A Conversation with Gary Zukav
(The complete Flip interview, with only minor edits, not found in the book)

Gary Zukav (www.zukav.com) has inspired millions with his books, including the best-selling title The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics, which won the American Book Award for Science. The Seat of the Soul became a number one New York Times best-seller and remained on the best-seller list for three years. He also wrote Soul Stories and coauthored with Linda Francis The Heart of the Soul: Emotional Awareness and The Mind of the Soul: Responsible Choice.

Gary represents an unfolding vision of a planet without conflict, a world that reflects the values of the soul – harmony, cooperation, sharing, and reverence for life. “There is a major transformation in human consciousness now under way”, Gary asserts. “And when I say major, I’m not talking about big or bigger than most, I’m talking about something that’s unprecedented, except for the very origin of our species.

“This shift in consciousness is affecting millions of people from every culture in both sexes, every race, every economic circumstance, and every religion. It is an expansion of our capability to perceive beyond the reach of the five senses. And this transformation is bringing into focus new values and new perceptions of our reality. We’re beginning to see ourselves as immortal at the same time that we are walking the earth as personalities. And we are beginning to see that this immortal, non-physical part of ourselves that I call ‘the soul’ is real and it calls to us.

“In the past we saw power as the ability to manipulate and to control; to hire people, fire people, control our children, neighbors, employees, and control voters, customers, markets, and nations. But this kind of power that has helped us survive and evolve – the power to manipulate and control things that are external – is now counterproductive, producing only violence and destruction. In other words, what used to be healthy medicine is now toxic. In its place, people are beginning to understand power in an entirely different way, as the alignment of your personality – the person that was born into this world – with your soul – the highest, most evolved, healthy, grounded, and wholesome part of your self. That, to me, is the spiritual path; aligning your personality with your soul to create authentic power.”

An obvious question is how this new kind of power feels as we use and apply it. Gary comments: “The experience of authentic power is not other-worldly or mystical. It’s more than a feeling; it’s the experience of being fully engaged in your life, of being in the present moment, excited about what you’re doing, knowing that you’re alive for a purpose. You’re doing what you were born to do. It feels like living without the consciousness of fear, moving forward in your life with an empowered heart, and without attachment to the consequences. That is authentic power: the key to a life of joy, of meaning, of vitality, of creativity, of health. That is what we are all being called to now. Not only is it our potential, we need to grow spiritually in order to evolve and survive.”

Does this mean that there is a new awakening of the soul in human consciousness? “You are not a soul in a body,” Gary clarifies. “The soul doesn’t step into a body, and then you are your soul walking around. You are a body in a soul. Your soul is much, much, much more than you. Your soul is the simultaneous experience of myriads of lifetimes. Your soul is a creative force that I cannot describe to you and you will not be able to describe to others, but all will re-experience when we return to non-physical reality. So it’s not the soul that’s awakening, it’s you that’s awakening to you inherent soul. Your soul is always awake in the sense that it comprehends much more than a personality does. It exists in eternity, while we exist in time. So the creation of authentic power requires aligning your personality with your soul.

“Your personality is a mixture of fear and love. People don’t usually think of themselves as fragmented, but they are. And they are often experiencing different parts of their personality in conflict. For example, you may walk past a homeless person and have an impulse to give money and at the same time, an impulse to run away, and an impulse to say angrily, ‘Get a job!’ This is the experience of a splintered personality. To create authentic power requires becoming aware of all the parts of your personality, then healing the frightened parts and cultivating the loving parts. Your personality is not separate from your soul. It’s not possible for a personality to be separate from its soul. The personality is an energy tool of the soul, a vehicle that the soul has adapted for its own purposes to learn within physicality, within the domain of time and space.”

How quickly can an individual do the healing that leads to authentic power? “Eventually you will create authentic power. It’s not an endeavor at which you can fail or succeed. Everyone will reach that goal. But when is another story. It may take you years or it may take you your entire life. It may take you more lifetimes than one. It doesn’t have to; it is possible for consciousness to change in a moment. However, there is a low probability unless you have the discipline to become aware of what you are feeling and make choices when unconscious, fear-driven aspects of your personality come to the foreground.

“There are times when you can be touched by grace. In the midst of rage or fury, you may suddenly experience an elevated state in which your hatred and your need for revenge just disappear. That’s grace. Grace shows you what your life will be without fear. But you don’t, in my experience, simply wake up because there’s been a consciousness shift. Your fears will return, and it is your job to create permanently in your life what you have been shown by grace.

“You might have an intellectual picture of the world as compassionate and kind, but emotionally you don’t feel safe in it and you don’t trust it. So, your experiences of fear will show you what you actually believe, and then you can learn to make a different choice. Your job is to identify those parts of your personality that are frightened. That’s where emotional awareness comes in. The frightened parts hurt when you’re angry. They hurt when you’re jealous, in despair, manic, depressed, or vengeful. They hurt when you feel superior or inferior. All of these states are expressions of fear and powerlessness. To live on the earth is to experience a deep powerlessness that comes to everyone in the sense of feeling irrevocably flawed and defective, of wanting to be loved and not feeling loved, of wanting to love and not feeling able to love. Or wanting to be a part of the universe and not really feeling a part of it. This is very painful, and it’s the core human experience. In the past, we have responded to this pain by reaching outward to change the circumstances around us – to get a bigger cave or a bigger house, or a vacation home, or a better hairstyle, nicer clothing, a better paying job, a partner that makes us feel better, or a car to show off. All of this is the pursuit of external power. That is no longer productive. It no longer serves our evolution.

“For example, much of my life, I’ve been angry. And before I became aware of any of the things that I’m telling you, whenever I would become angry I would shout; I would be controlling and dominating. Often I would lash out with my words or my fists. And every time, I was making a choice. It didn’t seem like a choice at the time, because my anger and what I did when I was angry seemed to be who I was. But that’s what an unconscious choice feels like.

“As I learned how to experience anger, I discovered that while I was feeling its pain I could decide to do something new – for example, decide not to speak. Or decide to leave without attempting to control or dominate the situation. Eventually I learned to listen to people when I am angry, to really hear what they’re saying and become interested in them. These conscious responses create consequences that are much less painful than those of unconscious reaction.

“The shift that is calling you is the shift from that of victim to creator. You are a creator. You create at every moment with every decision. When you create unconsciously, without your awareness, the consequences you create are painful. When you make your choices consciously, when you respond instead of react—which you can learn how to do by developing emotional awareness—then you have the freedom to make a responsible choice and that is a choice that creates consequences for which you are willing to assume responsibility.

“When you travel in a direction that your soul does not want to go, your life begins to empty of meaning and purpose. In the extreme, you will wonder, ‘Why am I alive? Is this all there is? There must be more.’ Your life will seem like drudgery, as though you are trying to make your way up a steep sand dune and no matter how hard you try, you slip backward as the sand gives way beneath you. By contrast, when you are traveling in the direction that your soul wants to go, your life fills with meaning, purpose, aliveness, energy, joy, and creativity. You are more aware and more engaged in your life, in the moment, and in what you are doing. You are less and less frightened.

“This is not a metaphysical or a mystical experience. When I’m angry and I become aware in the moment, I don’t become aware of myself as a mystical being or an awakened saint, I become aware of myself as very, very angry and wanting to hurt somebody, to shout, to dominate. It may be that a Zen master not only feels everything that you do, but feels it even more acutely or is even more sensitive to it, but has developed greater ability to choose responsibly.

“It is not a matter of sitting by, from a point of superior understanding, watching the old world die away. Anger does not die naturally. You can’t simply take a kindly stance and say ‘Let it go peacefully.’ It won’t go. Instead, you must challenge your anger by being aware of it and – while you are aware of it – making conscious choices. There is no other way. If you don’t do something about your jealousy or your anger or your fear, you’re going to die jealous, and angry, and frightened. You have to change it yourself.

“The question becomes, ‘What am I going to do while I’m hurting?’ You can’t just say to yourself, ‘I’m not going to be angry anymore.’ You can’t turn your emotions off with a thought. Emotions are not subject to our cognitive attempts to control them. That won’t do any good. But what you can do is continue to feel your anger and while you are feeling those physical sensations in your body – which is a very refined way of becoming emotionally aware – you consciously decide what you’re going to do and say. That is how you create authentic power. That is the act of challenging a frightened part of your personality. And as you challenge that part again and again, you diminish its ability to influence you.

“So, the creation of authentic power is done step-by-step, choice-by-choice, decision-by-decision. You enter into your life. You feel what you are feeling. And while you are feeling it, you make a choice that creates consequences for which you are willing to assume responsibility. As you challenge the frightened parts of your personality, their power diminishes. As you simultaneously cultivate the loving parts of your personality – gratitude, contentment, patience, caring, and concern – their strength increases. And that’s how you align your personality with your soul.

“As you create authentic power in your life, you increasingly become a vehicle through which the energy of your soul flows…like the breath of a musician through a flute. You naturally long for harmony and look for ways to cooperate and share. Revering life is your joy. That is the experience of a whole personality, an authentically empowered personality. In such a person you cannot tell where the personality ends and the soul begins. Until then, there is the journey. It requires your commitment, and courage. It requires living your life consciously and intentionally. The tools for creating authentic power are emotional awareness, responsible choice, and intuition – the development of trust in the universe.

“As you develop authentic power, your perceptions begin to change. So that when you encounter the consequences that you’ve created in the past that are painful, you don’t experience them in the same way. They’re still painful, but you don’t take them so personally. You know there’s karma at work and that allows you to detach and make responsible choices so that you will not recreate what you have created in the past. All of your experiences – including the painful experiences – become learning opportunities for you, rather than bad luck. This is the compassionate and wise universe in action.

“The shift is happening whether you believe in it or not, whether you experience it or not. There is a collective consciousness and each of us determines what we will contribute to the collective consciousness through the power of our individual consciousness. Your decisions have impact far greater than you can see. They have non-physical ramifications as well as physical ramifications. And the choices that others have made for love instead of fear will help you to make your choices. They will support you on your path to authentic power. This is how we will all shift to a planetary consciousness of ‘universal humans’; still a planet of individuals, each of whom reflects the values of the soul instead of the fears of the personality. That is our potential and that is what we are here to create.”

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The Flip, by Jared Rosen and David Rippe, illuminates a clear path to a vibrant enlightened world where millions of people already live and thrive. It describes in vivid detail and real examples evidence of an upside down world in decay and a Right Side Up world of authentic beings bright with possibility.
The Flip is an owner’s manual for the twenty-first century full of insights, conversations with recognized experts, thought leaders, and visionaries, and actionable exercises and tips you can use to begin your own personal flip.

To read more about The Flip and additional interviews from other luminaries, experts and bestselling authors, please visit www.theflip.net

The Flip is available at your local bookstore or online at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Joseph-Beth, and Borders.