Farewell Wayne W Dyer

Farewell Wayne W Dyer

October 2015

We are not our country, our race, or religion. We are eternal spirits. Seeing ourselves as spiritual beings without label is a way to transform the world and reach a sacred place for all of humanity,” said Dr Wayne W Dyer, the renowned author and spiritual speaker. These deep words of wisdom are the legacy of a man who was raised in various orphanages and foster homes his early childhood. Dr Dyer breathed his last at the age of 75, at his home in Maui, Hawaii. His death was officially attributed to heart failure. Renowned motivational speaker Meggan Jane Watterson writes feelingly about his hard upbringing in her obituary. “When he was living in foster care as a little boy, he overheard his teacher say that he was a scurvy elephant. He asked his foster mom what a scurvy elephant was and she called the school and found out he had misunderstood. The teacher had referred to him as a ‘disturbing element’. This is the legacy he leaves for us. A voice that asks us to love beyond our comfort levels, to let love disturb our routine so it can guide us to the adventure our soul knows by heart,” she wrote. Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, Dr Dyer held a doctorate in educational counselling from Wayne State University and served as an associate professor at St. John’s University in New York. Through his early work in college, teaching clinical psychology, he discovered the need to make the principles of self-discovery and personal growth available to a wider audience. His first book, Your Erroneous Zones (1976), became an international bestseller and launched his career as an author and speaker.

In the next 40 years, Dr Dyer wrote 42 books, 21 of which became New York Times bestsellers, and earned him the nickname of ‘father of motivation.’ After that a shift in his thinking led him to explore the spiritual aspects of the human experience. “My purpose is to help people look at themselves and begin to shift their concepts,” he had said. Another defining moment in Dr Dyer’s life came when he first visited the grave of his father who had abandoned him as a young boy. According to him, his intention that day had been to exact some form of vengeance on the man who he felt had sent him down a dark path of rage and alcoholism. However, at the gravesite, he was overcome by inexplicable feelings of love and forgiveness, which changed the trajectory of his life. The date of this experience was August 30, 1974. On the exact same day, 41 years later, Dr Dyer passed on.