THINKING ALLOWED
Conversations On The Leading Edge
Of Knowledge and Discovery
With Dr. Jeffrey Mishlove

Part One: Hello I'm Jeffrey Mishlove. Our topic today is the soul and with me is Gary Zukav, author of The Dancing Wu Li Masters, which won the American Book Award for science in 1979 and more recently The Seat of the Soul. Welcome Gary.

GZ: Thank you Jeffrey, it's a pleasure to be with you.

JM: You know as a well known science writer now turning your attention to such a topic as the human soul which has been discarded by scientists, you must have felt quite a challenge in trying to make this a legitimate, even an important topic for inquiry.

GZ: Well I didn't write this as a science writer. We're speaking now about The Seat of the Soul and my objective was not to make the soul legitimate in terms of science. The soul is legitimate, period. It doesn't need validation. At least that was my perception and so I wrote The Seat of the Soul to share the things that were most important to me.

JM: I notice that one of the most important arguments that you make right in the beginning is that we need to think about in terms of evolution, that the scientific view doesn't capture the whole thrust that's available to us when we look at it from the larger perspective.

GZ: Well the scientific view doesn't capture anything of the soul. In fact, the scientific view excludes the soul and I will tell you though, it was a real stretch on my part having written the Dancing Wu Li Masters because the two are so significantly different and yet in one way they are closely related. The Dancing Wu Li Masters, which was subtitled An Overview of the New Physics, is a book that was designed to open the mind and The Seat of the Soul , a book designed to open the heart. And this is often the sequence that many people encounter as they move into an expanded awareness of who they are and why they are here.

JM: You make the distinction between five sensory reality and multi sensory reality as being important for understanding the soul.

GZ: Yes, that's right and these are terms that seem appropriate to me. Everything that I shared in The Seat of the Soul and everything I share with you now Jeffrey and everything I will share with the listeners who are watching us and the readers who will read The Seat of the Soul, I share not as a dogma or as truth that I feel you must believe or anyone who hears our words must believe, but only as a window to which I've come to view life. It's been helpful to me and I hope that it will be helpful to you and to our listeners. So if you hear anything that I say, then I invite you to take it and use it as your own. If you resonate with it because that's what we will make it your own. And if you don't, then throw it away. Don't try to wear a shoe that pinches.

JM: Well, you almost have to make a statement like that because what you are saying and what you said earlier, that there's no scientific way to validate the kind of things that you say about the soul.

GZ: There is no scientific way to validate anything that I or you can say about the soul because science cannot validate the existence of the soul any more that it can prove the existence of God. It cannot. We are talking now about non physical reality. Non physical dimensions of experience, existence, purpose and effort. And these are things that science cannot grasp. Now this is not a short coming of science because, let me put it this way, our species has been evolving since it's origin through the exploration of physical reality. And this has been our evolutionary modality and we have been confined to the five senses. Now exploration of the physical reality through the five senses is the same thing as acquiring the ability to manipulate and control those things

that appear to be external to us. It's the same thing as the pursuit of the way to manipulate and to control. This is the external power. So our evolution, until very recently, has been as five sensory humans evolving through the exploration of physical reality. That is the same thing as the pursuit of external power. Now we have crossed the threshold, we re in new territory, a brand new domain. We are now becoming multi sensory. That means we are no longer confined to the five senses. Now I use these terms because the five senses together form a single sensory system and the object of that sensory system is physical reality. That's what it is designed to detect. As we become multi sensory, we move beyond the limitations of the five senses and we now are evolving to a different mechanism in the exploration of physical reality. We are evolving through responsible choice of and with the assistance and guidance of non physical guides and teachers.

JM: That's a very profound statement and one of the handles that I get on it is the idea that something is happening right now at our age that of significance here. It's not as if one might say we have always had access to these multi sensory modalities, but something is happening now.

GZ: Indeed, it is, as we speak. At this very moment and for all of the moments to come, It is happening now. We are in the most significant evolutionary transition that our species has ever encountered. There is no way to compare what we are now experiencing with anything in our past. This new event has no historical antecedent. The only event in the history of our species that compares with this one is Genesis. And this is a new kind of Genesis, the Genesis of our species into conscious awareness and participation in a larger fabric of life; in non physical reality.

JM: In other words if we look at evolution we're beginning to understand ourselves in terms of our spiritual evolution and not just our ability to have dominion over the other kingdoms of nature.

GZ: Exactly, exactly. We have always been involved in spiritual evolution. We are spiritual beings, we have always been spiritual beings and we will always be spiritual beings. The difference is that now we are becoming aware of ourselves as spiritual beings and that is making all the difference.

JM: How do you define the soul and how does it relate to this idea of ourselves as spiritual beings?

GZ: The soul of an individual; your soul and my soul, is that part of us that is immortal. Your personality is that part of you that was born into time, that matures in time, or at least grows older in time and then decays and passes away.

JM: Like my body.

GZ: Like your body. Your personality, your body, you intuitional structure. These are all tools; energy tools of the soul. Your soul existed before your personality came into being, it will exist after your personality came into being. All of the learning, all of the activities in which you are involved as a being, Jeffrey Mishlove, go into the evolution of your soul. It is your soul that is learning, it is your soul that is growing, it is your soul that is moving ever closer toward perfection, if we can use that word.

JM: The sense that I get is that the soul is not far from the divine.

GZ: But it's not as though perfection doesn't already exist. We live in a perfect universal block (?) and what is so magnificent is that we are beginning to see that as multi sensory humans. Now I do not mean that all five billion of us on this planet are

going to be multi sensory before the end of this century. It make take several generations but not as long as you might think. This is a momentous undertaking that our species has entered and it is affecting everything without exception.

JM: By multi sensory you are really referring to like inner vision it would seem to me, the perception of the world of the spirit within us.

GZ: Yes, and without us. There is no aspect of the world that is not the world of spirit.

JM: How did you come to be convinced of that?

GZ: With much difficulty, slowly and then with increasing acceleration and pleasure. I have come to see these things in the course of my experience and it's my joy and my pleasure and my fulfillment to share them.

JM: You talk about and write about spiritual guides and spiritual helpers as a normal part of the soul's evolution and the evolution of the personality as well.

GZ: Yes, everyone has guides and teachers; non physical guides and non physical teachers. Now a guide is not the same as a teacher. A guide is what you might call a consultant that's called in on a project basis. For example, if you say you want, as you have, to create a television series with a certain quality about it, of integrity, intellectual acuity and spiritual depth. You will draw to yourself, as you have, guides that can provide you with just this assistance. Now teachers are more impersonal, actually in relation to us they appear to be more personal, they appear to be such that we can give them names, or speak to them as though they were other personalities. In fact, they are impersonal energy dynamics. A non physical teacher is like a friend that knows you very well, knows the deepest parts of you, knows all of your struggles, knows all of your aspirations, knows all of the things that you are ashamed of and working on and strives only for your best interest, strives only for the ever increasing alignment of your personality with your soul. Having a non physical teacher and being able to be in conscious communication with this teacher is like being in contact with all of this and at the same time a consummate psychotherapist.

JM: One who really knows you intimately and you didn't use the term but I think what you are saying that this is a being who loves you unconditionally

GZ: Yes, that's so. Now while we're on the matter of teachers, let's clarify some things that are important here. A teacher does not make decisions for you. As you decide to move into a relationship consciously with a non physical teacher, it is not a matter of giving yourself over mindlessly to the control of another. A non physical teacher would not and could not make your decisions for you because no one can assume responsibility for how you choose to use your energy. But a non physical teacher can help you to see the symbolism of everything that happens in your life at each moment. A non physical teacher can help you to see at each point of decision, which means that every moment what probable future will unfold if you take this course of action or that course of action or that course of action so that you can see for yourself if these different courses of action will, if each of these different courses of actions produce consequences for which you are willing to assume responsibility. And if you find a course of action that will produce consequences for which you are not willing to assume responsibility, then don't choose it. And if you find a course of action, and you will, that will produce consequences that will produce a probable future for which you are willing to take responsibility, then move in that direction if that's your choice, That's responsible choice.

JM: How will you distinguish between this kind of contact with a non physical teacher and on the other hand, just having a very highly developed sense of intuition?

GZ: They are identical. Your intuition is the voice of the non physical world. So to the five sensory personality intuition is trivial. In fact, psychology doesn't even recognize it. Psychology is the study of perception, effect and cognition. In other words, it's the study of the personality even though the word means the study of the soul.

JM: In fact, today it's even more limited than that, it's mostly thought of as the study of behavior.

GZ: Yes in many schools of psychology it is.

JM: Not to say that this isn't changing. There's a new movement with psychology, trans personal psychology for one, which takes these concepts that you are discussing, very seriously and thinks that they need to have a central place.

GZ: I'm glad to hear that. And more and more this will be the case. We will develop, if we become multi sensory spiritual psychology, a true psychology, and we can call it spiritual psychology in this transitional period to distinguish it from conventional psychology. A multi sensory human is keenly interested in his or her intuition because his or her intuition is the way that he or she can access experience, wisdom that is more comprehensive than that of the personality. So the development of intuition will be central to spiritual psychology. And it's important to the multi sensory human. Now there are some ways that this can happen. For example, just as we now have developed new ways to develop prognition; which means to think things through, we will now develop ways to develop intuition which means to ask questions and get answers.

JM: Ask and you shall receive.

GZ: Always you will receive. No prayer is unanswered. Every question is answered. So while we are speaking about intuition, may I explain some things that may be helpful? Intuition is like a radio station.. No, intuition is more like a radio receiver and it can receive different stations. This radio receiver serves different functions, it serves your spirituality which is the development of your soul. It serves your physical survival. For example, hunches about when to fix the brakes, what street not to walk down, all help to keep you in physical form. It serves your creativity, hunches about what guest to invite, which book to buy, which conference to go to. One of the radio stations that you can tune into is your own soul. This happens through the higher self experience. Personality soul communication is the higher self experience.

JM: The higher self, in effect, mediates between the personality and the soul.

GZ: But it doesn't exist without the communication between personality and soul. It is the personality soul communication.

JM: It sounds like one of those elusive particles in quanti physics or something.

GZ: Not as elusive as that. You can look at your higher self as being the template of the fully empowered personality, of an authentically empowered personality. When a personality is completely aligned with its soul, it is authentically empowered. And this is how our species is evolving now by the way. Not at the pursuit of external power but in the pursuit of authentic power.

JM: And when a personality is not aligned with its soul, what do we see there?

GZ: Look around you. Look at me, look at everyone that you see in the world. We are all here to learn just this power. A personality is complex. It is comprised of many parts.

Each of these parts has its own volition. For example, there is a part of you that suffers with the homeless, and a part of you that wants a larger house, a part of you that wants to feed the hungry, and a part of you that wants a second VCR. And when you satisfy one part of you, you dissatisfy another and you are torn. This is the experience of the splintered personality. So as you look at any of us, you can see in our personalities, both those parts of the soul that need healing and those parts of the soul that the soul has given to the individual in this incarnation and the grace that that soul has earned and these are the loving and the giving.

JM: Does the alignment with the soul mean, in this sense, does it mean we will always make the saintly choice that we would never do something to enhance our own physical possession at the expense of others?

GZ: If you are fully aligned with your soul it will be your pleasure, your joy to always move toward cooperation, toward sharing, toward reverence for life. You will not be torn.

JM: Not a splintered personality.

GZ: Not a splintered personality.

JM: It won't it be a painful decision?

GZ: No, it will not be a painful decision.

JM: How do you get from a splintered personality to an authentically empowered personality?

GZ: This is through responsible choice. In my experience this is difficult work. The key is responsible choice. That is the mechanism so no matter what you choose when you are confronted with a decision, it is not possible to make a bad decision. The universe

does not judge you. It is only cause and effect. You make a decision, you create consequences and you experience those consequences and therefore you learn to create responsibly.

JM: This is what you meant earlier I think when you said that this is truly a perfect world in spite of the suffering.

GZ: Yes, that's right. In every moment in every way the universe is serving the needs of your soul, these are not necessarily the same as the ones of your personality.

JM: So the process of alignment is based upon your choice and in making these responsible choices, we have the assistance of guides and teachers.

JM: And yet it is still always up to us.

GZ: That's right.

JM: You know there's quite an enormous movement today to talk about letting go and letting God, to realize that we are, for example, helpless over our addictions and over our personality mechanisms. To view the human being as something of a machine even. You're suggesting something different than that I think.

GZ: Yes, I am. I am suggesting that with each of the choices that we make, we create consequences and we ourselves experience those consequences. If you harm another soul. If you cause pain or trauma in another soul, you yourself will experience that trauma.

JM: karma

GZ: Yes, karma. Here in the west we call it the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule is not a moral dictum. It is loving guidance about how to live and how to create in a world that is governed by the universal law of cause and effect.

JM: As you sow, so shall you reap.

GZ: Exactly. So if you harm another person you will learn from that experience and they will learn from that experience. By your choice you will have created pain or suffering in another person, so why not choose to create differently because as you create for this other person you create also for yourself.

JM: But I have the sense Gary, that you're not just talking about the Golden Rule and ethical systems that have been with us for thousands of years. You're talking about spiritual development in a new way.

GZ: Yes in a very new way. Well, the new part about it is that our entire species, all five billion of us, are becoming multi sensory. The human species is no longer evolving through the exploration of physical reality, through the pursuit of external power; the ability to manipulate and control. We are now evolving through responsible choice with the assistance and guidance of non physical guides and teachers. We are seeking not external power but authentic power and that means the alignment of the personality with the soul. Now you don't have to be a metaphysical person to understand this. You can look at it behaviorally. Your soul is that part of you that always strives for harmony, toward cooperation, toward sharing, toward reverence for life and as you choose, in each moment, to align yourself with harmony, or at least not to create more disharmony in the situation you're in, then you are consciously choosing to align yourself with your soul. You are consciously moving toward authentic power. So for example, when you're on the freeway and you are late for an appointment and someone cuts right in front of you and they drive 45 miles per hour and you can't pass them and you feel anger rise up inside of you; Now the question becomes what shall I do with this anger? How shall

you respond to it. Shall you let it carry you away? What will you create if you do that? So you challenge it. Now I'm not suggesting that you suppress it or repress it. In order to become authentically empowered it is necessary to experience everything that you are feeling.

JM: To own up to what's going on.

GZ: You must experience everything that you are feeling. This is what will lead you to the splintered parts of your personality.

JM: And then to make a responsible choice out of that experience so that in a sense ethics can become not just following rules but a process of internal growth and alignment.

GZ: Yes.

JM: Gary Zukav, it's been a pleasure being with you and touching on these very important issues that are becoming so crucial and widespread for our society at this time. Thanks so much for being with me.

GZ: It's a pleasure.

JM: And thank you for being with us (to the television audience.)

THE SEAT OF THE SOUL

PART TWO

JM: This is Jeffrey Mishlove back again with Gary Zukav. Gary, earlier you mentioned that science had nothing to say about the soul and I question that frankly. You know with my background in parapsychology, I think science can say quite a bit about non physical reality and the multi sensory potentials of the human mind. I wonder if we can get into this a little more.

GZ: Yes, let's get into this. Science as it's currently structured cannot say anything about non physical reality because science as it is currently structured; it is emperical, it's based upon an emperical foundation. And an emperical foundation means that the validation for what is true and what is not true in science and we must define this also. But what is true and not true in science in a pragmatic way, let me put it this way, depends upon what can be validated empirically and that means validated by the five senses. In other words, science is the flower; it's the ultimate accomplishment of a species seeking to understand reality from the point of view of the five senses.

JM: Well, one of the exciting things for me is that science has kind of come full circle. One of my mentors, Arthur Young, sometimes says that physics is actually touching the face of God in a sense. You yourself have written how physicists are now describing particles like corks that are not detectable in an emperical sense, they are inferred.

GZ: Everything touches the face of God and science will begin to expand in a beautiful way like a flower blooming. As our species becomes multi sensory, everything that our species produces, all of our economic, social and political structures will begin to reflect the energy of the soul and not the energy of the personality. All of our endeavors, individual and collective will reflect the soul and the perceptions of multi sensory

humanity. So let us look specifically at science. At the moment science is emperical, which means it is anchored firmly in five sensory reality. As our species becomes multi sensory, science will become multi sensory. In other words, the primary orientation of science will be the exploration of non physical reality and this cannot be done without the heart. So the second major shift that will occur in science is a shift from an endeavor which is a product of the mind to an endeavor that is a product of the heart with the assistance of the mind.

JM: I'm glad you brought up the idea of the heart in non physical reality because when I think of what is real but non physical, the first thing that comes to me is love.

GZ: Yes, exactly. But there is no place currently in science for love but there will be. That's how radically science is going to change and that's what's exciting to me. Science, for example-we can we can say several things about science as it will evolve. First of all, it will recognize non physical reality and it will explore non physical reality. Secondly, it will involve the heart in a very fundamental way. There will be changes in methodology. At the moment, for example, the laboratory in which theoretical hypotheses are either confirmed or denied is an area that is isolated from the intrusive; the intrusions of life. In the new science studies emerging, all of life is the laboratory and your life is the experiment and you are the experimenter. There are no intrusions. And the experimenter is an integral part of the experiment. As the latter developments in physics and quanti physics have already begun to suggest.

JM: Yes we can see the signs of the new science around us everywhere it seems.

GZ: Yes, yes, because we are seeing the emergence of multi sensory humanity everywhere. In other words the basis of science as well as the basis of economics, and

politics and government and every human endeavor will be the same. And that spirit is real and we are spirits, we are immortal spirits that are evolving in what our Native American brothers and sisters call earth suits.

JM: Earth suits, I like that and I'm glad that you brought up the issue of Native Americans as well because while our culture seems to have lost this connection with the world of spirits and the world of nature; it seems that indigenous peoples have always managed to maintain a reverence for this facet of our existence.

GZ: Yes they have. The aspect of native American culture and wisdom that I am most familiar with is Sioux. There is a beautiful story that my Sioux brother, Phil Lane, Jr. (?), told me. In it the creator has gathered all of creation and he is asking for advice, He says I want to hide something from the humans until they are ready for it. It is the realization that they create their own reality. The eagle said, give it to me, I will take it to the moon, they will never find it there. And the creator said, no, one day they will go to the moon, they will never find it there. And by the way, the first words that were spoken when our species set foot on the moon was "The Eagle Has Landed." And then the salmon said, give it to me, I will take it to the bottom of the ocean, I will hide it there and they will never find it and the creator said, no, one day they will go to the bottom of the ocean and they will find it. And then the buffalo said, give it to me, I will take it to the middle of the great plains and I will bury it there and they will never find it. And the creator said, no, one day they will cut into the skin of the earth and they will find it even there. Then the bear said, give it to me, I will take it to the mountains and I will hide it in a cave and they will never find it and the creator said no, one day they will even level the mountains and they will find it there and then the Grandmother Mole spoke up and

everyone was quiet because everyone knows that Grandmother Mole, even though she has no physical eyes, she sees with spiritual eyes because she lives in the breast of mother earth herself and Grandmother Mole said, put it inside of me. And the creator said, it is done---?----. Now we are finding this treasure, this secret, the treasure is not new but our discovery of it is new. We are creators; to live is to create, to be is to create. We cannot be without creating. Every choice that we makes creates consequences, consequences in the lives of others and we experience them in ourselves, those same consequences, every choice that we make. And by the way the choices that you might think are the most important are not always the most important.

JM: In other words, the things that might seem trivial at the time can be of enormous consequence.

GZ: Yes they can. Most of us think that decisions such as where shall I live, with whom shall I partner, what shall I pick as a career for my life are the most important decisions that we make. But from the point of view of the universe these decisions are not that important. Within you, you have already made decisions about who you are, what the universe is and how you will relate to other people and how you will relate to the universe and these decisions are creating consequences in your life moment by moment.

JM: And they may never be obvious in any real external sense.

GZ: They are always obvious in an external sense, they are your life. Look around you, that is the reflection of the decisions that you have made, that you have made currently and that you have made in the past. Perhaps not in this lifetime, perhaps in lifetimes that preceded this one but in external reality the choices that you have made are

always obvious. That is how the learning environment of the five senses work. It's like a movie, three dimensional, full color, Dolby --?-- sound, never stopping, always reflecting who we are and always, at every moment, serving the needs of our soul. Now think about that, if four people come together, it is never the case that three of those people are serving as props while the fourth one learns. Every situation serves everyone involved equally. Isn't that remarkable?

JM: Wouldn't it be the case Gary, that two people might be living identical lives in the same neighborhood, similar jobs, similar cars, their children going to the same schools, similar wives, same names. But their relationship to the universe could be very different?

GZ: Yes, no one lives an identical life with someone else. There is no end to the richness of this universe. There is no end to the richness of who we are. The parents that you have chosen, the souls with whom you have agreements to interact and are interacting. The struggles that you have in relating to your parents, and relating to your past, in altering the currents we call them emotions, but they are energy currents that run through us. A lot of these are unique to you, they re complex; almost beyond description. Your path is never ---?----. And so is the path of everyone. There is not one soul on this planet, whether it is a person living in Ethiopia, or in Florida, or in Canada, whose life is not as complex and as rich as your own.

JM: Why, just a moment ago, did you refer to emotions as energy currents?

GZ: Because that's what they are.

JM: I don't quite understand though how you arrived at that idea.

GZ: Energy is always flowing through us. It comes in roughly through here (touches top of head) and runs through our body.

JM: What kind of energy?

GZ: Well, that's what we're talking about when we talk about emotion. Let us talk about it in terms of physical light and the examples. Let's use physical light as a metaphor. There is low frequency light which has very little energy and there's high frequency light that has a great deal of energy. When you feel an emotion such as despair or in a depression, that is a low frequency current of energy. It has very little energy. And someone who is in despair or in a depression soaks up energy. We don't like to be around them, we say "they soak up my energy, they are black holes." Anger is another current of energy that can flow through you. This is also a low frequency current of energy. There is a lot of energy in anger. You're exhausted after you feel anger. A high frequency current of energy would be contentment. Someone whose content has plenty of energy. If you are doing one thing in your life and you are content and someone interrupts you and says, Jeffrey, Jeffrey, stop this, I have something very important to tell you. You don't mind, you stop and listen to them because you are content.

JM: Although we would traditionally, conventionally think of anger as having more energy than contentment.

GZ: Would you? Isn't energy exhausting? Think of it this way, well think of joy. Joy is a very high frequency current of energy with a great deal of energy content. Somebody who is joyful has a lot of energy.

JM: See, I traditionally think of these emotions as having to do with the functions of the ---?--- brain and the biochemical structure as well as the conceptual structure of the person and not as energy currents.

GZ: Of course they have the same aspects. We live in a five sensory world. This is our learning environment. This is our earth school. So there are physiological correlations to all of these things. And as long as we look only through five sensory eyes, all that we will see are enzymes neuro transmitters, synaptic patterns and misfunctions. We will see past histories, we will see the influence of family, of culture, of neighborhood. All of these serve the evolution of the soul. They are not accidental.

JM: Excuse me, but when you talk about the non physical world and these energies, I think what I hear you saying is these are non physical energies.

GZ: Yes they are. They are non physical energies.

JM: Sort of the way the energies of the planet are described in astrology.

GZ: Well I'm not familiar with astrology but the highest frequency energy is love. So if somebody is feeling loved, they are craved (?). People like to be around them because they are emitting something that is quite beautiful. Now it's not incorrect to say that an emotion has all of the physiological or psychological correlations that you describe. And that psychology, pharmaceutocology, neuro psychoimmunology, neurology have mapped. But beyond that, there is more. All of these disciplines and all of these endeavors are endeavors and disciplines of a five sensory humanity. And now as we move into multi sensory perception, we can see not only those, we can see what lies beyond them. Now I am a practical person and when I suggest looking at emotions as energy currents I do this, not only because this is what in fact they are, but also

because there is a practical benefit to be obtained from doing this. If you look at the energy currents that are running through you, then you automatically, in the process, step back, even this far, and this gives you a measure of detachment from that energy current you could say you are running.

JM: It's as if the body is a musical instrument and you can tune it to these various universal vibrations. You used earlier, the radio receiver, we can tune into the --?---.

GZ: Yes, the radio receiver I was talking about then was intuition. But what I'm talking about now is becoming aware of the energy currents that are running through you so that you can make responsible choices. So that when you feel anger, you will begin to know what it feels like, what it feels like in this area, your heart area which is your fourth chocker (?). What it feels like here (touches heart), what it feels like here (touches head), Does it constrict your throat (touches throat). Does it constrict your sexuality (touches groin). You have seven chockers (?) and as you become aware of the energy currents moving through you, you will become aware of how it affects each of these, or at least the majorly affected areas of your body and then you can choose. Do you like this feeling? If not you can challenge it and as you challenge it again and again and again, it loses power over you and you gain power over it.

JM: Now for the benefit of our viewers, we should step back and talk about the term you just used, chocker (?), which comes from Indian Yoga. They are organs of psychic perception in effect.

GZ: Yes, they are organs of psychic perception.

JM: Part of the non physical anatomy of the soul.

GZ: No, not of the soul. Of the body. They are more of, you might call them the non physical substrata of what we see with five sensory perception. But they are as real as veins and arteries and organs. And the point I want to make is simply this, that energy flows through us continually and as we become aware of it we can choose. We can choose to challenge an energy current that we recognize as anger or jealousy or anxiety, or a sense of vulnerability. And this doesn't mean that the first time you challenger your anger, it disappears just like that. Do you think authentic power can be had so easily?

JM: No, in fact there's a big movement in psychology today that people are repressing their anger too much, they need to learn to express their anger.

GZ: If they express their anger and they act in anger they will create consequences that carry the energy of anger. They will create consequences in others and they will experience those painful consequences themselves. The pure expression of anger is not necessarily healthy or helpful. I am not suggesting repression in any way, or suppression. I am suggesting that you become aware of what you feel, that you set your sights to do that. That you set the intention to become aware of these energy currents so that when you are driving on the freeway, for example, you can become aware of when you have a negative thought, when you have an angry thought, when you're interacting, when you become insecure and as you become aware of these, you become aware of them as energy currents moving through you. This allows you to detach a bit from them; to watch them in action and as you do this you can begin to recognize these different parts of your personality. This is how you find the splintered

parts of your personality. The force fill, the force fill of your soul, the force fill you can only encounter through emotions. This is the human passage in a word.

JM: Why emotions, why not thought?

GZ: You cannot find your soul with your mind, you must use your heart. You must use your heart. You must know what you are feeling. If you don't know what you are feeling, you will create unconsciously. If you are unconscious of an aspect of yourself; if it operates outside your field of awareness, that aspect has power over you. And we create at each moment. The question is not shall we create consciously or unconsciously. We have been creating unconsciously. Our evolution has been very slow. An angry person, for example, will encounter other angry people and at first she might say, well that's just his fault, he's had a bad day today. And then she encounters another angry person and she says to herself, he's off balance, he's not emotionally well and then continues to make excuses for all the angry people that she encounters in her life until eventually she realizes that the source of all this unpleasantness is not these other people but the dynamic of anger that she herself carries. And when she realizes that, she will change completely and thoroughly. That time will come when her life becomes so painful that she says, enough, enough, I will not have this anymore. And when she changes in this way, her life will change because her creations will no longer carry the energy of anger. She will still experience all that she has created up to that moment. Energy is energy, karma is karma, but yet she will create it differently. And because of the law of attraction, which means simply that, birds of a feather do flock together, not only in metaphorical terms but in terms of real energy dynamics.

Angry people attract angry people and live in an angry world and this validates their opinion that the world is angry.

JM: But you're suggesting that we're at a turning point in human history with regard to these issues, that as we become multi sensory beings that anger is….. We're learning how to dissipate it.

GZ: We are learning to become aware of ourselves as immortal souls. We still have the ability to choose to be angry. We still have the ability to choose, to indulge in that old familiar pattern in this case of anger, and to create with anger. But we are being given the opportunity to choose again, to choose differently.

JM: To see the consequences of our actions.

GZ: Yes.

JM: Isn't that a lot of what you mean by multi sensory, that we can actually envision the consequences of our actions, even our subtle actions?

GZ: To a certain extent. A five sensory human can envision the consequences of action. Although a five sensory human thinks that those consequences only reach out into the physical world. In fact, they reach far beyond the physical world. We are souls. That means that the majority of us lives in non physical reality, interacts in non physical reality, affects non physical reality and is affected by non physical reality. The part of you that is here now, in this studio and in five sensory reality that is serving as a soul that is helping to bring knowledge and wisdom and goodness into the world is a very small part of a larger dynamic that is also you and that is operating in other dimensions.

JM: Can you define a little more of what you mean by physical reality?

GZ: Yes. Non physical reality is our home. We came from non physical reality and we will return to non physical reality when we die. When this personality, body and intuitional structure, which perfectly suit the evolution of our soul for this time in the earth school, passes, we will return home. We will come back into the waiting arms and loving arms of our non physical guides and teachers. There we can look back on all of the things that we have done, we will see our lives in detail, minute detail, all of the things that we experienced. Most of which we have forgotten. We will see it. How these things affected us and how they affected others. We will see the exquisite pattern of interaction with which we met other souls. We will see how our actions influenced them and how their actions influenced us. We will see how we learned together. We will see those lessons that we have yet to learn. We will see the consequences that we created but we have yet to experience and these will form the basis of ;yet another journey into the earth school.

JM: Now you're really speaking, it sounds like, from the perspective of somebody who's been there.

GZ: We have all been there. We are all there now, you might say. So it's a matter of celebrating our emergence into multi sensory perception. You asked the question, where is non physical reality or can I talk more about it. Let me do it this way. Physical light is a small spectrum. By physical I mean visible light that runs from red to violet and this defines, in terms of our physical lives, our earth school. But physical light is part of a much larger spectrum and above and below this spectrum so to speak, to the right, to the left of it, extending indefinitely is the same continual. A continual means something that has no end. So above violet lights is ultra violet light, and above that is high

frequency radiation, and above that is very high frequency radiation and above that is microwave radiation and on and on out to infinity. And below red light is infra red light and then low frequency radiation, very low frequency radiation, extremely low radiation and so on out to infinity. All of that is the life spectrum and a small part of it that makes up visible light is the part in which we live, in which we gain our experience as souls. Now while we are here in this studio, where is microwave radiation, where is infra red radiation and all of the other radiations?

JM: They all inter penetrate us.

GZ: Yes. They are here right now, at the same time and in the same place. It's that way with physical reality and non physical reality. Our teachers are impersonal energy dynamics that live, so to speak, in a spectrum of awareness that includes ours and goes far beyond it. So they are not elsewhere, your guide, your teacher is not elsewhere, it is here with us now, mine also. This room is full.

JM: In the same sense I guess you would say the past and the future are with us now as well.

GZ: Yes. Exactly. Your soul evolves in eternity. Time exists in five sensory experience. It is a part of the earth school. When you return home, when you reenter in your awareness, the fullness of who you are, you will not be limited in the way that you are now. Your soul is timeless and so from the perspective of your soul, from your perspective and my perspective, past, present and future are all simultaneous. And this means that actions that you take now in the present can affect not only the future, in fact do affect not only the future but also the past which is a reversal of the only

direction in which ---?--- influence appears to be able to travel to five sensory perception.

JM: So the idea that you've touched on briefly of reincarnation and the karma that we carry from past lives might just as well be karma from future lives.

GZ: Yes, you could look at it that way.

JM: That's really puzzling.

GZ: Yes it is puzzling.

JM: In fact, the idea that the soul evolves outside of time is puzzling too. Because the notion of evolution doesn't make much sense outside of time.

GZ: No, it makes no sense outside of time to the mind. All of these things are puzzling to the mind. This is why science has gone as far as it can go as it is currently structured and that is also why we have gone as far as our species can go and will go through the pursuit of external power. The pursuit of external power now causes, produces, only violence and destruction. From the perception of the heart, these things are not puzzling. It is not puzzling to your heart to know that you live in a universe that is living, that is intelligent, that is compassionate, that serves in each moment the needs of your soul. It is not puzzling to your heart to know that what you do has profound impact on others. Others beyond what the eyes can see. Such as our Native American brothers and sisters celebrate nature's spirits and the Rock people and the Tree People. It is not puzzling to the heart that the natural way of relating between people is one of love, of kindness, of consideration, of harmony, of naturally reaching out to help. These things are not puzzling to who we are. They are who we are. And as we align our personalities with our soul, we acquire authentic power and this is what we become. This is what an

authentically empowered personality is. It is a personality that lives in the fullness of its own life. That lives in the joy of the present moment in a very deep and rich sense. There is no other place to live.

JM: You talk quite a bit about the transition that humanity is going through now, between the search and the struggle for external power versus authentic empowerment.

GZ: Yes, it's not a struggle in the sense that if we don't struggle, if we don't do this, our species will not undergo this evolutionary transition. Our species has crossed a threshold, it will never be the same. The things that supported us in our activities in the past no longer support us in our activities in the present. That was the pursuit of external power. What supports us now, what the universe now supports, are entirely different things. What the universe now supports is cooperation, harmony, sharing and reverence for life. And the world that we will build as we become authentically empowered humans will reflect the energy of the soul and not the energy of the personality. It is a struggle in that when you feel jealousy, when you feel anger, when you feel rage inside yourself, then you must challenge it. If you do not challenge it, you will challenge it, you will create with that energy. You will experience pain in your life. Why do that? Why not choose differently? Why not create differently? This is a struggle in my experience that has a lot of worth, it's worth it continuously, every day. What I've shared in The Seat of the Soul is my tool kit, it's what I have found to work for me.

JM: Why do you think Gary, that things are different now than they were in the past? Wasn't it always the case that the universe supported this inner development? Yet I

know you are saying some threshold has been crossed and I wonder if we can get more of a handle on that?

GZ: A threshold has been crossed, that is correct. The universe has always supported spiritual development, that is correct. It is the way that we are evolving now that has changed.

JM: As a species? Something collective is different?

GZ: Yes, everything in thing in the collective is different. The old patterns remain. We still have an economics that is based upon the perception, of scarcity and exploitation. But already the emergent new form can be felt. A new economy is coming that will be based on the perception of abundance and contribution. We are spiritual beings, the universe has always supported us, is supporting us and will always support us. Now this is a powerful thing to keep in mind. Because if the universe is supporting us in every moment, if the universe is compassionate, and in every way, at each instance meets the needs of our soul, why is there cancer? Why is there sexual abuse? Why is there AIDS? In other words, why is there suffering? Because we have created it. Now it's easy to say I'm the creator of my experience when you're talking about a common cold. When you're talking about leukemia; that's something else. Yet if you keep in mind that the universe, in every way, at each instance, is serving the needs of your soul. Then thought form, like a lighthouse or a polestar, will bring you into a very deep understanding of what you are and the powerful creative potential that you have and exercise at each moment as a spirit.

JM: It seems that that's a truth, but a dangerous one in the sense that if you were trying to express that to a person who is suffering a tragedy; a woman who was just raped, or

a person whose house has just burned down, that it would seem like a cruel thing. You know, if it's not told at the right moment and in the right way, that kind of an understanding could do damage.

GZ: Of course, one always uses sensitivity. The idea is not to harm another or to impress another person with your insight. The idea is to help each other grow, in awareness in a gentle way, that's a natural way, a natural way to want to help people. People often create, always create, circumstances if they are unaware which are eventually non gentle. What seems dangerous to me is creating unconsciously. Dangerous in the sense that unconscious creation is the creation of pain. Why create more pain? It's not dangerous to your soul, your soul cannot be threatened, Your soul is immortal. You are immortal. But why create unconsciously and the fact is that we create our experiences, each and every one of us. There is no such thing as a victim.

JM: Are you suggesting that we have the capability then of being totally conscious?

GZ: More than that. Eventually we will be totally conscious. Every one of us. I don't know how long it will take. You and I will probably not be alive when this happens, but I say it with complete confidence because that is the direction that the universe moves and is always moving.

JM: It seems like we've got a long way to go.

GZ: Yes it does.

JM: A long way to go and our society which is struggling with so many issues. You've talked about the reverence and the sacred appreciation for life that the Indians have but look how they've been treated and the enormity of our social problems are so vast

that it seems maybe as if all of these problems are forcing us to this turning point, to this threshold that you've described.

GZ: They are all serving that just the way all the problems that begin to accumulate in an individual's life who is unconsciously creating with currents of anger, jealousy, despair, eventually cause that individual to say, what am I doing and to begin to choose otherwise, to become conscious.

JM: You've written about addiction and the relationship between addictions in the personality and the soul. I wonder if you could touch on that now?

GZ: Yes, yes. We could say everything that we have said. We could discuss every thing that we've discussed until now in terms of addiction. Addictions are your greatest inadequacies. When you work on an addiction, you are doing the work of your soul. This is the work which you are born to do. When you strive to heal your deepest insecurities, then you are reaching simultaneously for your highest goal. All that we have experienced is the result of powerlessness. You could say that the entire history of humanity is the history of an insecure species. But this is just the obvious. When somebody feels a sense of powerlessness and they reach outward to satisfy that pain, they attempt to manipulate another person, or to build an empire, or to buy a bigger car.

JM: Or to take a drug.

GZ: Or to take a drug. All of that is the pursuit of external power. Now the species is pursuing authentic power. If you choose to look inward and to fill the hole that way, rather than reaching outward, then you are moving toward authentic power; real power. As you look at your addictions, whether it is to drugs, alcohol, sex, anger, and you

begin to work with them, first by recognizing that you have an addition. Secondly by going in to what it has produced in your life, walking yourself through your reality as you indulge your addictions.

JM: You seem to be suggesting that we are all addicted.

GZ: Yes, you could say that. To this extent, if you have something in your life that has power over you and you feel that you have no power to meet it, then that is an addiction. Something that you crave, something that you must have more of; that is an addiction.

JM: So you're using the term maybe in a larger way than it's often used?

GZ: Well I'm using it in an accurate way and those inadequacies and those weaknesses over which you feel you have no control are your greatest inadequacies

and these are your addictions.

JM: So what you're suggesting is that rather than to try to cover the inadequacies over with something external, we have to come to terms with our own sense of inadequacy which seems to be a direct contradiction to the idea of us as spiritual beings we're totally full. A spiritual being couldn't be inadequate I should think.

GZ: What you say is true, but do not think that a spirit, that a soul for example, is already perfect. Souls are evolving. That is what we are doing here, we are learning in earth school. And many of the experiences that we have in five sensory reality do not exist once we leave this domain of experience: fear, anger, jealousy, despair, rage, all of these things are experiences of the personality but they do not exist in the realm of the spirit.

JM: You're making a distinction between the realm of the spirit and in the realm of the soul?

GZ: No, no. Everything is spirit, everything, including this physical reality, this solid chair. This chair is matter, it's what you might call the lowest frequency, the densest form of spirit, but it is spirit and so it must be honored. Your body must be honored. Our physical reality must be honored. What the eastern psychologies or religions call (?)Maya, is Maya, it's illusion to the extent that the experiences that you feel when you feel anger for example, the soul does not feel fear, the soul does not feel anger. The personality may feel fear, the soul will experience this as being distant from life. So the illusion is an illusion to the extent that it blocks us from seeing that we are immortal souls. We are beginning to see through the illusion now as we become multi sensory. Yet we honor the illusion. We are here by choice in this earth school.

JM: You mentioned earlier the soul is imperfect.

GZ: The soul is evolving. That is not the same as imperfect. There is nothing in this universe that is imperfect, nothing. We are all evolving. We are all learning. We make our decisions, we create consequences that we will experience. The language of the universe is not better or worse. The language of the universe is the language of limitation and opportunity. As we become multi sensory we leave behind certain limitations and we become more able to see other opportunities. Opportunities, for example, to appreciate the fact that the entire universe is alive. It is not a dead, barren, sterile world. There's no such thing as dead. There's no such thing as barren, there is only life, there's nothing but life. So when we say everything is spirit, or everything is life, or everything is love, it is the same thing and this is the world in which we live.

JM: We were talking earlier about addictions and inadequacies and the idea of coming to terms with inadequacies.

GZ: So the question is, since this is a universe of love, of spirit, of perfection, why is that we have inadequacies? Why is it that we have addictions? We have addictions because addictions in five sensory experience are aspects of the soul that need to be healed. There are areas in which consciousness needs to be applied. And so what we experience as addictions are real in the sense that if we are addicted to alcohol, that is a powerful craving. It is a particular form of the experience, of powerlessness and that experience has taken a particular outreach. The pursuit of external power has flown through a particular channel and that channel and the challenging of that channel successfully provides the type of experience that the soul is looking for. It is the personality that provides that challenge, that fills that inadequacy

JM: And are you suggesting then that in coming to terms with these addictions, you used the term earlier, responsible choice. In other words, you might disagree with those that say we are powerless over our addictions?

GZ: Yes completely. But this is a complex matter. If you ask the question, is it possible to make a temptation greater than you can resist, the answer is yes. But behind your doing that is the fact that you do not wish to challenge your addiction. You do not choose to be responsible for your action. Let us look at a temptation. A temptation is not a pitfall. A temptation is the universe's gracious way of allowing a soul to evolve without creating negative karma. In other words, a temptation is like a magnet that draws to awareness, negativity, that would otherwise create negative karma if it remained unconscious. A temptation is a dress rehearsal for a negative karmic act. As

you identify the temptation and heal it within yourself before that energy spills out into the collective and affects other souls, you heal yourself without creating negative Karma.

JM: How do you heal a temptation?

GZ: You challenge it. You recognize your inadequacy, you decide whether or not you want to continue it in your life. You do that by looking honestly and with courage, at what it has created in your life and asking yourself if you want to continue to create that.

JM: In other words we have to look at the ways in which we create situations that we place ourselves in, in which we are tempted?

GZ: Yes and the way that you can do that is by detaching yourself from your experiences. Enough to be able to see them. Just as we talked about detaching yourself from your emotions by considering them as energy currents that are running through you. When you do that you can see every interaction you have. For example, an impolite clerk. You can say to yourself, this is my learning environment. The person that you are with is always the person that you should be with at that moment. It is a temptation to say, I am the customer here, I deserve to be right, I don't want to talk to you, I want to talk to you because this is a nicer clerk. But yet it is the first clerk that has challenged you. Here is where the rubber meets the road. We choose to align ourselves with our souls, to strive toward authentic power, not by determining how the Soviet Union is going to respond to its economic collapse but by choosing how we are going to respond, moment by moment, to the experience that we find ourselves in in our lives. And if you look at your life as your learning environment, offering you, at each

moment, maximal, optimal, optimal opportunities to learn, give yourself permission at each moment to choose the most positive behavior. This is how you align your personality with your soul. This is how you acquire authentic power. As you again and again work with your inadequacies, challenge it. As your temptations come up again and again. If you decide not to drink and twelve times that day you are tempted to have a drink, do not look at these temptations as a pitfall, look at each one of these temptations for what each one is, an opportunity to challenge your greatest addictions. And I tell you, that there is no one on this earth who is not more powerful than his or her addictions. There is no addiction that is more powerful than who you want to become.

JM: What you are suggesting is that moment by moment as we deal with the challenges that face us, addictions and other work in building our character, that there's non physical aid available to us if we just want to open ourselves up to it. There's always help?

GZ: If you don't open yourself up to it there's always help, it's always there. There is always encouragement for every soul to move into light. Even those who are insisting upon living in darkness and eventually every soul does. What is new in our experience as we become multi sensory is that we are becoming aware of this insistence. Our species has had guides and teachers ever since its origin. Every human on this planet has a non physical teacher or teachers. Not everyone has the same number of teachers. Some people have more and some have less. The number of teachers that you have depends upon what you have chosen in your life. As you choose endeavors that allow you to come into contact with and to influence in a positive way. To influence

larger numbers of people. As your circle of influence expands, the radius of this circle of influence increases, you draw unto yourself the assistance that you need. Whether you are aware of it or not, this is the case, it has always been the case. That's quite comforting, don't you think?

JM: It's very comforting. It's almost like what more is to be said. It sounds…..

GZ: What more is to be said???

JM: Well there's a delicate balance here. I mean, we can't just relax totally and say okay, I'm being assisted so I don't have to make responsible choices.

GZ: You always have to make responsible choices. Assistance does not mean making - having your choices made by someone else. That is not assistance. Assistance means having friends, like you and I are friends, we've been friends now for what - 15, 16 years? Fifteen years, and we help each other in the best way that we can.

JM: Yeah, that's right.

GZ: Teachers are like that but they have much more capability than you and I have. I cannot make your decisions for you. I can give you the benefit of my perceptions. And then perhaps that will help you. A non physical teacher can do the same thing and it will help you if you listen, but the choices are always yours to make, the karma is always yours to live. And the beautiful world to build is always your choice. That's the magnificent thing about us. Why don't we build this now? In fact we are.

JM: In fact we are. Gary Zukav, what a pleasure to be here with you and to share these uplifting, inspiring, profound thoughts. Thanks so much for being with me.

GZ: I am honored, I am honored.

JM: And am I, and am I. And thank you for being with us (to television audience).

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