Thaddeus Golas
Born in 1924 in Paterson, New Jersey, to Polish Catholic parents, Thaddeus 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 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 his 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 nearly 30 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.
Twenty years after it was completed, Love and Pain, the second book by Thaddeus Golas, picks up where The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment leaves off. It is a deeper investigation of his metaphysical message; a more modern and more complete look at his metaphysical map -- by some accounts his "masterpiece" !
Similarly, The Cosmic Airdrome, his third book, is a great companion to the Guide.
The Lazy Man's Life is the Biography of Thaddeus Golas.
“Whatever you are doing, love yourself for doing it. Whatever you are feeling, love yourself for feeling it.”
“Physical reality is one of the biggest horror movies of all, and you know how we love horror movies.”
“I can't say I know at this moment what all these laws are. But on some level everybody knows that we are all getting exactly what we deserve.”
“No matter what your spiritual condition is, no matter where you find yourself in the universe, your choice is always the same: to expand your awareness or contract it.”
“Love it the way it is.”