WIE: What do you feel makes the difference between individuals who remain in mediocrity and those who transcend their circumstances?

AR: We have a unique situation in life. Here's how life works in my estimation. It's a very simple game. You do a poor job at something, what kinds of rewards do you get?

WIE: Very few.

AR: You do a poor job, you get nothing. You get pain. When you do a really poor job consistently in life, your relationship leaves you. When you do a poor job at work consistently, unless you work for the government, your job is over. You get right-sized, you get downsized, right? You're out of here. You do a poor job on your kids, they end up in jail. Now, most people in life won't settle for "poor." Their standard is "good." If you imagine a set of stairs and you're at the base level, where one step down is maybe a poor job and "good" might be ten stairs up, that's a big jump to "good." So when you do a good job in life, what kind of rewards do you get?

WIE: Good rewards.

AR: No, you get poor rewards. Every day people stop me on the street and they say, "Mr. Robbins, I know you're an expert in this field and I just wondered if you could answer a question." They're usually very emotional. And they'll say, "I'm a good husband. How come my wife left me?" or, "I'm a good wife. How come my husband left me?" or, "I'm a good parent. How come my kid is on cocaine?" And the hardest thing in the world is explaining to them that this is how life works. You do a good job, you get poor rewards. That's how it really is. And the best study of life is the study of how it is, not how you think it should be. You could say, "Gravity makes no sense and I'm going to avoid it. I don't like it." But if you jump off a cliff, you're going to pay the price. There are certain laws that just can't be beat. They're part of the way we are formed, of what we are a part of, the system we're a part of.

So, most achievers in life, whether they be spiritual achievers, business achievers, parent achievers, people who really are going for the best, they say, "I want to be excellent. I don't want to settle for good. I've got a much higher standard." But if the standard is excellence, here's what happens. You get good rewards. You're going to say, "Wait a second. I went from ten stories up to twenty stories up! I'm one of the very best men. I pray every day. I read the Bible. I read the Koran. I meditate. I'm doing my mantra, I'm doing my kriyas [yogic practices], I'm speaking in tongues, I'm eating the perfect diet. I'm doing this stuff. How come I don't have enlightenment yet, damn it?" It's because you're excellent. And I've got news for you. You're never going to get it as long as you're excellent. You know what you're going to get? Good rewards. You'll have a great life. You'll feel a great sense of spiritual connection. You'll probably have a great sense of gratitude. That's what you get when your standard is excellence. But the ultimate level is outstanding. And the thing about that is that although it's only a quarter-inch above excellence, very few people ever go there. When you are outstanding, when you stand out from all the rest in your standards for yourself, not by competing with others but in your standards for yourself, you get all the rewards, all the love, all the impact, all the everything, not just from society but from yourself, because you know you've never settled for less than you can be.

Ultimately, the only way to be fulfilled is to constantly grow and to contribute in a meaningful way to other people, to the world. And in order to grow, all of us have to be willing to let go of our fear and let go of who we are, and we've got to set standards and we've got to challenge ourselves. What makes people leaders in life is their willingness to say, "Raise your standard. Demand more from yourself." That's what all leaders of any sort do: They call people to a higher standard. I think that causes people to grow. And we must grow. It doesn't matter how much money you make. It doesn't matter how often you meditate. It doesn't matter how many people think you're spiritually enlightened. It doesn't matter how many times you try to tell yourself you have the ultimate religion and path. It doesn't matter how many degrees or cars or homes you have. If you don't feel like you're growing, even if millions of people love you, you've got nothing. You've got nothing. You are going to be unfulfilled. You're either growing or dying—there's no in-between—and the only way that happens is by standards, is by challenge.

One thing I think we need to realize, though, is that even if we grow, it is not about us. If this was just about us personally, why the hell are we all here? You're not just here to unfold and go do your own little spiritual enlightenment piece and go into your own nirvana. I don't believe that. I believe we're all here together to support and grow and contribute to one another. All of us have had an experience at some point in our lives where we did something that we really in our heart and soul knew was good and right and we didn't tell anybody we did it. We didn't do it to get acknowledged or to get a sense of significance. We didn't do it for love. We did it because we knew it was right. And when we do that, there is nothing on earth that feels as good as that does to a human being because it goes beyond emotions. It affects your spirit. It affects your soul. And when people do that, their life transforms.

But this cannot be achieved by false manipulation from the outside. Growth does not come from having an intellectual discussion with yourself. Growth only comes when you transform. And you must take that growth and convert that to something meaningful so that the world becomes better, so that the heaven on earth that we were talking about earlier actually becomes a possible reality—and I think it ultimately will. It already is for many people. It's just a matter of making your peer group become humanity instead of your peer group being a small number of people that you have influence over or impact on in your lifetime. What we're here to do is to make sure we maximize our capabilities as a human being and hopefully contribute in a way that's meaningful. And if enough of us do that, and enough critical mass happens, maybe more of God's work that's probably already here on earth will be appreciated.

WIE: Earlier, when you spoke about aspiring to reach a higher standard, it was clear that the level of change you were speaking about would require a willingness to exert enormous effort and self-discipline or self-control. In looking into the relationship between enlightenment and self-mastery, one thing that has become clear to us is that in either of these pursuits, there is the need for effort and discipline. The difference being, it seems, that in the enlightenment teachings, the purpose of that effort and self-discipline is ultimately to help facilitate a profound surrender or a complete giving up of control in order to allow a force greater than oneself to move one's life. Does the path of self-mastery or "life mastery" that you teach ultimately bring one to the same point of surrender that the great traditions speak about?

AR: Yes, I believe it does. But I also believe in the paradox. I believe that ultimately my life is guided, but I also believe that along the way, I have a conscious choice whether to listen to that inner guidance or not. And if I listen to it, then my life turns out very differently than if I don't. And knowing when it's really your inner guidance and when it's your fear speaking is very important. What most spiritual traditions call "ego," I would call "fear." So what most refer to as "destroying the ego," I would say is breaking through the fear. Because the fear is what keeps us separate from our ultimate selves and from the love that we really want, which is already inside of us and which, if we are connected with it, is easy to share with other people. So yes, I ultimately believe that you're no longer trying to control everything, that you have ultimate faith. When I'm being my spiritual best, I don't know what's happening. It's just coming through me. I put myself in a place. I ask for guidance. I pray and then I trust that it's there and it shows up. So the answer to that is yes, but I also believe we have to play a conscious part.

There is an old story of a minister who crosses the country and he's out there letting everybody know about the gospel and making sure that they understand that Christ is the source of their life. He gets to the desert outside Phoenix, Arizona, and he gets really close to this area that he thinks must be a mirage, because in the middle of the desert he sees these amazing gardens. He sees vines and trees and fruit and everything. But as he gets closer, he sees that it's real. In the middle of the desert! Everything around it is dirt and dry and dead. Then he sees a little house at the back of the garden and so he walks to the house and bangs on the door because he wants to make sure the gardener understands the source of all this. He bangs on the door very intensely. And the gardener is a very kind, loving and spiritual man. He comes to the door and opens it and sees the minister, and the minister says, "Mister Gardener, you and the Good Lord have certainly done a fine job with this garden," but with the emphasis very intensely on the fact that the "Good Lord" has done a fine job with this garden. And the gardener looks at him and smiles. He's a very loving man and he says, "Mister Minister, I understand what you're saying. I understand your point, I think. I think what you're trying to say to me is that if it wasn't for the gift of the seed, the miracle of the soil, the sunshine and the air, there'd be no garden here. And you know," he said, "you're absolutely right. But I have to tell you something, you should have seen this place when God had it all by Himself!"

That's my view of spirituality. I believe that, yes, I have to have trust and faith but I believe you have to trust in God and tie up your camel. The guy who wanders out in the desert with his camel and just lets him loose and says "God will protect me" isn't doing his part. I don't think that's how God has it. I think we're in cahoots with God to make this thing work down here. And I think that to the extent that we do our part and we listen to that inner guidance that is always available to all of us, that's the extent to which we will have a life that's fulfilled and maybe one that's enlightened.

WIE: You speak often about the possibility of discovering and awakening an awesome power that lies dormant within each of us. In your view, is this power the same as the higher power referred to in the religious or spiritual traditions?

AR: Yes, without a doubt. But in my work, I don't speak about it in that way. I'm not teaching religion and I'm not promising spiritual enlightenment. And as a result, very often people say "I've had the most profound spiritual transformation of my life here" because I didn't put a label on it. I didn't tell them they had to be a certain way or practice a certain thing. I let them connect. I created an environment where they were more likely to connect with their deeper self. And that deeper self, I believe, is a spiritual self that's connected to everything. But again, I never tell people that. I don't lecture on it. But do I believe that's the same source? There's no question. There's only one power in the world, and in my belief that power comes from our Creator.

So when someone is demonstrating something extraordinary, while they may take great pride in the use of the power that God has given them by hopefully making some intelligent choices, I think all along the way, there's been no question in my mind that any great thing in my life is a gift from God. I believe the ultimate path to enlightenment is the cultivation of gratitude. Because in a state of gratitude, real gratitude, deep spiritual, emotional, physical and definitely soul-level appreciation, there is no fear. When you're grateful, fear disappears. When you're grateful, lack disappears. When you're grateful, self-significance disappears. You feel a sense that your life is uniquely blessed, and that's a sense of significance; but at the same time, you feel as if you're a part of everything that exists and you know that you are not the source of it. In that place, there's connection, there's growth and usually in that state you show up differently for the people around you. Just walking around, you vibrate. There are so many emotions that are so valuable for the development of one's spiritual, physical, emotional self in the path of quality of life, in the path of self-mastery—obviously faith, obviously passion. But I think one of the most underutilized is gratitude. And I think those who are pursuing enlightenment with such fervor and trying to do all these physical practices, but are not living in a state of gratitude, will never find what they are pursuing. Because it is only through that gratitude, that acknowledgment, that one experiences the ultimate blessing and connection.

WIE: You've been speaking about the potential within all of us to make enormous, even quantum, changes in our lives. Some prominent exponents of the human potential movement—Michael Murphy, the founder of Esalen Institute, for instance—believe that contemporary advances in our understanding of the workings of the human mind and body and of how mastery is achieved should be seen in the context of the evolution of the whole human race. They believe that the pioneering efforts of people like you reflect the possibility of a transformation over time of our entire species. Do you see your own work in such an evolutionary context?

AR: Well, I don't know if I'm playing the game at that level of transformation for the earth and for our species. If you look at us as a species, though, I do think that we're an experiment. I think it's hubris to think that we are the be-all and end-all of what can exist in the universe. The dinosaurs were here for what—a hundred million years?—and we've only been around here for two hundred thousand years.

But to answer your question directly, I think that anything we can do to more thoroughly understand how we function as human beings, what really drives us, and how we can utilize that understanding to be better human beings and better spiritual beings, is definitely a part of our evolution. And I think it has to happen rapidly because our technology is multiplying in its capacity and its strength and its diversity more rapidly than our technology for the management of human emotion, which is what drives all human action. And I think that's the part that has to be focused on. We need to develop the emotional and spiritual muscles to deal with whatever challenges show up. So if there's a prayer I have, it's not "Give me, Lord." And it's not "Why me?" It's "Make me." It's "Make me more." I don't necessarily want it to be easier. Maybe intellectually I'd like that, but what I really want is to be better. Because if each one of us was constantly more and better of what is really inside of us, then our capacity as a species and as a spirit and as a unified spiritual body to do good, be good, create good, and experience more of our true selves, our authentic selves, I think would be multiplied many times over.

WIE: What do you see as the highest expression of human potential?

AR: Love. There is nothing greater than pure love. When someone is acting from that state and not from fear, when they're coming from that place of loving themselves and loving their Creator and loving their fellow man, I think the best and highest of people comes out. That's an overly simplistic answer but I think it's an accurate one. Personally, I think it's the truth.