Steps to Enlightenment According to the Cayce Readings Step 8: Living a Balanced Life
12 Steps to Enlightenment According to the Cayce Readings Step 9: Patience
12 Steps to Enlightenment According to the Cayce Readings Step 10: Service
12 Steps to Enlightenment According to the Cayce Readings Step 11: Embracing Challenges
12 Steps to Enlightenment According to the Cayce Readings Step 12: Deep Meditation as the Path of the Masters
The Forgotten Years of Jesus, Yogi Extraordinaire
Acknowledgments
It is a pleasure to record my gratitude to the many people who have made the journey to this endeavor possible, and for reasons too numerous to mention in detail. I would like to recognize first and foremost, my dear friend Ed Rocks, who left the body too soon for me to express my gratitude to him for all his friendship and inspiration. He saw my path years before I did. Thanks for everything, Rockdananda.
To Grethe Tedrick, who was the stalwart Northern California A.R.E. Region Coordinator when I first started doing various presentations and projects for the Region years ago, now retired, and Julie Hilt, the current sparkling light at the helm. Their encouragement continues to be greatly valued.
To Rev. Iclea Halton, a Mãe de Santo, shamana and friend. Obrigado minha amiga.
I must recognize the teacher who initially opened my mind at age twenty-one to spiritual truths, Jiddu Krishnamurti. At the time, his words were like none I had encountered before. And to the holy lights, the yogic masters, of whom I still gain inspiration and guidance and bow in reverence to their awesome accomplishments: Paramahansa Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, Paramahansa Yogananda, Baba Hari Dass, Ramana Maharshi, Neem Karoli Baba, Jelaluddin Rumi, Hazrat Inayat Khan, Peace Pilgrim, and Jesus the Christ.
I must also thank Ram Dass (Dr. Richard Alpert), who showed me the value of taking risks. Even though fate substituted his prized sports car with a wheelchair, his bawdy humor and astute observations continue to be valuable fingers pointing at the moon.
Thanks to Nancy Eubel, Stephanie Hellberg, Suzun Almquist, Rick Gwyn, Ilona Marshall, Doug and Nancy Hilton, and all the Search for God Study Group members throughout the years.
To my mother, Joyce, for all her love and laughs; my sister, Sári, for her untiring encouragement; J. L. Goldman and Joe Quinn, both positive influences at crucial times; and dear Uncle Hefti (Imre Fazekas), for always rewarding knowledge and humor, while shunning intimidation.
A special thank you to Doris Van Auken at A.R.E. Press, who, like the Buddhist counterpart to Saint Michael, Mahaboddhisatva Manjusri, wielded her editorial sword of wisdom with both compassion and insight to make this book presentable and coherent. Any shortcomings in those areas are solely the burden of the author, not the editor.
And last, to all the wonderful friends and relationships that have each taught me something about myself—I treasure every one. The learning continues ad infinitum . . . until the yoga is perfected.
Everywhere you go, there you are–
so, where are you going?
–Istvan Fazekas
Foreword
This is a book about love—in the purest sense of the word—the unconditional love the Creator has for its creation, and the principles for opening ourselves to experience that love in a more expansive and fulfilling way. There is no better time for this spiritual awakening than now, according to Istvan Fazekas, not in the future, not in 2012. Moreover, as Eckhart Tolle reminds us in his bestselling book A New Earth, which has swept the country, when humanity in the past looked to some future event for salvation or awakening, it missed the moment—and the present moment, as we have come to realize, is all we have.
The spiritual awakening and enlightenment we seek is not an intellectual pursuit but one of the soul’s yearning for communion through the heart and spirit—a hunger for a deeper sense of the Divine’s presence in our lives. So it is that within these pages, Istvan gently moves the reader from the conceptual and intellectual into the sacred mysticism of practical spiritual living, for only in the application of the wisdom of the sages is spirituality made practical in the day-to-day living of these changing times.
One of the first principles taught in the ancient mystery schools was Know thyself. Plato gave discourses on this principle. The twentieth-century mystic Edgar Cayce presented it as the second lesson in the Search For God Study Group readings. And Fazekas presents it as a fundamental step in self-transformation.
Through eons of time, spiritual teachers and masters have returned to earth to remind us of the all-important truth that we are the children of a Creator of Infinite Love. We uplift and actually transform the world when we move from the promptings of the heart to be channels for manifesting the unconditional love of God to others. Not through some great act, but just through being kind, compassionate, forgiving, and patient, lending encouragement to the discouraged . . . being positive in our thinking and our actions. And, most importantly, in recognizing the profound truth that we are not separate from one another or the Source we came from—hence we cannot do ill to another without it doing ill to ourselves and to our Maker.
Istvan has been a spiritual mentor to me. He has taught me a great deal about how to befriend, or embrace, those things that are uncomfortable or painful. Most of us can identify with a period in life when we ran away from our fear and pain. In my experience, those things I ran from were always waiting for me at the front door, no matter how fast or hard I ran. In this book, Istvan presents these challenges as soul-growth opportunities and gives illuminating examples of how we can fearlessly move forward, face our uncertainties