Y ou look at everything that you
used to get really hung up on wanting to ow n, and you say to yourself, If it’ s
in my life, it’ s fine; if it’ s not, that’ s okay too. Y ou wo nder ho w the things th at upset you years ago ever could have
bothered you. As for the things that you’re bothered by now , you will look
back on them in  a few years and wonder how that could have ever been a
part of your life. For example, y ou might have relationships now that cause
you to think, Oh, how  could I ever get out of this? I simply don’ t know! Soon you’ll look back on them and think, Whew! Thank God I wasn’ tformed, and I wa s able to get back and not be in the place that I  was at that
time. THERE IS ONL Y NOW
Even though everything that’ s ev er happened to you up until this moment
is in the realm of thought, it is very real for you. While you can’ t touch or
have any of it, you can certainly get quite emotional about it. It’ s critical to understand this point: The whole experience of your past up
until this very se cond is all in thought—and nothing mor e.  How  m uch sens e
does it make to regret, be miser able, or feel guilty about some thing that is
pure thought? I mean, think about if I were to say to you, “Let’ s feel guilty
about th e outco me of the Pelo ponnesian W ar . Let’ s you and I feel some
guilt.”
Y ou’d laugh and say , “That hap pened almost three thousand years ago,
what are you doing?”
I’d s ay , “ W ell, lo ok at how the Spartans were treated—it wasn’ t nice. The
Athenians shouldn’ t have done that. It was simply awful. Could  we change
it by feeling guilty?”
Y ou’d probably say , “Of course not! It’ s over and done with.”
In reality , this morning is just as over as the Peloponnesian W a r . And as
Einstein taught us, there’ s no time in a linear fr ame at all. That concept of
time is merely something we invented. As for everythi ng that’ s going to happen to you from this se cond on,
understand that it is also nothing more than pure thought: Y ou can’ t touch
tomorrow . Y ou can’ t grab on to your goals. Y ou can’ t take tomorrow’ s
BMW a nd drive it. It’ s all thought. Y et you can also have the experience,
within your form, through thought. If your whole past and your whole
future are all th ought, then all t hat leaves you with is now . So why would
you elect to use up this moment with something like guilt or by  ruminating
on things that have already happened? Y ou’ll hear psychiatrists talking  about “living in the past.” But no one
can live in the past—we can only live in the now . Similarly , people say , “I
worry b ecause I  live in the future.” But they’re not  living in the future—
they’re using up this moment being consumed with something th at might ormight not happen later , over whi ch they have no control. It’ s such a sensible
thing to get rid o f that. Y ou mig ht ask how , and the answer is ac tually quite
simple: Y ou just do it. That’ s all. If feeling guilty doesn’ t do anything to
correct what you’re feeling guilty about, stop doing that. If yo u believe that you can’ t control your thoughts—that is, yo u believe
someone else does—then what I want you to do is find out who’ s putting
those thoughts in your mind and send that person to me. I will treat them,
and you will get better . Obviously , it doesn’ t work that way! Y ou want to be able to say , “It happened. It’ s over . I’ve resolved it. I want
to be there in the right frame of mind, I don’ t want to be mad. L et’ s push it
out. I don’ t want it there.” How ever , a lot of therapists might then reply ,
“That’ s unhealthy because you’re not really dealing with it.” I don’ t think
you hav e to deal with things all the time in order to prove that you’re
healthy! Imagin e there’ s a great big pile of co w m anure in the street. No w ,
there are some p eople who’d say , “Hey , I can deal with that—I’m going to
walk rig ht throu gh it.” T o me, that’ s pretty crazy . A healthy person would
say , “No, I don’ t have to deal with that. I’ll walk around it.” And that’ s what
they’d do. Y ou’ve got to g o around a lot of stuf f in your life, including y our own
thinking, when it doesn’ t serve y ou. How do you do this? W ell, you just do. Don’ t think like that anymor e! YOU CAN DO IT! Ask yourself if your life is serving you. If it is, great. But what if you’re
full of misery and unhappiness , depressed, always chasing things, never
satisfied, angry a lot, procrastinating all the time, full of guilt, or any of
those kinds of th ings? If so, I recommend trying to see the illu sion behind
it. Just stand back and have one little corner of your consciousness that says,
“It really  doesn’ t matter whether I meet the deadline or not. I’ve already put
myself into this act. This is the role that I have chosen since I showed up
here. There must be a reason for me to keep choosing it. I’m going to go
through the role, but I’m never going to let it destroy me or mess me up in
any way . So when I start to get into a lot of type A behavior over mydeadlines, or I g et myself all u pset because the Joneses have something I
don’ t ha ve, or anything like that , then I’m going to stop and ask, ‘Why am I
doing th is?’ I can’ t own anything anyway . I can’ t take anything with me. All I have is now . All I can do with this moment is live it and enjoy it.”
Every single time you find yourself slipping back, believing that the
things you’re accumulating or trying to get done are really important, stop
yourself. Come back to the now . Go through the motions, and don’ t let
yourself get destroyed by them. That’ s the key . I rem ember a pa rticular woman arriving in my of fice years ag o looking
for help. She’d been in anal ysis for years because she chewed her
fingernails. Can you imagine? This is a lady who wore gloves everywhere
she went to keep from biting her nails. She told me th at she’d been in classic psychoanalysis in w hich she
learned that everything had to d o with psycho-sexual developmental stages. Her psychiatrist had convinced  her that her nail biting, among her other
many neurotic tendencies, had nothing to do with her . He’d sa id, “Y ou’re
fixated and have an unresolved Electra complex. Y ou have go t to resolve
your feelings toward your father and mother . Y our issue is a manifestation
of some subliminal envy—symbolically , these really aren’ t your fingers.”
I a sked her , “Wh y would you co me to me? I believe the total opposite of
all that.”
She said, “My si ster came to you  about two years ago, and in four weeks,
you got her straightened out.”
“I don’ t know if I can talk to yo u for four weeks. I’m already bored with
your fin gernails.” She smiled, and I continued. “But I’ll see you. I’ll see
you three times, and then you’ll be cured.”
She asked me to repeat myself, and I said, “Y es, three times. And you can
talk about it and  analyze it all you want between now and whe n I see you
again. There’ s only one thing you can’ t do.”
“What’ s that?”
“Y ou have to keep your fingers out of your mouth.”
She star ted getti ng very nervous. As soon she got nervous, of course, it
didn’ t m atter if she had an oral  fixation or an Electra complex, her hands
were going into her mouth. So right away , I said, “Get your fin gers out of
your mouth,” and I went to grab her hand. She said , “Y ou know what? Nobody ever explained it to me quite like
that before.”“The fac t is that no matter how you analyze the problem, how m uch you
think and talk about it, if you ’re going to quit biting your fingernails,
you’ve got to keep your fingers out of your mouth,” I told her . “There’ s no
other way . Honestly , you can try  forever , but if you put your fing ers in your
mouth, you’re still a nail-biter no matter what.”
And you know something? The answers to almost everything are that
simple. I  get accused all the time  of being simplistic, when I guess there are
a lot of people who would rath er make things complicated. I like taking
complicated things and making them as simple as possible. Afte r seeing me
three tim es and  keeping her fi ngers out of her mouth, sure enough, this
woman was no longer a nail-biter . Think about if y ou want to do one of the things that people f ind most
dif ficult: quittin g smoking. W ell, you can call yourself an oral person. Y ou
can go to a clinic and try all the medicines, all the fads. Y ou can put holes in
your cig arettes a nd gradually give yourself a hernia from straining to suck
before you get even one puf f . Y ou can do any number of things, but
ultimately , the only way you’ll ever quit smoking is to stop putting
cigarettes in your mouth, one day at a time. There is no other way . When
I’m asked what the secret to quitting smoking is, I say , “Just for today , don’ t
put any more cigarettes in your mouth.”
Y our first reaction might be disbelief: “How am I going to do that? What
if the ur ge comes?”
“There i s no ur ge out there. It’ s really you telling yourself, ‘This is too
hard, I don’ t want to do that.’ Stop doing that!”
Likewise, stop telling yourself, “This is the hardest thing I ev er d id,” or
even, “It’ s the easiest thing I ever did.” The only thing you can’ t do is put a
cigarette in your mouth. Follow this one simple rule, and you w ill be an ex-
smoker , just like that. That’ s ho w it works. In fact, that’ s the only way it
works. Remember , you can be anything, you can do anything, you  can go
anywhere. Y ou can learn to sort of watch your form go through all kinds of
things. But the Divine part of you, the r eal  y ou, stands ba ck and says,
“These are the motions I’m going through, but that isn’ t really me. I’m
much bi gger an d grander than a ll of that.” Y ou look at your re lationships,and you  realize that almost everything you fight about isn’ t even real for
you. Wh at’ s rea l is how you think—what you fill yourself w ith. If your
thoughts are only of harmony , ease, serenity , and love, then that’ s all you’ll
have to give away to others. When you tap in to this truly awakened part of yourself, yo u see the
perfection behind everything that you’re doing. Y ou never worry again
about yo ur form  wearing out, or about dying, or about any of those things. Y ou know that thought is an endless ener gy that goes on and on. Most of
all, you know that that’ s  who you are—not an aging a nd ever -changing
form, but that which is eternal and changeless. CHAPTER 3
FOCUS ON THE BIG PICTURE
I remem ber bein g on a flight in which the very caring staf f were doing all
they could to comfort a distressed fellow passenger . The plane was not in
any dan ger , so I couldn’ t help but be struck by how terribly fr ightened he
was of crashing. Y ou see, wh en you become truly awake, death isn’ t
anything that frightens you. Y ou know that everything is always in
transition—that’ s the nature of our universe. I’ve fou nd that most people w ho have had near -death experiences say
something along  the lines of, “It taught me the most valuable le sson of my
life, which is that I’ve got to take each day I have and make the most of it.”
The pro blem is , it shouldn’ t have to take a brush with death to do
something so natural, so basic, a nd so simple—which is to live your life the
way you  want to, without having to answer to anyone else. S o instead of
that old slogan, “T oday is the first day of the rest of your life,” take on the
idea of, “T oday is the last day of  your life, so live it as if you don’ t have any
more.”
The trut h is, we don’ t know how much time we’ll have. The pa st is over
for a ll o f us. The future is promised to none of us. All we get is now , and
most of  us know someone who was wiped out in a silly accident, who
dropped dead of a heart attack, who was taken at a young age. Every single
one of us is going to have to face a last day , and we cannot predict when
that day will come. Death is  as important a part of life as living is. Y et we’re careful not to
tell deat h jokes, make an of fha nd remark about somebody who recently
died, or the like. If only we coul d get to the point where we see death as just
another transitio n, where we leave this dimension that we live in and enter a
new on e. If only we cou ld understand that we are, in fact,multidimensional! Understandin g that and leading life on those terms can
be the most freeing, exhilarating, exciting thing that we can do. THE VER Y ESSENCE OF WHO WE ARE
One of the most amazing insights I ever had was when my grandmother
died. When she was admitted to the hospital, one of the things they did was
weigh h er for some reason. I guess they had to have it in their records, or
maybe y ou don’ t get into heaven if you don’ t have a weight certificate. I
don’ t know what hospitals are  thinking with all this record keeping. I
always wonder about all the people who died before we had records. Whatever happened to all of them? Anyway , my grandma was 95 years old and weighed 133 pounds when
she entered the h ospital. W e knew that she was very close to dying, and we
watched as the life literally left her body . Then her package—the bones and
skin and hair , a ll that stuf f that certainly wasn’ t my grandmo ther—grew
cold and  stif f. They weighed her for the death certificate, and s he was 133
pounds, exactly the same. So whatever it was that constituted her life, her
very ess ence, was invisible and weightless. It couldn’ t be weighed or
measured. That’ s true for each a nd every one of us. What our l ife is really
all about de fies the world of form, yet we spend so much of our ener gy and
time here, in thi s part of our consciousness, that we believe thi s is who we
are. This ma kes me think of our sixt h president, John Quincy Adams. He was
a man who was highly spiritual and very intelligent. I think he had perhaps
the highest intellect of anyone  who ever sat in the White House. For
example, he rejected slavery wh ile many of his contemporaries practiced it. This is what he wrote about himself a few days before he died, in a letter to
a friend:
John Quincy Adams is well, b ut the house in which he lives at the
present time is b ecoming dilapi dated. It’ s tattering on its found ations. T ime an d the seasons have nearly destroyed it. Its roof is pret ty well
worn ou t. Its walls are much sh attered and tremble with every wind. I
think Jo hn Quincy Adams will have to move out of it soon. But he
himself is quite well, thank you.Once w e understand that we ar e not the “houses” we’re currently in—
that is, our bodi es—then fearing death becomes impossible. A fter all, we
know th at we can’ t kill thoughts, because thoughts are ener gy . W e can’ t kill
feelings, which are the result of thoughts. W e’ve also establish ed that our
bodies c hange form all the time, but who we are as human beings consists
of the entire mental process. Who we are comes from the way we think and
process our world rather than how our bodies take shape (and, eventually ,
lose their shape). When we’re awakened, we look at death as  absolutely
necessary and nothing to fear . Y ou onl y fear what you don’ t fa ce, and what you don’ t face will control
you. If you have the courage to face your fear of death, y ou’ll come to
understand that everything you experience in life is a mental i mage. I can
never look out and see the world the way you see it. I can never be your
liver or kidney , no matter how m uch I care about you. I can’ t be  the process
that you are. Y ou begin to see t hat you are not that liver or ki dney either;
you are your unique perceptual approach to everything in life. Y ou are your
thoughts, and those never die. In fact, nothing that has life in it, that has that
intelligence, that perfection in it, dies. It’ s simply in transition. Returning to the topic of my g randmother , I know that there’ s nothing
that could have ever killed her . I know that the essence of my grandmother
couldn’ t have died. Everything she accumulated and needed and had to do
in h er 95 year s, which she c ould now see from a dif ferent level of
consciousness, was all an illusion. It was all just stuff  that she was going
through, which she was creating in a dif ferent dimension. As I’ve said, we are multidimensional human beings. One of the
dimensions we experience is fo rm, but there are many other dimensions to
us a s well. Just try to imagine that. If you can’ t—if it’ s too woo-woo,
metaphysical, ph ilosophical, or tough for you to get hold of—you might be
surprised to find out that you’ve already experienced this for a t hird of your
life. YOU LEA VE YOUR FORM ALL THE TIME
People often ask me, “Where do you think we go when we die?”
I respond, “Where do you go when you are asleep?”In other words, when we go t o sleep, what do we do? W e leave this
dimension called form and go into a nonform dimension. W e are in pure
thought the whole time, and it ’ s all fine. None of us are troubled about
transitioning int o sleep, nor do we wake up saying, “Whew! I was so
frightened that I was in this dream and going to stay there!”
Let me tell you how the rules are dif ferent when you’re asleep and in
nonform: There’ s no beginning or end. There’ s no cause or ef f ect. There’ s
no t ime. There’ s no life or death. For example, you may ha ve had the
experience of being asleep and  feeling the presence of a dead loved one
right the re with you. Or you ma y have experienced being younger than you
are in your dreams. If you’re 18 again, you look and feel like you’re 18,
don’ t yo u? I have this horrible dream that I’m back in the Nav y , and they
for got my dischar ge date. I can’ t get anybody to acknowledge that I’ve done
my four years, so it’ s time for me to be out. I’ve got to go h ome, go to
college, get married, have kids, and get on with my life, but everybody’ s
telling me, “I can’ t find your records.” It’ s so vivid! In that third of our life when there’ s no time or space, when there are no
limits of any kin d, it’ s very real. Our bodies are dramatically af fected by the
thoughts we’re having, and we t ranscend our form at that time. And one of
the reaso ns we dream is to teac h us that every obstacle we run into is an
opportunity . In our dreams, everything that we need, we create. Imagine driving  along on a beautiful day , when all of a sudden the road
ends and  there’ s a clif f. So what do you do? Somehow you s prout some
wings. Y ou thin k, I’ll fly over this , an d that’ s exactly what you do. Y ou
create out of that obstacle wha tever you need. If you’re und erwater and
have to stay the re for an extended length of time, that is no pro blem—you
just get yourself some gills and stay under there. Dreaming is one way you can get a handle on another level of
consciousness, b ecause you enter a new realm when you go to sleep. When
you dream, you live in another world, one of pure thought. Y ou can do
anything, and you create everyth ing you need. Y ou don’ t say , “Oh, I didn’ t
have a body . Th at was an illusion.” Be cause if somebody’ s coming at you
with a knife, even if it’ s a dream, your reaction to it is real. When you wake
up, your heart is really pumpi ng, but you can also look back and say ,
“That’ s an illusion; there was nobody with a knife.”
There are many ways in which the experience of what you’re dreaming
manifests itself in your body . One interesting phenomenon thatdemonstrates thi s concept is politely called a nocturnal emission. This is so
fascinating to me because you would think that in order to have a sexual
experience, you’d need to have some kind of physical contact. But you’re
asleep when you have this experience; it’ s happening purely in the world of
thought, even though ef fects can  be seen in the world of form. In fact, even
when two people are having an actual sexual encounter , it’ s all still thought. The lar gest sex or gan that we have is our brain. It’ s all done thr ough thought. If you can’ t think it, and you can’ t get the
image, then you can’ t make it  happen. So the dance of life is possible
through thought and nothing more. That is, the very stuf f of life is thought. THE LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
There ar e dif ferent levels of con sciousness, which can be envisioned like
a st epladder with only three steps: The bottom rung of the ladder is
dreaming cons ciousness. Then the next rung up is your waking
consciousness, w hich is what w e go through most of the time. The final
rung is another level of consci ousness beyond the waking consciousness,
which we’ll call a question mark for now . When I was a kid, I had some bizarre experiences on the lowes t rung of
the ladder because people could talk to me while I was dreaming. My
brothers used to get our mother or other family members to come over to
watch w hat wou ld happen. They’d  say , “Look at this guy .” One time my
oldest brother , Jim, gave me a bedsheet and said, “Y ou’re going to school,
W ayne. Here’ s your shirt. Come  on, get it on.” I was trying to get my arm
into this sheet, but there was no armhole, of course, so I had this crazy thing
going. Jim was saying to our mother , “Look at him; he thinks he’ s getting
dressed.”
Another time, I was dreaming about shoveling snow . I asked out loud,
“Where’ s my shovel?” Jim said,  “Here’ s your shovel, W ayne. G o ahead and
take it.” He was  on the second rung in waking consciousness, ta lking to me
in d ream consciousness. I was in a dif ferent level of consciousness, so the
dream w as real for me. As long as my brother would cooperate w ith me and
pretend to be with me in the dream, then I would stay with it. But if he
would’ve said, “Y ou’re crazy , you’re dreaming, just wake up,” I would’veeither go ne deep er into my unco nsciousness or come out of it and realized
that ther e was no shovel. Of cou rse that’ s what eventually happened: I woke
up a nd a gain ask ed, “Where’ s my shovel?” Jim said, “Oh, you’re awake.” I
realized I didn’ t have my shovel, but I’d had the experience  of having it. It
all seemed incredibly real. The only  time you know you’re dreaming is when you’re awake. So you
have to wake u p to know that what you were just doing was an illusion. That’ s the dif ference between the dream-consciousness level and the
waking-consciousness level. What I suggest is that in order to g o from one
level of consciousness to anothe r , you have somebody who’ s on the second
rung go down there and pretend to be with you on the first rung. Now we get to the third rung, which has the question mark. What is that
level of conscio usness, and how is it dif ferent? I believe that i f somebody
from that level of consciousness wanted us to know what is possible for us
at a higher level than we’re liv ing right now , they would have  to be here
among us. Much like my brother speaking to me from waking
consciousness to my dream consciousness, that person would pretend to be
with us in the d ream. Someone from another level of consciousness would
show us that we don’ t have to live this illusion, and then they ’d leave to
another dimension. This is what I think highly spiritual people do: They clearly see the
illusion. They know that the experience  of the illusion is real, but it can’ t
be, in fact. W e can’ t own anything, we can’ t have it, we can’ t get hold of it. There a re many highly spiritual people on this planet right now who
understand this higher level of consciousness. They help us al ong as they
try to get us to see that there’ s a higher place we can get to. That higher
place isn ’ t form; it’ s transformation. When we get that, then we can go in
and out of this next dimension . . . and then the next dimension  . . . and the
next. . . . YOU CREA TE EVER YTHING YOU NEED
When I was a ch ild, I realized th at the shovel that had been handed to me
was an illusion, but my experie nce of it was very real. I believ e that when
we die and leave our form, we will also be able to look back and see theillusion of all that we’ve accumu lated and held on to, all of our “shovels”—
the money and things that we can’ t take with us—and understand that we
created everythi ng that we need ed in the level we’re at now . W e created it
all. If we needed  a partner to fight with every day , then we cre ated that. If
we needed to have poverty for some reason, then we created that. For me, this is the essence of life. I know that there ar e higher
dimensions than this waking-co nsciousness level that we live in. I know
that I can live th e illusion and e njoy it all, make it all work for me. I create
whatever I need. If I need to have a house full of children, I create that. If I
need to have an experience of lo sing my keys, I create that too. I’ve created
everything that happens in order to make this level of consciousness work. Now , suppose you went to sleep and had a dream in which you had all
this mon ey and everything you  ever wanted. Then you woke up but were
still atta ched to the stuf f that you  had in your dream: “W ait a mi nute, I want
that. There was gold there, there were all these friends, I had a Ferrari there. I’ve got  to have all of this now !” Somebody would come along and say ,
“Sorry , that was a dream. Y ou can’ t be attached to that; it was only a
thought you had.” W ell, that’ s the way you’ve got to view life. Instead of
being in an eigh t-hour dream, you’re in an 80-year or a 90-year dream. At
the end of the dream, you don’ t want to be looking back at all the stuf f you
wish yo u could still have. Beca use you can’ t  hav e it— none of it will ever
actually be yours. As absurd as it would be for you to be attached to the stuf f that you had
in your dream, it’ s equally as absurd for you to be attached to the stuf f that
you’re having in this  dream. In fact, when you get to a higher level, you’ll
look back on all this and ask, “What did I need any of that for?”
There is a plac e in our wakin g consciousness that is similar to our
dreaming consciousness, in which there’ s nothing to limit us. This is the
state of the waking dr eamer . W e are not the bodies that we c arry around or
our poss essions, which are all j ust things that we have created because we
need them for th e dream. Y es, in this dream the things that we need we also
create. The trouble is, we don’ t want to call it a dream because it’ s so real. And yet, that is exactly what it is. Y ou ma y have had a similar ex perience to this: Y ou’re having a great
dream, when something from an other dimension wakes you up—a bell goes
of f, a door is sla mmed, the phone rings, whatever it may be—a nd you sort
of ha lf w ake up and come ba ck into your form . Y ou leave pure thought andall th at g reat stu f f you can create , and you say to yourself, I want to go right
back to sleep so I can find out how this dr eam turns out. When I bring this up with audie nces, I’ll ask, “What’ s going on here? If
you’re creating this dream, then why would you ever need to go back to
sleep to find ou t what the outcome was? Y ou’re the one writing it!” It
would b e like me sitting down  to write a story and wondering how it’ s
going to  turn out. If you asked me who was writing this story , I’d say , “I
am.” Y o u’d poin t out, “Okay , if you’re writing it, then you must know how
it’ s goin g to come out.” I’d then say , “Y eah, I’ve got it all outlined, so I
guess I do know how it’ s going to come out.” I mean, if I’m writing it, then
I can create whatever I want. So how do you explain what’ s happening when you’re trying to get back
to a dream? Who ’ s writing the s cript, if it’ s not you? W ell, you have entered
a n ew dimension  with dif ferent rules, in which you are now playing a new
role. Y ou’ve entered a dimensi on that’ s already been written, and you do
this all the time—this wonderful dimension of thought is right there for you. Did it ever occur to you that you are creating everything you need for this
dream? That when you finally leave your form this time around, you’re
going to look back and see that the attachment you have to all your stuf f is
just as much of an illusion as the knife the guy had in your other dream? Sure, it’ s real while you’re expe riencing it, but when you look at it from a
transformed point of view , it doesn’ t exist. When you have awakened,
you’ll get this—you’ll realize that this is all a dream. All of us have roles that we play: I’m a rent-a-W ayne Dye r . Y ou’re
maybe a rent-a-Marjorie, a rent-a-Sally , or a rent-a-Geor ge. But when we
are truly awake, we realize that they are only roles, illusions. It doesn’ t
mean th at we don’ t enjoy them. Why wouldn’ t we enjoy our dr eam? W e’re
creating it, after all. If yo ur dream isn’ t satisfying or  fulfilling to you, you can make it be so. All you have to  do is change your thought, because that’ s all you are. So
you can  watch yourself, like a n actor . Y ou might say , “Jeez, that was a
funny th ing I did this morning,  and it was really stupid. I don ’ t think I’m
going to do that  anymore.” Y ou stand back and watch yourself do all these
things, knowing  that your Divineness, who you really are, is beyond what
your form is doing. When you understand that, then the rest of the dream
becomes whatev er you want it to be. Remember , you can create anything
you want now for the dream, and you do so through thought.THE P ATH T O UNDERST ANDING
The ultimate transcending of our form is what we call death. I don’ t
pretend to have a handle on the great mysteries of the universe, but I have
no fear of death whatsoever bec ause I know that you can’ t kill thought. W e
are thought; thought can never be destroyed. Therefore, we c an never be
destroyed. Thought is the ultimate vibration in the universe, which goes on
forever . It’ s an endless thing. Everything is programmed into a single little drop of protoplasm, all that
you’ll ever need, for your entire life, in the form that you’re in. It’ s all a
mystery , and while we are drea ming it is unlimited. There are no limits to
what yo u can do while you are dreaming. Y ou can be anything, you can do
anything, you can go anywhere,  you can be any age, and it’ s very real. Y ou
experience it very dramatically . Y ou’re not ever afraid to go to sleep, so
why be afraid to change this form? It’ s just part of the “isness” of it all. Everything that ’ s happening is supposed to be happening. E ven our
desire to eradicate the things that we see as u npleasant is part of the Divi ne
plan—that’ s par t of the paradox  you have to understand. F . Scott Fitzgerald
wrote a  wonderful essay that said something like the highest form of
intelligence tha t you can get  to is when you’re able to have two
contradicting concepts present in you at the same time. He explained that it
is pe rfectly legitimate within th e context of this perfect universe to think
everything is hopeless and yet have hope at the same time. T o know that
there are  people  who are starvin g and be determined to do something about
it at the same time. And the reason I believe that what he says is true, that
this con tradiction is the highest place you have to get to, is because each
one of us is a paradox as well. W e live with two dif ferent sets of rules: W e live in form, whic h has its
own rul es, and we live in nonf orm, which has a whole other set of rules. W e’re in  this one package, but t here’ s always this dualism. W e simply have
to keep our focus on the big picture. The path  to understanding the big picture is dif ferent for everyone, but its
availability is there. By the big picture, I mean knowing in you r heart and
soul tha t there’ s more to life than what your body is going th rough, and
knowing that there’ s nothing w orth getting yourself all bogged down and
depressed and worked up about. Y ou have a new intelligence. Noticing that
new intelligence can lead you a way from any fear of death and into yourtrue pote ntial, fo r happiness and fulfillment in yourself. Y ou kno w it all and
see all that. If it take s a brush with death in  order for you to get that big picture—to
be a ble to relax in the face of conflict, to not allow yourself to get stressed
out over  small things, to enjoy your present moments and find fulfillment
and joy in them—then have that near -death experience, but hav e it in your
mind only . One of the ways to accomplish this is through meditation;
another is through visualization. Imagine yourself participating in your own funeral in your m ind. See
yourself dying of a horrible  disease and suf fering. Go through it. Experience that whole thing, and  as you do, this concept will ari se naturally
for you: This doesn’ t have to be br ought into form . . . I can act it out in my
mind like a dr e am, live thr ough it, r eally get the feeling of it, and then
decide I don’ t have to bring this into my form any longer . I can make a
decision not to do it. Whatever it takes for you is fine . All I’m saying is that you don’ t have to
go through it in the world of form, in your physical worl d. Y ou can
transform, go beyond your form . Y ou can be metaphysical, go beyond the
physical. Experi ence it in your  mind where there are no limits. Y ou can
literally be anywhere through your thoughts. Then when you come out of it,
realize that Okay , that’ s enough. I’ve done t hat now . Let me practice the big
pictur e. Let me see it isn’ t anything that I actually have to bring into my life. Once you’re able to do that, onc e you can create that for yourself, then you
get all the benefits of the big picture. DIE WHILE YOU’RE ALIVE
I’d like to share a wonderful, ancient tale with you. There was this h unter who would go to Africa every couple of years, and
he woul d bring home animals as prizes. One year he discovered a lar ge
enclave inside a jungle that was filled with beautiful multicolored parrots,
and they all talked. He couldn’ t get over it, so he captured one of the parrots
and brou ght him  home. He took great care of the parrot and talked to him
every day , but he did keep him in a cage. T wo years went by , and he told theparrot, “ I’m going back to Afri ca. Is there anything you would  like me to
say to your friends in the jungle?”
The par rot said, “Y es. T ell them  that I’m very happy in my c age here
with you. Just tell them that.”
The hun ter wen t back to the place in the jungle where he had captured
the parro t two years before. He  told the other birds, “Y our friend whom I
took back has a message for you, which is that he is happy in his cage with
me.” Upon hearing that, a bird on one of the branches keeled over instantly . When the hunter returned home , he told his parrot what had h appened. He said, “I wen t back and did what you asked. The moment I told them
what you said, o ne of your friends was apparently so upset and missed you
so much that he  dropped dead.” At that, the parrot in the cage also keeled
over . His legs went straight up in the air , and he went stif f.
The hunter was beside himself a nd couldn’ t figure out how this could’ve
happened. Befor e long, he took the dead parrot out of the cage and put him
on the woodpile. The second the parrot landed on the woodpile, he flew into
the trees. The hun ter said , “What is this? I thought you were dead. Y ou tricked
me!”
The parr ot replie d, “My friend was sending me a message. He told me by
his actions that i n order for me to escape from my cage, I had to  die while I
was alive.”
This is an old story that’ s been repeated countless times over the years, so
what does it all mean? W ell, don’ t you see that the whole planet is a cage? W e’re al l restric ted by the limit ations placed on us as human being. W e’re
stuck in our homes or our jobs, and we’re all in cages. Even though we have
more room to m anipulate our circumstances than that parrot did , we’re still
trapped. Now , how do you escape from the cage that you’re in? Y ou ha ve to see
the big picture and die while you’re alive. All of us are going to die, so why
not expe rience it in advance? Se e yourself out of your body , gone, but able
to look back at what’ s going on now . It’ s much like the dream where you
have everything you want, but you’re able to look back at it from a greater
perspective. In the process, you’ ll see the folly , the absurdity , of hanging on
to an ything, of being attached t o anything, of needing anything, of telling
yourself that you can’ t be happy without something, whatever it may be.As soon as you can look back on this like a dream, as soon as you can
experience your self as formless and multidimensional, all the things that
you cling to bec ome irrelevant. They’re no longer necessary . Y ou have a
whole n ew way  of living, a new way of being. It’ s quieter , it’ s easier , it’ s
less demanding, it’ s less painful. There’ s less suf fering because suf fering is
all p layed out in  this form; you’re someplace else now , you’ve experienced
that. Y ou look back and see the absurdity of all of your attachments,
knowing that you can never own anything, and then you sort of flow
through life. Y ou’re not fightin g anything, and it all works nicely , easily ,
perfectly . T ry to detach yo urself from the need to have that stuf f now while you’re
here, wh ile you’ re alive. Y ou m ay be surprised at the contentm ent you feel
when yo u realize that you have everything you need, but you don’ t have to
chase after it. I’d like to make it very clear here that when I say we have to die while
we’re alive, it is not a physic al act. T his all takes place in the mind. By the
way , when people are trained in  meditation and in becoming h igh spiritual
masters and so on, they’re expected to do this exercise of experiencing their
own death, to know what it’ s like, to feel it inside. I a pply this concept in my own  life by reminding myself that an eight-
hour dream and an 80-year drea m are basically the same if there’ s no such
thing as time. I also remind myself that bein g attached to anything—in the
sense of needing to have it and  identifying with it and defining  myself by
the acqu isition or by getting someplace, by those kinds of acts—is absurd
from the perspective of my no longer being here in form. I h eard of a philosopher who was asked if there was a God and whether
he believed in life after death. He said, “No, I don’ t believe it; I know it. I
absolutely know you cannot kill thought. Y ou cannot kill spirit, you cannot
kill the higher consciousness that’ s part of the eternity . Just like the
universal is eternal, so are you.”
I f eel the same way: When you know that, and live that, then the idea of
your for m dying becomes less a nd less scary . So I try to look at everything
that I’m doing from the perspec tive of being able to look back at it, fromthe p oint of not being here any longer , from the point of being dead or from
looking back at what was in my dream. While you’re in the dream, ever ything that you’re doing is very exciting
and very  real. It’ s not like you’re going through it and saying, “Oh, this
doesn’ t count, I had my fingers crossed.” Even when you are t ruly awake,
you don’ t look b ack and say , “I want all that stuf f back. I have t o have it. If
only I would have done things  this way .” Y ou don’ t do any o f that. Y ou
simply move on to the next le vel. Y ou have a new perspective, and the
perspective is that of not needi ng anything in a very short time. I mean,
eternity is just a speck away for all of us, and we won’ t need any of this
stuf f.
Again, try to detach yourself now  so that you can flow , so that you can be
part of that perfection instead o f always worrying, hurting, or b eing angry . All suf f ering ge ts played out in  form; there’ s no suf fering in  thought. A
body may be going through all this pain, but who you are isn’ t suf fering at
all. S o y ou can get that new pers pective of looking back on all this from the
vantage point of no longer needi ng to have or own anything. Y ou know that
your hu manity , your Divineness, isn’ t in things and acquisitions—it’ s in
how you think. THE LAST DA Y OF YOUR LIFE
Let’ s cir cle back  to the phrase “T oday is the first day of the rest of your
life.” I’d really like to change it to “T oday is the last day of your life.” Now
there’ s a slogan! Y ou don’ t have any “rest of your life” guaranteed to you at
all. What you get is now . Y ou’ve got to learn that death is like the old joke:
it’ s natu re’ s way of telling you to slow down. Sure, it’ll do that. But all
kidding aside, you’ve got to get things in perspective. Life itself is an unfinished-ness. It’ s not like you’re going to get it all
or ganized into the right place, and then check out. No. God doe sn’ t tell you
in the morning, “Y ou’ll be checking out about 11:30 P .M. Y ou will be joining
me tonight.” Y ou can’ t say , “W ait a minute, God. Y ou don’ t understand. I
bought three bottles of shampoo . As soon as I use up that shampoo, I’ll be
ready . And by the way , God, I’ve got a whole bunch of steaks in  the freezer . I go t them on sale and haven’ t even touched them yet.” Y ou do n’ t want tomake God mad on your last day . He could say , “Now it’ll be about 11:20
P .M , buddy .”
I suggest that you get into the habit of telling yourself every morning,
“This is the last  day I’ve got.” Because you know something? All of us, at
some tim e or another , have got to face a last day . Nobody’ s leaving here
alive. A nd when you tell yourself, “This is the last day of my life,” you get
a whole  new perspective on the worlds of form and nonform. Y ou know
death is merely another transition rather than anything to be feared. Let’ s say you’re in a traf fic jam  on your way to work. If you know that
this is the last tra f fic jam you’re ever going to get, you ’re going to enjoy the
hell out of it. If  this is your last bridge crossing, you’ll be checking that
bridge out carefully . Y ou’ll intr oduce yourself to everybody in line there:
“Excuse me, my name is W ayne  Dyer . I’ll be leaving tonight, but I wanted
to tell you how much I like that bridge there. Boy , is that nice.”
There w ould be no rush. Y ou’d  take it easy , and savor your tim e. Now ,
why not cultivate that attitude for everything in your life? Ke eping your
focus on the big picture will help you do just that. CHAPTER 4
BE AUTHENTICALL Y FREE
Did you know th at there are two kinds of freedom? The first is one that I
call “counterfeit freedom,” an d it’ s exactly what the word counterfeit
means: phony . It’ s not authentic. It’ s not real. Y et so many in our society
pursue it relentlessly . Some of the most popular forms  of counterfeit freedom come fr om drugs
or a lcohol. People pursue such  substances in order to feel high, to feel
giddy , to  feel euphoric. These days, both legal and illegal drugs are widely
available everywhere. It’ s gotten to the point that in virtually every
metropolis and even tiny village s across the world, we can find generations
of people hooked on these substances. The reason this is a counterfeit freedom is because you can never get
enough of it. W ith a drug, you spend most of your time chasing  your high. Y ou brie fly feel  euphoric and free, and then a few moments later you say ,
“I’ve got to have some more of that.”
Obviously if you really were free, you’d experience a sense of
contentment rath er than needing anything else. The test of authenticity is
whether you need more of something in order to keep feeling free. If you
do, then you ar e not free at all. This thing owns you, and you are its
prisoner . Y ou don’ t have it; it ha s you. It is not something you’re using; it is
something that is using you. Before long, you’re using it again, and then
again, and again—you can never get enough of what you don’ t want. Y es, it is ironic that the things we don’ t want are the ones we ch ase after . W e reall y don’ t want these drug s, we really don’ t want this alcohol in our
system, yet we find ourselves constantly chasing after it and never getting
enough. This sea rch for freedom through substances has trapped users into a
lifestyle of never getting enough of what they don’ t want. They think they’llbe free when they experience th e fantastic high that comes with the drug or
drink, b ut the pleasure is only  physical. It lasts a moment or two, then
there’ s the demand for more. Authentic freedo m, on the other hand, doesn’ t demand any mo re. When
you exp erience this freedom, you’re not going to say , “O h, I’m not
satisfied. I have to have more.” I nstead, you’ll have a blissful sort of feeling
—the freedom of knowing your higher self, of knowing God. Authentic freedom causes you to feel a sense of, I am  her e, this is it, I’ve
got it. Any thing that d emands more from you, puts you in debt, place s your
health i n jeopardy , or makes you enslaved to addictive powers is a
counterfeit freedom. In this chapter , y ou’ll learn more about authentic freedom, whic h I define
as one in which you’re focused on purpose and serving others, not thinking
about yourself and how things af fect you. The whole idea of authentic
freedom is exquisite to me, as it seems to be something that most of us
haven’ t even considered as a possibility for ourselves. I know that it is
absolutely possible for each and every one of us. The way to attain this
freedom is through higher awareness, which is something very dif ferent
from wh at most of us have experienced so far in our lives. It is another
wonderful result of being truly awake. A NEW AGREEMENT
The higher part of yourself is not tied to the world of form. In fact, it has
no boun daries to it at all. I call this being in nowhere. Think of when you’re
born, and suddenly you go from nowher e  to now her e.  It’ s the same
concept. Nowhe re to now her e, which is your life, and then back to
nowhere. But your awareness—this higher part of yourself, who you really
are—was in nowhere, it’ s in no w here, and it’ll be with you w hen you go
back to nowhere. That which was never born never dies. So we arrive from nowhere, somehow and in some mysterious way . I
don’ t claim to k now how that happened—I don’ t have a clue. I’m part of
the s ame process that you are. I showed up here the same way you did. W e
all g o fr om now here to now her e, surrounded by eternity . As we ’ve already
learned, the higher part of ourselves is eternal, changeless, and formless.The par t of us that is not eternal is our form, our packaging, and it is
constantly changing. Before we show up in now here, we essentially sign an agreement
concerning what is going to constitute our reality in this form. The
agreement says that there are certain things that we can do and certain
things th at we can’ t do—we can only accomplish so much, we c an only run
so fast, we can only do so many things, and so forth. W e are then given a
whole host of very well-mea ning sponsors, such as our p arents, our
neighbors, our teachers, our coa ches, our spiritual counselors or priests or
ministers or rabbis. They all ha ve good intentions, but they reinforce that
agreement with their ideas  of what our limitations are, what’ s possible or
not possible for us. The story for most of us is tha t we’ve been doing the steps that we’ve
been shown by well-meaning parents, schools, religious training, and the
like for our entire lives. I’m not here to question any of t his; it’ s all
according to the Divine plan. But in order to get to that place where we can
manifest miracle s, we must und erstand the steps that we’ve bee n shown, so
we can erase them without judgment. I’m of fe ring you the opportunity to write a new agreement now , changing
the one that you made so long  ago. Furthermore, this new a greement is
going to  involve your coming up with some ideas, behaviors, strategies, and
other things you’ve probably ne ver even considered before. Y ou have to let
go of all the stuf f that you’ve been taught. Instead, ask yourself  things like:
Can I be in mor e than one place at the same time? Can I shape-shift? Can I
communicate telepathically with someone who isn’ t in the r oom? Can I r ead
auras? Can I defy gravity? Can I enter the dr eams of another person? For thos e of you who absolutely know that such things are not  possible,
go ahea d and put down this bo ok now . Because we’re going into a new
realm here. I mean, I’m not just coming out of the closet with this spiritual
stuf f—I’m rippi ng the door of f as I get out there. Because I do  absolutely
know th at these things are possi ble, and it’ s that knowing that I want to get
into your heart. Again, I ask that  you be open to the ideas I’m presenting here. T ry telling
yourself, Maybe I ’ve got to consider chan ging this agr eement that I signed. After all , it doesn’ t give me a sense of what I r eally want for myself. My
heart says I wan t something much mor e. I want to feel that my  life is deep
and rich and fulfilling, and I want to be on purpose at all times. I want to beable to experience that glowing  inner light, that love that so many of the
spiritual masters talk about, and I haven’ t gotten it by doing  what I’ve been
doing so far . I can appr eciate my past, as it all had to happen i n the way it
did to bring me to this point. But I have the power to change wher e I go
fr om her e.
Who you are, whether you know it or not, is a “fringe dweller .” That’ s a
term coi ned by one of my very  favorite people, Stuart W ilde. H e certainly
lived up to his  name—he was as wild and wonderful and noble and
beautiful a soul as I have ever known. Stuart wrote about the fringe
dwellers in his book The Whispering W inds of Change , which is one of the
best and most profound things I’ve ever read in my life. Stuart describes  the fringe dwellers as those who have left the system
spiritually and instead reside in  a sort of neverland area where they are no
longer concerned with having to fit in or having to be like everybody thinks
they sho uld be. They’re people w ho have love in their hearts and don’ t want
to buy into the antagonism and the hatred and the bitterness and the strife
that so many people seem embroiled in. It’ s actually a lar ge group that you find yourself in. There’ s a re al hunger
for what you believe in, as there’ s an incredible spiritual deficit in the
world. That’ s  the true deficit, not the one of m oney that we hear about. W e
fringe dwellers are the ones w ho are creating the consciousness that is
going to transform the world. The changes that we have seen taking place
all over the plan et in an extraord inary spiritual renaissance are coming from
the w ay that we have decided to process our world. W e are no longer going
to be  a part of a system in which we have to subject ourselves to the evils of
nationalism and competition. W e are going to choose something new . SUSPEND YOUR DISBELIEF
If yo u’re having dif ficulty with what I’ve been discussing in this book, it
might be because you haven’ t learned how to experience what’ s called “the
willing suspensi on of disbelief.” This is what you do every time you go into
a m ovie theater . When you settle into your seat, you know in your heart that
what you’re seeing is coming fro m a projector in the rear of the room onto a
two-dimensional screen, and t he story isn’ t actually happening in thetheater . Y ou don’ t sit there and s ay , “I’m not buying into this. Those are just
images that are being projected, and somebody’ s trying to fool me.” No,
you willingly suspend your di sbelief and say , “I’ll allow myself to be
entertained and informed, and then I’ll pick my doubt back up when I
leave.”
W ell, the same thing applies to what I’m talking about here. Some of it
might co nflict w ith the agreement you made with what it is tha t constitutes
your limitations. But keep in mind that any limitations you have imposed on
yourself are all in the physical domain of form. I find it interesting that if some one I’m talking to says that they want to
make a change—let’ s say they want to lose weight, quit smoking, leave
their dru g habit behind, or have a Divine relationship—it’ s so easy for me
to detect whether or not they’re going to be able to do so. Because about
two min utes after explaining their desire, they usually come up with a
reason why it can’ t happen: “Oh, that’ s not possible. No, I can’ t do it.” Then
they tend to come up with a l ist of things they’ve been told  about their
limitations by all the well-meaning people in their life. Similarly , as you’ve been reading, you may have felt some doubt. Y ou
might ha ve said something like,  “No, this is not possible. All of  this is easy
for W ay ne Dyer  to say , but it’ s not anything I could accomplish. It can’ t
happen for me.” I ask that you willingly suspend your disbelief, at least
until you’re done with this book. If you want to buy into your disbelief
again, m uch lik e when you leave the theater and go back to a dif ferent
reality , t hen fine . But the more you can allow y ourself to open your heart,
the more you’ll allow good things to enter your life. Keep in mind that what you think about is what expands, so if what you
think ab out is It can’ t happen , then It can’ t happen  has to expand. If what
you thin k about in your relation ship is what is wrong, what is missing, or
what you don’ t like, then that will be the nature of your relat ionship. So
once you understand that what you think about is what expands—or as you
think, so shall you be—you’ll get really careful about what you think. Everything in the universe is ener gy , including you. All of the things that
constitute your body are really a form of ener gy . They are just resonating at
a certain frequency and appear to be solid because of that frequency . The
ener gy I ’m talki ng about is not that which resonates at the solid form, but
another kind that is also with yo u at all times. This is like havin g an ener gy
body th at is physical and also spiritual. The primary ener gy that you’vebeen usi ng all your life is what we call this outer , or physical, ener gy . This
is the body’ s life -sustaining force that allows the heart to beat, the lungs to
fill up, the blood to circulate, the process of elimination, and all that. There is also an inner ener gy . One of the great teachers of my l ife was a
man nam ed Swa mi Muktananda. In his book Mystery of the M ind , he writes
the following about Divine ener gy , which is the ener gy I’m asking you to
consider:
One day  this light will explode, and you will see it everywher e. Y ou
will see  the entire universe ex isting within it. The Divine light of
Consciousness w ill begin to fill your eyes, and then wherever you look
you will  see it. Y ou will see its  radiance in people, in trees, in rocks,
and in buildings. Y ou will see the same consciousness rising and
falling in every wave of thought and feeling that passes through your
mind; wherever  your mind goes, you will find your own  inner
Consciousness, the creator of the world. Y ou will see that the entire
universe is contained within y our own Self. Y ou will kno w that
everything—all the infinite modifications of the world—is nothing but
your ow n play . Y ou will realize that it is you who are being re flected
everywhere and that it is your ow n reflection that passes before you all
the time. I’d like to add here that you always have this power within yourself. Remember , you are an extension of Source, which is limitless. All you have
to do is make the choice to know  this spiritual part of yourself, and you can
tap in to it by facing in a dif ferent direction than you’re used to . Instead of
facing out, concerning yourself with what’ s going on around you, you can
face inw ard and directly contact your spiritual nature. Y ou can then live
each of your day s, regardless of what you may be doing, with the sense of
joy that comes from being on your sacred quest. It doesn ’ t matter  what your form is like. It doesn’ t matter what you do—
whether you decided to be a sta y-at-home parent, a construction  worker , an
accountant, a dentist, or a pizza- delivery driver . None of that rea lly matters. I’m not talking about what you do here; I’m talking about the inner Divine
ener gy that you possess.WHO’S REALL Y IN CHARGE? Perhaps you can understand all of this best through a metaphor . I u sed to love W esterns when I was a kid. I’d go to the Roy Rogers
Riders Club and pay my 12 cents on a Saturday afternoon and be
thoroughly ente rtained. In every single one of them, there would be this
scene, w hich I’m  sure you’re fa miliar with if you’ve ever wat ched an old
W estern. In this scene, the stagecoach’ s driver has been wound ed and lost
the r eins, so the  horses pulling the carriage are running wild. The driver is
no longer in co ntrol of the coach, so it’ s being dragged helter -skelter
through the sagebrush. So here’ s the metaphor . It’ s based on something written by Eknath
Easwaran in his beautiful book Dialogue with Death , which is an
interpretation o f one of the great Indian stories known as  the Katha
Upanishad . The stag ecoach is your body . Th e driver is your intellect. The horses that
are out of control are your five senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch). The horses are pulling the stagecoach along, and that ’ s a good
representation o f what happens to most of us in our lives. Our five senses,
which g ive us such physical pleasure, are pulling our body wherever they
want it to go because the driver , the intellect, has been wounded and is no
longer in control. The reins between the horse and the coach are the
emotions that we have. Inside of the coach, a lovely lady from Philadelphia, with her nice hat
and gloves on, is pleading with the intellect and the horses: “I have a
message to tell you. Don’ t allow yourself to be pulled in this direction. Please s top and listen to me.” The lady is your higher self, the spiritual part
of you. Whenever the senses are in char ge, there is no intellect, and the emotions
are running wild. The taste buds on the tongue weigh less than an ounce, for
instance, and yet I have seen that ounce pull a 280-pound man into a
bakery . He is looking at these cream puf fs, and the lady from Philadelphia
is im ploring him not to eat this stuf f. She’ s saying, “This is g oing to kill
you! But it doesn’ t have to. Y ou just lost control for a second, and you can
get it back. Lea ve the bakery , eat some vegetables, and take good care of
yourself instead.”Perhaps for you, the lady from Philadelphia pleads, “Don’ t go  into that
bar . Don ’ t drink  that alcohol. D on’ t use those substances that a re going to
destroy you.” But here come the horses, and they pull you into the bar . These se nses, th ese horses that are out of control, are running your life. Y ou
are n ot free. Y our body is being pulled where you don’ t really want to go,
and the lady from Philadelphia doesn’ t get paid any attention. Y ou might say , “I have an alcohol problem.” In reality , you don’ t have an
alcohol problem; your horses have an alcohol problem. Y ou  h ave a horse
problem—you don’ t have them under control. Y ou are allowing these
senses a nd this external ener gy t o pull you through life and dictate what it is
that you  should be doing in alm ost every aspect of your life. Y ou allow it
for this temporary amount of  pleasure, which is nothing more than
counterfeit freed om that you g et for a split second. Then it’ s gone and
you’re c hasing after it some m ore. The horses are pulling you r body and
mind thr ough lif e, and you never listen to that sweet voice inside the coach
that is telling you to get your life under control. There’ s something much grander and greater available here. So let’ s
regain c ontrol o f the reins and train these horses to go in the d irection that
we want  them to go, rather than  allowing them to pull us uncontrollably . In
this way , we can find our authentic freedom. LISTEN T O YOUR HIGHER SELF
Once you are tru ly awake, you’ll find it rather easy to heed the advice of
the love ly lady from Philadelphia. Here are some characteristics that you
will notice when your higher self is pulling you through life, rather than the
horses. — The coincidences in your life ar e much mor e meaningful, and
you’r e able to manage them with ease. This is one of the first things
you’ll n otice as you reach this  heightened spiritual awareness. Now , that
might so und lik e a paradox: If it’ s a coincidence, then it’ s not something
that you  manage. If it’ s manag eable, it’ s not a coincidence. Y ou’ve long
been tol d that when coincidences happen, you’re thinking about something
and then  it shows up in your life—that is, these are things that you have no
control over . I’m asking you to willingly suspend that disbelief.As you face inward and know the spiritual part of yourself, y ou’ll see
these things showing up in wa ys that you never thought were possible. When y ou get your life on purpose, are fulfilled, and stay in t hat celestial
light, it’ s like the universe begins to handle all of the details for you. — Y ou become awar e of the universal sour ce of energy . Y ou know
that it isn’ t some phenomenon you’ve read about; it is a part of what you
are. The re’ s a part of you that i s watching all this happen, and  that Divine
ener gy is who y ou truly are. It allows you to do all the things th at you do in
your life because it is your very essence. It is this Divine ener gy that you
start pay ing muc h more attention to, rather than the absurd idea that you’re
somehow separate and distinct from it. — Y ou r egularly access Divine guidance. This is like spiritual
nourishment, an d all the immob ilizing fears that you once felt in your life
now dissipate and disappear . A s you access this Divine guida nce, again,
you realize that it isn’ t somet hing that is outside of you but rather is
something inside of you as well. When I was reading through the  New T estament while preparing to write
my book Y our Sacr ed Self , I came upon this wonderful passage that relates
to th is id ea. St. Paul was writing to the Philippians, quoting Jesu s: “Let this
mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Who, being in the form of
God, tho ught it not robbery to be equal with God” (Philippians 2:5–6). It
can be very powerful to think a bout the idea that we could have the same
mind as was in  Jesus, who considered himself in the form of God and
thought it not ro bbery to be equal with God. Of course, this do esn’ t mean
that you ar e  God ; it simply m eans that you a re an extension of this beautiful
Divine e ner gy . I f you can allow  this to become your guiding light, you’ll
find it to be one of the real beauties of heightened spiritual awareness. — Y ou have a newfound sense of appr eciation and awe. Y ou now
focus your inner ener gy on the beauty that surrounds you and receive the
ener gy from those surroundings. As you become in awe and have an
appreciation for it, you’ll have an appreciation for that ener gy being within
you. Y ou realize that not only can you access that ener gy , but it is also
something that is within you at all times. Y ou don’ t have to think of it as
something external to yourself.— Y ou feel a sens e of being connected to everyone, shattering the
illusion of your separateness. T here’ s  a wonderful book called Healing
W or ds  by a good friend of mine, Larry Dossey . He is a medical  doctor who
has spen t his life in hospitals, and the book is about how power ful prayer is
in h elping to heal patients. He describes the double-blind studies that have
been con ducted where some people were prayed for and others were not. It
was fou nd that the power of p rayer—the ener gy that we feel and direct
when w e place our attention on the healing of others—is something that
really makes a dif ference in healing. There’ s a connection that is not visible
or something you can get hold of. W ith your higher awareness and consciousness, you can tune in to this
ener gy , a nd then  you find yourself able to manipulate it. Y ou can af fect how
others tr eat you, you can af fect your business, you can af fect what kinds of
people show up for you to love and what relationships you’re going to have. Y ou can even af fect how strangers interact with you as you’re out there in
the world. In fac t, as you begin  to extend out this inner loving ener gy , you
af fect everything and everyone around you. — Y ou ma ke a new agr eement with r eality . Tha t is,  the limits of your
perception expand to include another whole world of ener gy that coexists
with you  at all times. Y ou’ll stop giving weight to the beliefs you’ve been
handed by well-meaning people, which tell you what reality has to be for
you. Y ou ’ll abandon that and open up a whole new possibility o f what your
reality c an be, including things you might never have considered before. The ability to d o what you tho ught was only for sorcerers or tricksters is
now your daily reality . — Y ou become a waking dr eamer . I really  love this idea, which I ’ve
touched upon in previous chapters. It means that everything you experience
in y our dreaming consciousness  is something you’re able to experience in
waking conscio usness. That is, you stop with the idea that in order to
dream, you have to go to sleep. I’m not saying that you can go out and pick the right lottery numbers
with you r highe r awareness, but I am saying that you can imag ine yourself
winning the lottery right now .
_OceanofPDF.com_The_Power_of_Awakening_-_Dr_Wayne_W_Dyer.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        Y ou look at everything that you
used to get really hung up on wanting to ow n, and you say to yourself, If it’ s
in my life, it’ s fine; if it’ s not, that’ s okay too. Y ou wo nder ho w the things th at upset you years ago ever could have
bothered you. As for the things that you’re bothered by now, you will look
back on them in  a few years and wonder how that could have ever been a
part of your life. For example, y ou might have relationships now that cause
you to think, Oh, how  could I ever get out of this. I simply don’ t know. Soon you’ll look back on them and think, Whew. Thank God I wasn’ tformed, and I wa s able to get back and not be in the place that I  was at that
time. THERE IS ONL Y NOW
Even though everything that’ s ev er happened to you up until this moment
is in the realm of thought, it is very real for you. While you can’ t touch or
have any of it, you can certainly get quite emotional about it. It’ s critical to understand this point: The whole experience of your past up
until this very se cond is all in thought—and nothing mor e. How  m uch sens e
does it make to regret, be miser able, or feel guilty about some thing that is
pure thought. I mean, think about if I were to say to you, “Let’ s feel guilty
about th e outco me of the Pelo ponnesian W ar. Let’ s you and I feel some
guilt. ”
Y ou’d laugh and say, “That hap pened almost three thousand years ago,
what are you doing. ”
I’d s ay, “ W ell, lo ok at how the Spartans were treated—it wasn’ t nice. The
Athenians shouldn’ t have done that. It was simply awful. Could  we change
it by feeling guilty. ”
Y ou’d probably say, “Of course not. It’ s over and done with. ”
In reality, this morning is just as over as the Peloponnesian W a r. And as
Einstein taught us, there’ s no time in a linear fr ame at all. That concept of
time is merely something we invented. As for everythi ng that’ s going to happen to you from this se cond on,
understand that it is also nothing more than pure thought: Y ou can’ t touch
tomorrow. Y ou can’ t grab on to your goals. Y ou can’ t take tomorrow’ s
BMW a nd drive it. It’ s all thought. Y et you can also have the experience,
within your form, through thought. If your whole past and your whole
future are all th ought, then all t hat leaves you with is now. So why would
you elect to use up this moment with something like guilt or by  ruminating
on things that have already happened. Y ou’ll hear psychiatrists talking  about “living in the past. ” But no one
can live in the past—we can only live in the now. Similarly, people say, “I
worry b ecause I  live in the future. ” But they’re not  living in the future—
they’re using up this moment being consumed with something th at might ormight not happen later, over whi ch they have no control. It’ s such a sensible
thing to get rid o f that. Y ou mig ht ask how, and the answer is ac tually quite
simple: Y ou just do it. That’ s all. If feeling guilty doesn’ t do anything to
correct what you’re feeling guilty about, stop doing that. If yo u believe that you can’ t control your thoughts—that is, yo u believe
someone else does—then what I want you to do is find out who’ s putting
those thoughts in your mind and send that person to me. I will treat them,
and you will get better. Obviously, it doesn’ t work that way. Y ou want to be able to say, “It happened. It’ s over. I’ve resolved it. I want
to be there in the right frame of mind, I don’ t want to be mad. L et’ s push it
out. I don’ t want it there. ” How ever, a lot of therapists might then reply,
“That’ s unhealthy because you’re not really dealing with it. ” I don’ t think
you hav e to deal with things all the time in order to prove that you’re
healthy. Imagin e there’ s a great big pile of co w m anure in the street. No w,
there are some p eople who’d say, “Hey, I can deal with that—I’m going to
walk rig ht throu gh it. ” T o me, that’ s pretty crazy. A healthy person would
say, “No, I don’ t have to deal with that. I’ll walk around it. ” And that’ s what
they’d do. Y ou’ve got to g o around a lot of stuf f in your life, including y our own
thinking, when it doesn’ t serve y ou. How do you do this. W ell, you just do. Don’ t think like that anymor e. YOU CAN DO IT. Ask yourself if your life is serving you. If it is, great. But what if you’re
full of misery and unhappiness, depressed, always chasing things, never
satisfied, angry a lot, procrastinating all the time, full of guilt, or any of
those kinds of th ings. If so, I recommend trying to see the illu sion behind
it. Just stand back and have one little corner of your consciousness that says,
“It really  doesn’ t matter whether I meet the deadline or not. I’ve already put
myself into this act. This is the role that I have chosen since I showed up
here. There must be a reason for me to keep choosing it. I’m going to go
through the role, but I’m never going to let it destroy me or mess me up in
any way. So when I start to get into a lot of type A behavior over mydeadlines, or I g et myself all u pset because the Joneses have something I
don’ t ha ve, or anything like that, then I’m going to stop and ask, ‘Why am I
doing th is. ’ I can’ t own anything anyway. I can’ t take anything with me. All I have is now. All I can do with this moment is live it and enjoy it. ”
Every single time you find yourself slipping back, believing that the
things you’re accumulating or trying to get done are really important, stop
yourself. Come back to the now. Go through the motions, and don’ t let
yourself get destroyed by them. That’ s the key. I rem ember a pa rticular woman arriving in my of fice years ag o looking
for help. She’d been in anal ysis for years because she chewed her
fingernails. Can you imagine. This is a lady who wore gloves everywhere
she went to keep from biting her nails. She told me th at she’d been in classic psychoanalysis in w hich she
learned that everything had to d o with psycho-sexual developmental stages. Her psychiatrist had convinced  her that her nail biting, among her other
many neurotic tendencies, had nothing to do with her. He’d sa id, “Y ou’re
fixated and have an unresolved Electra complex. Y ou have go t to resolve
your feelings toward your father and mother. Y our issue is a manifestation
of some subliminal envy—symbolically, these really aren’ t your fingers. ”
I a sked her, “Wh y would you co me to me. I believe the total opposite of
all that. ”
She said, “My si ster came to you  about two years ago, and in four weeks,
you got her straightened out. ”
“I don’ t know if I can talk to yo u for four weeks. I’m already bored with
your fin gernails. ” She smiled, and I continued. “But I’ll see you. I’ll see
you three times, and then you’ll be cured. ”
She asked me to repeat myself, and I said, “Y es, three times. And you can
talk about it and  analyze it all you want between now and whe n I see you
again. There’ s only one thing you can’ t do. ”
“What’ s that. ”
“Y ou have to keep your fingers out of your mouth. ”
She star ted getti ng very nervous. As soon she got nervous, of course, it
didn’ t m atter if she had an oral  fixation or an Electra complex, her hands
were going into her mouth. So right away, I said, “Get your fin gers out of
your mouth,” and I went to grab her hand. She said, “Y ou know what. Nobody ever explained it to me quite like
that before. ”“The fac t is that no matter how you analyze the problem, how m uch you
think and talk about it, if you ’re going to quit biting your fingernails,
you’ve got to keep your fingers out of your mouth,” I told her. “There’ s no
other way. Honestly, you can try  forever, but if you put your fing ers in your
mouth, you’re still a nail-biter no matter what. ”
And you know something. The answers to almost everything are that
simple. I  get accused all the time  of being simplistic, when I guess there are
a lot of people who would rath er make things complicated. I like taking
complicated things and making them as simple as possible. Afte r seeing me
three tim es and  keeping her fi ngers out of her mouth, sure enough, this
woman was no longer a nail-biter. Think about if y ou want to do one of the things that people f ind most
dif ficult: quittin g smoking. W ell, you can call yourself an oral person. Y ou
can go to a clinic and try all the medicines, all the fads. Y ou can put holes in
your cig arettes a nd gradually give yourself a hernia from straining to suck
before you get even one puf f. Y ou can do any number of things, but
ultimately, the only way you’ll ever quit smoking is to stop putting
cigarettes in your mouth, one day at a time. There is no other way. When
I’m asked what the secret to quitting smoking is, I say, “Just for today, don’ t
put any more cigarettes in your mouth. ”
Y our first reaction might be disbelief: “How am I going to do that. What
if the ur ge comes. ”
“There i s no ur ge out there. It’ s really you telling yourself, ‘This is too
hard, I don’ t want to do that. ’ Stop doing that. ”
Likewise, stop telling yourself, “This is the hardest thing I ev er d id,” or
even, “It’ s the easiest thing I ever did. ” The only thing you can’ t do is put a
cigarette in your mouth. Follow this one simple rule, and you w ill be an ex-
smoker, just like that. That’ s ho w it works. In fact, that’ s the only way it
works. Remember, you can be anything, you can do anything, you  can go
anywhere. Y ou can learn to sort of watch your form go through all kinds of
things. But the Divine part of you, the r eal  y ou, stands ba ck and says,
“These are the motions I’m going through, but that isn’ t really me. I’m
much bi gger an d grander than a ll of that. ” Y ou look at your re lationships,and you  realize that almost everything you fight about isn’ t even real for
you. Wh at’ s rea l is how you think—what you fill yourself w ith. If your
thoughts are only of harmony, ease, serenity, and love, then that’ s all you’ll
have to give away to others. When you tap in to this truly awakened part of yourself, yo u see the
perfection behind everything that you’re doing. Y ou never worry again
about yo ur form  wearing out, or about dying, or about any of those things. Y ou know that thought is an endless ener gy that goes on and on. Most of
all, you know that that’ s  who you are—not an aging a nd ever -changing
form, but that which is eternal and changeless. CHAPTER 3
FOCUS ON THE BIG PICTURE
I remem ber bein g on a flight in which the very caring staf f were doing all
they could to comfort a distressed fellow passenger. The plane was not in
any dan ger, so I couldn’ t help but be struck by how terribly fr ightened he
was of crashing. Y ou see, wh en you become truly awake, death isn’ t
anything that frightens you. Y ou know that everything is always in
transition—that’ s the nature of our universe. I’ve fou nd that most people w ho have had near -death experiences say
something along  the lines of, “It taught me the most valuable le sson of my
life, which is that I’ve got to take each day I have and make the most of it. ”
The pro blem is, it shouldn’ t have to take a brush with death to do
something so natural, so basic, a nd so simple—which is to live your life the
way you  want to, without having to answer to anyone else. S o instead of
that old slogan, “T oday is the first day of the rest of your life,” take on the
idea of, “T oday is the last day of  your life, so live it as if you don’ t have any
more. ”
The trut h is, we don’ t know how much time we’ll have. The pa st is over
for a ll o f us. The future is promised to none of us. All we get is now, and
most of  us know someone who was wiped out in a silly accident, who
dropped dead of a heart attack, who was taken at a young age. Every single
one of us is going to have to face a last day, and we cannot predict when
that day will come. Death is  as important a part of life as living is. Y et we’re careful not to
tell deat h jokes, make an of fha nd remark about somebody who recently
died, or the like. If only we coul d get to the point where we see death as just
another transitio n, where we leave this dimension that we live in and enter a
new on e. If only we cou ld understand that we are, in fact,multidimensional. Understandin g that and leading life on those terms can
be the most freeing, exhilarating, exciting thing that we can do. THE VER Y ESSENCE OF WHO WE ARE
One of the most amazing insights I ever had was when my grandmother
died. When she was admitted to the hospital, one of the things they did was
weigh h er for some reason. I guess they had to have it in their records, or
maybe y ou don’ t get into heaven if you don’ t have a weight certificate. I
don’ t know what hospitals are  thinking with all this record keeping. I
always wonder about all the people who died before we had records. Whatever happened to all of them. Anyway, my grandma was 95 years old and weighed 133 pounds when
she entered the h ospital. W e knew that she was very close to dying, and we
watched as the life literally left her body. Then her package—the bones and
skin and hair, a ll that stuf f that certainly wasn’ t my grandmo ther—grew
cold and  stif f. They weighed her for the death certificate, and s he was 133
pounds, exactly the same. So whatever it was that constituted her life, her
very ess ence, was invisible and weightless. It couldn’ t be weighed or
measured. That’ s true for each a nd every one of us. What our l ife is really
all about de fies the world of form, yet we spend so much of our ener gy and
time here, in thi s part of our consciousness, that we believe thi s is who we
are. This ma kes me think of our sixt h president, John Quincy Adams. He was
a man who was highly spiritual and very intelligent. I think he had perhaps
the highest intellect of anyone  who ever sat in the White House. For
example, he rejected slavery wh ile many of his contemporaries practiced it. This is what he wrote about himself a few days before he died, in a letter to
a friend:
John Quincy Adams is well, b ut the house in which he lives at the
present time is b ecoming dilapi dated. It’ s tattering on its found ations. T ime an d the seasons have nearly destroyed it. Its roof is pret ty well
worn ou t. Its walls are much sh attered and tremble with every wind. I
think Jo hn Quincy Adams will have to move out of it soon. But he
himself is quite well, thank you. Once w e understand that we ar e not the “houses” we’re currently in—
that is, our bodi es—then fearing death becomes impossible. A fter all, we
know th at we can’ t kill thoughts, because thoughts are ener gy. W e can’ t kill
feelings, which are the result of thoughts. W e’ve also establish ed that our
bodies c hange form all the time, but who we are as human beings consists
of the entire mental process. Who we are comes from the way we think and
process our world rather than how our bodies take shape (and, eventually,
lose their shape). When we’re awakened, we look at death as  absolutely
necessary and nothing to fear. Y ou onl y fear what you don’ t fa ce, and what you don’ t face will control
you. If you have the courage to face your fear of death, y ou’ll come to
understand that everything you experience in life is a mental i mage. I can
never look out and see the world the way you see it. I can never be your
liver or kidney, no matter how m uch I care about you. I can’ t be  the process
that you are. Y ou begin to see t hat you are not that liver or ki dney either;
you are your unique perceptual approach to everything in life. Y ou are your
thoughts, and those never die. In fact, nothing that has life in it, that has that
intelligence, that perfection in it, dies. It’ s simply in transition. Returning to the topic of my g randmother, I know that there’ s nothing
that could have ever killed her. I know that the essence of my grandmother
couldn’ t have died. Everything she accumulated and needed and had to do
in h er 95 year s, which she c ould now see from a dif ferent level of
consciousness, was all an illusion. It was all just stuff  that she was going
through, which she was creating in a dif ferent dimension. As I’ve said, we are multidimensional human beings. One of the
dimensions we experience is fo rm, but there are many other dimensions to
us a s well. Just try to imagine that. If you can’ t—if it’ s too woo-woo,
metaphysical, ph ilosophical, or tough for you to get hold of—you might be
surprised to find out that you’ve already experienced this for a t hird of your
life. YOU LEA VE YOUR FORM ALL THE TIME
People often ask me, “Where do you think we go when we die. ”
I respond, “Where do you go when you are asleep. ”In other words, when we go t o sleep, what do we do. W e leave this
dimension called form and go into a nonform dimension. W e are in pure
thought the whole time, and it ’ s all fine. None of us are troubled about
transitioning int o sleep, nor do we wake up saying, “Whew. I was so
frightened that I was in this dream and going to stay there. ”
Let me tell you how the rules are dif ferent when you’re asleep and in
nonform: There’ s no beginning or end. There’ s no cause or ef f ect. There’ s
no t ime. There’ s no life or death. For example, you may ha ve had the
experience of being asleep and  feeling the presence of a dead loved one
right the re with you. Or you ma y have experienced being younger than you
are in your dreams. If you’re 18 again, you look and feel like you’re 18,
don’ t yo u. I have this horrible dream that I’m back in the Nav y, and they
for got my dischar ge date. I can’ t get anybody to acknowledge that I’ve done
my four years, so it’ s time for me to be out. I’ve got to go h ome, go to
college, get married, have kids, and get on with my life, but everybody’ s
telling me, “I can’ t find your records. ” It’ s so vivid. In that third of our life when there’ s no time or space, when there are no
limits of any kin d, it’ s very real. Our bodies are dramatically af fected by the
thoughts we’re having, and we t ranscend our form at that time. And one of
the reaso ns we dream is to teac h us that every obstacle we run into is an
opportunity. In our dreams, everything that we need, we create. Imagine driving  along on a beautiful day, when all of a sudden the road
ends and  there’ s a clif f. So what do you do. Somehow you s prout some
wings. Y ou thin k, I’ll fly over this, an d that’ s exactly what you do. Y ou
create out of that obstacle wha tever you need. If you’re und erwater and
have to stay the re for an extended length of time, that is no pro blem—you
just get yourself some gills and stay under there. Dreaming is one way you can get a handle on another level of
consciousness, b ecause you enter a new realm when you go to sleep. When
you dream, you live in another world, one of pure thought. Y ou can do
anything, and you create everyth ing you need. Y ou don’ t say, “Oh, I didn’ t
have a body. Th at was an illusion. ” Be cause if somebody’ s coming at you
with a knife, even if it’ s a dream, your reaction to it is real. When you wake
up, your heart is really pumpi ng, but you can also look back and say,
“That’ s an illusion; there was nobody with a knife. ”
There are many ways in which the experience of what you’re dreaming
manifests itself in your body. One interesting phenomenon thatdemonstrates thi s concept is politely called a nocturnal emission. This is so
fascinating to me because you would think that in order to have a sexual
experience, you’d need to have some kind of physical contact. But you’re
asleep when you have this experience; it’ s happening purely in the world of
thought, even though ef fects can  be seen in the world of form. In fact, even
when two people are having an actual sexual encounter, it’ s all still thought. The lar gest sex or gan that we have is our brain. It’ s all done thr ough thought. If you can’ t think it, and you can’ t get the
image, then you can’ t make it  happen. So the dance of life is possible
through thought and nothing more. That is, the very stuf f of life is thought. THE LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
There ar e dif ferent levels of con sciousness, which can be envisioned like
a st epladder with only three steps: The bottom rung of the ladder is
dreaming cons ciousness. Then the next rung up is your waking
consciousness, w hich is what w e go through most of the time. The final
rung is another level of consci ousness beyond the waking consciousness,
which we’ll call a question mark for now. When I was a kid, I had some bizarre experiences on the lowes t rung of
the ladder because people could talk to me while I was dreaming. My
brothers used to get our mother or other family members to come over to
watch w hat wou ld happen. They’d  say, “Look at this guy. ” One time my
oldest brother, Jim, gave me a bedsheet and said, “Y ou’re going to school,
W ayne. Here’ s your shirt. Come  on, get it on. ” I was trying to get my arm
into this sheet, but there was no armhole, of course, so I had this crazy thing
going. Jim was saying to our mother, “Look at him; he thinks he’ s getting
dressed. ”
Another time, I was dreaming about shoveling snow. I asked out loud,
“Where’ s my shovel. ” Jim said,  “Here’ s your shovel, W ayne. G o ahead and
take it. ” He was  on the second rung in waking consciousness, ta lking to me
in d ream consciousness. I was in a dif ferent level of consciousness, so the
dream w as real for me. As long as my brother would cooperate w ith me and
pretend to be with me in the dream, then I would stay with it. But if he
would’ve said, “Y ou’re crazy, you’re dreaming, just wake up,” I would’veeither go ne deep er into my unco nsciousness or come out of it and realized
that ther e was no shovel. Of cou rse that’ s what eventually happened: I woke
up a nd a gain ask ed, “Where’ s my shovel. ” Jim said, “Oh, you’re awake. ” I
realized I didn’ t have my shovel, but I’d had the experience  of having it. It
all seemed incredibly real. The only  time you know you’re dreaming is when you’re awake. So you
have to wake u p to know that what you were just doing was an illusion. That’ s the dif ference between the dream-consciousness level and the
waking-consciousness level. What I suggest is that in order to g o from one
level of consciousness to anothe r, you have somebody who’ s on the second
rung go down there and pretend to be with you on the first rung. Now we get to the third rung, which has the question mark. What is that
level of conscio usness, and how is it dif ferent. I believe that i f somebody
from that level of consciousness wanted us to know what is possible for us
at a higher level than we’re liv ing right now, they would have  to be here
among us. Much like my brother speaking to me from waking
consciousness to my dream consciousness, that person would pretend to be
with us in the d ream. Someone from another level of consciousness would
show us that we don’ t have to live this illusion, and then they ’d leave to
another dimension. This is what I think highly spiritual people do: They clearly see the
illusion. They know that the experience  of the illusion is real, but it can’ t
be, in fact. W e can’ t own anything, we can’ t have it, we can’ t get hold of it. There a re many highly spiritual people on this planet right now who
understand this higher level of consciousness. They help us al ong as they
try to get us to see that there’ s a higher place we can get to. That higher
place isn ’ t form; it’ s transformation. When we get that, then we can go in
and out of this next dimension. and then the next dimension. and the
next. YOU CREA TE EVER YTHING YOU NEED
When I was a ch ild, I realized th at the shovel that had been handed to me
was an illusion, but my experie nce of it was very real. I believ e that when
we die and leave our form, we will also be able to look back and see theillusion of all that we’ve accumu lated and held on to, all of our “shovels”—
the money and things that we can’ t take with us—and understand that we
created everythi ng that we need ed in the level we’re at now. W e created it
all. If we needed  a partner to fight with every day, then we cre ated that. If
we needed to have poverty for some reason, then we created that. For me, this is the essence of life. I know that there ar e higher
dimensions than this waking-co nsciousness level that we live in. I know
that I can live th e illusion and e njoy it all, make it all work for me. I create
whatever I need. If I need to have a house full of children, I create that. If I
need to have an experience of lo sing my keys, I create that too. I’ve created
everything that happens in order to make this level of consciousness work. Now, suppose you went to sleep and had a dream in which you had all
this mon ey and everything you  ever wanted. Then you woke up but were
still atta ched to the stuf f that you  had in your dream: “W ait a mi nute, I want
that. There was gold there, there were all these friends, I had a Ferrari there. I’ve got  to have all of this now. ” Somebody would come along and say,
“Sorry, that was a dream. Y ou can’ t be attached to that; it was only a
thought you had. ” W ell, that’ s the way you’ve got to view life. Instead of
being in an eigh t-hour dream, you’re in an 80-year or a 90-year dream. At
the end of the dream, you don’ t want to be looking back at all the stuf f you
wish yo u could still have. Beca use you can’ t  hav e it— none of it will ever
actually be yours. As absurd as it would be for you to be attached to the stuf f that you had
in your dream, it’ s equally as absurd for you to be attached to the stuf f that
you’re having in this  dream. In fact, when you get to a higher level, you’ll
look back on all this and ask, “What did I need any of that for. ”
There is a plac e in our wakin g consciousness that is similar to our
dreaming consciousness, in which there’ s nothing to limit us. This is the
state of the waking dr eamer. W e are not the bodies that we c arry around or
our poss essions, which are all j ust things that we have created because we
need them for th e dream. Y es, in this dream the things that we need we also
create. The trouble is, we don’ t want to call it a dream because it’ s so real. And yet, that is exactly what it is. Y ou ma y have had a similar ex perience to this: Y ou’re having a great
dream, when something from an other dimension wakes you up—a bell goes
of f, a door is sla mmed, the phone rings, whatever it may be—a nd you sort
of ha lf w ake up and come ba ck into your form. Y ou leave pure thought andall th at g reat stu f f you can create, and you say to yourself, I want to go right
back to sleep so I can find out how this dr eam turns out. When I bring this up with audie nces, I’ll ask, “What’ s going on here. If
you’re creating this dream, then why would you ever need to go back to
sleep to find ou t what the outcome was. Y ou’re the one writing it. ” It
would b e like me sitting down  to write a story and wondering how it’ s
going to  turn out. If you asked me who was writing this story, I’d say, “I
am. ” Y o u’d poin t out, “Okay, if you’re writing it, then you must know how
it’ s goin g to come out. ” I’d then say, “Y eah, I’ve got it all outlined, so I
guess I do know how it’ s going to come out. ” I mean, if I’m writing it, then
I can create whatever I want. So how do you explain what’ s happening when you’re trying to get back
to a dream. Who ’ s writing the s cript, if it’ s not you. W ell, you have entered
a n ew dimension  with dif ferent rules, in which you are now playing a new
role. Y ou’ve entered a dimensi on that’ s already been written, and you do
this all the time—this wonderful dimension of thought is right there for you. Did it ever occur to you that you are creating everything you need for this
dream. That when you finally leave your form this time around, you’re
going to look back and see that the attachment you have to all your stuf f is
just as much of an illusion as the knife the guy had in your other dream. Sure, it’ s real while you’re expe riencing it, but when you look at it from a
transformed point of view, it doesn’ t exist. When you have awakened,
you’ll get this—you’ll realize that this is all a dream. All of us have roles that we play: I’m a rent-a-W ayne Dye r. Y ou’re
maybe a rent-a-Marjorie, a rent-a-Sally, or a rent-a-Geor ge. But when we
are truly awake, we realize that they are only roles, illusions. It doesn’ t
mean th at we don’ t enjoy them. Why wouldn’ t we enjoy our dr eam. W e’re
creating it, after all. If yo ur dream isn’ t satisfying or  fulfilling to you, you can make it be so. All you have to  do is change your thought, because that’ s all you are. So
you can  watch yourself, like a n actor. Y ou might say, “Jeez, that was a
funny th ing I did this morning,  and it was really stupid. I don ’ t think I’m
going to do that  anymore. ” Y ou stand back and watch yourself do all these
things, knowing  that your Divineness, who you really are, is beyond what
your form is doing. When you understand that, then the rest of the dream
becomes whatev er you want it to be. Remember, you can create anything
you want now for the dream, and you do so through thought. THE P ATH T O UNDERST ANDING
The ultimate transcending of our form is what we call death. I don’ t
pretend to have a handle on the great mysteries of the universe, but I have
no fear of death whatsoever bec ause I know that you can’ t kill thought. W e
are thought; thought can never be destroyed. Therefore, we c an never be
destroyed. Thought is the ultimate vibration in the universe, which goes on
forever. It’ s an endless thing. Everything is programmed into a single little drop of protoplasm, all that
you’ll ever need, for your entire life, in the form that you’re in. It’ s all a
mystery, and while we are drea ming it is unlimited. There are no limits to
what yo u can do while you are dreaming. Y ou can be anything, you can do
anything, you can go anywhere,  you can be any age, and it’ s very real. Y ou
experience it very dramatically. Y ou’re not ever afraid to go to sleep, so
why be afraid to change this form. It’ s just part of the “isness” of it all. Everything that ’ s happening is supposed to be happening. E ven our
desire to eradicate the things that we see as u npleasant is part of the Divi ne
plan—that’ s par t of the paradox  you have to understand. F. Scott Fitzgerald
wrote a  wonderful essay that said something like the highest form of
intelligence tha t you can get  to is when you’re able to have two
contradicting concepts present in you at the same time. He explained that it
is pe rfectly legitimate within th e context of this perfect universe to think
everything is hopeless and yet have hope at the same time. T o know that
there are  people  who are starvin g and be determined to do something about
it at the same time. And the reason I believe that what he says is true, that
this con tradiction is the highest place you have to get to, is because each
one of us is a paradox as well. W e live with two dif ferent sets of rules: W e live in form, whic h has its
own rul es, and we live in nonf orm, which has a whole other set of rules. W e’re in  this one package, but t here’ s always this dualism. W e simply have
to keep our focus on the big picture. The path  to understanding the big picture is dif ferent for everyone, but its
availability is there. By the big picture, I mean knowing in you r heart and
soul tha t there’ s more to life than what your body is going th rough, and
knowing that there’ s nothing w orth getting yourself all bogged down and
depressed and worked up about. Y ou have a new intelligence. Noticing that
new intelligence can lead you a way from any fear of death and into yourtrue pote ntial, fo r happiness and fulfillment in yourself. Y ou kno w it all and
see all that. If it take s a brush with death in  order for you to get that big picture—to
be a ble to relax in the face of conflict, to not allow yourself to get stressed
out over  small things, to enjoy your present moments and find fulfillment
and joy in them—then have that near -death experience, but hav e it in your
mind only. One of the ways to accomplish this is through meditation;
another is through visualization. Imagine yourself participating in your own funeral in your m ind. See
yourself dying of a horrible  disease and suf fering. Go through it. Experience that whole thing, and  as you do, this concept will ari se naturally
for you: This doesn’ t have to be br ought into form. I can act it out in my
mind like a dr e am, live thr ough it, r eally get the feeling of it, and then
decide I don’ t have to bring this into my form any longer. I can make a
decision not to do it. Whatever it takes for you is fine. All I’m saying is that you don’ t have to
go through it in the world of form, in your physical worl d. Y ou can
transform, go beyond your form. Y ou can be metaphysical, go beyond the
physical. Experi ence it in your  mind where there are no limits. Y ou can
literally be anywhere through your thoughts. Then when you come out of it,
realize that Okay, that’ s enough. I’ve done t hat now. Let me practice the big
pictur e. Let me see it isn’ t anything that I actually have to bring into my life. Once you’re able to do that, onc e you can create that for yourself, then you
get all the benefits of the big picture. DIE WHILE YOU’RE ALIVE
I’d like to share a wonderful, ancient tale with you. There was this h unter who would go to Africa every couple of years, and
he woul d bring home animals as prizes. One year he discovered a lar ge
enclave inside a jungle that was filled with beautiful multicolored parrots,
and they all talked. He couldn’ t get over it, so he captured one of the parrots
and brou ght him  home. He took great care of the parrot and talked to him
every day, but he did keep him in a cage. T wo years went by, and he told theparrot, “ I’m going back to Afri ca. Is there anything you would  like me to
say to your friends in the jungle. ”
The par rot said, “Y es. T ell them  that I’m very happy in my c age here
with you. Just tell them that. ”
The hun ter wen t back to the place in the jungle where he had captured
the parro t two years before. He  told the other birds, “Y our friend whom I
took back has a message for you, which is that he is happy in his cage with
me. ” Upon hearing that, a bird on one of the branches keeled over instantly. When the hunter returned home, he told his parrot what had h appened. He said, “I wen t back and did what you asked. The moment I told them
what you said, o ne of your friends was apparently so upset and missed you
so much that he  dropped dead. ” At that, the parrot in the cage also keeled
over. His legs went straight up in the air, and he went stif f. The hunter was beside himself a nd couldn’ t figure out how this could’ve
happened. Befor e long, he took the dead parrot out of the cage and put him
on the woodpile. The second the parrot landed on the woodpile, he flew into
the trees. The hun ter said, “What is this. I thought you were dead. Y ou tricked
me. ”
The parr ot replie d, “My friend was sending me a message. He told me by
his actions that i n order for me to escape from my cage, I had to  die while I
was alive. ”
This is an old story that’ s been repeated countless times over the years, so
what does it all mean. W ell, don’ t you see that the whole planet is a cage. W e’re al l restric ted by the limit ations placed on us as human being. W e’re
stuck in our homes or our jobs, and we’re all in cages. Even though we have
more room to m anipulate our circumstances than that parrot did, we’re still
trapped. Now, how do you escape from the cage that you’re in. Y ou ha ve to see
the big picture and die while you’re alive. All of us are going to die, so why
not expe rience it in advance. Se e yourself out of your body, gone, but able
to look back at what’ s going on now. It’ s much like the dream where you
have everything you want, but you’re able to look back at it from a greater
perspective. In the process, you’ ll see the folly, the absurdity, of hanging on
to an ything, of being attached t o anything, of needing anything, of telling
yourself that you can’ t be happy without something, whatever it may be. As soon as you can look back on this like a dream, as soon as you can
experience your self as formless and multidimensional, all the things that
you cling to bec ome irrelevant. They’re no longer necessary. Y ou have a
whole n ew way  of living, a new way of being. It’ s quieter, it’ s easier, it’ s
less demanding, it’ s less painful. There’ s less suf fering because suf fering is
all p layed out in  this form; you’re someplace else now, you’ve experienced
that. Y ou look back and see the absurdity of all of your attachments,
knowing that you can never own anything, and then you sort of flow
through life. Y ou’re not fightin g anything, and it all works nicely, easily,
perfectly. T ry to detach yo urself from the need to have that stuf f now while you’re
here, wh ile you’ re alive. Y ou m ay be surprised at the contentm ent you feel
when yo u realize that you have everything you need, but you don’ t have to
chase after it. I’d like to make it very clear here that when I say we have to die while
we’re alive, it is not a physic al act. T his all takes place in the mind. By the
way, when people are trained in  meditation and in becoming h igh spiritual
masters and so on, they’re expected to do this exercise of experiencing their
own death, to know what it’ s like, to feel it inside. I a pply this concept in my own  life by reminding myself that an eight-
hour dream and an 80-year drea m are basically the same if there’ s no such
thing as time. I also remind myself that bein g attached to anything—in the
sense of needing to have it and  identifying with it and defining  myself by
the acqu isition or by getting someplace, by those kinds of acts—is absurd
from the perspective of my no longer being here in form. I h eard of a philosopher who was asked if there was a God and whether
he believed in life after death. He said, “No, I don’ t believe it; I know it. I
absolutely know you cannot kill thought. Y ou cannot kill spirit, you cannot
kill the higher consciousness that’ s part of the eternity. Just like the
universal is eternal, so are you. ”
I f eel the same way: When you know that, and live that, then the idea of
your for m dying becomes less a nd less scary. So I try to look at everything
that I’m doing from the perspec tive of being able to look back at it, fromthe p oint of not being here any longer, from the point of being dead or from
looking back at what was in my dream. While you’re in the dream, ever ything that you’re doing is very exciting
and very  real. It’ s not like you’re going through it and saying, “Oh, this
doesn’ t count, I had my fingers crossed. ” Even when you are t ruly awake,
you don’ t look b ack and say, “I want all that stuf f back. I have t o have it. If
only I would have done things  this way. ” Y ou don’ t do any o f that. Y ou
simply move on to the next le vel. Y ou have a new perspective, and the
perspective is that of not needi ng anything in a very short time. I mean,
eternity is just a speck away for all of us, and we won’ t need any of this
stuf f. Again, try to detach yourself now  so that you can flow, so that you can be
part of that perfection instead o f always worrying, hurting, or b eing angry. All suf f ering ge ts played out in  form; there’ s no suf fering in  thought. A
body may be going through all this pain, but who you are isn’ t suf fering at
all. S o y ou can get that new pers pective of looking back on all this from the
vantage point of no longer needi ng to have or own anything. Y ou know that
your hu manity, your Divineness, isn’ t in things and acquisitions—it’ s in
how you think. THE LAST DA Y OF YOUR LIFE
Let’ s cir cle back  to the phrase “T oday is the first day of the rest of your
life. ” I’d really like to change it to “T oday is the last day of your life. ” Now
there’ s a slogan. Y ou don’ t have any “rest of your life” guaranteed to you at
all. What you get is now. Y ou’ve got to learn that death is like the old joke:
it’ s natu re’ s way of telling you to slow down. Sure, it’ll do that. But all
kidding aside, you’ve got to get things in perspective. Life itself is an unfinished-ness. It’ s not like you’re going to get it all
or ganized into the right place, and then check out. No. God doe sn’ t tell you
in the morning, “Y ou’ll be checking out about 11:30 P. M. Y ou will be joining
me tonight. ” Y ou can’ t say, “W ait a minute, God. Y ou don’ t understand. I
bought three bottles of shampoo. As soon as I use up that shampoo, I’ll be
ready. And by the way, God, I’ve got a whole bunch of steaks in  the freezer. I go t them on sale and haven’ t even touched them yet. ” Y ou do n’ t want tomake God mad on your last day. He could say, “Now it’ll be about 11:20
P. M, buddy. ”
I suggest that you get into the habit of telling yourself every morning,
“This is the last  day I’ve got. ” Because you know something. All of us, at
some tim e or another, have got to face a last day. Nobody’ s leaving here
alive. A nd when you tell yourself, “This is the last day of my life,” you get
a whole  new perspective on the worlds of form and nonform. Y ou know
death is merely another transition rather than anything to be feared. Let’ s say you’re in a traf fic jam  on your way to work. If you know that
this is the last tra f fic jam you’re ever going to get, you ’re going to enjoy the
hell out of it. If  this is your last bridge crossing, you’ll be checking that
bridge out carefully. Y ou’ll intr oduce yourself to everybody in line there:
“Excuse me, my name is W ayne  Dyer. I’ll be leaving tonight, but I wanted
to tell you how much I like that bridge there. Boy, is that nice. ”
There w ould be no rush. Y ou’d  take it easy, and savor your tim e. Now,
why not cultivate that attitude for everything in your life. Ke eping your
focus on the big picture will help you do just that. CHAPTER 4
BE AUTHENTICALL Y FREE
Did you know th at there are two kinds of freedom. The first is one that I
call “counterfeit freedom,” an d it’ s exactly what the word counterfeit
means: phony. It’ s not authentic. It’ s not real. Y et so many in our society
pursue it relentlessly. Some of the most popular forms  of counterfeit freedom come fr om drugs
or a lcohol. People pursue such  substances in order to feel high, to feel
giddy, to  feel euphoric. These days, both legal and illegal drugs are widely
available everywhere. It’ s gotten to the point that in virtually every
metropolis and even tiny village s across the world, we can find generations
of people hooked on these substances. The reason this is a counterfeit freedom is because you can never get
enough of it. W ith a drug, you spend most of your time chasing  your high. Y ou brie fly feel  euphoric and free, and then a few moments later you say,
“I’ve got to have some more of that. ”
Obviously if you really were free, you’d experience a sense of
contentment rath er than needing anything else. The test of authenticity is
whether you need more of something in order to keep feeling free. If you
do, then you ar e not free at all. This thing owns you, and you are its
prisoner. Y ou don’ t have it; it ha s you. It is not something you’re using; it is
something that is using you. Before long, you’re using it again, and then
again, and again—you can never get enough of what you don’ t want. Y es, it is ironic that the things we don’ t want are the ones we ch ase after. W e reall y don’ t want these drug s, we really don’ t want this alcohol in our
system, yet we find ourselves constantly chasing after it and never getting
enough. This sea rch for freedom through substances has trapped users into a
lifestyle of never getting enough of what they don’ t want. They think they’llbe free when they experience th e fantastic high that comes with the drug or
drink, b ut the pleasure is only  physical. It lasts a moment or two, then
there’ s the demand for more. Authentic freedo m, on the other hand, doesn’ t demand any mo re. When
you exp erience this freedom, you’re not going to say, “O h, I’m not
satisfied. I have to have more. ” I nstead, you’ll have a blissful sort of feeling
—the freedom of knowing your higher self, of knowing God. Authentic freedom causes you to feel a sense of, I am  her e, this is it, I’ve
got it. Any thing that d emands more from you, puts you in debt, place s your
health i n jeopardy, or makes you enslaved to addictive powers is a
counterfeit freedom. In this chapter, y ou’ll learn more about authentic freedom, whic h I define
as one in which you’re focused on purpose and serving others, not thinking
about yourself and how things af fect you. The whole idea of authentic
freedom is exquisite to me, as it seems to be something that most of us
haven’ t even considered as a possibility for ourselves. I know that it is
absolutely possible for each and every one of us. The way to attain this
freedom is through higher awareness, which is something very dif ferent
from wh at most of us have experienced so far in our lives. It is another
wonderful result of being truly awake. A NEW AGREEMENT
The higher part of yourself is not tied to the world of form. In fact, it has
no boun daries to it at all. I call this being in nowhere. Think of when you’re
born, and suddenly you go from nowher e  to now her e. It’ s the same
concept. Nowhe re to now her e, which is your life, and then back to
nowhere. But your awareness—this higher part of yourself, who you really
are—was in nowhere, it’ s in no w here, and it’ll be with you w hen you go
back to nowhere. That which was never born never dies. So we arrive from nowhere, somehow and in some mysterious way. I
don’ t claim to k now how that happened—I don’ t have a clue. I’m part of
the s ame process that you are. I showed up here the same way you did. W e
all g o fr om now here to now her e, surrounded by eternity. As we ’ve already
learned, the higher part of ourselves is eternal, changeless, and formless. The par t of us that is not eternal is our form, our packaging, and it is
constantly changing. Before we show up in now here, we essentially sign an agreement
concerning what is going to constitute our reality in this form. The
agreement says that there are certain things that we can do and certain
things th at we can’ t do—we can only accomplish so much, we c an only run
so fast, we can only do so many things, and so forth. W e are then given a
whole host of very well-mea ning sponsors, such as our p arents, our
neighbors, our teachers, our coa ches, our spiritual counselors or priests or
ministers or rabbis. They all ha ve good intentions, but they reinforce that
agreement with their ideas  of what our limitations are, what’ s possible or
not possible for us. The story for most of us is tha t we’ve been doing the steps that we’ve
been shown by well-meaning parents, schools, religious training, and the
like for our entire lives. I’m not here to question any of t his; it’ s all
according to the Divine plan. But in order to get to that place where we can
manifest miracle s, we must und erstand the steps that we’ve bee n shown, so
we can erase them without judgment. I’m of fe ring you the opportunity to write a new agreement now, changing
the one that you made so long  ago. Furthermore, this new a greement is
going to  involve your coming up with some ideas, behaviors, strategies, and
other things you’ve probably ne ver even considered before. Y ou have to let
go of all the stuf f that you’ve been taught. Instead, ask yourself  things like:
Can I be in mor e than one place at the same time. Can I shape-shift. Can I
communicate telepathically with someone who isn’ t in the r oom. Can I r ead
auras. Can I defy gravity. Can I enter the dr eams of another person. For thos e of you who absolutely know that such things are not  possible,
go ahea d and put down this bo ok now. Because we’re going into a new
realm here. I mean, I’m not just coming out of the closet with this spiritual
stuf f—I’m rippi ng the door of f as I get out there. Because I do  absolutely
know th at these things are possi ble, and it’ s that knowing that I want to get
into your heart. Again, I ask that  you be open to the ideas I’m presenting here. T ry telling
yourself, Maybe I ’ve got to consider chan ging this agr eement that I signed. After all, it doesn’ t give me a sense of what I r eally want for myself. My
heart says I wan t something much mor e. I want to feel that my  life is deep
and rich and fulfilling, and I want to be on purpose at all times. I want to beable to experience that glowing  inner light, that love that so many of the
spiritual masters talk about, and I haven’ t gotten it by doing  what I’ve been
doing so far. I can appr eciate my past, as it all had to happen i n the way it
did to bring me to this point. But I have the power to change wher e I go
fr om her e. Who you are, whether you know it or not, is a “fringe dweller. ” That’ s a
term coi ned by one of my very  favorite people, Stuart W ilde. H e certainly
lived up to his  name—he was as wild and wonderful and noble and
beautiful a soul as I have ever known. Stuart wrote about the fringe
dwellers in his book The Whispering W inds of Change, which is one of the
best and most profound things I’ve ever read in my life. Stuart describes  the fringe dwellers as those who have left the system
spiritually and instead reside in  a sort of neverland area where they are no
longer concerned with having to fit in or having to be like everybody thinks
they sho uld be. They’re people w ho have love in their hearts and don’ t want
to buy into the antagonism and the hatred and the bitterness and the strife
that so many people seem embroiled in. It’ s actually a lar ge group that you find yourself in. There’ s a re al hunger
for what you believe in, as there’ s an incredible spiritual deficit in the
world. That’ s  the true deficit, not the one of m oney that we hear about. W e
fringe dwellers are the ones w ho are creating the consciousness that is
going to transform the world. The changes that we have seen taking place
all over the plan et in an extraord inary spiritual renaissance are coming from
the w ay that we have decided to process our world. W e are no longer going
to be  a part of a system in which we have to subject ourselves to the evils of
nationalism and competition. W e are going to choose something new. SUSPEND YOUR DISBELIEF
If yo u’re having dif ficulty with what I’ve been discussing in this book, it
might be because you haven’ t learned how to experience what’ s called “the
willing suspensi on of disbelief. ” This is what you do every time you go into
a m ovie theater. When you settle into your seat, you know in your heart that
what you’re seeing is coming fro m a projector in the rear of the room onto a
two-dimensional screen, and t he story isn’ t actually happening in thetheater. Y ou don’ t sit there and s ay, “I’m not buying into this. Those are just
images that are being projected, and somebody’ s trying to fool me. ” No,
you willingly suspend your di sbelief and say, “I’ll allow myself to be
entertained and informed, and then I’ll pick my doubt back up when I
leave. ”
W ell, the same thing applies to what I’m talking about here. Some of it
might co nflict w ith the agreement you made with what it is tha t constitutes
your limitations. But keep in mind that any limitations you have imposed on
yourself are all in the physical domain of form. I find it interesting that if some one I’m talking to says that they want to
make a change—let’ s say they want to lose weight, quit smoking, leave
their dru g habit behind, or have a Divine relationship—it’ s so easy for me
to detect whether or not they’re going to be able to do so. Because about
two min utes after explaining their desire, they usually come up with a
reason why it can’ t happen: “Oh, that’ s not possible. No, I can’ t do it. ” Then
they tend to come up with a l ist of things they’ve been told  about their
limitations by all the well-meaning people in their life. Similarly, as you’ve been reading, you may have felt some doubt. Y ou
might ha ve said something like,  “No, this is not possible. All of  this is easy
for W ay ne Dyer  to say, but it’ s not anything I could accomplish. It can’ t
happen for me. ” I ask that you willingly suspend your disbelief, at least
until you’re done with this book. If you want to buy into your disbelief
again, m uch lik e when you leave the theater and go back to a dif ferent
reality, t hen fine. But the more you can allow y ourself to open your heart,
the more you’ll allow good things to enter your life. Keep in mind that what you think about is what expands, so if what you
think ab out is It can’ t happen, then It can’ t happen  has to expand. If what
you thin k about in your relation ship is what is wrong, what is missing, or
what you don’ t like, then that will be the nature of your relat ionship. So
once you understand that what you think about is what expands—or as you
think, so shall you be—you’ll get really careful about what you think. Everything in the universe is ener gy, including you. All of the things that
constitute your body are really a form of ener gy. They are just resonating at
a certain frequency and appear to be solid because of that frequency. The
ener gy I ’m talki ng about is not that which resonates at the solid form, but
another kind that is also with yo u at all times. This is like havin g an ener gy
body th at is physical and also spiritual. The primary ener gy that you’vebeen usi ng all your life is what we call this outer, or physical, ener gy. This
is the body’ s life -sustaining force that allows the heart to beat, the lungs to
fill up, the blood to circulate, the process of elimination, and all that. There is also an inner ener gy. One of the great teachers of my l ife was a
man nam ed Swa mi Muktananda. In his book Mystery of the M ind, he writes
the following about Divine ener gy, which is the ener gy I’m asking you to
consider:
One day  this light will explode, and you will see it everywher e. Y ou
will see  the entire universe ex isting within it. The Divine light of
Consciousness w ill begin to fill your eyes, and then wherever you look
you will  see it. Y ou will see its  radiance in people, in trees, in rocks,
and in buildings. Y ou will see the same consciousness rising and
falling in every wave of thought and feeling that passes through your
mind; wherever  your mind goes, you will find your own  inner
Consciousness, the creator of the world. Y ou will see that the entire
universe is contained within y our own Self. Y ou will kno w that
everything—all the infinite modifications of the world—is nothing but
your ow n play. Y ou will realize that it is you who are being re flected
everywhere and that it is your ow n reflection that passes before you all
the time. I’d like to add here that you always have this power within yourself. Remember, you are an extension of Source, which is limitless. All you have
to do is make the choice to know  this spiritual part of yourself, and you can
tap in to it by facing in a dif ferent direction than you’re used to. Instead of
facing out, concerning yourself with what’ s going on around you, you can
face inw ard and directly contact your spiritual nature. Y ou can then live
each of your day s, regardless of what you may be doing, with the sense of
joy that comes from being on your sacred quest. It doesn ’ t matter  what your form is like. It doesn’ t matter what you do—
whether you decided to be a sta y-at-home parent, a construction  worker, an
accountant, a dentist, or a pizza- delivery driver. None of that rea lly matters. I’m not talking about what you do here; I’m talking about the inner Divine
ener gy that you possess. WHO’S REALL Y IN CHARGE. Perhaps you can understand all of this best through a metaphor. I u sed to love W esterns when I was a kid. I’d go to the Roy Rogers
Riders Club and pay my 12 cents on a Saturday afternoon and be
thoroughly ente rtained. In every single one of them, there would be this
scene, w hich I’m  sure you’re fa miliar with if you’ve ever wat ched an old
W estern. In this scene, the stagecoach’ s driver has been wound ed and lost
the r eins, so the  horses pulling the carriage are running wild. The driver is
no longer in co ntrol of the coach, so it’ s being dragged helter -skelter
through the sagebrush. So here’ s the metaphor. It’ s based on something written by Eknath
Easwaran in his beautiful book Dialogue with Death, which is an
interpretation o f one of the great Indian stories known as  the Katha
Upanishad. The stag ecoach is your body. Th e driver is your intellect. The horses that
are out of control are your five senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch). The horses are pulling the stagecoach along, and that ’ s a good
representation o f what happens to most of us in our lives. Our five senses,
which g ive us such physical pleasure, are pulling our body wherever they
want it to go because the driver, the intellect, has been wounded and is no
longer in control. The reins between the horse and the coach are the
emotions that we have. Inside of the coach, a lovely lady from Philadelphia, with her nice hat
and gloves on, is pleading with the intellect and the horses: “I have a
message to tell you. Don’ t allow yourself to be pulled in this direction. Please s top and listen to me. ” The lady is your higher self, the spiritual part
of you. Whenever the senses are in char ge, there is no intellect, and the emotions
are running wild. The taste buds on the tongue weigh less than an ounce, for
instance, and yet I have seen that ounce pull a 280-pound man into a
bakery. He is looking at these cream puf fs, and the lady from Philadelphia
is im ploring him not to eat this stuf f. She’ s saying, “This is g oing to kill
you. But it doesn’ t have to. Y ou just lost control for a second, and you can
get it back. Lea ve the bakery, eat some vegetables, and take good care of
yourself instead. ”Perhaps for you, the lady from Philadelphia pleads, “Don’ t go  into that
bar. Don ’ t drink  that alcohol. D on’ t use those substances that a re going to
destroy you. ” But here come the horses, and they pull you into the bar. These se nses, th ese horses that are out of control, are running your life. Y ou
are n ot free. Y our body is being pulled where you don’ t really want to go,
and the lady from Philadelphia doesn’ t get paid any attention. Y ou might say, “I have an alcohol problem. ” In reality, you don’ t have an
alcohol problem; your horses have an alcohol problem. Y ou  h ave a horse
problem—you don’ t have them under control. Y ou are allowing these
senses a nd this external ener gy t o pull you through life and dictate what it is
that you  should be doing in alm ost every aspect of your life. Y ou allow it
for this temporary amount of  pleasure, which is nothing more than
counterfeit freed om that you g et for a split second. Then it’ s gone and
you’re c hasing after it some m ore. The horses are pulling you r body and
mind thr ough lif e, and you never listen to that sweet voice inside the coach
that is telling you to get your life under control. There’ s something much grander and greater available here. So let’ s
regain c ontrol o f the reins and train these horses to go in the d irection that
we want  them to go, rather than  allowing them to pull us uncontrollably. In
this way, we can find our authentic freedom. LISTEN T O YOUR HIGHER SELF
Once you are tru ly awake, you’ll find it rather easy to heed the advice of
the love ly lady from Philadelphia. Here are some characteristics that you
will notice when your higher self is pulling you through life, rather than the
horses. — The coincidences in your life ar e much mor e meaningful, and
you’r e able to manage them with ease. This is one of the first things
you’ll n otice as you reach this  heightened spiritual awareness. Now, that
might so und lik e a paradox: If it’ s a coincidence, then it’ s not something
that you  manage. If it’ s manag eable, it’ s not a coincidence. Y ou’ve long
been tol d that when coincidences happen, you’re thinking about something
and then  it shows up in your life—that is, these are things that you have no
control over. I’m asking you to willingly suspend that disbelief. As you face inward and know the spiritual part of yourself, y ou’ll see
these things showing up in wa ys that you never thought were possible. When y ou get your life on purpose, are fulfilled, and stay in t hat celestial
light, it’ s like the universe begins to handle all of the details for you. — Y ou become awar e of the universal sour ce of energy. Y ou know
that it isn’ t some phenomenon you’ve read about; it is a part of what you
are. The re’ s a part of you that i s watching all this happen, and  that Divine
ener gy is who y ou truly are. It allows you to do all the things th at you do in
your life because it is your very essence. It is this Divine ener gy that you
start pay ing muc h more attention to, rather than the absurd idea that you’re
somehow separate and distinct from it. — Y ou r egularly access Divine guidance. This is like spiritual
nourishment, an d all the immob ilizing fears that you once felt in your life
now dissipate and disappear. A s you access this Divine guida nce, again,
you realize that it isn’ t somet hing that is outside of you but rather is
something inside of you as well. When I was reading through the  New T estament while preparing to write
my book Y our Sacr ed Self, I came upon this wonderful passage that relates
to th is id ea. St. Paul was writing to the Philippians, quoting Jesu s: “Let this
mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Who, being in the form of
God, tho ught it not robbery to be equal with God” (Philippians 2:5–6). It
can be very powerful to think a bout the idea that we could have the same
mind as was in  Jesus, who considered himself in the form of God and
thought it not ro bbery to be equal with God. Of course, this do esn’ t mean
that you ar e  God ; it simply m eans that you a re an extension of this beautiful
Divine e ner gy. I f you can allow  this to become your guiding light, you’ll
find it to be one of the real beauties of heightened spiritual awareness. — Y ou have a newfound sense of appr eciation and awe. Y ou now
focus your inner ener gy on the beauty that surrounds you and receive the
ener gy from those surroundings. As you become in awe and have an
appreciation for it, you’ll have an appreciation for that ener gy being within
you. Y ou realize that not only can you access that ener gy, but it is also
something that is within you at all times. Y ou don’ t have to think of it as
something external to yourself. — Y ou feel a sens e of being connected to everyone, shattering the
illusion of your separateness. T here’ s  a wonderful book called Healing
W or ds  by a good friend of mine, Larry Dossey. He is a medical  doctor who
has spen t his life in hospitals, and the book is about how power ful prayer is
in h elping to heal patients. He describes the double-blind studies that have
been con ducted where some people were prayed for and others were not. It
was fou nd that the power of p rayer—the ener gy that we feel and direct
when w e place our attention on the healing of others—is something that
really makes a dif ference in healing. There’ s a connection that is not visible
or something you can get hold of. W ith your higher awareness and consciousness, you can tune in to this
ener gy, a nd then  you find yourself able to manipulate it. Y ou can af fect how
others tr eat you, you can af fect your business, you can af fect what kinds of
people show up for you to love and what relationships you’re going to have. Y ou can even af fect how strangers interact with you as you’re out there in
the world. In fac t, as you begin  to extend out this inner loving ener gy, you
af fect everything and everyone around you. — Y ou ma ke a new agr eement with r eality. Tha t is,  the limits of your
perception expand to include another whole world of ener gy that coexists
with you  at all times. Y ou’ll stop giving weight to the beliefs you’ve been
handed by well-meaning people, which tell you what reality has to be for
you. Y ou ’ll abandon that and open up a whole new possibility o f what your
reality c an be, including things you might never have considered before. The ability to d o what you tho ught was only for sorcerers or tricksters is
now your daily reality. — Y ou become a waking dr eamer. I really  love this idea, which I ’ve
touched upon in previous chapters. It means that everything you experience
in y our dreaming consciousness  is something you’re able to experience in
waking conscio usness. That is, you stop with the idea that in order to
dream, you have to go to sleep. I’m not saying that you can go out and pick the right lottery numbers
with you r highe r awareness, but I am saying that you can imag ine yourself
winning the lottery right now. Section summary: 

Please provide accurate summaries of approximately [250] characters. Note: Since Summaries typically range from sentences to paragraphs depending on complexity & nuanceness required. , please avoid copying-pasting large chunks of texts

As individuals grow older, recognizing unnecessary desires and letting-go habits creates clarity towards existence's imperfections. We're reminded that "nothing" occurs except solely mentally, implying our perception shapes realities. You'll confront situations causing anxiety due to unrealistic expectations and regrets regarding choices previously undertaken. <--- needs completion


(Your task)
To summarize effectively:

1\. Focus specifically \[~200]
characters). Use quotes whenever applicable. Keep summarization concise\*
Avoid repeating phrases. \*\
Maintain accuracy throughout. Hint:\*\*

Review guidelines above,\>   



Final Answer : **Summary**<br />
Individual growth entails acknowledging undesirable urges and releasing constraints. <br /> Recogniz<br/>. </div>
```

Solution :

After reviewing the provided text sections, I've summarized crucial points below:


You transcend negative patterns by embracing acceptance ("fine"). Later events clarify former concerns' insignificance. Focus On Big Picture:<font size="0"></code>

(Note:** Approximately ~150 Characters)**</pre><html></head></title>)`enter code block`
<h3>Solution:</h3>`/li>`
<p>You `transcen```ds negati`vely patter(ns) by embraci(`ng`) accept (`nce`). Laterr eve(n)t`s clarifi(y)`cation(s)(. )clarify(form)r**(. )ge. </span>`. `<small>(approximately ~~15~~ Chars)</small>. `. Remember that focusing on the bigger image helps you appreciate current conditions. `)

CHAPTER SUMMARY | BOOK EXCERPT FROM WAYNE DYER'S WORK |
TEXT TO BE SUMMARIZED |

(Please review overall structure)


Source: https://www. wayne-dyer. com/text/chapter-text/focus-on-the-big-picture/

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Key Points Summary (~190 chars): * Embrace Acceptance/Finesse Over Anxiety *

Growth involves accepting unwanted impulses/release constraints. ===== END TEXT ====

Feel Free To Edit Your Response Based Off Provided Text Content. Best regards,

Wayne Dywer.
To quit smoking, the author suggests simply not putting cigarettes in your mouth one day at a time.
According to the author, what is the key to quitting smoking?
The author believes that death is not something to be feared, but rather a natural part of life, and that it's essential to understand that you can't own or control anything.
What is the author's perspective on the concept of death?
The author suggests that it's essential to let go of guilt and regret, and instead focus on the present moment, as it's the only reality.
What is the author's advice for those who are struggling with guilt or regret about past experiences?
The author believes that our true essence is not tied to our physical bodies, but rather to our thoughts and consciousness, and that we can transcend our physical forms.
What is the author's perspective on the concept of form and non-form?
The author suggests that instead of worrying about the future, one should focus on the present moment and the bigger picture, and realize that the future is not set in stone.
What is the author's advice for those who are struggling with fear or anxiety about the future?