Local woman appears on Oprah Winfrey show

Margit Wyers sees God's image in every person, and that outlook has shaped her spirituality profoundly.

The Lampasas County resident recently discussed her spiritual experiences with an audience of millions, as she participated in a book discussion as a guest on "The Oprah Winfrey Show."

Ms. Wyers, who has participated for eight weeks in an online Oprah class about Eckhart Tolle's book "The New Earth," joined the talk show hostess and two other guests in a discussion of the book. Along with Oprah, author Elizabeth Lesser and the mother of a soldier in Iraq, Ms. Wyers taped two segments in Oprah's Chicago studio.

In the episode of "The Oprah Winfrey Show," the talk show hostess and her guests discussed their responses to Tolle's book, which Oprah picked in January to highlight as part of Oprah's Book Club. More than 1.2 million people downloaded the first session of Oprah's online class on "The New Earth," a book Ms. Wyers said focuses on finding one's purpose in life.

Ms. Wyers, a member of St. Mary's Catholic Church, did not speak officially for the church, but her appearance on the show allowed the local woman to talk about her awareness of Christ within her.

"Spiritual growth to me is to recognize who I am and what I am created as," Ms. Wyers said. "What you see on the outside is not who I am. What is inside me is what I am."

Tolle, also the author of "The Power of Now," does not write from a specific religious background, Ms. Wyers said, although he has claimed inspiration from sources ranging from Zen Buddhism to mystical Islam to the medieval mystical theologian Meister Eckhart.

Nevertheless, discussing Tolle's work has deepened her spiritual awareness, said Ms. Wyers, who also has read St. Ignatius' writings on Catholic spirituality. Tolle has written about the divinity in all people, Ms. Wyers said, and she relates that belief to the Christian teaching that all humans are made in God's image.

"Christ came to redeem the world and not just a specific group of people," she said, "and [the emphasis on divinity] is the spirituality of the Catholic faith, too, to be Christ-centered, Christconscious."

Oprah and the guests Ms. Wyers met seemed receptive to her faith, the local woman said.

"They were very intrigued that here I was a Catholic and a Christian and that I was interested in spirituality," Ms. Wyers said.

She hopes her participation on the show and in Oprah's Internet class will influence others.

"Your experience reaches others if you share it," Ms. Wyers said. "My experience will help other people grow."