it seemed a bit to me, asi turned and looked backwards, like there was a light comingout of the tops of their heads. i guess you could call it anaura was leaving their bodies. and some lights werebrighter than others.
it changed, hesaid, it changed me. it gave me a newkind of spirituality, in a sense, that i now believesomehow, i don't know how, but life continues onsomehow through that light. and i thought, you know,i'm not a religious man, but i thought the brightnessand dimness of the auras are how one lives one'slife, so to speak. so that's one of the majorthings that really has changed with me since then, he says.
i want to live my life somy aura, when it leaves, is one of the brightest ones. i got chills when he said that. so much so, nothing todo but go to commercial. we'll be right back. what do you say after that? i want to live my lifeso when my aura leaves it's very bright. that's one of thosemoments that happens
and you know that it's biggerthan a show about survivors. because i always knewthat when i am moved, at least a million otherpeople might be too. because if i canfeel it and there are 20 million peoplewatching around the world, it means that somebody else alsofelt and heard the same thing. that's what connection is. so i thought a lot about that,and thought about it obviously in thinking about and preparingto talk to you all today.
about how does onelead a meaningful life? because ultimately, isn'tthat what we all want? we want to lead a lifeso that however we transition people can say, wow,that was a bright one, that was a bright light. first of all, ithink that it comes from a deep sense ofawareness about who you are and why you're here. it comes from beingin touch with,
on a regular basis,the appreciation and the holy gratitude thatshould fill each of our hearts on a regular basis, justknowing what a privilege it is to be hereand to be human. close your eyes for amoment, will you please? and breath with me. just close your eyes. and if you will put yourthumb to your middle finger and gather yourother fingers around.
and lets feel the vibration andpulse of your personal energy as you take threedeep breaths with me. inhale, and as you exhale justfeel the vibration, energy, blood pulsating throughyour body, through you. and another inhale. [exhaling] [inhaling] and keep your eyes closed. and let's just thinkabout this day,
this day that you havebeen graced to breathe in and out thousands of times. this day, where many of thosebreaths were taken for granted, you just expectedthe next one to come. but the truth is,there's no guarantees that the next one comes. this day, how youstarted your day, what your thoughtswere this morning. how you've carriedyourself through this day,
how you've been allowed to haveencounters and experiences, some challenging, somemore life enhancing that push you forward another dayof being here on the planet earth as a human being. let's just think about that. after all you've beenthrough in this day alone and the many days inyears past, how you got here to this prestigious, esteemeduniversity, the choices you've made that have broughtyou to this day.
open your heart andquietly, to yourself, say the only prayerthat's ever needed. thank you. you're still here and youget another chance this day to do better and be better,another chance to become more who you were created, and whatyou were created to fulfill. amen. open your eyes. that's how it starts.
that is thefoundation for meaning and purpose in your lifeis to bring yourself back to your breath. in all situations, in allways, in all challenges, to know that the value ofjust still being here matters. it's really bigthat you're here. it's really big,because everybody here has been called from theethers to do the will, to fulfill the highestexpression of yourself
as a human being, andto do that in truth. how do you do that? well, i think you let everystep you take move you in the directionof the one thing all religions can agreeon, and that is love. in all theconversations i've had with so many peopleover the years who run the gamut of allkinds of emotions and emotionaldysfunctions, i've come
to understand that what mariannewilliamson said is true. there's really only twoemotions that count, and that's love and that's fear. and in all of you aremovements through life you're either moving in thedirection of one or the other. in order to have a meaningfullife you have to choose love. and not the schmaltzy,daltzy kind of love, but the kind of lovethat really counts, the kind of love that wheneverything else is going wrong
and nobody even knows you'rechoosing it you choose love. the kind of love that says i'mhere for you, no matter what, you choose love. the kind of lovethat means you make the right decision, even whenyou know the other person is wrong. you choose love, because loveis not just-- it's a verb, and it's everything thatrepresent kindness, and grace, and harmony, and corporation,and reverence for life.
so when you choose whenyou're in a situation where you are mad, youare mad, and you know they arewrong, if you can go to that space of the breath, ingod i move and breathe and have my being, and makethe choice just to move a little closer inthe direction of that which is going to bring you grace,that which is going to honor yourself, and by honoringyourself you can't help but honor the other person.
i've learned to choose love overfear, to choose love and peace rather than choosingto be right. that was a big lesson for me. do you want peace,do you want love, or do you want to be right? for a little while i waslike, i'd rather be right. rather be right witha little bit of love. i am a christian, igrew up christian, raised in the churchall day long on sundays.
sunday school in the morning,church in the afternoon, bible school at night, prayerservice wednesday night, choir practice. i grew up in the church. i would say i don't go tochurch as much anymore. my church is nature from me. my church is my life. i experience churchin every encounter with every person itry to have church.
and i try to live mylife from the tenant of the law, the thirdlaw of motion in physics. if i had only one wise offeringfor you it would be this one. the third law ofmotion and all the laws of the universe actually,are, in my mind, divine laws. and my favoriteis the third law, which says for everyaction there is an equal and opposite reaction. there are lots of differentreligions and philosophies
that call this other things. in this country sometimeswe call it the golden rule. what i know forsure is, it doesn't matter what you do unto others,it's already done unto you. so anybody who's seen themovie the color purple, there's a line in there whenmiss celie leaves and she says to mr., everythingyou done to me-- and she holds her twofingers-- already done to you. that's the third law of motion.
newton didn't knowthat celie was going to articulate itthat way, but everything you done to me,already done to you. so that is the tenantthat rules my entire life. and before thethird law of motion, which says every action there'san equal and opposite reaction, before there's even thethought or the action there is the intentionfor the thought. and if there's one forcefield that rules and dominates
the meaning of life forme, it is living my life with a pure sense of intention. now this came tome because i used to be one of those people whohad the disease to please. i said yes manytimes when i knew i should've been saying no, andthen i would be mad at myself for saying yes. anybody ever done that? you say yes, then you madwhen they come back again.
because when you say yeswhen you really mean no, people follow theintention of the yes. because why do you say yes? you say yes because youdon't want the person to be upset with you. they're not. you don't want theperson to be angry, you want the personto think you're nice. they do.
and that is why theykeep coming back. i couldn't understand it. i just gave you some money,and now you are back. oh, that's because i didn'treally state the truth and so now youthink me giving you the money meant i wantedto give you the money and that's why you're backasking me for some more. so i tested thisprinciple of intention when i first came to discoverit in gary zukav's book
seed of the soul. i say, i'm going to see ifthat intention thing will work for this disease to please,because people are always bothering me. so this is what i learnedthrough intention, nothing is showingup in your life that you didn't order there. if it's there, it's therebecause you needed to see it. so i have a big life, and thingsshow up for me in big ways.
so one day steviewonder calls me. i'm not name dropping,it's true, he called me. no brag, just fact. it was stevie, an hedidn't call to say he loved me either, he wascalling because he wanted something, but that's ok. and i, at the time,this was early on. because when i first startedmaking money and it was my salary or my earnings werepublished all over the place.
i mean the first yeari was like, really? did i make that much money? oh, my god. it was very difficultfor me to figure out where my boundaries were,because i'd grown up poor and didn't have anything. so it's easy when you don'thave anything and people ask you for money. and they say i need $500,and you say, i don't have it,
because i'm just tryingto get my rent paid. it's harder when you'remulti-billion dollar salary is now in the paper, and you geta lot of friends and cousins you didn't have before. so how do you setboundaries for yourself? i was having trouble settingboundaries for myself for even strangers. people would show upat my door in chicago and say, oprah, i left myhusband, please help me.
and i would, becauseshe knows i have it. so, don't try thatnow though, ok. don't try that now,i figured it out! so what i learned is thatoh, the reason why people keep showing up is becausemy intention is to make them think that i'm such a niceperson that you can ask me for anything. you can get me to do anything. i'm going to say yes,i'm going to say yes.
so when steviecalled me this time i thought i'd try outmy first no on stevie. let's start big. he wanted me to donatesome money to a charity, and i didn't want todonate to the charity, because i have myown charities and i care about a lot of people. but the problem is when you havemoney everybody thinks you just want to give to everything.
so every letter i everget starts with, we know you love the children. yes, i do love thechildren, but somebody else is going to have tohelp the children. so i said to stevie,i said to stevie no. and as a person who hasthat disease to please i was waiting forhim then to say, i will never speak to you again. i will never call you.
i will never singa song for you. and he didn't, he just said ok. ok? it's ok? he said, ok, check you later. and what i learned fromthat is, many times you will have angst andworry about things and put yourself ina state, like someone said this morning becauseher phone went off
they were mortified. over a phone, i said? really? you will put yourself in a statewhen the other person really isn't even thinking about you. so learning that icould specifically determine for myself whatthe boundaries were for me, what i wanted to do, givemy money, give my time, give of my service,to who i wanted
to give it to when i did, thati get to make that decision. and just because youget 100 requests a week doesn't mean you have totry to fulfill all of that. just because you have all ofthese demands on your time and on you doesn't meanthat you have to say yes. you get to decide,because you're the master of your fate,the captain of your soul, as william ernesthenley said in invictus. and understanding that reallychanged the meaning of my life
in that i was no longer drivenby what other people wanted me to do, but tookcharge of my own destiny, making choices basedupon what do i feel is the next right move for me. so being able to gocontinuously to that space, that i called the power stationof god, universal energy, the divine flow. being able to tap intothe space where you and all of life andme and all of you
in this room, all beings,all things are connected. we had a meditation thismorning where we talked about entering that space. that space is real. you cannot, in my opinion,have a meaningful life without a life of self reflection, ofspiritual and moral inquiry, and knowing who you areand why you are truly here, spiritual self reflection, tounderstand who you are and why you are here.
and when you understandthe depths of that and you allow yourself to tapinto the space of that which is the force, the universalenergy, the divine flow, and you do that with a sense ofauthenticity that only you can, that only yourenergy can bring, you become untouchable in whateverit is you choose to do. so one of the reasonsi believe that i've been able to be so successful isbecause during the years where we had fierce competition fromother shows and other people
i would always sayto my producers, you can't run their race,you can only run yours. and you really can onlyrun what you're doing. you can't even worry aboutyour own fellow produces, you can only run your own race. that lesson thatglinda the good witch gives to the wicked witch ofthe west when she says, go away, you have no power here,that's a powerful lesson. because i have seen over theyears in so many interviews
and even in my reallife experiences, people losing theirpower because you're giving your powerto other people. you lose your power whenyou try to take control of somebody else'senergy, because you have no power in any energyfield other than that which is your own. and your real job inlife is to figure out how do you master your field.
by consistentlychoosing love, by living in the space ofgratitude, and knowing that that power that youfeel from time to time comes from a source thatis greater than yourself. because nobody gets outof here alone, nobody. nobody is making it alone. and when you are trustingwhen you are afraid, when you are sad, when you areunable to make a decision, when you are challenged, when you aremoving in the direction of all
that which is fearful,it's because you're trusting in your own power. i couldn't get here bymy little baby ego self. when you look atwhere i've come from, a little town, apartheidtown in kosciusko, mississippi in 1957where there were more lynchings of black manper capita than any place else in the world, where youhad to be off the streets, literally, when white peoplewalked down the streets.
where there was novision or hope for you as a black man or black woman,other than being a domestic or teaching in thecolored school. and my ability to step intoliterally the flow and grace that i called god iswhat has gotten me here. and i consistently mine that,because having a spiritual life isn't something that you canattain because you already are a spiritual life. pierre teilhard de chardin said,"we are spiritual beings having
a human experience." i know this to be true. so it's not like you can goout seeking a spiritual life, you already are one. and the real job isfor you to become aware of the soul's callingand the spirit that resides in, above, around,and through you, and be about the businessof fulfilling that. there is no one elsein creation like you.
there's nobody like you. and what you've come to doand what you have to offer is like no other,even if they're all doing the same thing. i met a bunch of people todaymajoring in human biology. i go, woo, a lotof human biologist coming out of stanford. a lot of great ones. and although everybody'sin the same class doing
very similar things,no one brings the level of uniquenessand authenticity that you can bring. nobody does it like you. and understanding thatwhat you have to offer, what you've come togive to the planet is your gift, your offeringin a way that nobody else can and how much that matters. it matters to you, itmatters to the people
that you love, and matters toour planet that you are here. it's just, you know,it's a miracle. it's a miracle thatwe get to be here. and when i think ofmy life and the fact that nobody really kind ofwanted me in the beginning. my father had sex withmy mother one time. can you imagine? that's a powerful seed. woo, honey child.
but one time, one time. and he wasn't in love with her. he said she waswearing a poodle skirt and he wanted to knowwhat was up under there, and she showed himby an oak tree. now i got a yardfull of oaks, i know that's where it all started. and to think that somethingas random as my mother's poodle skirt and myfather walking out
the door at the time. she'd had her eye on him for awhile, so she was working it. to think thatsomething as random as that would create a littlenegro child in mississippi who grew up and had, andhas had, and continues to have the opportunitiesthat i've had. i can assure that isnothing but grace. it's grace. it's grace because i was allowedto step into the flow of it
and let it carryme to this moment. and i'm not telling you whatto believe or who to believe or what to call it, butthere is no full life, no fulfilled, meaningful,sustainably joyful life without a connectionto the spirit. i haven't seen it happen. and the way for sustainabilityis through practice. you must have aspiritual practice. what is yours?
well, for some people itis going to church, that's where they nurture themselves. i believe that creativity,artful expression, prayer, conscious kindness, empathy,consistent compassion, gratitude, allspiritual practices in the way of becomingmore of who you are. so i started agratitude journal, i mean, i was journalingsince actually i was standing here in 1970.
i actually have in myjournal about visiting stanford and what it meantto come here as an orator. and for years allof my journals were filled with he don'tlove me, i can't believe she did that to me, andthis is what happened today. and about the late '80ssomeone introduced the idea of a gratitude journal to me. gratitude journaling has becomea spiritual practice that leads to an enhanced, a moreenhanced and meaningful life,
and you can start it today. and you can, iguarantee, if you did it for a week you wouldsee a difference. because every day, andi'll do it when i go home, five things i write downthat i am grateful for or that brought me joyor opened my heart space. and by practicinggratitude, what you realize is, isthat you wake up in the morning thinkingabout, what are those five
things going to be? because some daysthere's only three. and then you have totake a breath, inhale, that's one, exhale, that's two. ok, i made my five,that's all i got today. so practicinggratitude in a way that allows you to takestock of your life, that's why it's a spiritualpractice, because you're now taking stock of your life.
you're assessing whereyou are spiritually. and in order to maintain a senseof growing yourself forward it requires also beingin a place of knowing that after you've doneall then you can-- there's a wonderful song bydonnie mcclurkin, it says, you just stand. there comes a timein everybody's life when you've actuallydone all that you can do and you really wantsomething so badly
but it still isn't comingforward for you in a way that you feel that it should. i know that what is foryou will come to you. i know that for sure. and i know that many times,when it appears that something is happening to you, it isalways, always happening for you to strengthen you. because my definitionof power is strength over time-- strength,times strength, times
strength, times strength. so i'll leave you withmy favorite story. i said this todayabout the color purple. it's one of my favoritestories because it changed the meaningof my life and changed the trajectory of my life. first of all, when i was doingthe color purple i had just come to chicago and starteda show called a.m. chicago. and i had asked mybosses for the time off,
and i needed two monthsto do the color purple. and they said to me, youdon't have two months, your contract says youonly get two weeks a year. so in order for us togive you the time off, you're going to have togive up your remaining time on your contractto do the color purple. i wanted to do it so badlythat i said, all right, i'll give up the nextfive years of my contract in order to do it.
what happened was after thecolor purple, after i filmed the color purple andthe oprah show was so successful, becoming sosuccessful-- it was actually still called a.m. chicago--the bosses at my channel wanted to renegotiatethe contract. and my lawyer at the time said,remember the color purple. you never want to be in aposition where something is that important to you todo, and you can't do it because the boss says you can't.
you want to be able toown yourself and make your own decisions aboutwhat's important to you to do, and that was something thatwas really important to you. so the fact that i had not beenallowed the time for the color purple is the reason why i madethe decision to take the risk to own my own show. and that has madeall the difference in the trajectory of my career. but let me try toshorten this color purple
story because it changedthe trajectory of my life. i wanted to be inthe color purple more than anything i'veever wanted my life. i read the book on a sunday. i got up, went backto the bookstore, got every othercopy of the book. i passed it out toeverybody i knew. i was clearly obsessedabout the color purple. people see me cominggo, here she comes,
talking about the color purple. here she come again. i literally would walkaround with it in a backpack. i see all these backpacks,y'all are loaded down here. i would walk around withit in a backpack in case i ran into somebodywho hadn't read it. and i'd say, oh,you haven't read it? i have one right here. and as life would haveit, because you're always
drawing things to you,you're drawing energy to you. out of nowhere, supposedly,coincidence, no such thing. but i get a call from a castingagent saying that they're casting for this moviecalled the color purple, this movie called moon song. and i said, are you sureit's not the color purple? and he said, no, it'scalled moon song. because at the time,steven spielberg didn't want anybody to know hewas shooting the color purple.
so i go and auditionfor the movie. i can't believe that godhas allowed this to happen, because i am auditioningwith a character named harpo. do y'all know harpo isoprah spelled backwards? i think that is adirect sign from jesus. but not only am inow auditioning, i'm auditioning with somebodynamed harpo, amazing. when all i'd really askedgod, i'd said, god please, help me get in this movie.
help me get in this movie. i don't know anybodyin the movies. i'm in chicago doing ashow called a.m. chicago. i thought i could be scriptgirl, best girl, best boy, whatever, the lastcredit on the movie. bottom line is, a long timepassed, i call up the agent and the agent said, youdon't call us, we call you, and i didn't call you. i hung up the phone.
i was so upset i decidedto go to a fat farm, and i'm going tolose the weight. that's what theycalled them the time. i'm going to the fat farm. i'm going to starve myselfbecause now all the weight is caught up with me. i know they hate mebecause i'm fat, i said. i'm going to go and i'mgoing to lose weight, and i'm going to try torelease this obsession that i
have with the color purple. i'm going to try to let that go. because now muchtime has passed. and i am on the track,running around the track, and i can hear mythighs rubbing together. [flop, flop, flop] and i start crying, becauseoh, gosh, now my thighs are rubbing togetherand it's raining and my hair is getting wet.
so i started to pray. and i started, i'mpraying and i'm crying. and i'm asking god,actually god, please help me let this go. i'm obsessed, i want it. reuben cannon had told me thatreal actresses had auditioned for that part and theni wasn't a real actress, and that alfre woodardhad just left his office. so i thought forsure alfre woodard's
going to get that part. and i'm running around thetrack praying and crying. and the way prayerworks is, you can pray, but if you don't release it,if you don't surrender it, it goes nowhere, it's justyou talking to yourself. so i started singing this song. do you know thissong? (singing) i surrender all, i surrender all. all to thee my blessedsavior, i surrender all.
i sang and i prayed and icried until i could release the pain, the sufferingof the rejection that reuben cannon hadcaused be by telling me that i don't call you. and then i realized, oh,i'm still carrying it around so i won't be able to goto see the movie so i'm going to now praythat i can bless alfre woodard in the movie. let me bless alfrewoodard so i'll
be able to go see this movie. i start singing again,i surrender all. please don't let me havenow a grudge against alfre woodard who took my movie. let me have peace inmy heart about that. so i pray, i pray, i pray untili'm singing, i surrender all, a woman comes out andsays to me that there's a phone call for you. and in that phone calli was told next day,
show up in stevenspielberg's office, and if you lose a poundyou could lose this part. so i stopped at the dairy queen. but the point of thisstory is surrender. and the point of thestory is i thought i could just be a scriptgirl, best girl, whatever. i was just happy to beanywhere in the film. the point of thisstory is god can dream, the universe can dream,your creation can dream,
the flow of your life can dream,has a bigger plan and a bigger dream for you then you canever even imagine for yourself. when i finished the color purplequincy jones said to me baby, your future is sobright it burns my eyes. and i say the samething to all of you. you stanford studentswith this amazing gift to be at this institutionand let your light so shine, your brilliance. your future's so brightit burns my eyes.
the glory that the universe,god has in store for you is unimaginable to you,you can't even imagine it. you can't even imagine it. if you will surrenderthat which is yourself in alignmentwith the greater self and allow yourself to becomea part of the force of all. take your glory, it's waitingfor you, and run with it. [applause and cheering]
