Yesterday, I took a break from thesis corrections to watch Dr. Wayne Dyer in an interview with Oprah Winfrey on her Super Soul Sunday series. (Gosh, you gotta love that, if only for the alliteration!)

After speaking of a spiritual healer he credits with curing him of leukemia, Dyer related his faith in manifestation — that our thoughts become things, and that the universe responds to our committed requests and beliefs.

In regards to the well-being most of us desire, he suggested that one should act as if those states were already present in one’s life, and further, should actually act as if they, a spiritual being in the midst of a human experience, were those qualities.  Rather than thinking, “I’m sick, I’m poor and I’m unlovable,” one should fill one’s thoughts with, “I am Health, I am Wealth and I am Love.”

The notion that the configuration of the universe responds to our thoughts and desires isn’t all that different from the Hindu concept of “Maya”, the illusion of the physical world.  And the idea that we can create scenarios by believing we are already in possession of them resonates with me of the great psychologist, Fritz Perls and his Gestalt therapy:  his watch-cry was, “Lose your mind and come to your senses.”  Perls would poke and prod his patients into assuming the form of happiness — “If you were happy, how would you sit right now, stand right now, talk, act?  So, do it!” — and the emotional state would tend to follow the physical one.

This morning, I was walking on the beach with Maz.  It was a little later than usual — 8 o’clock — and the sun was beaming down on us as we both meandered barefoot on the sand, and paddled in the water.  The lake was calm, a serene glass blanket, twinkling coquettishly at the sun’s caress.  A man and his grandchildren were frolicking in the water, and farther from shore, a lone swimmer rose and dipped in a measured front crawl.

It struck me that, despite whatever else is going on in the world or in my life, I needed to put very little effort into obeying Dyer’s suggestion, if only I could open myself to the experience of that moment.  As I strode along the warm sand, my canine companion at my side, I felt completely at peace, and in harmony with nature and my fellow travelers on this planet.

I am Health.  I am Wealth.  I am Love.

The challenge, I believe, is to bring this openness to every moment of one’s life — not just those spent on the beach.  The joy is there, if we can see it and feel it and believe it.