Gary Zukav – Finding Your Authentic Power Interview Oprah Winfrey

the soul is the soul it evolves but it’s
our evolution and my evolution that Ifocus on but yes the soul is that part
of us that existed before we were bornand will continue to exist after we die
it’s that part of us that is immortaland it’s that part of us that has the
intentions of harmony and cooperationand sharing and reverence for life yes
the soul is your mothership so whenyou’re sailing in the same direction
that it wants to go your life filledwith meaning and purpose and when you
sail in another direction it empties ofmeaning and purpose you can look at it
this way you are a personality thatmeans you were born on a certain day and
you’ll die on a certain day ashes toashes dust to dust
but your soul won’t die your soul is youalso we’re on a journey to the soul you
could put it that way while we’re herein this span between birth and death
think of yourself as a body in a souland while we have this precious
opportunity to walk on the earth thequestion becomes what will we do with
this personality what will you do withyou now here we can define you in a
couple of ways one is you with a littley ou the personality that was born and
that will die the other you is the youwith a big Y that’s your soul and if you
use your time while you’re on the earthto align the little you with the big you
your life begins to fill with meaningfill with purpose fill with joy and you
know why you’re alive following what youknow your soul wants you to do there’s
been a huge change in humanconsciousness that has occurred and its
ramifications are going to be felt andthe experience of it is going to be felt
by everyone you think so yes I do whatI’m talking about is this I’m talking
about an expansion of your perceptionbeyond the five senses beyond what you
can see and taste and touch and hear andsmell as people become multi-sensory
they begin to become aware that’s asense in some way that there is a big
why a big why a big why a mothershipsomething that is meaningful and
millions of us are acquiring that sensethat sense that life as a meaning that I
have a purpose that I am more than thismind and body on more than molecules and
dendrites and neurons and enzymes I havea part of me that is immortal
now the question becomes what nowmulti-sensory perception does not make
us more kind or patient or caring orless angry it makes us more aware and
when you get that sense the thespiritual work begins yes because how do
you do thatwell the answer is elegantly simple you
find the parts of your personality thatdon’t want those things you become very
familiar with them so that you canrecognize them when they come up in you
and you don’t act on them and you findthe parts of your personality that do
want those things and you recognize themand you become very familiar with them
and when they come up in you you act onthem and that’s how you create authentic
power creating authentic power isdeveloping the ability to distinguish
between love and fear within yourselfand then choosing love no matter what is
happening inside of you or what ishappening outside of you yeah let’s look
at the time between your birth and thetime of your death as a learning
experiencecall it the earth school yeah is a
real-time multimedia surround-sound fullcolor cast of billions learning
environment that always provides youwith every interaction in every
circumstance opportunities that areperfect for your spiritual growth given
the wisdom of the choices that you’vemade but it’s not as though it’s
predestined it’s not as though it’swritten right you’re ordering it you
make choices yes and every choice youmake creates consequence so when you
make that choice consciously you createyour future consciously and if you’re
willing to encounter those consequencesnow it won’t come as the painful
surprise to you encounter them that’sright
entertain considering the possibilitythat you are a powerful and creative
compassionate and loving spirit let meseem a lot but try that on for size and
if you find that it doesn’t fit if youfind that there is a distance between
who you areyou think you are and what you say and
what you do and the way that you behaveand a powerful and creative
compassionate and loving spirit thenalso consider that that distance is the
distance that you have to travel that isyour spiritual path that’s your
curriculum in the earth school so how doyou make that journey between what
you’re saying what you’re doing whatyou’re thinking now and what those
things would be if you were fullyoperating as what you are a powerful and
creative compassionate and loving spiritan intention is a quality of
consciousness that you bring to a deedor words it’s an energy it’s an energy
it’s an energy it’s an energy so it’s aquality of a consciousness got it it’s
it’s your reason for ceasing it’s yourmotivation motivation yes
so the real motivation is the one thatcreates consequences for example when
someone says I want a bigger home itcould be because I want to impress the
neighborsor it could be because we’ve adopted
four children and I want to give themmore space mhm
so it’s the Y beneath the Y OH the Y butneither Y you you might say that the
first intention like I want to getanother job so that can have more money
this this could be called an out tensionbecause it’s really what you want to do
to change things in the world but yourintention is the bedrock bottom this is
it real intention I want to support mywife she needs some support now I want
to send my children to college I want tohave room for my newly adopted children
a personality has a lot of differentaspects are parts for example some parts
of your personality are angry jealousvengeful feel superior and in title feel
inferior and need to please can’t stopsmoking drinking watching pornography
addicted addicted compulsive can’t stopworking
obsessive can’t stop thinking you knowI’ve got to have her oh he’s so great or
I’m so stupidor she’s so stupid and the thoughts keep
going all of those things you can putinto one basket and here’s why because
they have a couple of things in commonnumber one they hurt when you really
experience them compulsive addictiveobsessive painful action or word is an
attempt in that moment to mask that painthe real thing the real pain let’s go
back to his feelings because this isreally interesting yes
the first thing that they have in commonis they hurt yes the second thing they
have in common is that when you act onthem they create painful consequences
destructive consequences so we put allof those yes parts of your personality
that share those two things into thisbasket and we’ll give it a generic name
we’ll write on the side fear now there’sother parts of your personality for
example the part that’s grateful thepart that’s content
the part that’s appreciative patientcaring in all of the universe these
parts of your personality also share twothings number one they feel good yeah I
feel greatyes but no there’s a difference between
that feeling of it yeah and the feelingof I got in my Mercedes yes that is
happiness yes that’s not joy yeah we’retalking about something else that is an
experience in the fear basket becausewhen you get something that a frightened
part of your personality wants yes afear-based part it makes you ecstatic or
happy temporarily so we’re not talkingabout magnitude on a material level
we’re talking about intention energyattachment we’re talking about fear
parts of your personalities thatoriginate in fear that reach outward to
change the physical world in order tomask the pain and I take I’ll tell you
what that pain is if what is it no yes Idon’t want to know it’s the pain of
powerlessness the pain of powerlessnessand you can go right down to the very
root of the pain of powerlessness andthat is feeling unlovable feeling as
though you want to belong and you don’tbelong feeling as though you’re not
worthy you’re not worthy feeling asthough you want to love but you you
can’t love it’s the feeling that you’reintrinsically flawed that you’re you’re
you’re fundamentally defective if peoplecould see you the way you really are
they wouldn’t want to have anything todo with you that’s the pain of
powerlessness and everybody has iteverybody who’s human now for millenia
we have addressed the pain ofpowerlessness just as we’ve been talking
about by reaching outward to change thephysical world you get a trophy husband
a trophy wife you get a mountain bikethat’s better than anyone else’s your
dreadlocks are cooler than anyone elsesin the world your sandals are the best
so these parts of your personality thatcome from fear always in the past
have you can still mask them temporarilyby striving to change people around you
that’s the pursuit of external power bythe way the ability to manipulate into
control yeah now here’s the thing I achoice of intention is the fundamental
creative act I ask everyone to considerthat they are powerful and creative
compassionate and loving spirits but youare co-creating your life with the
universe and your part is the choice ofintention yes so that when you become
unaware creator you do not become a morepowerful creator you become more able to
use your creative capacity in a lovingway so when you’re not aware of what
your intention is for example in thatmoment when someone gets angry or
jealous in that moment when someone goesto the refrigerator and eats a quart of
chocolate-chip ice cream they don’t needwhen you’re not aware of your intention
you’re creating with fear you’re apowerful creator when you are aware of
your intention then you can choosewhether you want to create with an
energy of fear with an intention of fearor with an intention of love it is to
allow us to learn through our ownexperiences how powerful we are as
creators and how responsible we are forwhat we create so treat other people the
way you’d like them to treat you becausethey will that’s the short of it yes
give to the world what you want toreceive from the world because you will
receive that you may betray someone whoput all their trust in you and then
later in your life or longer you willfind yourself betrayed in another way
and it will hurt as much so once youknow that then you can begin to look at
your experience as less personally youdon’t have to take them so personally if
someone betrays you the first thing youcan understand is there’s a factor of
karma involved the other thing that youcan understand is that the person who is
acting in that way is acting from afrightened part of his personality he or
she is in painthat is karma it you don’t have to take
on the role of judge and jury yes and ifyou do it will create negative negative
karma for yourself always oh and thereason is that what other way could you
learn that would create changes in youso permanent so deep so constructive as
through your own experience encounteringthe consequences of your own choices
until finally you stop trying to useother people you stop trying to blame
other people you stop shaking your fistand railing against the universe you
stop curling up in a ball and wanting todie you stop trying to impress everyone
you stop everything why not begin tocreate authentic power and when you do
when you keep following that path itwill eventually as the saying goes bring
you to your knees and then you are openthen you are open for the first time
because everything else you have triedhas n’t
and you know it’s not going to thepainkillers the drugs the wealth doesn’t
matter that point comes when you openyourself and when you do then change is
possible but that’s not the kind ofchange you can learn from a sermon
that’s change that transforms andrearranges you and in the process
everything that was based in fear fallsaway in my experience it’s very painful
to be aware of the sensations that arebehind the impulse to show the impulse
to be right to win a power strugglethat’s right but as painful as they are
I’ve come to see that it’s not aspainful as the consequences that I have
created is understanding that when youfeel emotional pain yeah
at first it seems as though something orsomeone else caused that pain
yes but as you develop emotionalawareness you’ll discover that your pain
was not caused by someone else someoneelse triggered a dynamic in you that is
painful to experience hmm and when youdivert your attention to changing the
trigger you may or may not gain somesatisfaction looking at the parts of
your personality that originate in fearsuch as jealousy and anger and rage and
and those kind of painful experiencesthat are destructive the more you don’t
act on them the more you challenge themby not acting on them the more they lose
their control over you the universedoesn’t look in terms of good bad better
worse success/failure it looks in termsof limitation and opportunity the more
the loving parts of your personality arethe ones you’re cultivating the more
opportunity you have absence or fear iscontrolling you the more contracted and
the less and the more limitation youhave you are a powerful and creative
compassionate and loving spirit and themore you cultivate a loving part of your
personality the more it begins to fillyour experience in your field of
awareness until that’s all that is socreating authentic power is a process
it’s not an event it’s done decision bydecision step by step choice by choice
the point is to contribute what you canto life because that’s the nature of
love and love doesn’t require that it beacknowledged doesn’t require that it
even be effective and the Sun shines onyou it doesn’t say how did I do today
are you appreciating me yet I can dobetter tomorrow yeah it just shines and
that’s where the joy and life comes fromand to create that place is our
evolutionary requirement now that’screating authentic power that’s what
requires becoming aware of every part ofour person
analogy and not acting on those thatcontrol us compulsively unconsciously
and acting on those that we know arealigned with our soul that’s why the
choice of intention is the fundamentalcreative act
the choice of intention is the choicethat brings energy into form that
creates matter that creates cost is themost important one the soul is that part
of you that existed before you were bornand that will exist after you die
it’s the highest most noble part ofyourself that you can reach for
dimension and weight and volume arecharacteristics of the earth school this
domain of time and space and matter andduality but all souls have the capacity
to be great souls and your job and myjob while we are in the earth school is
to align our personalities with oursouls and we do that by becoming the
personality that has the same intentionsof the soul harmony and cooperation and
sharing and reverence for life what isyour definition of God I don’t have a
definition of God because I’ve neverreally understood that word people have
different understandings of it and it’scaused a great deal of conflict I do
know that the universe is sacred andthat it’s holy as a substitute I
sometimes use the word divineintelligence if I had to say what would
my definition of God be if I were goingto use that word I would say that this
universe has layers upon layers uponlayers of compassion and wisdom beyond
ours that we might think of is God whatdo you think happens when we die we go
home you return to where you came fromwhich is non-physical reality and as we
become multi-sensory which means whilewe are walking on the earth we begin to
experience ourselves not only aspersonalities as bodies and minds we
begin to experience our sense somehowthat we are more than that
we sort of have a dual identity and ourgratification and our fulfillment comes
in aligning ourselves with the bigidentity and we can see that and
experience it because we’re becomingmulti-sensory and that allows us to at
least entertain the idea that the majorpart of who we are exist in non-physical
reality do we drop the body and the soulRises the soul doesn’t sink or rise it’s
always there and the body thepersonality your intuitional structure
your all the things that a psychologistcalls a personality effect perception
cognition all of those returned to theearth that dies your soul doesn’t die
but while we’re here the goal and thepurpose of being here is to align our
personalities with our souls and whenthat happens the intentions of the soul
flow through you like the breath of amusician through a flute and when that
happens you cannot tell in such a personwhere the personality ends and the soul
begins right as you look at yourexperiences and use them to create
authentic power everyone will experiencetheir soul when you go home when your
personality dies you will experience thefullness of who you are
and you’ll see so many things so manythings things that you did and didn’t
even notice you’ll see what that causedand what those effects caused and what
those effects cause and how they rippleout as far as you can imagine every
little thing that you did in your lifeand you’ll learn from those