Amma: Selfless Service

John Malkin: How is it that happiness comes from serving others?

Amma: It depends on one's mental attitude. It is like how some people feel extremely happy or joyful when they give something or share something with another person. But, there are others who may feel a bit sad because "I had to share this with another person." It depends on one's mental attitude and constitution. But, for a person who has dedicated herself to the service of humanity, it is like offering a flower. When you offer a flower to another person, a beautiful fragrant flower, you experience the sweet beauty and fragrance first. And then you share it with the other person. So, it gives you happiness for no particular reason, because you are selflessly serving others....

Ed Begley Jr. & Rachelle Carson-Begley:
Become An An Environmental Hero

Bart Brodsky: For a successful, award-winning actor-couple, a power couple in Southern California, you live in a relatively modest middle-class home in Studio City, under 1,600 square feet. You have three bedrooms, right?

Ed Begley, Jr: Two bedrooms, one and one half-bath.

BB: For people just getting into living greener, where do you recommend they start?

EB: Start small. That's what I did in 1970. And I was a broke, young actor back then. I couldn't afford to buy such things. I did cheap and easy stuff that I could do: recycling, composting, a cheap electric car for $950. I started doing all that stuff that was very inexpensive, simply turning off the lights, getting the most energy-efficient whatever I could. And in so doing, I realized right away in the first year, Bart, I was saving money!

Janet Geis (to Rachelle Carson-Begley): You and Ed have had to work out issues like the rain barrel being ugly, or is it really time to replace the carpeting? When you and Ed disagree, who usually wins?

Rachelle Carson-Begley: (laughs) I always agree with the underlying purpose of what Ed and I are doing. It's just the how to achieve something and the speed it needs to be done in that is in contention. The aesthetics especially are usually the conflict....

John Bradshaw: Family Secrets

Bart Brodsky: John, you say some family secrets are healthy. Please explain.

John Bradshaw: Generational secrets can be healthy. Some things may not be appropriate for mom and dad to be sharing with kids. There's also mom and dad's private life, that they need to have. Then, the kids need secrets, too. Teenagers usually have secrets that they don't share with their parents.

BB: At what age should secrets begin?

JB: Children have a right to privacy. It's a natural right. Obviously, an infant can't possibly proclaim its privacy. But, I think, as soon as children have a sense of shame, which is about 2 1/2 years old, they ought to be able to close the door to their room. As they grow older, they ought to be able to lock the door, lock the bathroom door. If parents have a suspicion about drug paraphernalia, it's their responsibility to check that out. But, generally speaking, most kids do not get very much privacy, and privacy is really necessary for the development of the self.

BB: You would give kids a lot of leeway in terms of keeping their things the way they want to keep them?

JB: Yes. It's what we would call individual secrets. You need an area of privacy, where you can just be with you. It's like developing film. You need a darkroom....

Jean Shinoda Bolen, MD:
Urgent Message from Mother

James Conti: Jean, you have written in no uncertain terms that the world needs Mother—the Sacred Feminine—to set things right, because so much is out of balance.

Jean Bolen: Yes. As Bishop Desmond Tutu has said, men have been running the world and have pretty much made a mess of it. Basically it's the compassion element that's been missing. It's really time for the feminine principle now, for reconciliation and forgiveness.

JC: I was struck by your observation of a deeply rooted difference between men and women. In stressful situations, men have been conditioned to "fight or flee," whereas women are inclined to "tend and befriend." This is quite revealing of the world's current state, isn't it?

JB: Yes. It is women's way to take care of people. That's the kind of energy that is needed whenever there is conflict. When we look at the really troubled spots in the world, there aren't women involved in the negotiations....

Jalaja Bonheim:
Jewish & Palestinian Women in Circle

The greatest gifts of leading circles in Israel are the many extraordinary women I have met. I think of Janette, a beautiful, large, Arab woman who would now and then burst into song, softening the guttural sounds of Arabic with her gentle, husky voice; of Aida, our Bedouin translator, a fiery sprite with a deep passion for social justice and transformation; and of Aura, a Jewish community leader who inspired us all with her strength, wisdom, and integrity....

Most attempts to improve Jewish-Arab relationships focus on dialogue. In contrast, Circlework holds that true reconciliation cannot occur as long as people's hearts are closed to each other.

War and violence are realities of which one is constantly reminded. Military planes fly constantly over our hotel in Nazareth, loud, low, rattling the windowpanes. A young woman in the circle tells of arriving at a well-known café just five minutes after it had been ripped apart by a bomb, and being overwhelmed by the awful smell of burned human flesh. A mother tells me her six-year-old daughter suffers from post-traumatic stress after their neighbor's house was hit by a bomb. "It is because of her," she says, "that I am doing this work. I need to do this."

For Arab women, it's especially difficult to leave home for days at a time, as they must in order to participate in my retreats. Their husbands may not approve, and their culture holds that a woman's place is in the home, especially if she's a mother. Simply showing up is a powerful sign of courage and commitment....

Ernest Callenbach & Joseph Petulla:
Global Warming—An Early Warning

Bart Brodsky: Why is there so much fundamental disagreement on environmental issues, at least as portrayed in the media? Let's take global warming. Is the earth getting warmer or not? Why can't we come to some kind of consensus?

Ernest Callenbach: Consider the source of this alleged disagreement. I don't think you'd find any significant disagreement among scientists about global warming. There are a couple of diehard holdouts who maintain, "No, no, it's not happening; it's an accidental artifact, normal variation in climate, blah, blah, blah." These holdouts were originally funded by industrial sponsors, so you can't really say there's a debate about global warming. There's a debate about what should be done about it, obviously, because some of the things that ought to be done are expensive.

Joseph Petulla: It doesn't even have to be the media itself. In the case of global warming... auto and oil companies got together and decided that they were going to avoid taking action. They decided they would find a couple of scientists—half a dozen out of about seven or eight hundred—who said that [global warming] is not certain. Of course, nothing is certain in the scientific community. But the evidence is overwhelming and it becomes more and more clear over time that global warming is going to be a big problem, and probably sooner rather than later....

Fritjof Capra: Exploring Hidden Connections

Bart Brodsky: In The Hidden Connections you write, "Indeed, creating sustainable communities is the great challenge of our time." Please explain your concept of sustainability.

Fritjof Capra: I believe we need an operational definition... starting from the well-known fact that nature has sustained life in the history of evolution for over three billion years. It's the outstanding characteristic of the biosphere—or Gaia if you wish—that it has sustained life for such a long time.... When we're talking about [building] a sustainable community, we do not need to design it from scratch, but we can model it after the existing communities of animals, plants, and microorganisms in ecosystems. So this is what I call ecological literacy: to know how nature sustains life, and then to redesign our communities accordingly....

BB: Your definition of life, as "growing inevitably out of increasingly complex molecular relationships"—not molecules, but the relationships themselves—is fascinating!

FC: I think this is really the key theoretical idea. If you ask, "What is the nature of life?" starting from biological life, and you say, "What's the difference between a plant and a rock?" you go into some details with microscopes and scientific instruments and try to figure out the difference between a plant and a rock.... And you could say life is a chemical system that contains DNA. That's quite a simple definition. All you have to do is take an electron microscope and see, "Is there DNA?" in the object that you're studying. If yes, it's alive; if no, it's not. The problem with this is that when a living organism dies the DNA doesn't disappear. See, these chairs in which we're sitting are made of wood. This wood has DNA in it, exactly the same as when it was alive. DNA is just a molecule; eventually it may deteriorate, but not for a long time. And so, the essence of life is not to be found in the constituents of the cells, but in the processes that interlink those constituents. This is what both poets and philosophers have called "the breath of life" for centuries. And so, this breath of life, this process of life, the patterns of interconnections, that's the very essence of life.

BB: I believe it was Marshall McLuhan who said, "God is a verb."

FC: Yes...!

Deepak Chopra: Mind Over Matter

Bart Brodsky: The editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association says that he recognizes no link between mind and body in medical treatment.

Deepak Chopra: You should ask him how he wiggles his toes.

Tim Corcoran: Nature As Healer

Modern man's desire for an easier life than his ancestor's has almost eliminated his connection with nature. Our desire to conquer nature has distracted us from the magic and wonder. We relate to it as if we were in a museum looking through glass. Most people's relationship with nature is through television shows. We engage passively....

We have lost the respect and care for our earth because we no longer live in it but upon it. Think of a time when you were moved by a sunset or felt peaceful and happy sitting quietly under a tree. Perhaps a bird migration caught your eye as you drove sealed within your car and you felt an inexplicable yearning. Remember the last time you were caught in a storm and it made you feel alive? As I teach nature awareness and outdoor skills at my school, I observe that as people begin to reconnect with the earth they are vulnerable and teary-eyed and often ask what is happening to them. As one's daily city life is left behind and the earth rhythm begins to take hold, the heart and soul connection grows stronger and one realizes all that has been missed. Sitting quietly for an hour in a grove of trees feeling the wind, hearing the call of birds and smelling the richness of loamy earth can do more for the physical body and psyche than an hour of reading, talking, or staring in front of the television....

Ram Dass: Unconditional Love

Bart Brodsky: You've learned [how to] bestow unconditional love to others now. Is this a teachable thing?

Ram Dass: Yes. In your heart area, in the middle of the heart area, right in the middle of the chest, you concentrate on that. You repeat the phrase, "I am loving awareness. I am loving awareness. I am loving awareness." You're aware of what your eyes see and what your ears hear, but you're also aware of the steam of thoughts coming out of your mind. And it saves you from identifying with the thoughts. They become objects, not subject.

BB: (pause) You truly do manifest a heart-based, emotion-based therapy. In this brief conversation you've brought me out of my head, into my heart. I'm even breathing differently!

RD: (hearty laugh)

Larry Dossey, MD: Healing Beyond The Body

Bart Brodsky: One study showed that some belief in a higher power—no matter what the religion or faith—led to a speedier recovery from illness. Does that say something about religious fundamentalism and cosmic consciousness?

LARRY DOSSY, MD: I think this is one of the most important contributions this whole field has made. Prayer studies, studies in distant healing, show clearly that religious affiliation really isn't that crucial. No religion has cornered the market on any of this. These studies show that spirituality is universal. It doesn't shake out in terms of specific religions. All this points toward the need for religious tolerance. That's a crucial message, particularly at this time in history. Our world could use a lot more religious tolerance...

BB: How do you define a healthy lifestyle?

LD: A healthy lifestyle is one that permits us to find meaning and fulfillment in our lives, and to live a long and healthy life in the process. This is directly related to what I've written about spirituality. There about 1,600 studies in the epidemiology of religion that shows that the people who follow some sort of spiritual path—and again, it doesn't seem to matter which one—live, on average, seven years longer than people who do not follow a spiritual lifestyle. People have a lower instance of all the major diseases in the process. This compelling data....

Barbara Ehrenreich: Feminist & Progressive

Bart Brodsky: Now, I know you're an Obama supporter, and I've been having this raging debate with friends: Can he really make a difference? Whoever's president is going to have to work with Congress and have to deal with the same corporate interests.

Barbara Ehrenreich: Well, I'm a founding member of Progressives for Obama, also founded by Tom Hayden and others, and our position is that Obama will do only as well as we push him to do. There has to be a real, energetic social movement to get him to intervene with these problems in a way that doesn't just enhance the wealth and power of the existing elite.

BB: Barbara, it sounds like personal responsibility is ours again! We have to take personal responsibility for pushing Obama!

BE: Sure, we do!

BB: How can we make media more responsible? How can we get media to cover more of the issues that are important to us?

BE: I think probably the best thing is to do what you're doing, and that is to create new media, honest new media....

Amy Goodman: Democracy Now!

Bart Brodsky: You are an incredibly gutsy reporter. You've put yourself in harm's way more than once, and a few years ago, in a really classic interview, you asked tough questions of Bill Clinton, to the point where he referred to you as "disrespectful." How can a reporter, any reporter, ask the necessary questions and still retain access?

AMY GOODMAN: Well, it's not about maintaining access, I think. My brother David Goodman, who's also a journalist, and I have written three books together. We write about the "access of evil," trading truth for access.... We watch it on television every day, when these reporters get exclusives. So often they're based on the politician feeling that they won't be challenged.

BB: So, it's more important to ask the questions, right?

AG: Yes, absolutely. To ask the questions. And in the end these politicians need journalists more than these journalists need politicians.

BB: So, journalists need more guts.

AG: Yes....

Wavy Gravy: Tooth or Consequences

I often refer to myself as a temple of accumulated error. As a teenaged beatnik, I gargled with Hoffman's black cherry soda and brushed my teeth with a Snicker's bar. Needless to say, I gnawed my way through the sixties with only six teeth left in my head....

Each tooth had its own terrible tale to tell. By the time we founded Camp Winnarainbow I had the rap down to a science. At the end of our camp orientation session, I would ask the stagehands to bring down all the stage lights, leaving us in total darkness. Then I would call for a tiny pin spot to illuminate only my mouth. The same mouth that is still busy telling my tawdry tale of toothy terror. This is followed up by actual example. That's when I remove the rainbow bridge and reveal my gaping gums and six slimy stumps.

The sound of the children at the sight of my lonesome molars has not varied by a decibel in the last fifteen years.

"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeiiiioooooooooooooouuuuu!"

To which I reply, "Brush 'em if you got 'em."

Then up come the house lights and off go the campers in quest of their Crest and their floss. I get dozens of letters each year from bewildered parents:

Dear Mr. Gravy,

I don't know what you did to our little Billy but he has been home only a month and he has already worn out three brand new toothbrushes....

And it lasts, this teaching. Ten, fifteen years down the line. In fact, all the way into adulthood they are still brushing away. This is the temple of accumulated error in action. In the last fifteen years I'm sure I have reached over five thousand children personally—by word of mouth...

Anything is possible if we would only share our errors....

Elson Haas, MD: 5 Keys To Good Health

1. Diet—what and how you eat, relax and chew your food. Eat a wholesome foods diet and avoid chemicals and junk, avoiding habits/ abuses of SNACCS-sugar, nicotine, alcohol, caffeine, and chemicals.
2. Exercise—stretching and working our body regularly to keep it flexible and strong. For balance, incorporate aerobic activity, weight training, and stretching to create greater vitality, relaxation, and well-being.
3. Sleep—adequate rest and sleep (and dream time) for each of us is crucial to recharging our batteries, healing many problems, keeping our moods balanced and staying healthy
4. Stress Management—learning to deal with life's ups and downs is essential to good health. Find the right ways and people to express your feelings safely.
5. Attitude—keeping a positive outlook so that we treat ourselves and others with the life-supporting respect and care we deserve.

Steven Halpern: The Music & The Muse

Bart Brodsky: Inspiration is often a very private sort of concept, but many people speak of higher powers and guides. Is there any similar insight that you've received that might attribute to the phenomenal success of your music?

Steven Halpern: My guides have traditionally suggested to me that we downplay that aspect and just let the music speak for itself. The music will resonate at a universal frequency that opens the heart and people will know when they hear it, without being seduced by "hype," as it were. My last major album, Gifts of the Angels, at a time now when the culture is more accepting of angels and [that type of] inspiration, has led me to come out about it. If you go back to my last 20 years of recordings, here's what was happening during that time that I couldn't say beforehand, but in each case, there were key moments when the studio would fill up with light and sometimes even my recording engineers would say, "Wow! What just happened?" But these are the kinds of things you couldn't talk about 10 or 15 or 20 years ago. In fact, in many circles you still can't.

BB: But your music reaches a crossover audience, too.

SH: Precisely. We have Baptists, Mormons, all religious persuasions, certainly all races. And the music is listened to around the world in countries such as Ghana and Nigeria, Australia and Japan, as well as across Europe and the United States. It's amazing...

Jim Hightower: Progressive & Populist

Bart Brodsky: Do you have any special message for all your friends and fans in the Bay Area?

JiM Hightower: Recognize that we're all in this together, that this is an extraordinarily progressive country, much to the opposite that the powers that be, in the media, in politics try to tell us. I cite in my book polling data from traditional polls, Fox News, CNN, Wall Street Journal, and the rest of them, that show, far from being a bunch of middle-of-the-road, don't rock the boat, go along with the Commander-in-Chief corporate ethos, people are rebels and mutts and mavericks. They want big and progressive change.

BB: So we in the Bay Area are more mainstream than we realize?

JH: The notion that because you believe and act on human dignity, equality, fairness, justice sort of issues makes you some sort of un-American, left coast weirdos is nonsense. You're as mainstream as Kansas, which, by the way, Obama carried! People want what we want, and that is those values of fairness and justice and opportunity for all....

Arianna Huffington: Political Transformation

I once believed that the private sector—especially conservative multibillionaires who want less government involvement—would rise to the occasion and provide the funding needed to replicate the programs that work, sustain them and bring them to market. One of the changes in my thinking was born of the hard reality I confronted when I tried to raise money for groups and community activists who were good at saving lives but not at raising funds. I sadly discovered how much easier it was raising money for the opera or a fashionable museum. So now, at the same time that I urge—and practice—tithing to poverty fighting, I recognize that the task of overcoming poverty is too monumental to be achieved without the raw power of annual government appropriations...

Becoming a mother, by the way, has been the most radicalizing experience of all....

Swami Kriyananda: A Breathing Exercise

The next time you feel moody, depressed, worried, or simply scattered, instead of brooding over why you feel so moody, or worrying over the fact that you worry too much, try breathing your way to better spirits.

Inhale very slowly and deeply.

• Feel that you are inhaling, not merely air, but joy, peace, strength, or courage—whatever positive quality you want especially to affirm.
• Sit very straight as you practice this exercise. (it can be helpful to close your eyes and gaze upward very gently)
• Imagine the breath to be filling not only your lungs, but your whole body, starting at the feet, and culminating at a point midway between the eyebrows.
• Focus the breath at that point, and hold it there as long as you can do so comfortably; feel that you are burning up all negative thoughts in the blaze of divine light.
• As you exhale, do so forcibly, expelling forever from your body and mind the last vestiges of weakness and negativity.
• Repeat this exercise six or twelve times, or as often as needed, to put the forces of darkness to full flight.

(A note of caution: Anyone who is pregnant; has high blood pressure, any heart ailments, or history of heart disease, should not hold their breath or breathe too forcefully. Just breathe smoothly and evenly.)

Edgar Mitchell: Astronaut's Enlightenment

Paula Bailey: Please tell us about your own "transformation" [while in outer space].

Edgar Mitchell: I realized that the molecules of my body and my partners, and the molecules of the spacecraft were prototyped in some ancient generation of stars. And suddenly, instead of being an intellectual experience, it was an emotional experience, followed with an ecstasy! ...It was only after I came back to earth and started researching the mystical literature that I realized that the experience that I was having all the way back home had a name. It's called samadhi in the ancient Sanskrit—the samadhi experience. That's pretty wild!

PB: Did your values change?

EM: Well, they've deepened, in the sense that having the samadhi experience means that the first thing you recognize is what the mystics have always said, that in some mysterious way the universe is totally interconnected. You live that, and you feel that. And you recognize that what we do to each other, we do to ourselves... you feel a compassion, you are more sensitive to nature, to the universe itself.

Suze Orman: Mind Over Money

Bart Brodsky: If you were Secretary of Education, what would you change about the way kids are taught about money?

Suze Orman: I would change the amount of money that they pay the teachers! What a travesty that we are entrusting the children of this world to these men and women, all day long, and we don't honor them enough to pay them better! What value does this pass on to children?

Dean Ornish, MD: Diet & Lifestyle Changes
Could Halve Healthcare Costs In One Year!

Bart Brodsky: How would you compare your diet to the so-called "Mediterranean diet" which allows perhaps a little more fat but emphasizes fruits and vegetables as preventative?

Dean Ornish, MD: Well, the Mediterranean diet is a much better diet than the typical American diet. It may not be sufficient to reverse heart disease....

BB: Do you have a personal preference for a vegetarian diet or a diet that includes low fat animal protein or other food?

DO: I became a vegetarian when I was 19 because I felt better when I began eating that way and for a variety of reasons. I began eating a small amount of fish on occasion a few years ago. And I also began using more soy milk on my cereal than non-fat dairy and found that made me feel better, as well. These are individual choices that people need to make based on their own values, needs and preferences....

BB: [It] would be wonderful if lifestyle could be covered by [health] insurance!

DO: We're actually spending more time with patients, helping them change their diet and lifestyle, and we've shown that in a series of, now, three demonstration projects, in over 2,000 patients, that this can cut healthcare costs in half in just a year. But, it's a much more satisfying way to both practice medicine and to be a patient, because you're addressing these underlying causes that cause illness and suffering and giving people the tools and techniques to empower themselves to do something about it....

Carla Perez, MD: The Desert Island Test

Dear Dr. Perez: I think that I'm in love—again. But I've been in love before and it didn't last. How can I tell if this time it's for real? —Hopeful

Dear Hopeful: A healthy relationship based on true love must survive what I call the "Desert Island Test." If the two of you are stranded on a desert island with no one else around, do you have enough love, lust, and interests to keep life interesting and fun? If a desert island isn't handy, schedule an extended vacation away from friends, relatives, work, and other forms of entertainment and distraction. See how the two of you feel about each other when all you've got to do is concentrate on each other. Passing this test doesn't guarantee a lifelong relationship. However, if you get sick of each other after a few days or a week, it's a pretty good indication that you're not going to be celebrating any marathon anniversaries together....

John Robbins: Diet For A New America

Few of us are aware that the act of eating can be a powerful statement of commitment to our own well-being, and at the very same time to the creation of a healthier habitat....

When I declined to be a top cog in the Great American food Machine, and turned down the opportunity to live the American Dream, it was because I knew there was a deeper dream. I knew that with all the reasons that each of us has to despair and become cynical, there still beats in our common heart our deepest prayer for a better life and a more loving world....

Marshall Rosenberg: A Nonviolent World

Dian Killian: Your method aims to teach compassion.

Marshall Rosenberg: Once, when I was working with prisoners in Sweden, the administrator told me about a man who'd killed five people, maybe more. "He's a monster." When I walked into the room, there he was — a big man, tattoos all over his arms. The first day he just stared at me, didn't say a word.

The second day, he just stared at me. I was growing annoyed at this administrator: Why the hell did he put this psychopath in my group? Already, I'd started falling back on clinical diagnosis.

Then, on the third morning, a colleague said, "Marshall, I notice you haven't talked to him." And I realized that I hadn't approached that frightening inmate, because just the thought of opening up to him scared me to death. So I said to the killer, "I've heard some of the things that you did to get into this prison, and when you just sit there and stare at me and don't say anything, I feel scared. I would like to know what's going on for you."

And he said, "What do you want to hear?" And he started to talk.

If I just sit back and diagnose people, thinking that they can't be reached, I won't reach them. But when I put in the time and energy and take a risk, I always get somewhere....

Huston Smith: The Way Things Are

Susanne Spitzer: You have stated that one must "find some tradition and steep one's soul in it," yet your morning routine contains practices from three different traditions: a prayer to Allah, Hatha yoga exercises and a reading from the Bible.

Huston Smith: The tension between religious exclusivism and pluralism is among the leading unresolved issues shaping the 21st century. We're in an age of multi-culturalism and that forces this issue to the forefront.

What I have found, not only personally, but also in my research in religion, is that it is good to have solid ground on which to stand. I think there are detriments in spreading oneself too thin. I have quoted what an Indian teacher said to me, "If you are looking for water, it's better to drill one 60-foot deep well rather than ten six-foot wells."

On the other side, I have found great value in opening myself to the wisdom of other traditions. Christianity has been my main meal, but I'm a very strong believer in vitamin supplements. The vitamins I have received from other religions are incalculable....

Andrew Weil, MD: Eating For Health

OPEN EXCHANGE: Can we really eat the foods we like and still eat well? What advice would you give to those who dine out frequently?

Andrew Weil, md: Yes we can. One simple suggestion for dining out is to ask waiters not to bring bread and butter until the main course is served (or not at all). Splitting main courses is also a good idea on occasion, since restaurant portions are often much too large....

Marianne Williamson: On Forgiveness

Will Chang: In many ways, President Obama has really set a tone of higher love, of calling for us to leave the past behind, to forgive, and to work forward to the future. What are your thoughts of Obama?

Marianne Williamson: I think he has clearly opened a window. I think the heightened consciousness in our country and our world created a space out of which he could emerge as a leader. He has, in turn, created a space where each and every one of us can emerge in to the next stage of our personal contribution. His voice has been like a tuning fork of consciousness.... a call for that next level of evolutionary development. He has both sounded and echoed the next stage of planetary conversation....

Fred Alan Wolf: Consciousness & Afterlife

Bart Brodsky: In the movie The Secret, there seems to be a suggestion that one can use the power of the mind to bend reality, almost mind over matter.

Fred Alan Wolf: [H]ow the universe works is not based upon the "Law of Attraction." What it is based upon is that there seems to be the presence of something called Mind, or something outside of the physical world, which seems to be needed or present in order to explain, completely, the observations of reality that we have been able to carry out up to now. And, there seems to be no way to get out of that. People have tried to make everything mechanical, but it's not a mechanical universe, after all. And once you make that statement that there is something called a "Universal Mind," or you might call it "a quantum field of action," or some presence which is not material, but which is capable of shaping matter, or even giving birth to matter, in terms of the way fundamental physics works, you then run into the so-called dangers that people think, "Well, if the universe can do it, then why can't I?" And there are many reasons why you can't! This is where all the hoopla and trouble starts.

BB: This begs the question: What is a non-physicist supposed to take away from the general conception of a "Universal Mind? How are we to apply that principle in our own lives?

FAW: You know, I wish I could tell you a good answer to it. If the idea of a universal mind expands your thinking—whether it's true or not, I won't even get into it now—gives you a sense of well-being which you didn't have before, or restores your faith in whatever ideals you might have, whether they're Christian, Judaic, Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu or whatever philosophy you use for a spiritual belief, then it's a good thing....

BB: Does physics instruct us about the possibility of an afterlife?

FAW: Well, it doesn't really tell us anything about an afterlife. I've been playing with the idea and trying to see if there's anything I can find in physics which could lead us to believe that there's an afterlife. I personally think there's an afterlife. I've had experiences which tell me that there's an afterlife. But in terms of what the quantum physics of an afterlife is, that's a little bit trickier....

MORE: click CLASSIC INTERVIEWS

FEEDBACK: CLICK HERE to email comments and feedback. Please note the title of the article or the author's name. Include your own name or type "name withheld" by request. Thoughtful responses will be published in our next edition.