The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment was often described around San Francisco as "the last book you'll ever need to read about spirituality".
It is a book that proposes to map-out the human spiritual experience, from
its modest beginning, to
full realization, in simple language that anyone (willing) can understand.
A true self-publishing phenomenon from the early '70s, this book is a precursor to much of our popular Western spiritual literature.
Many have been inspired to write their own version, but somehow, this text towers over most books on the subject. Perhaps the most dizzying quality of Golas's writing style, beyond his humorous and light touch, is his ability to pack several layers of profound meaning in his concise sentences. Meaning you'll be unpacking for years--provided you want to go through your own process of checking and proving. And enough to make the Guide a book that remains a faithful lifetime companion in just about any situation, and crisis.
If ever life came with an owner's manual, this is it.
The book has known several incarnations over a few decades, and Thaddeus Golas had often planned on expanding the text in various ways. He even toyed with the idea of doing a Guide about The Guide, with annotations.
In the end, he settled on writing a few new chapters on topics that he felt he'd missed the first time out:
Free Will, Expand!, two explorations of our relationship to matter, energy and space, and Who's on First?, a treaty on why intellectuals are always baffled by simple action.
Updates and revisions: Thaddeus Golas made revisions to his original text of The Lazy Man s Guide to Enlightenment throughout the 1980s and 1990s. These revisions were intended to help the text survive the extinction of the 1960s jargon. He also clarified many concepts and emphasized the idea that consciousness, even more than love itself, is the key to Enlightenment.
In this revised and updated edition of his original 1972 street pamphlet, Golas added material to The Guide and made over 100 small fixes to his original manuscript.
This final update returns the book to its simple, delicate and subtle "pocket-size" handbook,complete with its favorite mandala design: No fat, no extra chatter - just the facts!
Born in 1924 in Paterson, New Jersey, to Polish Catholic parents, Thaddeus Stanley Golas was a child of Einstein s Relativity but also of the Great Depression.
He served a long European tour of duty in WWII, and was in Patton s Third Army in Antwerp, but narrowly avoided combat at the Battle of the Bulge.
The G.I. Bill helped him earn a BA in General Humanities from New York s Columbia University where he studied under Jacques Barzun, among notable others.
He went on to work as a proofreader for Betty Ballantine, as an editor for The Tatler newspaper in Paterson NJ., a book editor for Redbook, and later, in Oklahoma, as a sales representative for Harper & Row.
He saw the rise of the Beat Movement in Manhattan, with its onset of mind-altering substances.
His ideas on human consciousness had gathered over many years of pondering Eastern Mysticism and popular Quantum Science; when he moved to California in the 60s, he was encouraged by Alan Watts, Timothy Leary, and former high school mate Allen Ginsberg to self-publish The Lazy Man s Guide to Enlightenment.
Thus, it was in the psychedelic maelstrom, in the midst of San Francisco s Haight-Ashbury turmoil at the start of the Seventies, that Thaddeus Golas achieved recognition as a major philosopher. He stood on street corners with his third wife Nancy Monroe, come rain or come shine, selling copies to passersby to make ends meet.
The Lazy Man s Guide to Enlightenment caught-on like wild fire, and Golas, the reluctant guru, became a bit of a sensation. His book remained in print for over 40 years.
Often shunned by members of the New Age community for his biting criticism of their manipulations, Thaddeus Golas remained a nomad and led a discreet life, declining to lecture or exploit his readers with seminars.
A lifetime smoker, he died in Sarasota, FL, from pneumonia brought-on by cancer in the spring of 1997.
Though readers know him for writing The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment, Thaddeus Golas felt his opus was his last manuscript, Love and Pain.
It was published posthumously by Seed Center Books. The Cosmic Airdrome, and his autobiography, The Lazy Man's Life are also published posthumously.
