Gary Zukav is
the author of The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview
of the New Physics, which won The American Book
Award in Science, and the National Bestseller, The
Seat of the Soul, which explores the new phase
of evolution that we have entered. He was interviewed
at his home by Kathy Doner, M.D.
In The Seat of the Soul
you discussed the evolution of consciousness
– from five-sensory perception to the multi-sensory
perception, and from external power to authentic power.
Is this a true evolution or are we just coming back
to a pre-science and an Eastern way of thinking? Where
do we see this happening?
In me and in you and in the readers of this article.
Some elements in this transformation aren't new. For
example, aboriginal cultures knew that the Earth is
alive. Every human after whom our religions are named
spoke of nonphysical realms of experience and of consequences
that occur in them that are created by actions in
the physical realm. In the West, these nonphysical
realms are called "heaven" and "hell".
In the East, the consequences are called "karma".
However, we have
now crossed an evolutionary threshold. That threshold
is this: In the past we evolved through exploring
physical reality and, in that process, developed the
ability to manipulate and control it. This is external
power. The development of tools, shelter, agriculture,
and space travel are all examples of external power.
Now we are becoming a multi-sensory species –
one that is not limited to the five senses, that is
evolving through responsible choice, and that is pursuing
authentic power: the alignment of the personality
with the soul.
How does this relate to medicine?
The western medicine that
you are practicing – the use of drugs and surgery
– is the application of external power to the
human body. Pharmaceuticals are a way of manipulating
and controlling the physical body at the bimolecular
level. Surgery is a means of manipulating and controlling
the physical body at macroscopic levels. Western medicine
has the same goal as oriental medicine, acupuncture,
and homeopathy – which are all means of manipulating
and controlling the body – to prolong physical
survival.
The goal of multi-sensory
humanity is spiritual growth. Five-sensory humans
look at themselves as "bodies" with a mysterious
quality called "mind". We are now becoming
aware of ourselves both as personalities and as souls.
This is part of the emergence of multisensory perception.
By "personality " I mean our bodies and
intuitional structures as well as our cognitive, affective,
and perceptual capabilities. All of these are temporary.
They come into being; they serve; and then they disappear.
Serve what? They serve the immortal Soul.
From a multi-sensory
point of view, every physical dysfunction is a symptom,
and beneath every physical cause lays non-physical
causes. In other words, physical dysfunction is the
last stage in a developmental process, most of which
is not physical. Treating someone with a physical
dysfunction solely in terms of the physical is, to
multi-sensory perception, analogous to treating a
patient with an anesthetic. It diminishes pain but
doesn't address causes. It allows the patient to work
more effectively with the doctor, but it doesn't heal
anything.
This is a complete change
of perspective for Western medicine. It also sets
us health care pioneers on a rather tricky frontier.
Its all a matter of perception – are you willing
to step into the largest arena of knowing that you
can reach for, or, for your sense of security, will
you stay in a smaller arena? As your awareness expands
there will come a time that is analogous to wearing
shoes that don't fit anymore, or clothes that you
no longer find attractive. You may wear them as long
as possible in order to get the most out of them,
or so that you won't disturb friends who are used
to seeing you in them. Eventually you will give them
away. This frontier is an exciting place to be. I
suggest that you try on the perspective of the immortal
soul – the perspective of eternity – for
size.
By the way, keep
in mind that pioneers created what is now the conservative
establishment that spurns pioneers. For example, the
first human who said that diseases are transmitted
by "germs" was ridiculed. When you say that
physical symptoms have nonphysical causes that underlie
their physical causes, the ostracism that you fear
is the same that the pioneers who created contemporary
allopathic medicine faced.
Can you describe the evolution
of our perception? The physicist, Max Planck, said
that our aim is that "which poetic intuition
may apprehend but which the intellect can never fully
grasp".
Five-sensory logic and understanding
originate in the mind. Multi-sensory humanity comprehends
through the heart. The time has come for a higher
order of logic and understanding. The characteristics
of the old order of logic and understanding are well-mapped:
It is linear and exclusionary. That means that you
cannot think of something simultaneously in two ways.
You can alternate rapidly between different ways of
comprehending something, but to understand it in one
way is to preclude understanding it in another.
The heart is non-linear.
It does not understand sequentially. The heart is
inclusionary. It comprehends in different ways simultaneously.
For example, a father may be proud, jealous, and fearful
for the safety of his son simultaneously. The heart
understands all of this at the same time.
Intellectual understanding
doesn't disappear with the emergence of multisensory
perception. It gets demoted. It is no longer the chairman
of the board, but instead becomes subservient to the
heart. Humanity is now becoming multisensory and heart
centered. The transition from five sensory perception
to multisensory perception is occurring whether we
wish it or not – it is the great evolutionary
transformation that is reshaping humanity.
Becoming
heart centered is a matter of choice – responsible
choice. A responsible choice is a choice that brings
into being consequences for which the chooser is willing
to assume responsibility. Most of us do not consider
ourselves responsible for what we create, or we would
create very differently. A heart centered humanity,
for example, could not use its intellectual capabilities
to create caste systems, nerve gas, or nuclear weapons.
Is this evolutionary transition
simply a paradigm shift, a different way of looking
at things?
No, not in the way that the
shift from Ptolemaic to Copernican astronomy was a
paradigm shift. This is a change not only in what
we see, but also in what we can see; not
only in what we experience, but also in what we can
experience.
And you feel this is happening
even though we are surrounded by so many symbols of
the old order of authoritarian power?
Yes. The pursuit of external
power – the ability to manipulate control –
that was our previous evolutionary modality now produces
only violence and destruction. In other words, pursuing
the previous evolutionary modality of humankind now
produces its most counterproductive activities.
All of the social
structures that we have built – education, governance,
commerce, science – are collapsing because they
no longer have a foundation.
That is why in
your field, health care, is collapsing: It is based
upon the perception as power as external – as
the ability to manipulate and control. As costs continue
to rise, pricing more and more people out of health
care, your system has continually attempted to right
itself. Now it is more concerned with its own health
than it is with the health of the patients within
it. This circumstance cannot be corrected by cost
containment, or anything else, because, like all of
our social structures, medicine is built on the obsolete
perception of power as the ability to manipulate and
control.
This is good news.
The old is giving way to the new. In other words,
the disintegration of our social structures is not
the product of a pathology, but the profoundly positive
consequences of humanity shifting from an intellectually
oriented mode of evolution through the exploration
of the physical world to a heart centered mode of
evolution through responsible choice with the assistance
and guidance of nonphysical Teachers – through
the pursuit of authentic power.
As a physician I try to encourage
my patients to find the meaning of their suffering
and to address the lessons that they are learning,
and not just to prescribe drugs and surgery. Do you
have any advice for a healer who doesn't want to work
with just physical causes and cures?
If you set the intention to draw to you those souls
who will help you to understand and implement the
creation of deep health, they will come, and those
who come for pills will drop away. Offer them choices.
Responsible choice requires the knowledge that there
are options, and what those options are. For example,
if you feel that the despondency and physical dysfunction
of a patient is related to the fact that he is living
a meaningless life, or that he disdains his wife,
or fears his employer, suggest that he explore the
possibility that his physical symptoms are part of
these larger circumstances of his life.
You can relieve
some of his symptoms with medication, but offer him
or her the choice of addressing deeper issues if he
or she chooses.
Get in touch with
your own sense of meaning. Your sense of meaning in
your life, or lack of it, tells you if you are walking
the path that your soul wants to walk. If your life
is filled with meaning, you are. If your life is devoid
of meaning, you are not. If you are somewhere in between,
moving in the direction – start to do those
things – that give you of a sense of gratitude
and purpose.
Your life was
meant to be filled with meaning. As you align your
personality with your soul, it becomes so. That is
an experience of authentic power.
You have said that the premises
of "sacred medicine" are that Spirit is
real, that illness has meaning, and that illness serves
the health of the soul. How would sacred medicine
define "health"?
Health is identical with authentic
power. It is the alignment of the personality with
the soul. The soul is that part of you that reaches
for harmony, cooperation, and reverence for life.
An authentically empowered human is one who is living
a meaningful, joyful, gratitude-filled life. Consider
someone in her midthirties who has a healthy body,
runs eight miles a day, and with every quantitative
assessment can prove that she is healthy. Yet she
is miserable, and no one wants to be near her. Contrast
her with someone who has a physical body that is decaying
of AIDS yet who is radiant, knows why he is alive,
and is living his life gloriously. Everyone wants
to be with him. Who is healthy and who is ill? From
the perception of sacred medicine, the individual
whose body is dysfunctional but whose life is filled
with meaning is more healthy than the one who can
run a marathon but who lives in rage and sees herself
as a victim.
When I was interviewing an
Ayurvedic professor in India 25 years ago, I was struck
by his insistent question, "Why don't the Western
medical schools stress the health of their students'
minds? Don't they know that a sick mind can't heal
another sick mind?" Are you suggesting that to
practice sacred medicine we healers must evolve spiritually?
Precisely. How can a healer
who is not able to understand his own difficult learning
paths through fear and vulnerability and addiction
be able to help another soul who is struggling through
the same things?
Another major
difference between contemporary medicine and sacred
medicine is the equality of all participants. We are
all sailors on the same ship. The physician has the
same value as the patient. Both are healed through
their interaction. Both need healing or the interaction
would not be taking place at all.
This is impossible
for five sensory perception to see, but it is obvious
to multisensory perception.
As the old order collapses,
physicians and traditional health care administrators
are frightened at their loss of power. Is this necessarily
traumatic or can it be valuable in making us come
to terms with our fears and begin looking at authentic
power?
It will be traumatic for those
who cling to the perception of power as external.
Those who pursue authentic power will find their lives
exciting, challenging, and fulfilling.
For me, the idea
of living in a world that is cocreated by great souls
– by equals – who are consciously exploring
the depths of spirituality in physical form is one
of the most exciting that I can conceive.
Sacred
Medicine - An Interview with Gary Zukav, in
Alternative Health Practioner, Journal of
Complementary and Natural Care, Springer Publishing
NY, Vol 2, No 2, Summer 1996.
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