“None of them died with their music still in them,” he says. “They lived good lives of great passion.”

When he picked 60 philosophers, artists, writers and religious figures to quote — among them Jesus, Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Buddha, Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Teresa — he devoted one day to each.

In the mornings, he got up early and spent eight hours reading about their lives. Then he would go for a long walk on the beach and contemplate what he had read.

The afternoons were spent reading or studying their works.

And at night, after an hour of meditation, he would sit down with a photograph, drawing or sculpture of the person and ask, “What is it that you would say to us today who are still here with this writing or this selection that I have chosen of yours?”

The words came forth, and in 60 days, “Wisdom of the Ages” was written.

Dyer, who talked about his life and career in a recent telephone interview from Maui, says he is very proud of the book. “It’s a book that almost wrote itself,” he says. “I still feel very much connected to all these people.”

As a teacher, Dyer quoted many of the scholars he wrote about in his lectures. “My students used to always ask, ‘What does what somebody said a hundred years ago have to do with me?’ ”

Everything, according to Dyer.

“I feel that everybody who has ever been here before has a great message to leave behind,” he says. “Their very lives affect all of us, and I think that’s something each of us has to learn and grow from practicing what it is they have to offer.”

Dyer, who is 59, says he doesn’t have a favorite passage in the book. “It’s like asking me which of my children are my favorites,” he says, and he has eight. “They all have something very powerful.”

One of the Native Americans featured, Oren Lyons, is quoted as saying his people would think seven generations ahead when making decisions. The passage, in part, says:

“When we walk upon Mother Earth, we always plant our feet carefully because we know the faces of our future generations are looking up at us from beneath the ground. We never forget them.”

“We don’t own this earth,” Dyer says. “We are borrowing it from those who are yet to come.”

What he would most like readers to get out of “Wisdom of the Ages,” he says, is a sense of connection with all of mankind, not only in the present, but those who lived here before and those who are yet to come.

“We are breathing the very same air,” he says.

“Wisdom of the Ages” is Dyer’s 17th book. His first, “Your Erroneous Zones,” published in 1976 when he was 35, was the top seller for that decade. Six book clubs chose it as a featured selection, and it stayed on the New York Times Bestseller List for 27 months.

The book’s success made Dyer a media star. He has appeared on every major television talk show, including “The Tonight Show,” “The Today Show,” “Donahue” and “Oprah,” as well as radio talk shows all over the United States and other countries.

Translated into 41 languages, “Your Erroneous Zones” showed readers how their own thinking hindered their success in life and offered guidelines on controlling feelings and reactions.

Some credit Dyer with starting the self-help movement that is big business today. Therapists recommended his books, and readers learned to take responsibility for their own lives.

Dyer became a motivational speaker, holding thousands of workshops, including some for heads of states, and releasing hundreds of self-motivational tapes through the years.

The book titles that followed spoke of self-responsibility and empowerment: “Pulling Your Own Strings,” “The Sky’s the Limit,” “Staying on the Path,” “What Do You Really Want for Your Children,” “You’ll See It When You Believe It,” “Real Magic,” “Your Sacred Self” and “Manifest Your Destiny.”

Many of the lessons he teaches were learned the hard way.

Wayne Dyer was abandoned by his father shortly after his birth. An abusive alcoholic, his father did time in prison and never paid any support or called or visited him.

His mother worked as a candy girl, making $17 a week, and couldn’t support Wayne or his two brothers, each born a year apart.

Dyer spent the first 10 years of his life in an orphanage and a series of foster homes. “It was one of the greatest learning experiences of my life,” he says.

After that, his mother remarried, and she and her new husband regained custody of her sons. But the new family was flawed.

Their stepfather was an alcoholic, he says, “and living with an alcoholic was a great learning experience, as well.”

Hard work was a way of life for Dyer. Starting at age 8, he delivered newspapers, cut grass and bagged groceries. “I worked for everything I ever had,” he says.

An avid reader, Dyer had read 770 books by age 17. His favorite authors included Henry David Thoreau, whose philosophies Dyer credits with turning him into a nonconformist.

Dyer joined the Navy at 18, serving four years before earning his undergraduate degree and doctorate in counseling and psychology from Wayne State University and the University of Michigan.

He taught at many levels from high school through graduate study at St. John’s University in New York. His teaching skills made for a smooth transition from the classroom to teaching thousands at motivational seminars.

Dyer, who is scheduled to speak in Greensboro on Sept. 12, says he conducts his seminars the same way he wrote “Wisdom of the Ages.”

“I get quiet,” he says, “I meditate, and I come out and speak without notes for three or four hours.”

His goal for the seminars, Dyer says, is to try to get people “to become aware of their unlimited potential, to recognize their own greatness, to leave being inspired to be all they can be and to not die with their music still in them.”

Dyer says he believes we all came to earth with a “heroic mission.”

“I think our work is placed in our hearts at the moment of our births or even our conceptions,” he says.

Reaching the point where you can fulfill that mission, “even if it’s music other people don’t like,” is what Dyer hopes to help people do.

The true test of mortality, he says, may be to not only know what you’re here for but to follow your path without concern for the approval of others and without interfering with others’ right to follow their own paths.

Dyer has already picked out a title for his 18th book, “There’s a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem.”

Despite the technology we have today, Dyer says, “we’ve got people killing each other, and we’ve got wars all over the planet.”

All our problems can be solved, he says, by recognizing our connectedness and going “to the inner quiet place within ourselves.

“I want to write about that,” he says.

Dyer’s life parallels the transition of his books from the self-help genre to spiritual enlightenment.

“That’s where I am today,” he says. “I’ve sort of watched myself write and experience these things, and I’ve always been very public about what I’m going through in my own life.”

Psychologist Carl Jung said people go through four stages in their lives, Dyer says, beginning with the athlete, the time when the focus is primarily on the body, its strength and beauty and abilities.

The second stage is the warrior, when we set out to conquer and defeat and collect and do as much as we can.

The third, Dyer says, is what Jung called the statesman stage, the time when we stop questioning what’s in it for us and start asking what we can do for others. How can we serve?

And the fourth stage is the spirit, when you recognize that you are not your body, not what other people think of you.

“You’re in this world,” Dyer says, “as they say in the New Testament, but you’re not of this world.”

Even with his success as an author and motivational speaker, Dyer says his children are what he is most proud of.

“I think they’re on their own paths,” he says. “I just try to keep them out of harm’s way and love them unconditionally.”

Dyer’s eight children range in age from 9 to 32. Their interests are varied, he says. One, for example, wants to sing while another wants to ride horses. Some want to go to college, and some think it’s a waste of time.

“Some of them really like what I do,” he says. “Some think it’s a lot of nonsense.”

Dyer, his wife and children live in South Florida, but spend their summers in Maui. Because of the large family, he has to go away to write.

“I’ll just immerse myself in the writing 24 hours a day,” he says. “I can’t even write a letter at home. There’s a lot of people.”

An avid runner, Dyer gets up before dawn and runs eight miles a day. It’s a regimen he has followed for the last 13 years.

“Running is just a way of life for me,” he says.

So is the celebrity, and it means very little to Dyer. He responds to praise for his work the same way he responds to criticism.

“It’s just somebody else’s opinion,” he says. “I always tell them, ‘You’re probably right,’ even if they tell me I’m a jerk.”

As for how he would like to be remembered, Dyer says it doesn’t really matter.

“It’s just not important to me,” he says. “I don’t think I’m a human being having a spiritual experience. I’m a divine being.

“We all are.”