FOREWORD

      I completed the initial writing of this book on the fifteenth of June, 2000, at our home on Maui, with a wonderful sense of accomplishment. I enjoyed the summer with my family, swimming, hiking, and playing tennis. We had dinners and movies with close friends and I had precious free time to read and share intimate moments especially with my wife, Marcelene, who was so instrumental in helping me find a spiritual solution to the “problem” I was about to experience. Little did I realize that in a few short months I would be called upon to apply all that I had written, and to test those principles for a spiritual solution to every problem firsthand in my own life.

      In the autumn of 2000, I was literally brought to my knees while alone in a hotel room. I could barely breathe. My chest felt like it was in a vise. I was sweating profusely and soon found out that I had had a heart attack. But something was dreadfully wrong with this picture. I do not smoke or drink; I am not overweight; I exercise every day and have done so for twenty-five years. I watch what I eat; I meditate; I do what I love, and I love what I do. I have a great marriage and wonderful children. I don’t do heart attacks! That is for other people who live their lives in such a way as to invite heart attacks. Not me. Not Dr. Wayne Dyer. Yet there I was, in the hospital with monitor wires attached all over my upper body and with an IV in my arm. In three days I would have an angiogram procedure.

      For the first twenty-four hours, I lay there in a state of shock and disbelief. It is called denial. I felt sorry for myself. I refused to acknowledge that such a thing could happen to me. I was weepy around my family and I was, to be honest, scared. After that first day I began to reexamine what I had written in this book you are about to read. I reminded myself over and over of the title: There Is a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem—and this surely was a problem. I remembered that I could bring the energy of spirit right there to that hospital room. By doing so I could turn this thing around and no longer wallow in the low energy of self-pity, injury, sadness, fear, and doubt.

      The facts were the facts, my heart had been injured. Now it was up to me. I am not this body; I am a spiritual being, eternal, always connected to God. I could shift my awareness to being the observer rather than the victim, which is what I have been writing about over the past twenty years. It was as if the light came on in a dark room. I felt the presence of a higher, faster healing energy almost immediately. I began to be cheerful rather than morose. I circulated around the cardiac ward attempting to cheer up those who were much worse off than myself. I began to view the hospital and the many healing professionals with awe, love, and respect rather than with thoughts of fear and anxiety. I looked for what was right about that place and experienced gratitude for everything my senses witnessed. I brought to the cardiac ward the awareness that I have elaborated on here, in this book that I love so much. “Surely the presence of God is in this place.” Certainly the reality of the heart damage did not magically disappear, but in my mind, where the “problem” existed, I had introduced the higher/faster energy of spirit and the “problem” disappeared permanently.

      On Monday morning, December 4, 2000, the angiogram revealed a blockage in one artery that may have been a part of my physical anatomy since birth. My heart was strong and the damage was minimal. A stent was inserted in the blocked artery after a balloon poked out the offending plaque. I am now back to my normal exercise and work routine.

      As I was being wheeled into the cath-lab and having the catheter inserted in my leg and dye into my arteries, my heart was literally at peace. I joked with the nurses and cardiologists and squeezed