Wisdom Hunter: How would you describe your "mission" or "purpose" in writing?

Dr. David Simon: As a physician, I deeply believe that a more integrative approach to health has the most effect on healing and transformation. So my writing is designed to try to expand a vision of healing that includes environment, senses, body, mind, emotions, and soul in the healing conversation.

Wisdom Hunter: Do you find that being a doctor classically trained in the Western tradition helps make that message easier to accept, or do you find that it is something that people find less credible?

Dr. David Simon: The world is shifting. I've been teaching about yoga, meditation, and holistic health for 30 years. And 30 years ago, I think that the mainstream medical audience was still very skeptical. But over the last several decades I've seen a substantial shift in the way the world is viewing this mind/body connection. So, I believe my medical degree helps the general community understand these more philosophical concepts in a way that gives them more confidence in the credibility of it. I think that the medical scientific community has also been able to understand that there's an understandable mechanism by which our experiences and choices and desires and relationships have a direct translation on emotional and physical health.

Wisdom Hunter: When you take a look back versus the last 30 years, where do you think we are today in terms of your work and mission?

Dr. David Simon: There has been tremendous progress and expansion of this understanding that there's more to healing than prescribing pharmaceutical drugs. I think that the mainstream academic medical community is opening to it, but it's still quite peripheral to the primary focus, which is thinking about human beings as molecular machines which respond primarily to pharmacological manipulation. But I'm confident that as each decade goes by these principles are really merging into the collective consciousness of our society and these things that seemed radical a decade ago now seem quite commonplace and understandable.

The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said great ideas go through three phases: in the first they're rejected, and in the second they're ridiculed, and in the third they're held to be self evident. I think were right on the cusp of the third perspective.

Wisdom Hunter: How would you describe the common theme that runs through your books?

Dr. David Simon: The common theme is healing, which we see as returning to a more complete integrated holistic perspective of what it means to be a living being. In that broad stroke, healing can look at healing the physical body with interventions that people take, in lifestyle changes. Healing can mean looking at emotional issues that keep people in states of anxiety or depression or just emotional discontent. And healing can mean recovering ones deeper meaning and purpose in life which is usually seen as a spiritual pursuit. My latest book is my 10th book; the theme of healing has been pervasive and it's just a question of which doorway into healing am I encouraging people to enter.

Wisdom Hunter: What book are you most proud of and why?

Dr. David Simon: Each book for me has been like giving birth to a child. I love all of my children; some have been easier to incubate or raise than others.

I think that my latest book The Ten Commitments has a particularly meaningful connection to me because it's really my effort to integrate the first 20 years of my life where I was raised in a Jewish family exposed to fairly traditional Western philosophical religious cultural perspectives. And for the last 35 years of my life where I've been really studying Eastern philosophy. So The Ten Commitments is my way of bringing together what on the surface may seem like different points of view into a more unified framework. For my own psychology and my own heart, it has really been fulfilling and nourishing. That is the one that I feel most connected to.

Another book that I wrote a couple years ago called to Return to Wholeness is specifically directed to people facing cancer and other life-threatening illnesses. And that book felt very much that it wrote itself. And years later I still, on a regular basis, hear from patients telling me that that book really helped guide them through that amazing challenge of facing a life threatening illness and served them deeply on physical, emotional, and spiritual levels. So I have a particularly appreciative connection to that book.

Wisdom Hunter: My father faced cancer and eventually died from it. I tried to get him to read books in the genre, but he just wouldn't do it. One of the things I'd like Wisdom Hunter to do is to put together books about cancer so that people may introduce it to cancer patients who may or may not be open to the wisdom that exists in this area.

Dr. David Simon: It's so common (cancer) and people are so frightened. And really the best care is that integrative care that combines the top level of Western chemotherapeutic intervention with everything else that a person can do to be a willing partner in that healing process.

Wisdom Hunter: Do you believe in some of the medical intuitive perspectives that believe that cancer is an unresolved trauma in one's life?

Dr. David Simon: Everybody's perspective has some truth to it. The challenge is to not overly apply a perspective that may be useful in some situations to every situation. I just had two dogs die recently of cancer-loving dogs that had great lives and not a lot of emotional turmoil. I don't think there was a tremendous amount of trauma in their lives that they had to resolve from their childhood. We have to have a certain type of humility about this mindset that we create all of our own illnesses because as far as I'm aware, nobody has permanent residency on this planet. As long as this information helps empower people in making good choices moving forward rather than feeling regret about choices that they've made in the past, then I think for some people that's a helpful approach. My sense about intuition is a powerful healing force that we can teach everyone to use in their own lives rather than necessarily feeling that they have to rely on some outside intuitive to give them insight into their own mind or bodies.

Wisdom Hunter: What type of person would benefit most from reading your books?

Dr. David Simon: People at a cross roads in their lives who either because they've reached goals they've set and still feel somewhat unfulfilled or they, despite their best efforts, haven't been able to manifest their desires. I think that my books are primarily designed to help people look at what are the obstacles to making the changes that they're seeking in their lives in very a balanced way that doesn't either create a sense of guilt or regret if you haven't been able to fix a problem, but at the same time, inspire people to look at their situation from a new perspective which may open up new creative solutions that they haven't previously considered.

Wisdom Hunter: When you were developing and researching your books, what sorts of things did you learn that surprised you?

Dr. David Simon: The most surprising thing particularly if there's a scientific component to what I'm considering is how much research is out there. The typical response from a more cynical scientist is there is no evidence for mind/body connection or how lifestyle affects health or how you can actually translate emotional healing to physical healing. The reality is that there is a tremendous amount of data and information out there basically prodding us to pay attention. So on one level, that's one thing that's surprising.

I think that personally the experience that brings me the most pleasure is when I look at something that I thought I already knew and I see it from a slightly different perspective and by seeing the same thing that I already thought was familiar in a new way, it's as if new connections in my brain are made and it gives me a tremendous sense of enthusiasm for expanding consciousness. That was something that happened to me as I was writing my latest book about the ten commitments which is really based upon a reframing of the Ten Commandments. I was raised with the Ten Commandments and I had a certain idea of they meant and what they represented. So, having gone back and looking at that with a new point of view, I'm continuing to be quite amazed and impressed and excited about what deep wisdom is there to get through; the ideas that shalt not is the only way to find God.

Wisdom Hunter: What is the most memorable thing a reader has told you about how your work affected him or her?

Dr. David Simon: I dont really take it that personally, because what I find is that if people are looking for an answer, they'll find it whether or not the answer that they are hearing is the answer that you're giving. One of the surprising things is often that people will interpret something that I said in a way that was tremendously useful for them, even though quite honestly, even though when I said or wrote it, I wasn't thinking about it along the way that they interpreted it.

I think that's the nature of reality that everybody has a certain point of view and we seek out those things that reinforce or take us to the next level in that point of view and that we reject or filter out those things that don't.

Something that I heard recently that was very surprising and inspiring to me a woman who had read all of our books and was very encouraged by what we had said, but she taught me something that I hadn't heard before. She was describing to me a relationship that she was in that she had been in for many years. She was at the point that she wanted to get out of this relationship which she was planning to do until her partner had developed a cancer. Since he wasn't going to survive very long, she felt it was very important to stay with him for the next six months which was the projected prognosis of his illness. During that six months, she made the commitment to herself that she would stay there through the end; they had a long relationship and even if she didn't want to continue the romantic relationship, she still wanted him to be her friend and cherish him as a friend.

What she found was that the same things that right before she was ready to leave him that used to drive her crazy about him-things like leaving his shoes out or wanting to watch particular television shows, or restaurants that he would want to go to every time-the same things that would really bother her, now that she saw that he wasn-t going to be around that long, she found herself feeling a lot of warm, compassionate feelings about these things. She said to me that she began to see all of these little nuances of his personality as evidence of his presence, and that when he was gone they would no longer be any more evidence of his presence. When she made that shift, it really changed where her heart was feeling about this whole relationship.

That really touched me because at every point we get annoyed with someone's behavior. But when you think about that it's evidence of their presence and without their behavior that person may not be in your life. Be it a child that leaves their toys around, or a parent that calls you a couple times a day for little issues in their life. It allows you to see exactly the same thing from a slightly different perspective, which I think enriches our experience.

It's about letting them get to us in the way of celebrating this amazing experience rather than having a really clear agenda in our minds that anything that intervenes in that agenda we see as an annoyance.

ABOUT THE GENRE

Wisdom Hunter: What authors, concepts, or books have been most helpful to you?

Dr. David Simon: I'm an avid reader and I love other people's points of view, particularly when they're close to mine, but still there's enough difference that there's something to learn from.

Certainly for me, Deepak has been an important force. We're very close friends and we talk regularly and plan things together. And I love his perspective on things; it's similar but always enough different from mine that I learn something from it.

I love Tom Robbins, the novelist, who has a very spiritual perspective and a very powerful sense of humor. I'm deeply grateful to Dan Ladinsky for his translations of Hafiz. For me, Hafiz, the 14th century Sufi mystic poet. I like reading David Frawley's work, an American who's been studying Vedic Eastern Philosophy, who for many years brings back very authentic information which then both Deepak and I use regularly as source material translate into a more easily digestible Western vocabulary.

I love Osho. I love Rajnish, a guru who's long gone whose writings are still very powerful. I find that Eknath Easwaran who's another great translator of spiritual literature who's ,but I regularly read his books to gain insights.

Wisdom Hunter: Are there any new ideas in personal development and spirituality that are evolving your views or that you especially like?

Dr. David Simon: This continued desire to integrate modern spiritual concepts with modern quantum physics is really interesting. The people on the spiritual side seem very enthusiastic; the people on the physics side seem more reluctant. Exploring how we would translate from a Newtonian world to a quantum mechanical worldview into our actual consciousness is still evolving. I really think that most people and certainly most physicians are still looking at the world in a very Newtonian manner--very material, predictable, linear. Increasingly over the next generation more people see themselves as reflecting the insights of quantum mechanics infinite possibilities, infinite correlations, quantum creativity, proliferation of uncertainty, observer effect. These qualities, if they were really resonating in human consciousness, it would change the way that we look at ourselves and other people, and the world really.

Wisdom Hunter: I was just reading in The New York Times a couple of weeks ago how String Theory has been embraced by the scientific community without a whole lot of evidence, whereas other new lines of thinking without a lot of support have been rejected, while String Theory is still alive and kicking.

Dr. David Simon: If you read some of the writings of Plank, Heisenberg, and Einstein, it would be hard for us if you were just hearing the quotes to know if you were hearing some spiritual sage talking or a great scientist talking because the insights are so profound and universal in their application. I'm not so sure that same awareness right now in modern physics. Maybe it happens when we get older.

ABOUT YOU

Wisdom Hunter: What is your daily practice?

Dr. David Simon: I meditate twice a day for half an hour--just mind quieting, mantra-based meditation. I've been doing that for over 30 years and find still that it is my most powerful technology for bringing me back home. I do yoga several times a week. I do some type of more vigorous exercise regularly. It could be just walking briskly several times a day, but I am physically active. I eat health persistently without getting too obsessive about it--either vegetarian or mostly vegetarian for over 30 years. And I love my children; I do something with my kids every day which reminds me not to take myself too seriously.

Wisdom Hunter: Did you have a turning point in your life?

Dr. David Simon: There were lots of twists and turns. My junior and senior years in high school were pretty transformational. I was a child of the 60s and explored altered states of consciousness and believed that there is more than one way to look at the world. When I went into college I studied anthropology and studied began studying healing in non-Western cultures and realized that there were much broader perspectives on human living and human experience than just molecules interacting.

I became a meditation and yoga teacher between my undergraduate and medical school days. That clearly gave me tools that I've been using ever since that time. I had a challenging time in medical school because my worldview was quite different than most of my colleagues, and yet I think that that helped me to find more clearly to bridge the more holistic perspective and the more linear allopathic model.

I met Deepak in the early 80s. It was a powerful connection which subsequently had a big influence on my professional life. So, those are pretty important milestones for me as I look to how I came to be who I am right now.

Wisdom Hunter: It's interesting that it's been a very evolutionary process rather than a big striking moment.

Dr. David Simon: I went into medical school as a yoga and meditation teacher who had just written his summa cum laude thesis on shamanism. The turning point was actually discovering that other people didn't think that way, more than suddenly realizing that there is more to life than pharmaceuticals.

Wisdom Hunter: As a child, what did you think you'd be doing as an adult? How close is it to what you are doing today?

Dr. David Simon: I had a clear sense that I was going to be a doctor as a child. I was one of those little kids that if you asked me when I was five what I wanted to be when I grew up, there wasn't a hesitation in my mind. I joke in my, that in my tradition of origin, the rabbis decided that a fetus became a human being when it graduated from medical school. And really my vision of medicine was very similar to what I'm doing now really a beloved member of the family and community. Not some expert standing outside the ecological system of a human life, but intimately woven into it.

It seems to me that it's been really clear to me from an early age that I wanted to be a doctor and that I wanted to be a doctor that embraced all of the dimensions of human life.

Wisdom Hunter: Who or what has influenced you most?

Dr. David Simon: The consciousness explosion in the late 60s and early 70s and all of its ramifications, from drugs to Eastern spirituality to Ram Daas to Timothy Leary, Maharishi Maha Yogi. Whatever happened during that time where our generation started questioning that focusing only on survival was a worthy goal to pursue. I think that shift for the average person to be philosophical and open to other possibilities. I think I'm more a product of the growing collective culture than anything. My sense of it is that whole generation got very expansive and then it was too much and then very significant a contraction, and now imagine ourselves in a developing cocoon, that now, with developing technology, there's more and more of these pockets of people who are interested in a more consciousness-based approach to life. People are hooking up and it's starting to have that collective effect of the tipping or the 100th monkey or just critical mass so that I anticipate more in the next generation that we'll just start focusing on what's the underlying unity of the human experience than how do we separate ourselves from each other.

Wisdom Hunter: Do you have a sense of why that consciousness expansion happened in the 60s and 70s?

Dr. David Simon: My parents' generation struggled. There was such a focus on just getting food on the table and getting through the day. There was probably on some level a pent up desire to celebrate the mystery of life, but there wasn't just the opportunity. With some higher level of security, our generation that didn't have to worry about food or clothes and I think that freedom like Abraham Maslow would talk about allowed us to move up in the hierarchy of needs and the needs were ok, so fine. I have a job. I have enough clothes. I'm going to have a car, so what? What else? I think that whole community of people asking those questions and having the time and luxury to ask those questions, just created the soil that was ripe for some rapid expansion of consciousness, spirituality, and philosophy.