The Lazy Man’s Guide to Enlightenment by Thaddeus Golas

This book has been a delight and essential reading for the spiritual community for many decades. It’s one of those books you want to carry around, open randomly and read for its wisdom, guidance and inspiration. First published in 1971, its message is simple yet reaches deep within the human psyche offering ‘a way’ to […]

This book has been a delight and essential reading for the spiritual community for many decades. It’s one of those books you want to carry around, open randomly and read for its wisdom, guidance and inspiration. First published in 1971, its message is simple yet reaches deep within the human psyche offering ‘a way’ to navigate the world with the highest internal frequency and least amount of resistance.

As the author states quite emphatically: There is nothing you need to do first in order to be enlightened. 

He goes on:

“Regardless of how you have limited your awareness, you are a free and self-determined being. No other living being nor any group of beings can control your vibration level.”

This radical statement should be repeated until it soaks into one’s bones, into one’s soul. (Something the soul already knows but has somehow forgotten).

Saying it differently, personal spiritual autonomy is prior to a state of heightened awareness (enlightenment) that is beyond the status quo or conditional thinking to obstruct.

Golas continues: “Enlightenment is any experience of expanding our consciousness beyond its current limits.”

And: “Perfect enlightenment is realizing that we have no limits at all and that the entire universe is conscious and alive.” This precept is the “code” and foundation around which yogis and shamanic healers organize their lives.

Golas’s main premise for the book could be summed up as, love everything just the way it is without attachment or expectation.

And: there is nothing in existence that cannot be loved. 

This approach to life and living in the awakened state has been a main tenant of many spiritual traditions and religious practices for millennia.

Jesus tells us: “Love and bless your enemy.” And, “The kingdom of heaven is within you.”

Buddhism advises us to live in a state of gratitude and generosity and to return good for evil.

Tantra, the path of uniting opposites in order to obtain supreme bliss, teaches: “Embrace all that you would push away and out of your awareness for it is a part of you and is you.” Taking this to extremes, Aghori yogis fast and meditate in cremation grounds, a practice that allows the yogi to transcend the human condition by centering in his own internal bliss in a place of burning corpses and spirits of the dead.

Taoism gives us the practice of smiling into the organs and embracing the “body gods” in order to obtain radiant health. And ascetic yogis enraptured in ecstatic trance shine divine light into a troubled world from far off remote dwellings or from an apartment flat in the city.

Golas is revolutionary but he’s not alone when he says: When we avoid something unpleasant and unconsciously contract our awareness from it, (as a result) we create a shadow self that keeps attracting the thing we don’t want or like and as a result open ourselves up to experience fear or pain.

Further he states, Loving yourself and all that is, is not a gesture of the personal ego but a way of becoming free of the need to prove oneself to others and simply exist as an intimate part of a mysterious, amazing and infinite universe.

A very useful and practical exercise is to smile into (send love to) the people who annoy you the most. Smile into difficult co-workers and the petty tyrant who finds fault with you out of the blue. Smile into former relations and uncertain possibilities and into past mistakes and painful memories.

If you are challenged with a stubborn disease pattern or nagging illness, smile into the cells and organs involved and love yourself for doing it.

*I also find the mandala on the cover of the early editions (see photo) and most recent printings to be useful for centering as a reminder to love everything just the way it is without expectations or attachment to outcomes.

New editions of the Lazy Man’s Guide can be found online along with free PDF versions. There is a kindle format available along with collector’s editions. Used copies of the original book are becoming more rare but are still available in a wide range of prices.

The link below will give you a more indepth look at the man, his life and other works:

www.seedcenterbooks.com/theseedcenter/thaddeus-golas/

There is much more wisdom in Golas’s book than can be discussed here. Be sure to pick up a copy and share with family and friends. Be well and keep the light on!

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Jia Senghe is the founder of the Oak Street Shakuhachi Studio where he teaches the art of the shakuhachi, (a Japanese bamboo flute), meditation, and Qigong. His website is www.utaguchi.com.