Gary Zukav was born in
Port Arthur, Texas, the elder of two children of Morris Luis "Morey" and Lorene (née Weinberg) Zukav. His father owned a jewelry store in
Pittsburg, Kansas, and his mother was a housewife who raised him and his younger sister. Gary spent his early childhood in
San Antonio and
Houston. His family moved to Pittsburg, Kansas in 1952, while he was in fourth grade. In 1960, he graduated from
Pittsburg High School as
valedictorian. During that time he became an
Eagle Scout, Governor of Kansas
Boy's State, President of the Student Council, and Kansas State Debate championship team member twice. In 1959, Gary received a scholarship to
Harvard and matriculated in 1960. In his junior year at Harvard, he left to motorcycle in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East before returning the following year. In 1964, he was deeply moved by the
murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner in
Philadelphia, Mississippi, and worked as a summer volunteer for the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in
Jackson, Mississippi, under the direction of
Charles Evers, brother of the slain
Medgar Evers. In 1965, he graduated from Harvard. That same year he enlisted in the
U.S. Army and entered U.S. Army Infantry
Officer Candidate School. He was made a second lieutenant in 1966. He volunteered for the
U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Berets), completed parachute training (
Fort Benning, Georgia), and
U.S. Army Special Warfare School (
Fort Bragg, North Carolina), then served as a detachment executive officer in
Okinawa and
Vietnam, participating in
top secret operations in Vietnam and
Laos. He left Vietnam after the
Tet Offensive of January 1968 and was discharged from the army in 1968 as a first lieutenant. Zukav returned to the U.S. in 1970 and moved to
San Francisco,
California. He described this period as one marked by personal struggles, including issues with sexual behavior, anger, and drug use. This continued until 1975 when his roommate,
Jack Sarfatti, took him to visit the
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory where Zukav became intrigued by
quantum physics. He began writing his first book,
The Dancing Wu Li Masters, written with extensive help from Jack Sarfatti and other physicists he met through Sarfatti, as described in
David Kaiser's book
How the Hippies Saved Physics. He referred to this book as his 'first gift to Life,' reflecting his view of its significance. In 1987 he moved to
Mount Shasta, California, where he lived in a cabin as a self-described "secular monk" and spent time in the surrounding wilderness. In 1993 he met and later married Linda Francis. They co-founded the Seat of the Soul Institute in 1998 and moved to
Ashland, Oregon, in 2000. ==Teachings==