It's no secret that Mike Myers loves hockey. Over the years he's laced up the blades to play in a number of celebrity hockey games for charity and his own personal love of the game. As well, it's no secret that Myers' favorite team, the Toronto Maple Leafs, haven't won a Stanley Cup in over 40 years. The last time they won, Mike Myers was a four year old kid. Now, with his latest film, The Love Guru, about to hit theaters on June 20, Myers is sending his favorite hockey team a heap of good comedic karma in the hope that real life can somehow mimic art to throw the Leafs a Stanley Cup bone. Since change is currently afoot in the Toronto Maple Leafs front office, for all we know Myers' karma might already be at work.

After playing some of the most memorable comedic characters of the last twenty years - Wayne Campbell of Wayne's World, Austin Powers, Dr. Evil, and Shrek - Myers now adds Guru Pitka to his character resume, an American raised by gurus in India who returns to the States to start a self-help business and motivate a slumping hockey star (Justin Timberlake) who's trying to get his wife back from a rival player.

Last week in Beverly Hills, Mike Myers sat down with the press to talk his love of hockey, his spiritual growth, meeting Deepak Chopra and Dick Van Dyke, and how The Love Guru came to be. As well, Myers also addressed the controversy The Love Guru has been sparking among certain communities around the world.

Was it exciting to see the Maple Leafs win if only in your film?

MIKE MYERS: It is bittersweet, as they say. It is both a wonderful experience, and I would love for my team to win the Stanley Cup. It’s been since 1967. We are a long suffering group of fans. But I wondered if I was going to see it in my lifetime, and I thought, "If I don’t, I better write it."

Is that why you put the LA Kings in there?

MYERS: The LA Kings were - it’s a big-market team, and it’s in the West. And I used to go see the LA Kings. Could I say ‘go’ anymore Canadian than I just did? I used to ‘go’ see the LA Kings when I lived in Los Angeles. I used to go all the time, and I think they’re logos look good together.

I have to ask you about something that I found when I was researching for this film. That there was a Hindu leader in the U.S. who said that people shouldn’t watch this movie. Had you heard anything about this?

MYERS: I’d heard about this. It’s one guy who has not seen the film. And when, and what he will find is that this is a mythical and completely made up system of teaching in the tradition of the force in Star Wars and Fredonia in the Marx Brothers movies. The system of teachings are called D.R.A.M.A., which is distraction, regression, adjustment, maturity and action. It is non-denominational. It is completely made up and it is about loving yourself. So people may say bad things about you, but you won’t say bad things about yourself. Distraction is taking yourself out of the current emotional pain and getting yourself to a place of balance so that you can look at regressing yourself back to the time when you were a little kid and you were told stuff about yourself where you’re inherently flawed. You know, the difference between shame and guilt. Guilt is "I feel bad that..." And shame is, "I am bad that..." And that’s the regression. You go back and you adjust the belief in your shame core, as they say, and that’s the A. D - distraction, regression. A - adjustment, you rewrite what’s in your shame core. Maturity is the M and that is you take responsibility for your own health and happiness, and you realize that you are your own parent, your own mother and your own father. The A, action, second A, and that’s taking all of this philosophical stuff and putting it into rubber-meets-the-road action in your life. This is not controversial. This is completely made up. It’s 'the force'.

So you got to hang out with Deepak Chopra. What did he think of DRAMA, and what did you think of him?

MYERS: In 1991, my father passed away. Two things creatively emerged for me. One was Austin Powers and that was honoring all of the wonderful, and silly - and I say silly in such a respectful and happy way - silly British comedy that my father loved. That was Austin Powers. Then I also went on a mini spiritual quest, nothing terribly deep, because I’m not a terribly deep person and neither was my father. The source of this spiritual quest, my father, was a very silly guy. And ultimately what I came to understand at the end of my readings was that enlightenment is to lighten up, and being silly is our natural state. We have to work hard to get to silly, which is what my father used to say all the time; "Nothing’s so painful" - my dad was from Liverpool - "Nothing’s so painful that it can’t be laughed at eventually." And the second thing he would say was, "Well, we’ve done our work now. Let’s go have some fun." And these are two very simple things that I think are really, really relevant. It sort of came full circle.

In 1994, this stage show, in Los Angeles, I did two characters for the first time. One was Austin Powers and the other was the Guru Pitka. Things take time to circle the airport, gestate and land. Austin Powers landed first, and then The Love Guru, Guru Pitka, landed later. And one was the celebration of my father’s influence, comedically, and the other one was coming to terms with his death. The one person who I wanted to see all of my success the universe had [been] taken away from me and I didn’t know why. I’m in a good place about it now. You know, as Lenny Bruce says, "The equation for comedy is pain plus time." And I feel he is seeing stuff. So I’m in some peace about it. Deepak Chopra, in 1991, I saw him on Oprah and I went, "Well, what an interesting guy." It’s all the philosophy presented in a very clear, straightforward way. And I thought as Carl Sagan was to physics, which he was a scientist in his own right, but in addition he said, "If you’re interested in this stuff, you know the serious cosmos, look over here, there’s other stuff too." I found that to be the same with Deepak. As Carl Sagan was to physics, Deepak was to matters philosophical.

You know, I’m often asked, "What are you reading?" And I read voraciously and I said, "I’m reading ‘Catch-22' and this guy Deepak Chopra." So I got a call from a friend of a friend of a friend saying, "Deepak Chopra wants to know why and how you came across his work." And so I told him. I met him and we’ve been friends ever since - and this wonderful dialogue, because he’s got a great sense of humor. I went to see him talk and he was funny. And I was like, "Thank God, he’s funny," because I was there for two hours. I was like, "If he’s not funny, I don’t know what to do." And I went, "Oh, that’s awesome. To be enlightened is to lighten up." And I was like, "This is awesome."

Life, Leafs, and The Love Guru with Mike Myers Page 2