but on June the 26th of last year I made
a an announcement to my family I told
them that I had written 41 books many of
them I have been blessed to have appear
on their seller lists all around the
world and then I was not going to do
that anymore I had completed that part
of my life and I had some other things
that I wanted to do and I wanted to just
sort of take it easy now I’m 72 years
old and I don’t want to have that that
pressure to face those empty pages over
and over and over again as I’ve been
doing since I was in my 30s that was
June the 26th and June the 27th I woke
up and I began writing and I wrote and I
wrote and I wrote and I wrote for the
next five months and I couldn’t stop
because there is something inside of me
that is a calling there is something
moving the pieces around that is bigger
than Who I am and what this ego of mine
says and it’s getting in touch with that
that that inner drive that part of us
that says this is what you’re here for
this is what you came into this world to
be I was being interviewed by the New
York Times about a decade or so ago and
there was also a gentleman there who’s a
very famous writer his name was Arthur
Miller perhaps the most American famous
American playwright of the of the 20th
century
you’ve all read Death of a Salesman and
the crucible and so many others and
Arthur Miller was 91 years old at the
time and he was asked the question are
you working on another play and I’ll
never forget his answer because it it
inspired me in many ways he said I don’t
know but I probably am but I probably am
that there is something that calls all
of us here and I just want to speak a
little bit about that in the time that I
have here this morning there was I have
said that if there is I wrote these
words out last night if there is
intelligence behind life and there is
every reason to believe that there is or
that there may be and think about that
for a moment if there’s intelligence
behind life and all of science points to
the fact that there is some kind of an
intelligence behind life behind this
body that you were hearing about in the
last hour that there’s something
mystical if you will and I brought with
me just a quote from the man who was the
who won the Nobel Prize for Physics he
was Einstein’s greatest teacher he was
considered the father of modern quantum
physics his name was max planck and at
on receiving the Nobel Prize for Physics
this is what he said he said as a man
who has devoted his whole life to the
most clear-headed science
to the study of matter I can tell you as
the result of all of my research about
atoms this much that there is no matter
as such that all matter originates and
exists only by virtue of a force which
brings the particles of an atom to
vibration and holds this minut solar
system of the atom together we must as
scientists all assume that behind this
force is the existence of a conscious
and intelligent mind this mind is the
matrix of all matter this divine
intelligence that is behind behind
everything that is working in this body
that we are so consumed with and so
concerned about and how to keep it
healthy that there is something beyond
that one of my favorite poets once
observed he said what did what if you
slept and what if in your sleep you
dreamed and what if in your dream you
went to heaven and there picked a
strange and wonderful flower and what if
when you awoke you held that flower in
Samuel Taylor Coleridge who wrote The
Rime of the Ancient Mariner that there
and I wonder when I asked that question
I’ve done it on a couple of my public
television specials to ask that question
do you really believe that such a thing
as possible because as I wrote out last
night I said if there is intelligence
behind life and there is every reason to
believe that there is then all of that
intelligence must be innate in each
creation of that intelligence this
universal mind or this whatever you want
to call it divine mind the great Dao I
wrote a book eight years ago called
change your thoughts change your life
which was based on on the ancient
teachings of of the doubter chained by a
man named Lao Tzu
who wrote it 2,500 years ago five
hundred years before the birth of Christ
and in that great tome some call it the
wisest book ever written was 81 verses
and I decided to write an essay and each
of those 81 verses and how to apply it
in today’s life he said the great Tao
God sold this matrix behind all of life
he said it does nothing and yet it
leaves nothing undone he said each and
every one of you are doing nothing
you’re all just being done there is
something moving the checkers around in
this checkerboard that we call our life
that Arthur Miller was referring to when
he said I don’t know but I probably am
and that I said when I said to my
children I’m through writing books not
only have I written an entirely new book
which was a hundred and forty-four
thousand words that I couldn’t stop
writing I wrote it all by hand every
word of it it’s why I’m sitting on this
chair because my neck went crazy sitting
there hour after hour writing about all
the significant quantum moments that
have appeared in my life that turned the
direction of my life from where it was
headed into a right turn and sometimes
into an about-face and I called this
book I can see clearly now I can see
clearly that the the things that were
taking place when I really thought that
I knew what what I was doing and
something else was in charge of the
whole process one of the famous
observations of one of our great
humorist Mark Twain he said the thing
that gets you into trouble
isn’t what you don’t know it’s what you
know for sure that just ain’t so
and there’s so much of what we know for
sure that just ain’t so just like what I
knew for sure that I wasn’t going to be
writing not only have I written another
entire book and looked at all of these
significant factors and features that
were really at play moving me about but
I’ve written another book on top of that
that I’m about three-quarters of the way
through based upon how to apply the
bhagavad-gita the great song of the Lord
that Gandhi based his life on and how we
can apply it each and every day of our
life so there’s a wonderful poem I want
to share with you that reflects what
Mark Twain was saying that it’s what you
know for sure that just ain’t so it’s
called the cookie thief it was written
by Valerie Cox a woman was waiting at an
airport one night with several long
hours before her flight she hunted for a
book in the airport shops and bought a
bag of cookies and found a place to drop
she was engrossed in her book what
happened to see that the man beside her
as bold as could be grabbed a cookie or
two from the bag between which she tried
to ignore to avoid a scene so she
munched the cookies and watched the
clock as this gutsy cookie thief
diminished her stock she was getting
more irritated as the minutes ticked by
thinking if I wasn’t so nice I’d blacken
his eye with each cookie she took he
took one too and when only one was left
she wondered what he’d to and with a
smile on his face and a nervous laugh he
took the last cookie and broke it in
half he offered her half as he ate the
other and she snatches from him and
thought oh brother
this guy has some nerve and he’s also
rude why he didn’t even show any
gratitude she had never she had never
known when she had been still galled and
she sighed with relief when her flight
was called
she gathered her belongings and headed
to the gate refusing to look back at the
thieving ingrate she boarded the planes
she sank in her seat then she sought her
book which was almost complete as she
reached in her baggage she gasped with
surprise there was her bag of cookies in
front of her eyes if mine are here she
moaned with despair then the others were
his and he tried to share too late to
apologize she realized with grief that
she was the rude one the ingrate
the thief no beautiful
[Music]
as I went through the significant
moments and the significant things in my
life that have brought me to this place
in my life I I realized that I’ve been
in some kind of ascended master training
since the time that I was born that if
every single one of us come from this
divine intelligence which all of the
quantum physicists tell us do that
particles themselves do not create
particles that everything comes from
energy this great program all done
through Salesforce who with your CEO who
I’m sitting next to here this morning
this was an idea this was the thought
everything William Blake’s that
everything that now exists was once a
thought which means that everything that
is ever going to exist must also be a
thought and the greatest gift that we’ve
been given is this great gift of our
imagination and if we can’t put
something into our imagination and be
able to create it then it isn’t going to
be able to be become hardened into an
objective reality we’re now over a
hundred thousand people sign up for such
a conference as you’re attending today
it all starts with an idea I just
watched the film jobs night before last
and I can I can really relate even
though I think he might have missed out
a bit on the kindness factor but I can
relate to this notion that when you have
a dharma when you have something that
you came here to do when there’s a
calling that you have when there’s an
excitement so that takes place within
you and when you can’t let go of that
excitement so that’s really God talking
to you that it’s it’s the invisible part
of you it’s the soul that says the soul
of ours this this invisible nasteria
round I mean we can all we can all find
that command center all the brain
surgeons can go in and they can look and
they can say this is the command center
where this causes this thing to happen
this causes that thing to happen if I
say I’m gonna wiggle my finger you know
and you think well and then I have a
thought and then that thought gets
transferred in a trillion cells start
working and my finger Wiggles from a
thought and we can find the command
center we can cut it off and we can do
things inside the brain but no one no
one has never been able to find the
commander in the command center that
says I think I’m gonna wiggle my finger
I think I’m gonna move my left foot I
think I’m going to write a book I think
I’m going to create something that place
of being aligned Herman Melville writing
and Moby Dick this really relates to me
because I live on an island as does Mark
I live on Maui it’s on the Big Island
and I’ll be there tomorrow morning in
the ocean Melville said this in Moby
Dick for as this appalling ocean
surrounds the verdant land
so in the soul of man lies one insular
Tahiti full of peace and joy but
encompassed by all of the horrors of the
when I get to the time when I leave this
body I will never say that I lived the
half live life I understand what Steve
Jobs was saying when he would feel
something so deeply inside would be
surrounded by people who couldn’t share
his vision that there’s something inside
each and every one of us that is that
drives us and I was trained earliest to
be a Jungian analyst by Carl Jung
Carl Jung once observed he said he was
talking about this this idea that was in
each and every one of us there is this
purpose and he said at the same moment
at the same moment that you are a
protagonist in your own life and you’re
making choices at the very same moment
you’re also the spear carrier or the
extra in a much larger drama and he
concluded that and I’ve never forgotten
this he said all of you are doomed to
make choices
it sounds like such a paradox if you’re
doomed how can you be making a choice so
let me bring it into looking first at
your own body and you heard the doctor
speaking before about about your bodies
and so much of what he was saying I
aligned with and relates to our bodies
are what we are what we were given to
live out this incarnation this time on
this planet I happened to be given a
male body that’s about 6 foot 2 and it
has a hair that used to grow on its head
and now grows in its ears and all of
these things there’s like this is this
is what I was doomed to I mean I’m not
going to be in a female body I’m not
gonna be in a body that has brown eyes
when I have blue eyes and so on so in a
sense you are given this body but you
also have choices to make and the
choices that you make within this sense
of being doomed which is what he meant
when he said you’re a protagonist in
your own life but you’re also a spear
carrier in a much larger drama that
there is something bigger moving all of
these pieces around and this thing that
is bigger that’s moving the pieces
around is something that you have to
align with and you can align with it in
your body by treating it well by feeding
it the applause line real food by
exercising by watching how you relate to
this body you can make a huge difference
but you’re still in this context of
being doomed to make choices now look at
the rest of your life all of the things
that brought you to this place to this
day right here in your life and most of
us have come into this into this place
well we don’t recognize this fundamental
truth that within each and every one of
us there is this this capacity that I
have in
one of my most recent books called
wishes fulfilled I call it my I am
discourses that word I am see if you
want to be able to change something
about yourself or to align yourself with
this divine mission in which you say yes
I have been doomed to do all of these
things but there are choices that I can
make so that you know Rumi said that at
the moment you are born a ladder is
placed before you to help you to escape
from this world so here’s this ladder
this metaphorical ladder that is placed
before us and there are rungs on this
ladder until you reach the top the top
of this ladder I’d call it divine love
it’s it’s what TS Eliot spoke about I
used a lot of poetry because I write a
lot of poetry and read a lot of poetry
and believe that poets can speak to us
in languages that is very different than
what scientists often speak TS Eliot
said that we shall not cease from
exploration but at the end of all of our
exploring will be to return to the place
from which we originated and to know it
before the first time now he was
speaking about that I believe I’m not I
do not think that we have to leave our
bodies in order to understand this
divine intelligence from which we
originate it I had a wonderful meeting
back in the night early 1970s late 1970s
with Buckminster Fuller his great
scientist great man we were speaking
together at a conference in Denver
Colorado and after the conference he
said he said all of us are born geniuses
but life itself seems to de genius us we
are all pieces of God
if we came from a divine intelligence
and all of that intelligence must be in
all of its creations then all of it must
be in us in each and every one of us
that all of us have these enormous
capacities these powers to be able to to
heal ourselves and to heal others to
manifest what it is that we want to
place our attention on to be able to
create massive changes in our world to
bring peace to a place where there’s so
much violence and hatred the Dalai Lama
once said that if we could take every
child on this planet at the age of five
and teach them to meditate for one hour
a week we could eliminate all violence
that exists on our planet in one
generation
imagine one hour a week as a child
just thinking about compassion we have
so much violence in our world because we
have violence in our heart the violence
that we end up have in our heart is
because we have left our source of being
and we fill ourselves with with rage and
beliefs about who we are but the truth
is that most of us can’t answer the
simple question about who we are I had a
great teacher in India
his name was mr. Gaddafi Maharaj my
friend Deepak Chopra who will be
speaking here soon with me introduced
him to me and I read his great work I am
that and he was asked the question what
is real master what is real and his
response was that is real which never
changes everything else is illusion so
how does this apply to each and every
one of us what is there about you that
has never changed I have a picture of my
self when I was 21 years old on the wall
at home and that was 50 years ago
there’s not one cell of that body that
21 year old body that’s left here on
this planet it’s all gone every cell and
yet I still persist here I am in this
body and I sit here now in this 73 year
old body believing that this is me but
an hour from now this body that I’m
sitting in here will be a different body
than the one I walked up onto the stage
with that everything in this physical
domain is in a constant state of change
except for that invisible divine spark
the part of us the part of us that is
real and that part of us has a knowing
about who we are and what we came here
Emily Dickinson I just watched the Julie
Harris just passed away about two months
ago and they announced that on the on TV
and I was watching and she was 87 years
old and she portrayed Emily Dickinson in
a film called the belle of Amherst
she was from Amherst Massachusetts born
in 1830 and so I ordered it I had my
children order this film for me and they
sent a copy of it to me and it said it’s
a two-act play and it was Julie Harris
just being Emily Dickinson this recluse
have a woman who wrote so much beautiful
poetry and she once said and when it was
over I watched the thing by myself my
writing space in my sacred place and as
I watched it I was I stood up
when the audience stood up and I gave
her a standing ovation for as long as
the audience but I could not stop myself
it was so brilliant and so beautiful
something I encourage you to do Julie
Harris was just magnificent I couldn’t
imagine being on stage and being so
brilliant for such an extended period of
he kindly stopped for me the carriage
this quiet dust she would say holding up
a handful of dust this quiet dust was
was laughter and ability and sighing and
frocks and curls this passive place a
summers nimble mansion were bloom and
bees fulfills their oriental circuit
then ceased like these my beautiful
mother passed away last July 22nd and
two days later after she was cremated
she was 96 years old they gave us an urn
with her ashes in this urn and I held
this urn up and I look at it and I say
surely surely this is not my mother not
this handful of dust surely all of you
are not what your ego has convinced you
that you are all of my accomplishments
[Music]
all of my possessions my reputation how
I’m regarded by others all that I own
all that I’ve created this great company
surely you’re not these things because
they’re not real they’re not real in the
sense that they’re always changing just
as your body is always changing surely
that’s not you and coming into contact
with who you are is it’s the lesson that
I learned in writing I can see clearly
now I lived in an orphanage for the
first 10 years of my life my father
walked out on his family my mother had
three boys in four years by the time she
was 22 and I was born in 1940 and my
my father just decided that he couldn’t
handle this he was an alcoholic he spent
some time in prison there was the thief
he was by all accounts the most evil of
people the kind of man that I find
difficult I did find difficult to have
any love for who just walk away from his
family responsibilities my mother was
able when I was 10 by 1949 to remarry my
father in another body another alcoholic
abusive man that I lived with for five
years because life gives exams I guess
and if you don’t pass them like Algebra
II you take it over until you get it and
that’s what she did and and so I was
reunited with my family my middle
brother David and I were together
through all of the foster homes and all
of the orphanages that we lived in all
of the random abuse and craziness that
went on in those years and we were
finally reunited and in in the fourth
grade at Arthur elementary school on the
east side of Detroit
I had a teacher her name was mrs. angle
and every day she would read to us and
she would read to us from 10 minutes to
3 until 3:15 provided that the class was
good meaning that they weren’t noisy and
rowdy and that we had to keep quiet in
order to listen to her read this
particular book that she read which was
a turning point in my life at the age of
it’s why I know that there’s something
moving the pieces around in every single
one of our lives now what we have to do
is we have to find our excitement and
what it is that that makes us what makes
our soul feel good and then stay with
that independent of what others might
say so I became the enforcer in the
fourth grade at our elementary school
because when anybody would start to talk
I would walk over to them or I would get
them and tell him that they we’re not
gonna get to hear the story and nobody
really was that interested in hearing
the story except me I was just
enthralled by this story and the story
was The Secret Garden it was written in
1909 and it was the story of a little
orphan girl only I was on the Lorin boy
who had just been reunited with his
family just met my oldest brother didn’t
even know him before my brother Jim and
I was finally living in a family and had
but what I learned in reading The Secret
Garden listening to the secret garden is
that there is a secret garden inside
each and every one of us and that door
opens inward and there is a place within
each and every one of us where we can
see we can see God at work we can see
God within ourselves we can know that we
are pieces of God we are sparks of God
we must be like what we came from we
came from this intelligence that Max
Planck spoke about the matrix of all
matter and all of its creations must
contain all of its intelligence so that
it’s in all of us the ability to have
that that secret place that that that
inner Tahiti full of peace and joy there
was a little boy in that book named
Dickon who who always looked at the
positive side of everything he could
just never talk about death and he would
never talk about sickness he never
talked about what was wrong
because he said what you talk about you
become what you think about becomes your
reality I was 10 years old it’s almost
as if I had to have a conversation with
God before I got here and my count
because I often I told Serena my
daughter many times you know when if you
don’t like the way I’m parenting because
she would always give me little lectures
about how I was doing it wrong as she
was growing up as a teenager and I say
if you don’t like the kind of father
that I am then you should be very
careful and recognize that it isn’t my
fault I’m just doing what I know how to
do and you picked me to be your father
and if you didn’t like the kind of
father that I am you shouldn’t have
picked me you should have picked someone
else and she looked at me and said you
mean to tell me that I picked you before
I came in I said exactly and it’s an
infinite universe and you had to get
here and you needed someone and I was
the one you needed and mom was the one
you needed and so you’re telling me that
I chose you I actually chose you I said
yes you did and you should be very
careful when you make decisions like
that and her great line to me was I must
and I feel that as if I had a
conversation with God before I came into
this world and God said to me what is it
that you would like to do while you’re
here this time around and I said I’d
like to teach self-reliance that’s all
I’ve done since I’ve been here I’ve
written 41 books on this subject of
relying upon yourself and trusting in
yourself and going within as my
evolution has taken place my writing has
taken place I’ve written from my heart
and God said then we better get you a
little ass into an orphanage because
when you’re in there you will learn to
rely upon yourself because there’s not
gonna be any barrels there to do it for
you and I look at the first 10 years of
my life and taking care of my brother
David who was 16 months older much
smaller
he was very sickly and I had to struggle
to help him and to keep bullies away
from him and so on I can look at those
10 years of my life as the early
training ground my stepfather was a
Roman Catholic and on Tuesday nights in
1953 when I was 13 years of age there
was a very famous comedian American
comedian his name was Milton Berle and
they had the Milton Berle show sponsored
by Texaco uncle Miltie some of you may
remember but opposite the Milton Berle
show on Tuesday nights was another show
there were only three channels in those
days we had a little black and right
Admiral television set and sit around
and look at this and there was this man
who would lecture on Tuesday nights
opposite Milton Berle his name was
Bishop Fulton sheen and my uncle my
stepfather bill Drury loved to watch
Bishop Sheen and I used to come in I was
13 years of age and I would watch Milton
Berle only on the commercials because
Bishop Sheen fascinated me so
that I would actually bring a notepad
and I was taking notes on what he would
say and the name of his show does
anybody remember the name of his show
back in 1953 it was called life is worth
living in the 41 books that I’ve written
the subtitle on every one of them could
have been life is worth living there is
something deep within each and every one
of us that allows us to know that life
is worth living and that we can make a
difference in this world and whatever it
is that creates that excitement within
us is really our connection to God when
Muktananda the great indian saint would
have people come to his ashram and as
they would enter the ashram he would ask
them the question do you know the
difference between good and God and if
people would say no they didn’t know he
would take his hand and he would go like
this and make a little zero they say
there’s zero difference between good and
God so whatever it is that makes you
feel good is really God if it’s your
soul that makes you feel good and if it
doesn’t inhibit anybody else from being
able to feel good then that’s your
Dharma and you have to go with your
excitement I suspect that this company
wouldn’t exist if there wasn’t somebody
that had an idea inside of them that
made them feel good about how can we
help to transform people’s businesses so
that they can live
more successful and happy lives but the
greatest success definition that I’ve
ever heard
happened when I was reading when I was
being suspended from high school for
speaking up about some things that they
didn’t take nicely to in high school I
had to fill out some forms about my
mother about my father’s name my
mother’s name and it was always very
confusing I never knew what to do with
that so I just wrote that’s my business
and instead of them asking me why I
would take such a stance they sent me to
the office I had to sit on the I had to
sit on the bench and wait for mr. wolf
the principal to pass his judgment and
then he would make my mother come and
while I was sitting there waiting three
days they had a little book there of
written by Henry David Thoreau called
Walden Pond but at the back of that book
was an essay on the necessity of civil
and I figured if they put that book
there that must be there for a reason
they must want us to people like me to
read it and so I when I had my meeting
with mr. wolf and my mother had to come
from work and take three buses to get
there and I explained why I had said
what I said and that that we have to
stand up against these silly things this
wasn’t the first time I was there in
that office but Thoreau said this in
that essay on the necessity on the
necessity of civil disobedience that is
when things are out there that you don’t
agree with that you have to go within
and and find something inside of you
that that says you have to stand up for
it I know when my own mother was born in
1916
women couldn’t even vote in the United
States until she was four years of age
and that didn’t happen because people
obeyed the rules that happened because
people took the role of civil
disobedience and said there’s something
inside me that says this is wrong and
I’m willing to I’m willing to fight for
tomorrow is the anniversary of of a day
that changed my life forever November
the 22nd 1963 I was a marcher during the
civil rights days I was in the United
States Navy when it was segregated I
walked into a coffee shop in Havre de
Grace Maryland with my friend ray Dudley
from Chicago who was african-american
and they refused to serve either one of
us because he was black and in the
uniform of the United States Navy that
wasn’t very long ago
I was outraged and horrified by stets
conduct and the man who said we’re gonna
change that put hope in my heart and the
day that he the day that he died I was
at Wayne State University in Detroit
driving up crane Street it’s on my
Facebook page today I wrote a whole
thing about it it’s the chapter and I
can see clearly now because I decided
that I wanted to be someone who could
make a difference in this world
who could end that kind of hatred and
horror shows that was so present back
there in the 60s and 70s the United
States Navy was segregated when I was in
it and it was an outrage to my soul and
I just like to say a little prayer I
guess for the 50th anniversary of this
man who made me believe that one person
can make a difference he put hope in my
in my heart and in my soul
and Thoros definition of success was
this he said if you advance confidently
in the direction of your own dreams an
endeavor to live the life which you have
imagined you will meet with a success
unexpected in common hours that’s what
my life is meant about it’s been
dedicated to this idea of advancing
confidently in the direction of my own
dreams and endeavoring to live this life
which which I have imagined and the key
word there is dreamed and imagined your
imagination is your greatest gift
anything that you can place into your
imagination can harden into a reality if
you follow very specific principles I
outlined them in detail in which is
fulfilled if you begin to assume the
feeling of a wish fulfilled if you begin
to know within your heart that what it
is that you came here to be and came
here to do I was so blessed as a young
doctoral student to have as a mentor a
man many of you read when you were in
college
he’s most famous for his hierarchy of
needs at the top of this pyramid he said
there is something inherent in each and
every one of us the base is just our
needs to take care of our bodies to feed
them well to give them enough rest to do
all of these kinds of things and then
our needs to belong and our needs to fit
in and our needs to be loved these are
all part of this hierarchy of who we are
as human beings but at the very top is
this apex this little corner of the
pyramid
it’s called self-actualization to
actualize your life in the way that you
came here to actualize it and Maslow
said that the there are certain people
who come into this world who live from a
self actualized perspective and there’s
certain things about them there’s
certain qualities that they possess
there’s a certain way that they go about
their life and that they’re very seldom
understood I thought about that a lot
the other night as I was watching jobs I
think about it as I was sitting next to
your CEO mark that and I think about it
in terms of my own life because so many
people are willing to come into your
life and tell you what your Dharma ought
to be that you should be doing this that
you should live that way that when you
place your thoughts on what other people
want for you or when you put your
thoughts so much on what you don’t want
or what’s missing or what you can’t have
and self-actualized people don’t think
like that the day that I became
acquainted with dr. Abraham Maslow was
because the principal in the school
where I was the school counselor got the
flu and she changed the whole course of
my life that day when she got the flu
because because she got the flu and was
sick I had to address the entire parents
group of the schools that I was teaching
at in Michigan mercy High School and
that the day after Labor Day
in 1966 I addressed the student and
their and their parents and what I had a
vision for what the school year was
going to look like I was 26 years old I
just received my master’s degree and was
ready to peruse all of the different
ways of studying for a doctoral degree I
was gonna study Jungian analyst I was
gonna study skin area and approach to
psychology I was I had all of these
ideas on what I wanted to do and a girl
named Nancy Armstrong walked into my
office now these are quantum moments
Maslow called them peak experiences she
walked into my office and I looked back
at this as I wrote I can see clearly now
and I think about this so profoundly it
was like she handed me a book it was a
compendium of great contributors Yates
and and Freud and I mean every every
scholastic area of inquiry was in there
there was about maybe 80 or 90 essays in
there and she said my mom heard you
speak last night and she was so taken by
what you said that she got this book
because he’s a member of something
called The Book of the Month Club and
the Book of the Month Club gives a a
bonus to people for buying so many books
and they gave her this and she’s never
gonna read it but she thought because of
what you said last night you would like
it and I read this collection of
writings and I looked at it and I
thought this is interesting and that
afternoon I was to go down and file my
plan of work for my ph.d program and
rather than drive down and take that
face the traffic going into downtown
right I was at the University of
Michigan and Wayne State University I i
sat and read an essay called the hole
man by Abraham Maslow and Maslow was the
first person that had ever seen in the
field of psychology who spoke about we
should not be assessing who human beings
are and what they’re capable of doing
based upon what’s missing or what’s
wrong or what they can’t do or their
weaknesses
we shouldn’t study neurology or
neurological disorders we shouldn’t
study how psychotic people are or how
neurotic they are we should look at the
greatest achievers who’ve ever walked
among us know that they all came from
the same intelligence and recognized and
helped people to find that within
themselves and as I read this essay I
was so taken by it and he talked about
the qualities or the characteristics of
what he called self actualizing people
and he said the number one quality and
characteristic of these people who live
at the apex of what he called
self-actualization who are way beyond
just taking care of their biological
needs who are way our bond beyond their
social needs who are way beyond needing
to be loved and so on these are people
who came here with a purpose these are
people who have a Dharma these are
people who won’t let anyone else
determine what it is they’re going to be
he said they’re number one quality of
these people is that they are
independent of the good opinion of other
people they listen to an inner voice
that only they can hear they have a soul
inside of them their soul I wrote this
out the other night about the soul the
ideal of the soul this inner part of you
that says I think I’m gonna the
commander in the command center that’s
in each and every one of you that is
processing the words that are coming out
of my mouth not this body that’s sitting
there it’s going to change and it’s
going to be something different every
minute
it’s going to change and be something
different I’m talking to your soul I’m
talking to the invisible naswinger the
ideal of the soul the thing that it aims
for is neither knowledge nor light nor
happiness the ideal of the soul the idea
of you’re in earnest who you are not
this body you’re in but who you are the
observer too
that body is space its immensity why
because it’s infinite and why is it
infinite because it’s not finite
it’s either finite or it’s in finite
finite means it begins someplace and it
stops someplace where do your thoughts
stop
where does your soul stop it doesn’t so
therefore anything that’s inside of you
that is infinite has got to expand it
has to expand it needs to keep growing
and any time you try to put it into a
box or compartmentalize it or tell it
what it ought to be you know all of you
I don’t know all of you who are parents
but you’ve all heard your kids at one
time or another say you’re not the boss
of me you can’t tell me what to do
you’ve all heard this right you all set
it yourselves when I was a kid I was
called I was called a scurvy elephant
because when I came home from school I
asked mrs. scarf the lady that I was
living with at the time
what’s the scurvy elephant she said
where did you hear that she said I heard
I said I heard mrs. Poole telling the
principal that Wayne Dyer is in her
classroom and that he’s a scurvy
elephant she got on the phone she called
the principal’s he said that’s Wayne he
never gets anything right he gets
everything mixed up
she didn’t say he was a scurvy elephant
in her classroom she said he was a
disturbing element in her classroom your
soul is a scurvy elephant that inner
part of you that wants to expand it has
the theme song ready it was sung by Bing
Crosby it was sung by Roy Rogers Oh give
me land lots of land and the starry
skies above oh let me ride through the
wide open spaces that I love dogs
fence me in don’t put a fence around me
don’t put me into a box don’t tell me
how my life ought to be
I came here with a purpose I came here
with something that I have to do that’s
your soul speaking and a person like
Steve Jobs doesn’t doesn’t take kindly
to it the latter that I spoke about that
Rumi places before us at the beginning
of our lives to help us to escape from
this world helps us to deal with this
whole idea that we are doomed to make
choices yes
our physical body is what it is but we
can make choices about it
yes our spiritual body our purpose our
Dharma what we’re here for is also
doomed but we make choices what are the
choices you came here to be a great
artist I did a whole film on this is
called the shift and this whole idea is
that you you came here to be a great
artist do you pick up a paintbrush do
you do what van Gogh did you just go out
there and and and paint because it’s in
your soul because the second
characteristic of self actualizing
people according to Maslow is that they
are detached from outcome they don’t do
what they do because of what result is
going to come to them because of how
much money they’re gonna make how much
prestige they’re gonna get how big their
business is gonna grow that is not what
motivates self actualized people what
motivates self actualizing people is
this is my calling
I found myself reading the bhagavad-gita
for the third time in the last three
months
I just keep reading it over not just
like when I did the Dow eight years ago
when I turned 65 and couldn’t stop it
and the teachers showed up and the
Buddhist proverb is that when the
student is ready the teachers will
appear it’s not whether there’s teachers
there there’s teachers everywhere there
everything is the teaching the question
isn’t whether the teachers are there the
question is how willing are you to pay
attention
how willing are you to listen to that
inner voice that no one else can hear
that little scurvy elephant in there
that says you’re not the boss of me
you can’t tell me what I’m here for
you have to it takes a kind of
fearlessness because fear is such a I’m
the present force in our lives it’s you
hear the doctor talking about cancer so
much of it I just had a person on my
last public television special named
Anita Moorjani who wrote a book called
dying to be me an amazing book an
amazing woman who had end-stage cancer
she was down 282 pounds no one who would
ever had that level of cancer had ever
even survived she had hours to live they
were whispering in her ear her she was
flatline practically and she from the
other realm from the other vision was
told by her father who had passed 10
years before you can go back you have
something to teach and she didn’t want
to now remember what Mark Twain said and
remember the cookie thief it’s not what
you don’t know that gets you into
trouble it’s what you know for sure
that just ain’t so
my philosophy has always been have a
mind that’s open to everything and
attached to nothing open to everything
all things are possible jesus said it so
beautifully in the New Testament I don’t
have to say it with God with your
higher-self with this place of divine
love all things are possible and when
you have this knowing within this is
what I’m here for this is the this is a
song I came here to play independence of
the good opinion of other people
detachment from outcome I do what I do
because of the passion I feel I am NOT
here because of what you paid me to be
here for I am NOT here because of any
need that I have to sell another book I
am NOT here for anything external to
myself I am here because I have a
passion within me the same passion that
I felt 50 years ago tomorrow when the
President of the United States the man
that I believed could change what
happened to ray Dudley and myself and
have her to grace Maryland back there in
1961 that we can when we get something
the great Peter dune off a great
bulgarian scholar and spiritual master
who will Albert Einstein said of Peter
do now if he said the whole world bow
before me and I bow before Peter do know
Peter do not in 1944 the year that he
died when the country of Bulgaria was
overrun by the Nazis was the person
responsible for not one Jew being sent
to the concentration camps because he
contacted the Czar and was able to keep
them from sending the people that were
on the trains it was a spiritual knowing
this man wrote over 250 books on
something called divine love a kind of
love that I aspire to
a kind of love that is that is beyond
the ego the ego is this part of us that
has edged God out eg oh it’s edged got
out rabindranath tagore the great indian
poet said speaking of the ego i went out
alone on my way to my tryst but who is
this me in the dark i step aside to
avoid his presence but i escaped him not
he makes the dust rise from the earth
with his swagger he adds his loud voice
to every word I utter he is my own
little self my lord he knows no shame
but I I am ashamed to come to thy door
in his company that’s the ego that’s the
part of you that says Who I am is what I
have and what I do and what I’ve
accomplished and what other people think
of me and how much I own and all of
those external things Maslow said that
self actualizing people do not even see
appearances they see the unfolding of
God in everything and everyone they
encounter much like Mother Teresa
whose presence I was graced to be in in
1989 she said when she was asked the
question on KTAR radio in Phoenix by Pat
McMahon my dear friend is there anything
I can do for you mother Teresa to help
you with the work that you have come
here to do and she said no I just came
here to to support the homeless shelter
that was built here in Phoenix where I
stayed last night he said but Mother
Teresa
I could I could raise money this is a
fifty thousand watt Clear Channel
station we go all over the United States
could I just do anything for your ashram
and
she said no Pat she said stand up she
was about four foot ten herself he said
mother Teresa we could raise money she
said I’m not interested in raising money
I’m here to support the homeless shelter
he said isn’t there anything anything
anything that I can do and she said
there is one thing that you can do for
me she said tomorrow morning get up at 4
a.m. and walk out onto the streets of
Phoenix and find someone who’s living
there who believes that he’s alone and
you convinced him that he’s not it makes
me cry
she said everyday I see Jesus Christ
in all of his distressing disguises this
is what Peter do not talked about was
something called divine love he said
there are three kinds of love there’s
human love and human love is a love that
changes and it’s a love that varies and
we all know that kind of love I love you
but he forgot my birthday not so much I
love you so much last night but today he
didn’t brush your teeth you don’t smell
so good whatever I love you it changes
in it varies and then he said there’s
what he called a spiritual love and a
spiritual love is the love that never
changes but it varies it’s the love I
have for all eight of my children and
and for all of humanity now as well I
try to my aspiration no matter what they
do or how they may disappoint you or
whatever things that they may have done
that that you find anathema or difficult
to handle you still love them you still
love them it’s a love that never changes
even the even the parents of the people
who commit these heinous crimes they
still have love for their children
it varies yes it varies it varies even
with our own children but it never
changes but then there’s the glove that
he calls divine love and divine love is
that never changes and it never varies
it’s the love that your source of being
has for you that invisible intelligence
God source divine mind thou Krishna
Allah Buddha call it what you want the
opening line of the Taoist says the
doubt that can be named is not the doubt
this is the kind of love that I aspire
to to teach where nothing but love comes
out the telling moment of my life
occurred on the 30th of August 1974 when
I went to my father’s grave after
finding out he had been dead for ten
years and I went there with a different
intention of what I was gonna do on his
grave I was so filled with rage and
anger and hatred toward this man but
rather than do what I had gone there to
do something some invisible divine
organising intelligence that moves the
planets and grows your fingernails and
beats your heart that commander in the
command center to which you are always
connected your I am presence if you will
called me back to his grave after I
cursed him for two hours on that Friday
and I stood there and I said from this
moment on I send you love Who am I Who
am I to judge you you did what you knew
how to do given the conditions of your
life and when I left that gravesite I
alcohol hasn’t touched my lips since
that day I walked away from it I got
myself into the best shape of my life I
began running in relationships began to
change the right people the right woman
came into my life my children began to
appear because when you advanced
confidently in the direction of your own
dreams and endeavor to live the life
which you have imagined you will meet
with a success unexpected in common
hours everything about my life changed
my writing took on a whole different
flavor before I was stuck I checked into
a motel room the spindrift motel and a
1a in Fort Lauderdale Florida and I
wrote a book that today has over a
hundred million copies in print in 47
languages called your erroneous owns it
came because the rage was gone Mark
Twain once said that forgiveness is the
fragrance
let the violets sheds on the heel that
has crusted that’s divine love it’s the
love that Hafiz spoke about even after
all this time the Sun never says to the
earth
you owe me just think what a love like
that can do
it lights up the whole world if we can
get the hatred out I brought a poem I
just did a new public television special
and I closed it with this we built a
tree house
it’ll be airing the beginning and in in
June and I speak about divine love and I
do a seminar every year in Maui you’re
welcome to come well you’re almost
welcome it’s almost sold out but I do it
with this year I’m doing it with Anita
Moorjani myself and immaculee Ilibagiza
two brilliant Rwandan woman who survived
the Holocaust of 1994 through her faith
in God Saints that I’m gonna be
presenting divine love two days in my in
January but this is one of the favorite
poems it gives me what my kids often
call the tinglies that goose floods
loose did I sink loose slight loose only
as goose goose flesh
it’s called in a treehouse by Hafiz and
we built this beautiful treehouse and as
you’ll just you’ll love it it’s in
you’ll see it on PBS light said Hafiz
well someday split you open even if your
life is now a cage for a divine seed the
crown of Destiny is hidden and sown on
an ancient fertile plain that you hold
the title to this is where you came from
this is what I spoke about with TS Eliot
when I first came out this whole idea
that there is an intelligence that you
will come to know listen for a divine
seed the crown of destiny is a hidden
and sown on an ancient fertile plain
that you hold the title to this is your
destiny love will surely bust you wide
open into an unfettered blooming new
galaxy even if your mind is now a
spoiled mule a life-giving radiance will
come the friends gratuity will come
oh look again within yourself for I know
you were once the elegant host to all
the marvels and creation from a sacred
crevice in your body a bow rises each
night and shoots your soul into God
behold the beautiful drunk singing one
from the lunar vantage point of love he
is conducting the affairs of the whole
universe while throwing wild parties in
a tree house on a limb in your heart
Cuffy’s poetry so beautiful
when you take that last breath your body
my dear friend Ram Dass that mark was
speaking to me about before who lives
with me on Maui when he celebrated his
80th birthday we were all asked to just
say something special to him and he’s
one of my dearest and closest friends
who wrote be here now and was
instrumental and one of those turning
points that I wrote about it I can see
clearly now
and I gave him a line from William
Butler Yeats the great Irish poet
I said robbed us this is what Yeats said
about an old man he said an aged man is
but a paltry thing a tattered coat upon
a stick
unless soul pops its hands and sings and
louder sings for every chatter in its
mortal dressed we’re all just tattered
coats on a stick unless we find our soul
that part of us that doesn’t want to be
fenced in the great Patanjali 2,300
years ago when you are inspired by some
great purpose some extraordinary project
all of your thoughts break their bonds
your mind transcends limitations your
consciousness expands in every direction
and you find yourself in a new and a
great and a wonderful world and then he
said dormant forces that is forces that
you thought were dead and inaccessible
to you dormant forces faculties and
talents come alive and you discover
yourself to be a greater person by far
than you ever dreamed yourself to be you
discover yourself
to be God to be a piece of God that
intelligence that is in all of its
creations said Rumi you who seek God
apart apart that what you seek
thou art thou art if you want to seek
the beloved’s face polish the mirror and
gaze into that space because in every
moment of your life
ladies and gentlemen I promise you you
have this choice
you can either be a host to God or a
hostage to your ego it’s your call
thank you and God bless you thank you
thank you
thank you
thank you thank you
namaste thank you very much thank you so
much wine I don’t even know where to
start I’m worried I’m I’m the stubborn
mule of your last poem so so this
session is all about all of these folks
who are whose lives are filled with
hectic everything thinking about their
personal health how do you define
personal health the question is just
whether or not you’re aligned with your
source of being we all have one free
will and our free will is the choice to
be connected to that from which we
originate it or disconnect from it and
the way to stay disconnected to it is
not to identify with your body and
itself it came into this world at the
moment it was supposed to and it will
leave and you have choices Melville said
that God’s one and only voice is silence
and Blaise Pascal the great scientist
and philosopher said that all of man’s
troubles stem from his inability to sit
quietly in a room alone learn to connect
to God who’s one and only voice is
silence I do it every morning for two
hours and it’s how I live you’ll find peace there that’s your inner Tahiti
a an announcement to my family I told
them that I had written 41 books many of
them I have been blessed to have appear
on their seller lists all around the
world and then I was not going to do
that anymore I had completed that part
of my life and I had some other things
that I wanted to do and I wanted to just
sort of take it easy now I’m 72 years
old and I don’t want to have that that
pressure to face those empty pages over
and over and over again as I’ve been
doing since I was in my 30s that was
June the 26th and June the 27th I woke
up and I began writing and I wrote and I
wrote and I wrote and I wrote for the
next five months and I couldn’t stop
because there is something inside of me
that is a calling there is something
moving the pieces around that is bigger
than Who I am and what this ego of mine
says and it’s getting in touch with that
that that inner drive that part of us
that says this is what you’re here for
this is what you came into this world to
be I was being interviewed by the New
York Times about a decade or so ago and
there was also a gentleman there who’s a
very famous writer his name was Arthur
Miller perhaps the most American famous
American playwright of the of the 20th
century
you’ve all read Death of a Salesman and
the crucible and so many others and
Arthur Miller was 91 years old at the
time and he was asked the question are
you working on another play and I’ll
never forget his answer because it it
inspired me in many ways he said I don’t
know but I probably am but I probably am
that there is something that calls all
of us here and I just want to speak a
little bit about that in the time that I
have here this morning there was I have
said that if there is I wrote these
words out last night if there is
intelligence behind life and there is
every reason to believe that there is or
that there may be and think about that
for a moment if there’s intelligence
behind life and all of science points to
the fact that there is some kind of an
intelligence behind life behind this
body that you were hearing about in the
last hour that there’s something
mystical if you will and I brought with
me just a quote from the man who was the
who won the Nobel Prize for Physics he
was Einstein’s greatest teacher he was
considered the father of modern quantum
physics his name was max planck and at
on receiving the Nobel Prize for Physics
this is what he said he said as a man
who has devoted his whole life to the
most clear-headed science
to the study of matter I can tell you as
the result of all of my research about
atoms this much that there is no matter
as such that all matter originates and
exists only by virtue of a force which
brings the particles of an atom to
vibration and holds this minut solar
system of the atom together we must as
scientists all assume that behind this
force is the existence of a conscious
and intelligent mind this mind is the
matrix of all matter this divine
intelligence that is behind behind
everything that is working in this body
that we are so consumed with and so
concerned about and how to keep it
healthy that there is something beyond
that one of my favorite poets once
observed he said what did what if you
slept and what if in your sleep you
dreamed and what if in your dream you
went to heaven and there picked a
strange and wonderful flower and what if
when you awoke you held that flower in
Samuel Taylor Coleridge who wrote The
Rime of the Ancient Mariner that there
and I wonder when I asked that question
I’ve done it on a couple of my public
television specials to ask that question
do you really believe that such a thing
as possible because as I wrote out last
night I said if there is intelligence
behind life and there is every reason to
believe that there is then all of that
intelligence must be innate in each
creation of that intelligence this
universal mind or this whatever you want
to call it divine mind the great Dao I
wrote a book eight years ago called
change your thoughts change your life
which was based on on the ancient
teachings of of the doubter chained by a
man named Lao Tzu
who wrote it 2,500 years ago five
hundred years before the birth of Christ
and in that great tome some call it the
wisest book ever written was 81 verses
and I decided to write an essay and each
of those 81 verses and how to apply it
in today’s life he said the great Tao
God sold this matrix behind all of life
he said it does nothing and yet it
leaves nothing undone he said each and
every one of you are doing nothing
you’re all just being done there is
something moving the checkers around in
this checkerboard that we call our life
that Arthur Miller was referring to when
he said I don’t know but I probably am
and that I said when I said to my
children I’m through writing books not
only have I written an entirely new book
which was a hundred and forty-four
thousand words that I couldn’t stop
writing I wrote it all by hand every
word of it it’s why I’m sitting on this
chair because my neck went crazy sitting
there hour after hour writing about all
the significant quantum moments that
have appeared in my life that turned the
direction of my life from where it was
headed into a right turn and sometimes
into an about-face and I called this
book I can see clearly now I can see
clearly that the the things that were
taking place when I really thought that
I knew what what I was doing and
something else was in charge of the
whole process one of the famous
observations of one of our great
humorist Mark Twain he said the thing
that gets you into trouble
isn’t what you don’t know it’s what you
know for sure that just ain’t so
and there’s so much of what we know for
sure that just ain’t so just like what I
knew for sure that I wasn’t going to be
writing not only have I written another
entire book and looked at all of these
significant factors and features that
were really at play moving me about but
I’ve written another book on top of that
that I’m about three-quarters of the way
through based upon how to apply the
bhagavad-gita the great song of the Lord
that Gandhi based his life on and how we
can apply it each and every day of our
life so there’s a wonderful poem I want
to share with you that reflects what
Mark Twain was saying that it’s what you
know for sure that just ain’t so it’s
called the cookie thief it was written
by Valerie Cox a woman was waiting at an
airport one night with several long
hours before her flight she hunted for a
book in the airport shops and bought a
bag of cookies and found a place to drop
she was engrossed in her book what
happened to see that the man beside her
as bold as could be grabbed a cookie or
two from the bag between which she tried
to ignore to avoid a scene so she
munched the cookies and watched the
clock as this gutsy cookie thief
diminished her stock she was getting
more irritated as the minutes ticked by
thinking if I wasn’t so nice I’d blacken
his eye with each cookie she took he
took one too and when only one was left
she wondered what he’d to and with a
smile on his face and a nervous laugh he
took the last cookie and broke it in
half he offered her half as he ate the
other and she snatches from him and
thought oh brother
this guy has some nerve and he’s also
rude why he didn’t even show any
gratitude she had never she had never
known when she had been still galled and
she sighed with relief when her flight
was called
she gathered her belongings and headed
to the gate refusing to look back at the
thieving ingrate she boarded the planes
she sank in her seat then she sought her
book which was almost complete as she
reached in her baggage she gasped with
surprise there was her bag of cookies in
front of her eyes if mine are here she
moaned with despair then the others were
his and he tried to share too late to
apologize she realized with grief that
she was the rude one the ingrate
the thief no beautiful
[Music]
as I went through the significant
moments and the significant things in my
life that have brought me to this place
in my life I I realized that I’ve been
in some kind of ascended master training
since the time that I was born that if
every single one of us come from this
divine intelligence which all of the
quantum physicists tell us do that
particles themselves do not create
particles that everything comes from
energy this great program all done
through Salesforce who with your CEO who
I’m sitting next to here this morning
this was an idea this was the thought
everything William Blake’s that
everything that now exists was once a
thought which means that everything that
is ever going to exist must also be a
thought and the greatest gift that we’ve
been given is this great gift of our
imagination and if we can’t put
something into our imagination and be
able to create it then it isn’t going to
be able to be become hardened into an
objective reality we’re now over a
hundred thousand people sign up for such
a conference as you’re attending today
it all starts with an idea I just
watched the film jobs night before last
and I can I can really relate even
though I think he might have missed out
a bit on the kindness factor but I can
relate to this notion that when you have
a dharma when you have something that
you came here to do when there’s a
calling that you have when there’s an
excitement so that takes place within
you and when you can’t let go of that
excitement so that’s really God talking
to you that it’s it’s the invisible part
of you it’s the soul that says the soul
of ours this this invisible nasteria
round I mean we can all we can all find
that command center all the brain
surgeons can go in and they can look and
they can say this is the command center
where this causes this thing to happen
this causes that thing to happen if I
say I’m gonna wiggle my finger you know
and you think well and then I have a
thought and then that thought gets
transferred in a trillion cells start
working and my finger Wiggles from a
thought and we can find the command
center we can cut it off and we can do
things inside the brain but no one no
one has never been able to find the
commander in the command center that
says I think I’m gonna wiggle my finger
I think I’m gonna move my left foot I
think I’m going to write a book I think
I’m going to create something that place
of being aligned Herman Melville writing
and Moby Dick this really relates to me
because I live on an island as does Mark
I live on Maui it’s on the Big Island
and I’ll be there tomorrow morning in
the ocean Melville said this in Moby
Dick for as this appalling ocean
surrounds the verdant land
so in the soul of man lies one insular
Tahiti full of peace and joy but
encompassed by all of the horrors of the
when I get to the time when I leave this
body I will never say that I lived the
half live life I understand what Steve
Jobs was saying when he would feel
something so deeply inside would be
surrounded by people who couldn’t share
his vision that there’s something inside
each and every one of us that is that
drives us and I was trained earliest to
be a Jungian analyst by Carl Jung
Carl Jung once observed he said he was
talking about this this idea that was in
each and every one of us there is this
purpose and he said at the same moment
at the same moment that you are a
protagonist in your own life and you’re
making choices at the very same moment
you’re also the spear carrier or the
extra in a much larger drama and he
concluded that and I’ve never forgotten
this he said all of you are doomed to
make choices
it sounds like such a paradox if you’re
doomed how can you be making a choice so
let me bring it into looking first at
your own body and you heard the doctor
speaking before about about your bodies
and so much of what he was saying I
aligned with and relates to our bodies
are what we are what we were given to
live out this incarnation this time on
this planet I happened to be given a
male body that’s about 6 foot 2 and it
has a hair that used to grow on its head
and now grows in its ears and all of
these things there’s like this is this
is what I was doomed to I mean I’m not
going to be in a female body I’m not
gonna be in a body that has brown eyes
when I have blue eyes and so on so in a
sense you are given this body but you
also have choices to make and the
choices that you make within this sense
of being doomed which is what he meant
when he said you’re a protagonist in
your own life but you’re also a spear
carrier in a much larger drama that
there is something bigger moving all of
these pieces around and this thing that
is bigger that’s moving the pieces
around is something that you have to
align with and you can align with it in
your body by treating it well by feeding
it the applause line real food by
exercising by watching how you relate to
this body you can make a huge difference
but you’re still in this context of
being doomed to make choices now look at
the rest of your life all of the things
that brought you to this place to this
day right here in your life and most of
us have come into this into this place
well we don’t recognize this fundamental
truth that within each and every one of
us there is this this capacity that I
have in
one of my most recent books called
wishes fulfilled I call it my I am
discourses that word I am see if you
want to be able to change something
about yourself or to align yourself with
this divine mission in which you say yes
I have been doomed to do all of these
things but there are choices that I can
make so that you know Rumi said that at
the moment you are born a ladder is
placed before you to help you to escape
from this world so here’s this ladder
this metaphorical ladder that is placed
before us and there are rungs on this
ladder until you reach the top the top
of this ladder I’d call it divine love
it’s it’s what TS Eliot spoke about I
used a lot of poetry because I write a
lot of poetry and read a lot of poetry
and believe that poets can speak to us
in languages that is very different than
what scientists often speak TS Eliot
said that we shall not cease from
exploration but at the end of all of our
exploring will be to return to the place
from which we originated and to know it
before the first time now he was
speaking about that I believe I’m not I
do not think that we have to leave our
bodies in order to understand this
divine intelligence from which we
originate it I had a wonderful meeting
back in the night early 1970s late 1970s
with Buckminster Fuller his great
scientist great man we were speaking
together at a conference in Denver
Colorado and after the conference he
said he said all of us are born geniuses
but life itself seems to de genius us we
are all pieces of God
if we came from a divine intelligence
and all of that intelligence must be in
all of its creations then all of it must
be in us in each and every one of us
that all of us have these enormous
capacities these powers to be able to to
heal ourselves and to heal others to
manifest what it is that we want to
place our attention on to be able to
create massive changes in our world to
bring peace to a place where there’s so
much violence and hatred the Dalai Lama
once said that if we could take every
child on this planet at the age of five
and teach them to meditate for one hour
a week we could eliminate all violence
that exists on our planet in one
generation
imagine one hour a week as a child
just thinking about compassion we have
so much violence in our world because we
have violence in our heart the violence
that we end up have in our heart is
because we have left our source of being
and we fill ourselves with with rage and
beliefs about who we are but the truth
is that most of us can’t answer the
simple question about who we are I had a
great teacher in India
his name was mr. Gaddafi Maharaj my
friend Deepak Chopra who will be
speaking here soon with me introduced
him to me and I read his great work I am
that and he was asked the question what
is real master what is real and his
response was that is real which never
changes everything else is illusion so
how does this apply to each and every
one of us what is there about you that
has never changed I have a picture of my
self when I was 21 years old on the wall
at home and that was 50 years ago
there’s not one cell of that body that
21 year old body that’s left here on
this planet it’s all gone every cell and
yet I still persist here I am in this
body and I sit here now in this 73 year
old body believing that this is me but
an hour from now this body that I’m
sitting in here will be a different body
than the one I walked up onto the stage
with that everything in this physical
domain is in a constant state of change
except for that invisible divine spark
the part of us the part of us that is
real and that part of us has a knowing
about who we are and what we came here
Emily Dickinson I just watched the Julie
Harris just passed away about two months
ago and they announced that on the on TV
and I was watching and she was 87 years
old and she portrayed Emily Dickinson in
a film called the belle of Amherst
she was from Amherst Massachusetts born
in 1830 and so I ordered it I had my
children order this film for me and they
sent a copy of it to me and it said it’s
a two-act play and it was Julie Harris
just being Emily Dickinson this recluse
have a woman who wrote so much beautiful
poetry and she once said and when it was
over I watched the thing by myself my
writing space in my sacred place and as
I watched it I was I stood up
when the audience stood up and I gave
her a standing ovation for as long as
the audience but I could not stop myself
it was so brilliant and so beautiful
something I encourage you to do Julie
Harris was just magnificent I couldn’t
imagine being on stage and being so
brilliant for such an extended period of
he kindly stopped for me the carriage
this quiet dust she would say holding up
a handful of dust this quiet dust was
was laughter and ability and sighing and
frocks and curls this passive place a
summers nimble mansion were bloom and
bees fulfills their oriental circuit
then ceased like these my beautiful
mother passed away last July 22nd and
two days later after she was cremated
she was 96 years old they gave us an urn
with her ashes in this urn and I held
this urn up and I look at it and I say
surely surely this is not my mother not
this handful of dust surely all of you
are not what your ego has convinced you
that you are all of my accomplishments
[Music]
all of my possessions my reputation how
I’m regarded by others all that I own
all that I’ve created this great company
surely you’re not these things because
they’re not real they’re not real in the
sense that they’re always changing just
as your body is always changing surely
that’s not you and coming into contact
with who you are is it’s the lesson that
I learned in writing I can see clearly
now I lived in an orphanage for the
first 10 years of my life my father
walked out on his family my mother had
three boys in four years by the time she
was 22 and I was born in 1940 and my
my father just decided that he couldn’t
handle this he was an alcoholic he spent
some time in prison there was the thief
he was by all accounts the most evil of
people the kind of man that I find
difficult I did find difficult to have
any love for who just walk away from his
family responsibilities my mother was
able when I was 10 by 1949 to remarry my
father in another body another alcoholic
abusive man that I lived with for five
years because life gives exams I guess
and if you don’t pass them like Algebra
II you take it over until you get it and
that’s what she did and and so I was
reunited with my family my middle
brother David and I were together
through all of the foster homes and all
of the orphanages that we lived in all
of the random abuse and craziness that
went on in those years and we were
finally reunited and in in the fourth
grade at Arthur elementary school on the
east side of Detroit
I had a teacher her name was mrs. angle
and every day she would read to us and
she would read to us from 10 minutes to
3 until 3:15 provided that the class was
good meaning that they weren’t noisy and
rowdy and that we had to keep quiet in
order to listen to her read this
particular book that she read which was
a turning point in my life at the age of
it’s why I know that there’s something
moving the pieces around in every single
one of our lives now what we have to do
is we have to find our excitement and
what it is that that makes us what makes
our soul feel good and then stay with
that independent of what others might
say so I became the enforcer in the
fourth grade at our elementary school
because when anybody would start to talk
I would walk over to them or I would get
them and tell him that they we’re not
gonna get to hear the story and nobody
really was that interested in hearing
the story except me I was just
enthralled by this story and the story
was The Secret Garden it was written in
1909 and it was the story of a little
orphan girl only I was on the Lorin boy
who had just been reunited with his
family just met my oldest brother didn’t
even know him before my brother Jim and
I was finally living in a family and had
but what I learned in reading The Secret
Garden listening to the secret garden is
that there is a secret garden inside
each and every one of us and that door
opens inward and there is a place within
each and every one of us where we can
see we can see God at work we can see
God within ourselves we can know that we
are pieces of God we are sparks of God
we must be like what we came from we
came from this intelligence that Max
Planck spoke about the matrix of all
matter and all of its creations must
contain all of its intelligence so that
it’s in all of us the ability to have
that that secret place that that that
inner Tahiti full of peace and joy there
was a little boy in that book named
Dickon who who always looked at the
positive side of everything he could
just never talk about death and he would
never talk about sickness he never
talked about what was wrong
because he said what you talk about you
become what you think about becomes your
reality I was 10 years old it’s almost
as if I had to have a conversation with
God before I got here and my count
because I often I told Serena my
daughter many times you know when if you
don’t like the way I’m parenting because
she would always give me little lectures
about how I was doing it wrong as she
was growing up as a teenager and I say
if you don’t like the kind of father
that I am then you should be very
careful and recognize that it isn’t my
fault I’m just doing what I know how to
do and you picked me to be your father
and if you didn’t like the kind of
father that I am you shouldn’t have
picked me you should have picked someone
else and she looked at me and said you
mean to tell me that I picked you before
I came in I said exactly and it’s an
infinite universe and you had to get
here and you needed someone and I was
the one you needed and mom was the one
you needed and so you’re telling me that
I chose you I actually chose you I said
yes you did and you should be very
careful when you make decisions like
that and her great line to me was I must
and I feel that as if I had a
conversation with God before I came into
this world and God said to me what is it
that you would like to do while you’re
here this time around and I said I’d
like to teach self-reliance that’s all
I’ve done since I’ve been here I’ve
written 41 books on this subject of
relying upon yourself and trusting in
yourself and going within as my
evolution has taken place my writing has
taken place I’ve written from my heart
and God said then we better get you a
little ass into an orphanage because
when you’re in there you will learn to
rely upon yourself because there’s not
gonna be any barrels there to do it for
you and I look at the first 10 years of
my life and taking care of my brother
David who was 16 months older much
smaller
he was very sickly and I had to struggle
to help him and to keep bullies away
from him and so on I can look at those
10 years of my life as the early
training ground my stepfather was a
Roman Catholic and on Tuesday nights in
1953 when I was 13 years of age there
was a very famous comedian American
comedian his name was Milton Berle and
they had the Milton Berle show sponsored
by Texaco uncle Miltie some of you may
remember but opposite the Milton Berle
show on Tuesday nights was another show
there were only three channels in those
days we had a little black and right
Admiral television set and sit around
and look at this and there was this man
who would lecture on Tuesday nights
opposite Milton Berle his name was
Bishop Fulton sheen and my uncle my
stepfather bill Drury loved to watch
Bishop Sheen and I used to come in I was
13 years of age and I would watch Milton
Berle only on the commercials because
Bishop Sheen fascinated me so
that I would actually bring a notepad
and I was taking notes on what he would
say and the name of his show does
anybody remember the name of his show
back in 1953 it was called life is worth
living in the 41 books that I’ve written
the subtitle on every one of them could
have been life is worth living there is
something deep within each and every one
of us that allows us to know that life
is worth living and that we can make a
difference in this world and whatever it
is that creates that excitement within
us is really our connection to God when
Muktananda the great indian saint would
have people come to his ashram and as
they would enter the ashram he would ask
them the question do you know the
difference between good and God and if
people would say no they didn’t know he
would take his hand and he would go like
this and make a little zero they say
there’s zero difference between good and
God so whatever it is that makes you
feel good is really God if it’s your
soul that makes you feel good and if it
doesn’t inhibit anybody else from being
able to feel good then that’s your
Dharma and you have to go with your
excitement I suspect that this company
wouldn’t exist if there wasn’t somebody
that had an idea inside of them that
made them feel good about how can we
help to transform people’s businesses so
that they can live
more successful and happy lives but the
greatest success definition that I’ve
ever heard
happened when I was reading when I was
being suspended from high school for
speaking up about some things that they
didn’t take nicely to in high school I
had to fill out some forms about my
mother about my father’s name my
mother’s name and it was always very
confusing I never knew what to do with
that so I just wrote that’s my business
and instead of them asking me why I
would take such a stance they sent me to
the office I had to sit on the I had to
sit on the bench and wait for mr. wolf
the principal to pass his judgment and
then he would make my mother come and
while I was sitting there waiting three
days they had a little book there of
written by Henry David Thoreau called
Walden Pond but at the back of that book
was an essay on the necessity of civil
and I figured if they put that book
there that must be there for a reason
they must want us to people like me to
read it and so I when I had my meeting
with mr. wolf and my mother had to come
from work and take three buses to get
there and I explained why I had said
what I said and that that we have to
stand up against these silly things this
wasn’t the first time I was there in
that office but Thoreau said this in
that essay on the necessity on the
necessity of civil disobedience that is
when things are out there that you don’t
agree with that you have to go within
and and find something inside of you
that that says you have to stand up for
it I know when my own mother was born in
1916
women couldn’t even vote in the United
States until she was four years of age
and that didn’t happen because people
obeyed the rules that happened because
people took the role of civil
disobedience and said there’s something
inside me that says this is wrong and
I’m willing to I’m willing to fight for
tomorrow is the anniversary of of a day
that changed my life forever November
the 22nd 1963 I was a marcher during the
civil rights days I was in the United
States Navy when it was segregated I
walked into a coffee shop in Havre de
Grace Maryland with my friend ray Dudley
from Chicago who was african-american
and they refused to serve either one of
us because he was black and in the
uniform of the United States Navy that
wasn’t very long ago
I was outraged and horrified by stets
conduct and the man who said we’re gonna
change that put hope in my heart and the
day that he the day that he died I was
at Wayne State University in Detroit
driving up crane Street it’s on my
Facebook page today I wrote a whole
thing about it it’s the chapter and I
can see clearly now because I decided
that I wanted to be someone who could
make a difference in this world
who could end that kind of hatred and
horror shows that was so present back
there in the 60s and 70s the United
States Navy was segregated when I was in
it and it was an outrage to my soul and
I just like to say a little prayer I
guess for the 50th anniversary of this
man who made me believe that one person
can make a difference he put hope in my
in my heart and in my soul
and Thoros definition of success was
this he said if you advance confidently
in the direction of your own dreams an
endeavor to live the life which you have
imagined you will meet with a success
unexpected in common hours that’s what
my life is meant about it’s been
dedicated to this idea of advancing
confidently in the direction of my own
dreams and endeavoring to live this life
which which I have imagined and the key
word there is dreamed and imagined your
imagination is your greatest gift
anything that you can place into your
imagination can harden into a reality if
you follow very specific principles I
outlined them in detail in which is
fulfilled if you begin to assume the
feeling of a wish fulfilled if you begin
to know within your heart that what it
is that you came here to be and came
here to do I was so blessed as a young
doctoral student to have as a mentor a
man many of you read when you were in
college
he’s most famous for his hierarchy of
needs at the top of this pyramid he said
there is something inherent in each and
every one of us the base is just our
needs to take care of our bodies to feed
them well to give them enough rest to do
all of these kinds of things and then
our needs to belong and our needs to fit
in and our needs to be loved these are
all part of this hierarchy of who we are
as human beings but at the very top is
this apex this little corner of the
pyramid
it’s called self-actualization to
actualize your life in the way that you
came here to actualize it and Maslow
said that the there are certain people
who come into this world who live from a
self actualized perspective and there’s
certain things about them there’s
certain qualities that they possess
there’s a certain way that they go about
their life and that they’re very seldom
understood I thought about that a lot
the other night as I was watching jobs I
think about it as I was sitting next to
your CEO mark that and I think about it
in terms of my own life because so many
people are willing to come into your
life and tell you what your Dharma ought
to be that you should be doing this that
you should live that way that when you
place your thoughts on what other people
want for you or when you put your
thoughts so much on what you don’t want
or what’s missing or what you can’t have
and self-actualized people don’t think
like that the day that I became
acquainted with dr. Abraham Maslow was
because the principal in the school
where I was the school counselor got the
flu and she changed the whole course of
my life that day when she got the flu
because because she got the flu and was
sick I had to address the entire parents
group of the schools that I was teaching
at in Michigan mercy High School and
that the day after Labor Day
in 1966 I addressed the student and
their and their parents and what I had a
vision for what the school year was
going to look like I was 26 years old I
just received my master’s degree and was
ready to peruse all of the different
ways of studying for a doctoral degree I
was gonna study Jungian analyst I was
gonna study skin area and approach to
psychology I was I had all of these
ideas on what I wanted to do and a girl
named Nancy Armstrong walked into my
office now these are quantum moments
Maslow called them peak experiences she
walked into my office and I looked back
at this as I wrote I can see clearly now
and I think about this so profoundly it
was like she handed me a book it was a
compendium of great contributors Yates
and and Freud and I mean every every
scholastic area of inquiry was in there
there was about maybe 80 or 90 essays in
there and she said my mom heard you
speak last night and she was so taken by
what you said that she got this book
because he’s a member of something
called The Book of the Month Club and
the Book of the Month Club gives a a
bonus to people for buying so many books
and they gave her this and she’s never
gonna read it but she thought because of
what you said last night you would like
it and I read this collection of
writings and I looked at it and I
thought this is interesting and that
afternoon I was to go down and file my
plan of work for my ph.d program and
rather than drive down and take that
face the traffic going into downtown
right I was at the University of
Michigan and Wayne State University I i
sat and read an essay called the hole
man by Abraham Maslow and Maslow was the
first person that had ever seen in the
field of psychology who spoke about we
should not be assessing who human beings
are and what they’re capable of doing
based upon what’s missing or what’s
wrong or what they can’t do or their
weaknesses
we shouldn’t study neurology or
neurological disorders we shouldn’t
study how psychotic people are or how
neurotic they are we should look at the
greatest achievers who’ve ever walked
among us know that they all came from
the same intelligence and recognized and
helped people to find that within
themselves and as I read this essay I
was so taken by it and he talked about
the qualities or the characteristics of
what he called self actualizing people
and he said the number one quality and
characteristic of these people who live
at the apex of what he called
self-actualization who are way beyond
just taking care of their biological
needs who are way our bond beyond their
social needs who are way beyond needing
to be loved and so on these are people
who came here with a purpose these are
people who have a Dharma these are
people who won’t let anyone else
determine what it is they’re going to be
he said they’re number one quality of
these people is that they are
independent of the good opinion of other
people they listen to an inner voice
that only they can hear they have a soul
inside of them their soul I wrote this
out the other night about the soul the
ideal of the soul this inner part of you
that says I think I’m gonna the
commander in the command center that’s
in each and every one of you that is
processing the words that are coming out
of my mouth not this body that’s sitting
there it’s going to change and it’s
going to be something different every
minute
it’s going to change and be something
different I’m talking to your soul I’m
talking to the invisible naswinger the
ideal of the soul the thing that it aims
for is neither knowledge nor light nor
happiness the ideal of the soul the idea
of you’re in earnest who you are not
this body you’re in but who you are the
observer too
that body is space its immensity why
because it’s infinite and why is it
infinite because it’s not finite
it’s either finite or it’s in finite
finite means it begins someplace and it
stops someplace where do your thoughts
stop
where does your soul stop it doesn’t so
therefore anything that’s inside of you
that is infinite has got to expand it
has to expand it needs to keep growing
and any time you try to put it into a
box or compartmentalize it or tell it
what it ought to be you know all of you
I don’t know all of you who are parents
but you’ve all heard your kids at one
time or another say you’re not the boss
of me you can’t tell me what to do
you’ve all heard this right you all set
it yourselves when I was a kid I was
called I was called a scurvy elephant
because when I came home from school I
asked mrs. scarf the lady that I was
living with at the time
what’s the scurvy elephant she said
where did you hear that she said I heard
I said I heard mrs. Poole telling the
principal that Wayne Dyer is in her
classroom and that he’s a scurvy
elephant she got on the phone she called
the principal’s he said that’s Wayne he
never gets anything right he gets
everything mixed up
she didn’t say he was a scurvy elephant
in her classroom she said he was a
disturbing element in her classroom your
soul is a scurvy elephant that inner
part of you that wants to expand it has
the theme song ready it was sung by Bing
Crosby it was sung by Roy Rogers Oh give
me land lots of land and the starry
skies above oh let me ride through the
wide open spaces that I love dogs
fence me in don’t put a fence around me
don’t put me into a box don’t tell me
how my life ought to be
I came here with a purpose I came here
with something that I have to do that’s
your soul speaking and a person like
Steve Jobs doesn’t doesn’t take kindly
to it the latter that I spoke about that
Rumi places before us at the beginning
of our lives to help us to escape from
this world helps us to deal with this
whole idea that we are doomed to make
choices yes
our physical body is what it is but we
can make choices about it
yes our spiritual body our purpose our
Dharma what we’re here for is also
doomed but we make choices what are the
choices you came here to be a great
artist I did a whole film on this is
called the shift and this whole idea is
that you you came here to be a great
artist do you pick up a paintbrush do
you do what van Gogh did you just go out
there and and and paint because it’s in
your soul because the second
characteristic of self actualizing
people according to Maslow is that they
are detached from outcome they don’t do
what they do because of what result is
going to come to them because of how
much money they’re gonna make how much
prestige they’re gonna get how big their
business is gonna grow that is not what
motivates self actualized people what
motivates self actualizing people is
this is my calling
I found myself reading the bhagavad-gita
for the third time in the last three
months
I just keep reading it over not just
like when I did the Dow eight years ago
when I turned 65 and couldn’t stop it
and the teachers showed up and the
Buddhist proverb is that when the
student is ready the teachers will
appear it’s not whether there’s teachers
there there’s teachers everywhere there
everything is the teaching the question
isn’t whether the teachers are there the
question is how willing are you to pay
attention
how willing are you to listen to that
inner voice that no one else can hear
that little scurvy elephant in there
that says you’re not the boss of me
you can’t tell me what I’m here for
you have to it takes a kind of
fearlessness because fear is such a I’m
the present force in our lives it’s you
hear the doctor talking about cancer so
much of it I just had a person on my
last public television special named
Anita Moorjani who wrote a book called
dying to be me an amazing book an
amazing woman who had end-stage cancer
she was down 282 pounds no one who would
ever had that level of cancer had ever
even survived she had hours to live they
were whispering in her ear her she was
flatline practically and she from the
other realm from the other vision was
told by her father who had passed 10
years before you can go back you have
something to teach and she didn’t want
to now remember what Mark Twain said and
remember the cookie thief it’s not what
you don’t know that gets you into
trouble it’s what you know for sure
that just ain’t so
my philosophy has always been have a
mind that’s open to everything and
attached to nothing open to everything
all things are possible jesus said it so
beautifully in the New Testament I don’t
have to say it with God with your
higher-self with this place of divine
love all things are possible and when
you have this knowing within this is
what I’m here for this is the this is a
song I came here to play independence of
the good opinion of other people
detachment from outcome I do what I do
because of the passion I feel I am NOT
here because of what you paid me to be
here for I am NOT here because of any
need that I have to sell another book I
am NOT here for anything external to
myself I am here because I have a
passion within me the same passion that
I felt 50 years ago tomorrow when the
President of the United States the man
that I believed could change what
happened to ray Dudley and myself and
have her to grace Maryland back there in
1961 that we can when we get something
the great Peter dune off a great
bulgarian scholar and spiritual master
who will Albert Einstein said of Peter
do now if he said the whole world bow
before me and I bow before Peter do know
Peter do not in 1944 the year that he
died when the country of Bulgaria was
overrun by the Nazis was the person
responsible for not one Jew being sent
to the concentration camps because he
contacted the Czar and was able to keep
them from sending the people that were
on the trains it was a spiritual knowing
this man wrote over 250 books on
something called divine love a kind of
love that I aspire to
a kind of love that is that is beyond
the ego the ego is this part of us that
has edged God out eg oh it’s edged got
out rabindranath tagore the great indian
poet said speaking of the ego i went out
alone on my way to my tryst but who is
this me in the dark i step aside to
avoid his presence but i escaped him not
he makes the dust rise from the earth
with his swagger he adds his loud voice
to every word I utter he is my own
little self my lord he knows no shame
but I I am ashamed to come to thy door
in his company that’s the ego that’s the
part of you that says Who I am is what I
have and what I do and what I’ve
accomplished and what other people think
of me and how much I own and all of
those external things Maslow said that
self actualizing people do not even see
appearances they see the unfolding of
God in everything and everyone they
encounter much like Mother Teresa
whose presence I was graced to be in in
1989 she said when she was asked the
question on KTAR radio in Phoenix by Pat
McMahon my dear friend is there anything
I can do for you mother Teresa to help
you with the work that you have come
here to do and she said no I just came
here to to support the homeless shelter
that was built here in Phoenix where I
stayed last night he said but Mother
Teresa
I could I could raise money this is a
fifty thousand watt Clear Channel
station we go all over the United States
could I just do anything for your ashram
and
she said no Pat she said stand up she
was about four foot ten herself he said
mother Teresa we could raise money she
said I’m not interested in raising money
I’m here to support the homeless shelter
he said isn’t there anything anything
anything that I can do and she said
there is one thing that you can do for
me she said tomorrow morning get up at 4
a.m. and walk out onto the streets of
Phoenix and find someone who’s living
there who believes that he’s alone and
you convinced him that he’s not it makes
me cry
she said everyday I see Jesus Christ
in all of his distressing disguises this
is what Peter do not talked about was
something called divine love he said
there are three kinds of love there’s
human love and human love is a love that
changes and it’s a love that varies and
we all know that kind of love I love you
but he forgot my birthday not so much I
love you so much last night but today he
didn’t brush your teeth you don’t smell
so good whatever I love you it changes
in it varies and then he said there’s
what he called a spiritual love and a
spiritual love is the love that never
changes but it varies it’s the love I
have for all eight of my children and
and for all of humanity now as well I
try to my aspiration no matter what they
do or how they may disappoint you or
whatever things that they may have done
that that you find anathema or difficult
to handle you still love them you still
love them it’s a love that never changes
even the even the parents of the people
who commit these heinous crimes they
still have love for their children
it varies yes it varies it varies even
with our own children but it never
changes but then there’s the glove that
he calls divine love and divine love is
that never changes and it never varies
it’s the love that your source of being
has for you that invisible intelligence
God source divine mind thou Krishna
Allah Buddha call it what you want the
opening line of the Taoist says the
doubt that can be named is not the doubt
this is the kind of love that I aspire
to to teach where nothing but love comes
out the telling moment of my life
occurred on the 30th of August 1974 when
I went to my father’s grave after
finding out he had been dead for ten
years and I went there with a different
intention of what I was gonna do on his
grave I was so filled with rage and
anger and hatred toward this man but
rather than do what I had gone there to
do something some invisible divine
organising intelligence that moves the
planets and grows your fingernails and
beats your heart that commander in the
command center to which you are always
connected your I am presence if you will
called me back to his grave after I
cursed him for two hours on that Friday
and I stood there and I said from this
moment on I send you love Who am I Who
am I to judge you you did what you knew
how to do given the conditions of your
life and when I left that gravesite I
alcohol hasn’t touched my lips since
that day I walked away from it I got
myself into the best shape of my life I
began running in relationships began to
change the right people the right woman
came into my life my children began to
appear because when you advanced
confidently in the direction of your own
dreams and endeavor to live the life
which you have imagined you will meet
with a success unexpected in common
hours everything about my life changed
my writing took on a whole different
flavor before I was stuck I checked into
a motel room the spindrift motel and a
1a in Fort Lauderdale Florida and I
wrote a book that today has over a
hundred million copies in print in 47
languages called your erroneous owns it
came because the rage was gone Mark
Twain once said that forgiveness is the
fragrance
let the violets sheds on the heel that
has crusted that’s divine love it’s the
love that Hafiz spoke about even after
all this time the Sun never says to the
earth
you owe me just think what a love like
that can do
it lights up the whole world if we can
get the hatred out I brought a poem I
just did a new public television special
and I closed it with this we built a
tree house
it’ll be airing the beginning and in in
June and I speak about divine love and I
do a seminar every year in Maui you’re
welcome to come well you’re almost
welcome it’s almost sold out but I do it
with this year I’m doing it with Anita
Moorjani myself and immaculee Ilibagiza
two brilliant Rwandan woman who survived
the Holocaust of 1994 through her faith
in God Saints that I’m gonna be
presenting divine love two days in my in
January but this is one of the favorite
poems it gives me what my kids often
call the tinglies that goose floods
loose did I sink loose slight loose only
as goose goose flesh
it’s called in a treehouse by Hafiz and
we built this beautiful treehouse and as
you’ll just you’ll love it it’s in
you’ll see it on PBS light said Hafiz
well someday split you open even if your
life is now a cage for a divine seed the
crown of Destiny is hidden and sown on
an ancient fertile plain that you hold
the title to this is where you came from
this is what I spoke about with TS Eliot
when I first came out this whole idea
that there is an intelligence that you
will come to know listen for a divine
seed the crown of destiny is a hidden
and sown on an ancient fertile plain
that you hold the title to this is your
destiny love will surely bust you wide
open into an unfettered blooming new
galaxy even if your mind is now a
spoiled mule a life-giving radiance will
come the friends gratuity will come
oh look again within yourself for I know
you were once the elegant host to all
the marvels and creation from a sacred
crevice in your body a bow rises each
night and shoots your soul into God
behold the beautiful drunk singing one
from the lunar vantage point of love he
is conducting the affairs of the whole
universe while throwing wild parties in
a tree house on a limb in your heart
Cuffy’s poetry so beautiful
when you take that last breath your body
my dear friend Ram Dass that mark was
speaking to me about before who lives
with me on Maui when he celebrated his
80th birthday we were all asked to just
say something special to him and he’s
one of my dearest and closest friends
who wrote be here now and was
instrumental and one of those turning
points that I wrote about it I can see
clearly now
and I gave him a line from William
Butler Yeats the great Irish poet
I said robbed us this is what Yeats said
about an old man he said an aged man is
but a paltry thing a tattered coat upon
a stick
unless soul pops its hands and sings and
louder sings for every chatter in its
mortal dressed we’re all just tattered
coats on a stick unless we find our soul
that part of us that doesn’t want to be
fenced in the great Patanjali 2,300
years ago when you are inspired by some
great purpose some extraordinary project
all of your thoughts break their bonds
your mind transcends limitations your
consciousness expands in every direction
and you find yourself in a new and a
great and a wonderful world and then he
said dormant forces that is forces that
you thought were dead and inaccessible
to you dormant forces faculties and
talents come alive and you discover
yourself to be a greater person by far
than you ever dreamed yourself to be you
discover yourself
to be God to be a piece of God that
intelligence that is in all of its
creations said Rumi you who seek God
apart apart that what you seek
thou art thou art if you want to seek
the beloved’s face polish the mirror and
gaze into that space because in every
moment of your life
ladies and gentlemen I promise you you
have this choice
you can either be a host to God or a
hostage to your ego it’s your call
thank you and God bless you thank you
thank you
thank you
thank you thank you
namaste thank you very much thank you so
much wine I don’t even know where to
start I’m worried I’m I’m the stubborn
mule of your last poem so so this
session is all about all of these folks
who are whose lives are filled with
hectic everything thinking about their
personal health how do you define
personal health the question is just
whether or not you’re aligned with your
source of being we all have one free
will and our free will is the choice to
be connected to that from which we
originate it or disconnect from it and
the way to stay disconnected to it is
not to identify with your body and
itself it came into this world at the
moment it was supposed to and it will
leave and you have choices Melville said
that God’s one and only voice is silence
and Blaise Pascal the great scientist
and philosopher said that all of man’s
troubles stem from his inability to sit
quietly in a room alone learn to connect
to God who’s one and only voice is
silence I do it every morning for two
hours and it’s how I live you’ll find peace there that’s your inner Tahiti
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