DR. WAYNE DYER

Wayne Dyer on Letting Go
The best-selling author talks to Beliefnet about inner flexibility, letting go, and the real secret behind 'The Secret.'
Interview by Valerie Reiss

Best-selling inspirational author Wayne Dyer recently talked to Beliefnet from his home in Maui about his latest book, "Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao" and what he's like now that he's embraced the Tao, an ancient Chinese philosophy. He also tells us what's missing in ”The Secret," and how we can get in on the truest secret of all.

What's the most common spiritual affliction that you see?

Carl Jung said that the number one purpose of organized religion is to prevent everyone from having a direct experience of God. With spirituality the implication very often is that some people have it and some people don't. And those that have it dispense it to others. And I think it's more than an affliction. It's a huge, huge, huge error to make--each and every being on this planet is a piece of God. We all came from the same source.

It sounds like you're talking about separation.

Separation from our source, yeah. In the first nine months of your life, when you were inside your mother's womb, you were doing nothing, you know? You were just being done. And you surrendered to that completely. And you didn't worry about it, and you didn't pray that your nose would show up on time, and that your fingernails would come and they would be in the right place, and all that. You just surrendered to it. And then, when you're born, we are surrounded by people who suddenly say, well, that was good work, God, but now I'll take over from here.

When We Develop the Ego
And then, we develop this ego, which is an acronym for Edging God Out. As we edge God out, we take over ourselves, and we start believing that we're not these divine creations. We start believing that we are what we have and what we do and what we accumulate, and what our reputations are, and we start really believing strongly in all of that stuff. And in the process, we lose our connection to what we really are.

How can changing your thoughts change your life?

You Can Change How the World Looks at You
They say when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. Einstein once said that the most important decision you'll ever have to make in your life is whether you live in a friendly universe or a hostile universe. And if you're a person who believes that you live in a hostile universe, you're going to be looking for that. You're going to be experiencing that. You'll be seeing it everywhere. You'll become a person who's always looking for occasions to be upset or to be offended or to be hurt, or depressed, or sad, or right, or whatever.

If you live in a world that you believe supports you, and is friendly and is there for you, and is bringing you all that you need at any given moment, and all the experiences that you have are perfect, if you just really believe that, then, the things that you don't like you'll just be able to ignore, and the world looks very, very different.

Since so much of your work has been about the law of attraction, I wanted to ask what you think about "The Secret."

Why I Turned Down Filming
'The Secret'
I'm thrilled that the book sales have been so great on this thing. It's really brought people to a new awareness of the power of the mind to create what you want. The reason I wasn't in that movie--I was asked to be--is that I think too much of the emphasis is on manifesting stuff. Manifesting more things. Nothing wrong with stuff and things and so on. But to me the great secret is that when you're giving, when you put your attention on what you really want and then shift to [asking] "How can I offer this to others rather than seeking it for myself?" That's the ultimate secret—the more you give, the more you receive.

I wrote a book about the secret long before "The Secret." It's called "Manifest Your Destiny," and it's really much, much more about putting your focus on serving. Like, if you say to the universe, "How may I serve," the universe responds back with, "How may I serve you?" If you say to the universe, "Give this to me," you're coming from a position of shortage or lack. If you say to the universe, "Gimme, gimme, gimme," the universe says back to you what you ask for, which is, "Gimme, gimme, gimme." And you're constantly feeling as if you're never given enough, you know?

So, is there an ideal way to ask for what we want?

Focus on Serving the Universe
I think the best way to ask for what you want is to say, "How many I serve?" I have a rule with myself. Which is that I start out every day by doing something for somebody else that they're usually not expecting, whether it's one of my family members or, oftentimes, it's people from around the world--somebody wants me to call them in the hospital, or I send a book or a gift. And the opening words out of my mouth are, "Thank you" when I awaken. I have found that the more I'm able to offer and give as much as I possibly can, that I can't even control how much flows into my life. It just comes in bigger and bigger.