The Monthly Aspectarian: Shakti, it's not an understatement to say that your first book, Creative Visualization, is a classic in the field. One of my staff, when they found out I was going to interview you, said, "Oh wow, that was my first metaphysical book!"

Shakti Gawain: A lot of people tell me that. Both of my first two books, Creative Visualization and Living in the Light have about equal numbers of people that come up to me or write and tell me, "This was my beginning," or "my first step," or, "This book totally changed my life." These books are good introductions and good for people farther along the way as well.

TMA: How has it gone for you since those first two books? What's it been like for you up to the present?

SG: Each time I write a book, it's a completion of a certain stage of my own growth, my own process. When I wrote Creative Visualization twenty years ago, I had been working with ideas about creating our own reality, learning to imagine what we want and bringing it into our life. I'd been working with those ideas for a few years and put them into that book. Not long after, I began to focus on listening and paying attention to intuition, which can really be connected to our inner wisdom . . . and letting that be a guiding force in life. That became the most important practice for me, and still is. And that's what I wrote Living in the Light about: how to trust and follow your intuition.

After that, I began to get interested in the fact that we have many different selves within us, many different energies. We often find them in conflict with one another, which is why we feel confused and conflicted. I was introduced to the work of Hal and Sidra Stone, who are marvelous, amazing teachers and writers and have been mentors and teachers of mine for about the last ten years. They introduced me to the idea of the different selves, how to become aware of the many different parts within us, and learn how to bring them into balance and harmony.

Most of my more recent books have been working with those ideas, and especially to reclaim the shadow energy, the parts we've denied or disowned or tried to repress. Because those are parts that contain absolutely vital energies we need to make our life work.

I've written about a dozen books now. About ten years ago I wrote Return to the Garden, the story of my own life, then The Path of Transformation, The Four Levels of Healing, and Creating True Prosperity. I work with the same basic ideas and principles in all of them, focusing on different aspects of life.

My feeling is that I learn different pieces of the puzzle. In Creative Visualization, creating your own reality was one piece that I learned and worked on for a while; then developing my intuition and inner guidance was another piece; then becoming aware of the different selves was another piece; and learning how to be in relationship and recognizing the reflection that relationship gives us for our own process was an adjunct piece. Dealing with issues of money and prosperity and so forth -- it's just pieces of the same big puzzle.

TMA: It's interesting how seemingly disparate things come together and create wholeness.

SG: That's the point. We live in a plane of duality where everything exists in opposites. Most of us have been conditioned to think that if a thing is good, then it's opposite is bad; if one thing is right, then the opposite is wrong. We're always trying to choose parts of our ourselves: okay, this is the good part of me, this is what I want; this is not a good part of me, I don't want this part. We try to get rid of parts of us. But in fact, we need all parts of us, we need all aspects.

TMA: You raise the issue of duality. Any separation from the One -- without which there is no self awareness at all -- is dependent upon duality. We can't have the illusion of separation from the One without duality.

SG: Right, but oftentimes in the traditional paths, being separate from the One is something we don't want. We just want to be conscious of the oneness. That's considered to be the goal or the aim, and I don't agree with that. I believe that we are all One, and on the deepest spiritual level, that's reality. It's wonderful to be able to tap into that reality and really feel and experience it. But we have also decided to become individuals. We have come into a plane of existence where we are individual and separate and different because we wanted to explore that. We wanted to explore separateness, differentness, many-ness . . . not just Oneness. The Oneness could have just stayed Oneness, but it decided it wanted to explore many-ness also.

I believe we've come into the physical plane partly as a way of discovery and having this adventure in which we experience individuality and separation . . . and the challenge is to experience both of those at the same time . . . and respect and honor both. It's what it is to be a human being.

TMA: I believe we come all the way down to the physical plane for its density.

SG: We basically come here for the experience of being in a body. There's a lot of things you can experience in a body that you can't experience without one. It's an amazing and beautiful experience to be in a body, but there's also a lot of pain and challenge; there's a lot of vulnerability.

TMA: That's what I mean. In a physical body, you really feel what happens. In a lighter body, you don't feel it as much. It doesn't seem as "real."

SG: You don't have emotional needs in the spiritual level -- and we do in the human level. That's a big part of what we're here to experience. Even though most of us try to avoid that! But to understand that's a big part of the human experience -- to really feel our vulnerability, our needs, our emotions, our passions, that's what we're here for. And to keep a balance with knowing on the deepest level that all of us are one with all existence. We're each a soul on its own individual journey.

TMA: Your latest book is Creating True Prosperity?

SG: Yes, it's my very latest work. A few years ago I did a revision of Creative Visualization, and just last fall I published a revised edition of Living in the Light. That's the most recent thing that's come out, but of course it was originally published in 1986. My newest, all-new work is Creating Prosperity.

TMA: What is the difference between true prosperity and what people might think is prosperity?

SG: I find when I use the word "prosperity," most people just automatically think about money. Generally, most of us equate prosperity with money and we believe that if we have a certain amount of money that will bring us prosperity. The truth of the matter is that very few people are experiencing a real feeling of prosperity even though they might have quite a bit of money. People who don't have very much money are usually not experiencing prosperity, but people who do have a lot of money are just as likely not to be really feeling prosperous in the sense that they're not feeling as safe and secure and successful and free as they hoped they would. The reason is that money really can't bring us an experience of prosperity. It can help us in some ways. It can help us on the material plane, but true prosperity, I believe, has to do with discovering what our deep heart and soul needs and desires are, and fulfilling those. That's what brings us a real experience of prosperity.

There are people with very little money who are experiencing a high degree of prosperity in that they're really living their life the way they want to. They're feeling fulfilled, they're in the right place doing the right thing. Possibly their life is simple enough so that they don't need a lot of money. On the other hand, there are also people who make a lot of money and have fairly complicated lives, but because they're doing what they love and it's really working for them, they're also experiencing a high degree of prosperity.

TMA: So you're saying it really has a lot more to do with an inner state than an outer manifestation.

SG: Exactly. The balance of the inner and outer. Money doesn't cause prosperity in the way that we tend to assume. It's part of our prosperity experience, but to me, true prosperity is the experience of having enough of what you truly need and want. In the book and the workshop based on it I do talk a lot about money because money is a very interesting and important part of our lives. It doesn't do for us exactly what we might think it does, but it's still very important. It's something a lot of us struggle with a lot.

TMA: How's that saying go? "It won't buy you happiness but it'll keep a whole lot of trouble off your front porch."
[laughter]
SG: Or it can bring trouble. I can remember being in my early twenties and fantasizing about if I have all this money it'll make it possible for me to do all those wonderful things . . . and you know, that's true. I have a lot of money and I may do a lot of wonderful things, but I also find there's a lot of stress, a lot of responsibility. As fast as the money comes in it seems to go out again . . . and now there are all these things in my life I have to deal with and take care of, and there are businesses I have to run. Money can bring as much complication as it solves, but it's still something that's very important for us to understand and work with.

My idea is that money is really a symbol for energy. Money has no intrinsic value: it's just pieces of metal, pieces of paper, pieces of plastic. It has no value of its own, it's something that we've agreed on that will symbolize our creative energy so that we exchange it with one another. If you think of money as a symbol of energy, it tends to reflect how the energy is flowing or not flowing in our lives. If we're really following our own inner guidance, doing what we need and want to do, really working on our issues, taking care of ourselves, in the flow of life, usually money is flowing through our life in exactly the amount that we need it to be. Maybe not more, but enough to do just the things we really need and want to do. It's not really an issue. If there's a way our energy is blocked because we're not aware of something, not making some change we need to make, not taking care of ourselves properly, not following our own sense of truth, then very often that blockage will be reflected in money problems. Or a money crisis.

It's very interesting to view money as a teacher or a mirror -- just like everything else in our life can reflect what's going on in our own consciousness and can help us make the changes and do the healing that we need.

TMA: Some people would react negatively to that. "Now whaddya mean, I don't have money because I'm negative somehow?"

SG: It's a good point you make. Very often we take this idea that we can learn from everything in our life and use it against ourselves. We beat ourselves up with it. We go, "Oh my god, if my life is a reflection of me and here I have this big problem, it must mean I'm just this horrible, unconscious person . . . and I should be more conscious." That's sad, because we don't need to be beating ourselves up about these things. We came here to learn these things! It's like children beating themselves up because they're in first grade and not in college yet. We're here to learn, and every single thing that happens to us is part of our learning process. It's not a punishment thing if we're not doing it well enough. It's a wonderful message from the Universe saying, "Hey, look, there's more to understand, there's more to learn, there's a lot more to you than you realize." It's not about there's something wrong with us that we need to change. It's about there's so much more within us than we realize, and we need to open up to let that come forth. That's what I think the lessons of life are trying to teach us.

TMA: Until people are ready to understand and accept that, it really sounds hard to them.

SG: Yes, it is hard! [laughs] Nobody says it is easy, or if they do, they usually don't understand the situation or they're trying to sell their book or their workshop! The human journey is not easy. It's very deep and it's very challenging. Just when we learn one thing and really integrate and feel that, then we always move to a deeper level and there's another whole facet of our being to discover and develop.

TMA: It's a lot easier to just blame randomnicity or God.

SG: Or other people or circumstances, sure. It's always easier for us to blame someone or something outside of ourselves. Or, as I said, we do the other thing: we blame ourselves. It's very interesting to become aware of the difference between blame and responsibility. Taking responsibility for our lives and how we choose to live them, whether or not we're willing to learn and grow, is an empowering feeling, an empowering experience. Self blame, or blaming others, is a disempowering experience. We need to use everything we learn as something to empower us, to help us feel better about ourselves, not worse.

TMA: The way I like to put it is, "The Is just is," and It takes whatever form we put on It. We really do create our lives.

SG: Yes, I feel that. That's a hard one for a lot of people to accept, and I don't even worry. I just say, "Well, don't even worry about whether you one-hundred-percent create your life or not, you certainly are instrumental in how you experience it, how you interpret it and what you do with it.

TMA: If nothing else, you're responsible for how you react to it.

SG: Right. And given the difficulties and the challenges and the painful times and things in life, we all have the opportunity to really work deeply with those and use them for our own healing and our own growth. That's not to say that we should be Pollyanna about it and go, "Oh, everything is so wonderful!" No, it's not. It's harsh. It's painful sometimes. I think we need to accept that more and not think we're doing something wrong.

TMA: It's a good thing to take teachings from many different directions. I'm thinking of the Buddhist teachings on impermanence. Everything comes and goes.

SG: On a spiritual and a mental level we can understand that, and it gives us a great perspective. This whole life of mine is just a blip on the screen of life and the overall existence of consciousness. On a human, more emotional level, we are attached to things, and that's okay.

The spiritual traditions that have been handed down to us both from the East and the West, tend to be what I call the transcendent traditions. They're a lot about renouncing the world, rising above our human limitations in order to connect with God or to connect with the spiritual realm. I see a lot of people struggling with that, trying to let go of attachments and transcend feelings and needs and limitations . . . and it puts us into a lot a conflict with ourselves. I don't ultimately feel like that's really the point. I think, as we said earlier, as spiritual beings we come here to experience being human, having feelings and needs, being in bodies, having the problems we have as bodies, growing old and dying. . . . All of those things are what we're here to really experience. I'm suggesting that it's time to move beyond the transcendent path to what I call the transformational path, which has to do with learning to live fully on all levels -- spiritual, mental, emotional and physical -- and integrating all of that here on earth in our bodies.

TMA: The Piscean Age religions have been very anti-material plane. Very anti-physical plane.

SG: It's like we made some big mistake. That we're sort of caught here. What we really want to do is get out of here and get back to the spiritual, and that doesn't make sense to me. To me, it's like, "Wait a minute! We chose to be here! I want to be here, this is where it's happening!"

TMA: Way back in my early twenties I went through the "Oh, this is my last time around, I'm off the wheel this time, baby." I don't even think about that anymore. I don't even think about karma that way. I just want to do the best I can with this life, in this world, that I can, and if it means coming back, that's fine.

What's cutting edge for you right now? What are you working on personally?

SG: I'm working on the ongoing drama of how to balance a very successful career which takes me out into the world a lot -- I do a lot of traveling and have for a very long time. I love it and I love the connections I make with people, but I have a lot of need to stay home more. What makes it more complicated is that I have two homes, both of which I love, in Hawaii and California. I'm trying to balance out taking more time for self-nurturing and fun, and home time, and time with my husband, and still having this incredible career that I'm so passionately involved with and the work that I love so much.

TMA: Stop, you're breaking my heart! What trials and tribulations!
[laughter]
SG: Believe it or not, it's hard to fit it all in. I often find myself just running from one thing to the next without taking time to breathe and have the experience of it. That's one of the biggest challenges I see going on for people today. We have so much in our lives, so many wonderful options, that we try to do it all and end up with too much "doing" and little "being" time. We don't really get to enjoy and experience and savor whatever it is we're doing because we're so caught up in the hecticness of it all. I find myself falling into that a lot. But you know, I'm working on it, getting better!

What I like to leave with people is that we each really do have the wisdom and the knowledge within us that we need to guide us in each step of our life. If we just really pay attention and trust our deepest core feelings about things and move with that, then life can move us along in the direction we need to go.

Shakti Gawain gives talks and leads workshops all over the United States and in many other countries. On the evening of April 16 she will lecture on "Living in the Light" at the Discovery Center; 773/348-8100. On April 17, Shakti will conduct a day-long workshop on "Creating True Prosperity" at Transitions Bookplace; 312/951-7323.

Shakti Gawain also conducts retreats, intensives and training programs. If you would like to be on her mailing list and receive workshop information, contact Shakti Gawain, Inc., P.O. Box 377, Mill Valley, CA 94942; telephone 415/388-7196; fax: 415/388-7196; e-mail: sg@nataraj.com, www.shaktigawain.com