Gospel according to Oprah

Her days as a talk show host may be over, but Oprah Winfrey is not done talking. On Friday, when academic formalities for her graduation had been concluded, Dr Winfrey got off the stage, slipped into a form-fitting pink and orange dress and killer shoes, and came back on stage to do what she does best - inspire her audience.

"I'm not about big speeches," she confessed, "I'm about connecting with people."

And connect with her audience she did.

She surprised the audience by sharing special moments from her show - and from her personal life. She shared what she learned from her grandmother, and what she refused to learn from her. She talked about the beliefs that shaped her and her success.

With a whiff of nostalgia, she said she was going through personal belongings at home, preparing to move from Chicago, where her talk show was based, to California, where her television network OWN will be based, when she came across a picture of herself as a girl.

She said she noticed the picture as she was walking into her make- up room, which is decorated with magazine covers which she graced from 1986 until about 1995.

"Suddenly something said stop. I looked at these walls of covers of magazines that I never imagined I would be a part of."

"I stopped and asked, 'How did this happen?'"

How, indeed, did an impoverished African-American girl raised by her poor grandmother in rural Mississippi, in a house with no lights and running water, do it?

Oprah said as she began to ponder the answer, she recalled her earliest memory - watching her grandmother boiling clothes in a big wash pot and hanging them out to dry. One day while Oprah was churning butter, and her grandmother was boiling their washing as usual, she said to her: "You better watch me now Oprah Gail, because one day you have to do this for yourself."

Oprah said: "A feeling inside me said, 'No, grandma, I won't.'

"Something inside me told me that this will not be my life," she said to screams from the audience.

She also credits her grandmother for her strong beliefs, especially in the Bible.

"My grandmother raised me to do the only thing she knew how to do, and that is to read the Bible. By the time I was in kindergarten I was well-read from reading the Bible."

She cautioned, though, that if you don't listen to your guiding voice: "The voice of the world will drown out the voice of God if you let it. That's why I like that verse in the Bible, 'Be still and know'. You cannot know unless you get still."

She encouraged the students and her fans to be led by that same "feeling" or "voice inside you" to pursue their dreams.

She said: "When you are doing what you are supposed to do, it fills you up, it gives you energy. You will know it."

Winfrey said it was the same "feeling" of knowing that she had when she first saw Barack Obama.

"I said this man will be a president. I didn't think I'd be around when he became president. I didn't think it would happen in 2008."

About supporting Obama, she said: "When I came out for Obama, there were a lot of people who felt it was not the right thing to do. But I knew that same spirit, voice, feeling that I said to grandmama 'I will not do that', is the same spirit, feeling when I first saw Barack Obama.

She added that by supporting Obama she was not making "a political statement", although it was viewed as such by the public.

She thought about her grandmother again when Obama was elected president of the US.

"I was thinking about my grandmother, who would not have imagined that an African-American would be president."

Thabiso Nkosi, a second-year education student, asked Oprah what characteristics she looks for when choosing her leadership team.

"I look for knowledge and for people who are smarter than myself.

"The greatest quality any of you can hope for yourselves is to know who you are, and not only know who you are but know yourself so fully that you are not threatened by anyone else - neither threatened nor defined by them.

"I know who I am and I know what I can and cannot do. So when I can't, I look to the people who can."

I understood what she meant when she said the secret to the success of her show was herself.

She really does know how to connect with her audience.