A best-selling author for decades, Wayne Dyer was one of the most popular teachers in the self-help, mind/body/spirit, and New Age communities. This interview was my first with Wayne. At the time I was editor in chief of New Age Retailer (now Retailing Insight), the main industry trade magazine for the category, and this piece originally…
I love talking to Wayne Dyer. First of all, the breadth and depth of thought across disciplines he brings to a conversation are amazing. I always learn new and important things. Secondly, the last time he saw me, he exclaimed, “Ray Hemachandra-dandra-dandra!” When Wayne Dyer starts calling you buddy nicknames, you feel pretty good about…
Ray: Let’s talk about memes a little bit more. How do political and cultural shifts happen when there are collective memes, or seem to be— Wayne: —oh, yes, there are millions of them— Ray: —and is there a tipping point at which you have enough people changing their thinking that a societal meme actually shifts?…
Ray: If the dharma for all human beings is doing good and being good, it still manifests itself differently for different people. Are the differences in our dharmas based on choices we make—on free will—or is our specific dharma something with which we’re born? Wayne: We’re all individualized expressions of God, of oneness. We do…
Ray: What do you think we owe future generations, and how are we doing? Wayne: Oh, we’re doing terribly. We’re leaving these unborn children trillions of dollars of debt, which is just horrific. We’re leaving nuclear weapons—enough to end life as we know it—all over the planet. We’re leaving a legacy of violence and killing…
Ray: If you’re raised with pessimistic, negative beliefs—those very excuses you’re talking about—that’s your world. That’s your understanding of reality. So, in a fundamental way, abandoning those unhealthy beliefs means abandoning your life. That requires a real leap of faith, doesn’t it? Wayne: You’ve already abandoned everything you’ve ever known. All you have is now.…
Ray: What’s the main message you’re trying to express today? Wayne: The message is don’t die with your music still in you. You came here with something to do. You are part of a universal consciousness, and there are no accidents in it. In your true essence—not the false self, not the ego part of…
Ray: What’s the biggest thing people need to learn in order to help them get beyond excuses? Wayne: They need to know that they are God. We mostly do not recognize that. We’ve lost the sense of our own divinity. We think that we’re separate from God, but we can’t be. We must be like…
Ray: Starting with The Secret, which has reached such a wide audience, the emphasis in today’s popular understanding of the law of attraction is predominantly about material wealth. What are the consequences of that kind of skew to this teaching? Wayne: First of all, I think the law of attraction has been misstated. You do…
