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RAS: I’m Robert A. Schuller and many of you are familiar that I wrote the book, "Possibility Living", with my co-author, Dr. Douglas DiSiena. What we are going to do is we are going to be interviewed by my producer, Rick Burnett. This will allow us to share with you from our hearts what this book is all about. It will be a little content from what you find in the book, yet at the same time, it will give you some information that I think will expand on the book and highlight some valuable information. So, Rick Burnett, welcome to "Possibility Living."

RB: Well, this is the first time I’ve been on this side to be able to talk to you! I’m hoping that the questions we’ve come up with will help our audience. Many people I’ve spoken with have asked some of these of me about Possibility Living. We want to talk a little about the book — it’s brand new, published by Harper Collins. For about five years now we’ve been talking about Possibility Living and we’re going to talk here about Possibility Living — exactly what it is, what it means to the both of you and really get into the essence of this topic. This is a book that is the culmination of the five years that I’ve been producing this program and what this program is all about. We hope that our audience will pick up this book and take a look at it. We believe that it will help people to reach their full God-given potential.

RB: Let’s start by defining Possibility Living. Robert, what is your definition of Possibility Living?

RAS: Possibility Living is an understanding and a paradigm where we come to an understanding of who we are as a person, emotionally, spiritually and physically. It’s when we realize that we are not human beings, but rather we are spiritual beings on a human journey. When we realize that paradigm, when we realize that our physical bodies are really energy — science is proving that matter is really energy — it is the string theory that is being expounded upon today. As a result of that, there is nothing that we cannot do if we eat, drink, think, say and do — if we put this paradigm in our minds, that we are spiritual beings on a human journey, that all things are possible with God, that we live in a spiritual world — that is a huge paradigm shift from the materialistic world that we live in. Doug, how would you answer that question?

DS: I would just add to what you said by saying this is really about allowing what God’s divine design for our life is — allowing us to maximize our life’s potential, for the buildup of the kingdom of God. You mentioned how we are spiritual beings on a human journey; well, in order for us to serve God in this world, we need to have a healthy body. If our body is broken it is hard for us to fulfill our purpose. If we have emotional issues, or if we have a spiritual disconnect, it’s hard to understand what our purpose is. So, I would say this is about mind, body and spirit working together for maximum expression of life.

RB: When we turn to Christian radio or television, we hear and/or see ministers who are strictly teaching from the bible and scripture. Robert, why are you so focused on Possibility Living?

RAS: Well, Possibility Living is a very scriptural thing, it is a very true thing, and it comes straight out of the Bible. I’ve delivered several messages on the Hour of Power about Possibility Living. Regardless of where you come from, it’s all scriptural. We have many, many scriptural references in the book. I started from the spiritual aspects — that we are spiritual beings. As a result of that, I look at the words of Christ, where Christ turns the head around as far as His encounter with the material. He denies all the laws of science. He walks on water. He calms the winds and the seas. He says to tell the mountain to move and it will get up and move. All the signs of matter are completely under the control of Jesus Christ. We have that same power, He has told us that. In fact, we see Peter walking on the water and then why did he sink? He sank because he lost his faith. That’s the only thing that keeps us from being able to accomplish all that God wants us to accomplish. It’s our lack of faith in who we are and in the power of God. When we realize that it is possible for us to break out of the materialism and into the spiritual reality of God, then things begin to unfold in ways that we could never have imagined.

RB: Doug, do you have anything to add to that?

DS: The only thing I would add in terms of scripture is that it is very clear in Luke 7:20, that Jesus healed people of disease, distress, and of evil spirits. Clearly, he dealt with body, mind and spirit. So, if we leave out the body, or leave out the mind in terms of healing in the ministry of Jesus, we would miss a great deal of what He came to teach us.

RB: We’ve been doing this program for some time now. We focus on wellness of body, mind and spirit. In doing that, we’ve been led down the path of nutrition, fitness and things of that nature. I’ve had people ask me, if they want to deal with fitness, why wouldn’t they listen to someone who is an expert in that topic — why should I listen to the two of you about fitness. With you Robert, most people say, but he’s a minister — why should I listen to a minister about fitness? With you Doug, you are into fitness and you are a chiropractor. This question is more toward Robert.

RAS: That’s why I asked Doug to write the book with me. I realize that I don’t have the credentials to speak on the physical aspects of this topic. On the other hand, Doug doesn’t have the credentials to write on the spiritual aspects. So, with us writing this book together, we have reunited the spiritual and the physical which were separated by Descartes when the philosopher came through and explained how science can have the freedom to dissect cadavers. Prior to that, the church would not allow them to dissect cadavers in order to discover how this body is put together. They didn’t know how the muscles worked, or how the nerve system worked or how the skeletal system worked. As a result, we now know today about the physical aspects of how the body works. So, scientists said let us take care of the body, and let the ministers take care of the spirit. Prior to this time it was one. With the knowledge we have today, it is now time for us to put it back together because we realize the spirit and the mind has tremendous impact on the physical — far more than we ever dreamed or thought.

RB: Doug, do you have anything you’d like to add.

DS: First of all, I go to many wellness conferences and I have to be truthful. Robert knows a great deal more about many nutritional issues than many of the doctors that I speak with or counsel with at these wellness conferences. He has a great interest in this topic and with doing these programs and interviews he has gained a great deal of knowledge by talking to many of these experts. For myself, I happen to have attended a chiropractic college that had the most nutrition instruction than any other chiropractic college available at that time. So, I came from a very intense nutritional college and have the degree to handle that. When Robert and I come together and combine our two perspectives, I think we have a great deal to offer to people — including very basic nutrition issues as well as intense nutrition issues. So, I think we offer the reader a tremendous amount of beneficial information.

RAS: I have one more thing to add to this as well. The book begins by focusing on the paradigms with which we view health and wellness. The paradigm with which you view health and wellness will determine the action that you take. We basically have two diverse applications of developing a healthy body. One is to fight the disease and the second one is to support life. Unfortunately, the two are diametrically opposed to each other. So, if you get cancer, one view says you have to fight the cancer. In fighting the cancer, you have chemotherapy and radiation, all of which destroys life and poisons the body. On the other hand, the other approach to fighting cancer would be to support life. You start at the beginning and say why do I have cancer — chances are it is far more than genetics. To support life, you do everything you can to make your body as healthy and as well, and as clean as it can possibly be. The power that created you has the power to heal you and you have the ability to overcome that cancer through health and wellness. The same thing is true of heart problems. I can give you examples of people today who are between a rock and a hard place. They’ve had bypass or a heart attack and the doctors say here is the medication you need to take. But, the side effects to those medications are devastating. So then the person needs to make a choice, do they want to take the medicines or the natural course which supports life. The medicines are degrading life. For example, high blood pressure medication and also blood thinners cause erectile dysfunction in men. What does that do to the quality of life? On the other hand, there are things that can be done for high blood pressure from a natural standpoint that will support life and improve your quality of life.

RB: On the inside dustjacket of the book, you’ve had an endorsement quote from Deepok Chopra. He wrote: "In simple and elegant ways, Robert A. Schuller and Douglas DiSiena offer practical steps to create balance in body, mind and spirit. They open the door to a world of infinite possibilities." I wonder do you feel this will disturb a large portion of your supporters, with both of you being Christians and he being a Hindu.

RAS: He is a Hindu and his philosophy is Hindu. We have a difference of philosophy in that one aspect. But, other than that particular aspect we see things very similarly. The paradigm of wellness is very similar. What we need to do is not focus on our differences. We have to do is celebrate our differences. I believe there are things we can do as individuals and people to support and love one another. If we constantly focus on and criticize the negatives, then we become judgmental. We have to realize there is only one judge. It is not you and it is not I. It is God. The uniqueness about Christianity is one thing. That one thing is that we know when we meet our maker, we know exactly what the judgement is going to be. We receive our judgement now in the physical form through the grace of Jesus Christ, who promised us that anyone who calls upon His name will be saved. As a result of that, we know beforehand what our judgement is going to be. For us to immediately jump to the assumption, which so many Christians do, that they know what God’s judgement is going to be, is the same as putting themselves in God’s place and making themselves a God. I don’t know what God’s judgement is going to be on people who don’t accept Jesus Christ. What I do know is what God’s judgement upon me is going to be. That’s the beauty of Christianity. For us to fulfill the commandment that Christ has given us to love one another, I don’t think we have any other option, because I don’t believe we can judge and love at the same time. God has called us to love everybody. So, I say that we have the uniqueness in Christianity that no other religion has — and, therefore we can love our brothers, whether they are Hindu, Muslim, Jew, or Christian, we can love all people. So, we can celebrate that Christianity has given us a precious gift and that anybody that wants to have the precious gift of knowing now rather than fearing judgement, is more than welcome to accept the gift.

DS: I’m reminded of a quote by Mother Theresa where she says that she loves all religions, but she is in love with Christianity. What I’d like to say about Deepok Chopra is something he’s done that we in the western world have a hard time doing. He understands the spiritual nature of man. He understands that we are body, mind, and spirit. We speak of it in the western world, but we really don’t understand it. Robert wrote something in the forward of the book where he speaks about John Wimber. John Wimber taught "signs & wonders" at Fuller Theological Seminar. The whole point of that was to teach us that we have that capability, just as Robert said earlier. We have the capability of living in the spiritual paradigm and we have the capability of having miraculous healing. We need to have the understanding that we are spiritual beings on a human journey. This is a very true thing that we need to understand and that Deepok Chopra understands because he comes from an eastern paradigm. In the western model, we’ve lost that whole understanding of being in a spiritual world and we only see things as they are in the material. Someday, when this world is done as we know it and we live in the spiritual realm, we’ll know how what we live in is not true, but the truth comes in the spirit. So, when we live in the spirit, then we have the ability to accept the Father’s love, we have the ability to greater love one another. Because, to love really comes from God. When we allow love to come in through us and out to other people, that above, down, inside, out concept, then that’s when we are living in the spiritual realm and that’s when we are living in the kingdom of heaven.

RB: How did the two of you come to write this book together? I’m sure that each of you have a testimony — we want to hear what it was that brought you together and what was it that really is the cause of the deep interest that you both have in sharing Possibility Living.

RAS: When Doug started adjusting me, I realized that was another major growth of awareness for me as far as the whole way the body works which modern medicine doesn’t recognize. For example, modern medicine doesn’t even recognize the meridians. Yet, if Doug ever adjusts you, you’ll see how the meridians work — it’s a phenomenal thing where suddenly you have no strength in your arms or your legs or a weak part of your body causes another weakness. That then gives Doug the ability to understand what part to adjust so that he can balance the body so that it works optimally. As a result of that, I asked Doug to start adjusting our staff here at the Ranch and also at the Cathedral. So he comes here to the Ranch one day a week and also goes to the Cathedral one day a week. He adjusts our staff so that they can work at heir peak performance. As a result, the health of our staff has been extremely enhanced. My nephews have had migraines eliminated, the list goes on and on. It’s not because Doug is a miracle worker, it’s because Doug has released the power in our bodies that God created so our bodies can do what they do best; i.e., find balance.

DS: It just goes back to the whole eastern concept that the body is energy and we need to release it to allow that energy to heal. My understanding of how we came together is because Robert and I have had many deep conversations over the last 10 years. I think it has been a culmination of our conversation — I’m inquisitive and through our spiritual conversations on wellness, this book is a culmination of the hours we’ve spent together discussing our interests. That inquisitiveness led to conversations, which led to a friendship, which ended up in a book. We decided that we needed to let other people know all about this — so now they do!

RB: I’ve talked to both of you — and Doug, I want you to share your story about what led you to become a chiropractor.

DS: Let me share two testimonies. The first testimony is when I was 16 years old, I developed severe asthma. It ended up in something called chronic obstructive lung disease. It was so up that I literally needed to have oxygen every night, not knowing if I was going to be able to take another breath. Through what I consider to be only a miracle, I was directed to join a gym. The person that owned that gym happened to be a chiropractor. He offered me a spinal evaluation — because the first 20 people got a this free gift — I was number 19 and a friend of mine was number 20. I think about this often today, if I had been 10 minutes late someone else would have gotten that opportunity — I would have missed that entire opportunity. I did get the free exam, he did x-ray by neck. He said there was pressure on my brain stem which interrupted the flow of the energy between my brain and my tissue cells. The bottom line is within 6 weeks, my asthma was completely gone. One day I was lying on that adjusting table, and this amazing surge and desire came over me to serve others through chiropractic. I believe that was God speaking to me, although it wasn’t in an audible tone. It was this thing that I knew I had to do — it was my passion, so that’s why I became a chiropractor. Secondly, I was going through a tremendous amount of stresses in my life at one point. I had come into a family type of business and it was in a place I didn’t really want to be. I was going to the Crystal Cathedral, because I’d heard Robert’s father speak at a chiropractic convention. So we went to the Cathedral to hear positive messages. We went to some other places that really weren’t so positive. We didn’t go there really to hear about Jesus, we went to hear a positive message. As the Holy Spirit would have it, one day my wife happened to go into a bookstore and she bought me the Possibility Thinkers bible. That’s went I allowed Jesus to become the Lord of my life. It was because of the Crystal Cathedral and the positive messages that were spoken there that my life was changed. So, I really have two testimonies. One where he helped my physical being, but I was still in crisis in my spiritual. I love the Chinese symbol for crisis — it’s when you have danger and opportunity at the same time. So while there was danger in my life at that time, there was also great opportunity to allow Jesus to come into my life so I could receive His peace, wisdom and direction. Then I made a radical decision. I totally stopped my office and moved my office in Newport Beach. I moved to Irvine with zero patients, I let all my patients stay where they were and I started a totally new practice in Irvine. Again, that is another miracle!

RB: Doug, I know that part of your testimony is part of your upbringing — how you were raised as a child. You had a difficult time with that asthma. There were some incredible changes that your Dad went through with raising a son who had a lot of physical problems.

DS: OK — my father, during that time had to be with him — because if you don’t know if you can take another breath, it’s a very anxious time. You breath 14 times a minute and there were times that I didn’t know if I would be able to take another breath. I knew that I didn’t want to die through suffocation. I think that would be one of the worst ways to die. Quite frankly, I was suffocating every night — having to take very shallow breaths. My father, who showed tremendous commitment to me, was with me every night. He was there to hold the oxygen mask, give me medication if I needed that, he was there to slap my back so that the mucus could break away from my lungs and I could take a breath. So, he was there 7 nights a week, for mostly the entire night. Unfortunately for my father, I got well and was able to sleep through the night, but he got in such a habit of staying up all night that he had insomnia for 10-15 years following that time. Now my Dad sleeps through the night, but that’s what he had to do to help me.

RAS: Robert, your testimony — you’ve talked to me about growing up in a family from dairy farmers — where you had to have that dairy product because it does a body good!

DS: That’s exactly the way I was raised. The way my aunts and uncles drank milk it was good for them. But, the way we drink it today it isn’t. My aunts and uncles would literally take the milk from the cow to the table. When they would put it in the refrigerator you would see the cream, about 25%, would come to the top and the thin milk would be at the bottom. So they would take the jar, shake it up and drink it. No homogenization, minimal antibiotics if at all, no hormones for sure, the grain the cows ate was natural. The fertilizer they used was what the cows provided. That’s the kind of milk they drank. Milk in that form I would assume isn’t that bad. The milk we buy and what I was drinking as a young boy was homogenized, pasteurized — which meant there were no enzymes in that milk. Without those enzymes the body didn’t know what to do with it. To this day, I don’t believe our bodies know what to do with milk. It causes all kinds of allergies and reactions. With me I started having severe cystic acne; specifically on my back. I would get these welts that were just terribly painful. I couldn’t sit with my back to a chair. They were like boils on my back. I would go to the dermatologist every week and he would burn me with a sunlamp and then he’s take cortisone and use this gun to shoot the cortisone into the welt. The next day the boil would be gone. I went through this for a couple of years. One day I was talking to my barber who was very conscious of natural health. He was a member of a spa and ate and drank healthy things and distributed Shaklee vitamins. He is still my father’s barber and he’s still the epitome of health. One day he asked me if I’d thought of not drinking milk for a while. I didn’t think milk and anything to do with my acne. So I quit drinking milk and my cystic acne went away immediately. From then on I had the normal teenage acne, but no more of those welts.

RB: So that was the beginning of your understanding of what you put into your body has an effect on the outcome.

RAS: There was no doubt that I had a bad allergy to milk. But, as soon as my kids were born, what did I do — I gave them milk. You’d think I would have been smarter, but I just didn’t put it together. My son ended up having tubes in his ears and tonsil surgery, etc. I did the same thing with my youngest son, he was on the same track and was on constant antibiotics because of his ear infections. At the same time we were taking him to the hospital once a week because he was wheezing with asthma — he could breath. It was at that time that we took him to Dr. Shalhoub here in San Juan Capistrano and he started adjusting him and he suggested we take him off milk. So we did that and took him off antibiotics and he hasn’t had any ear infections or asthma since.

RB: So you’ve had some physical things that have had an impact on you and your family that help you understand the importance of sharing these kinds of things.

RAS: Absolutely!

RB: Doug, we could go on and on about some of the stories and miracles that chiropractic has done for your family. What about your mother who was diagnosed with cancer and the things that have been able to come about in her life through the skills that God has given you.

DS: I like what Robert said. As much as I love my profession, it’s not the chiropractic that does it — it’s the power of God that does the healing. That is what we are releasing. All we are doing is releasing that innate, inborn gift that we have to heal. As long as we have life, we have the opportunity to heal. Through the chiropractic we are releasing more of the life to be expressed in the tissue cells. When you have life in the tissue cells, the body does something called healing. Just like you turn on the key in your car and the engine starts up. With chiropractic we release the power within your body and it heals — because that’s what God designed it to do. I have another comment about what Robert was saying about milk. We either have faith in the power of God, the power that created us; or, you have faith in some scientist. Now, don’t get me wrong, we need scientists. However, like Robert was saying about milk, either God created that cow to produce milk for our nutrition, or He somehow messed up and didn’t give that cow enough growth hormone, or antibiotics, or the udders didn’t heat up to 120 degrees. Somehow or other we have to come to an understanding that God designed that milk to be the way it is — we don’t have to mess with it! Another example is either man’s way or God’s way — like Robert was saying "support life." I can’t tell you how many times, now even the American Pediatric Association is saying stop the antibiotics. Think about the word — anti-biotic; "against life." The paradigm shift is we have to support life. Just like Robert says we have to celebrate our differences, that paradigm works for all aspects of life. Let’s not try to fight the disease — let’s support life — that’s God’s way. We need to make a decision do we want God’s way or man’s way. If I had to pick, I would choose God’s way!

RB: Well, in this program we are laying down the foundation so that our audience can understand what the belief is behind Possibility Living. In the weeks to come, we’ll go in depth to this book so you can go along with us. Come back to the Internet so you can click on the questions and answers. We are also going to make tapes available. This has been a joy with the two of you today. So, we’ll be back and hope everyone will log on to www.possibilityliving.org and follow along with us as we go through this book.

RAS: I want to encourage everyone who has heard and seen this message today to email your friends and have them do the same so that we can continue to spread the message of Possibility Living.