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INTRODUCTION

The reader may find some of the information in this book very new and different, perhaps controversial. It is intended to reach those who have open minds in the way they view matters of religion and spirituality. In this vein, the author's experience has been quite instructive and enlightening.

The author's search for cogent validity in spirituality an... More

INTRODUCTION

The reader may find some of the information in this book very new and different, perhaps controversial. It is intended to reach those who have open minds in the way they view matters of religion and spirituality. In this vein, the author's experience has been quite instructive and enlightening.

The author's search for cogent validity in spirituality and religion was stirred by a philosophy course he took shortly before he graduated from the University of Kansas in 1960. This newfound interest soon led him to participate in seminars at the Sequoia Seminar Institute in Northern California where he received his inspiration for this book. Shortly thereafter the Creative Initiative Foundation developed as an outgrowth of Sequoia Seminar. For over a decade the author played an active roll in both Sequoia Seminar and Creative Initiative. After many years of pursuing a career in other fields, his first book, The Book of Thomas was published in 2004.

There is not space enough to go into the phenomena of Sequoia Seminar and the Creative Initiative Foundation here, but for those who are interested in more information, a book published in 1990 describes the history and the people that made up these two remarkable groups.

The Creative Initiative Foundation was truly a new religious and philosophical endeavor. It could not have been compared with any extant religion because it was entirely new. We stood for individual responsibility acted out in accordance with the highest educational and religious principles. We believed that education and responsible action were the only avenues to a more responsible society. We sought to change no one but ourselves. We believed that the principle of individual change and creative initiative were required if there was to be any real change in the moral character of our society.

This was not a new concept, but we made an attempt to bring it into being by developing a "critical mass" of a thousand souls dedicated to those principles. The Creative Initiative community wasn't an end in itself. It was a community of highly motivated people seeking a way to communicate our message with others, while at the same time seeking a more perfect union with God. In that sense it was religious. Our work was based on an incredibly rich heritage of insight and teaching and was a call for more enlightened, more correct choices in continuing humankind's evolution toward Life.

The substance of this book is based on the author's studies in that environment along with his experience of close involvement with those who were his teachers in the venture. The material related to religion and the religious life came from the author's personal notes written over several years and from his memory of the events and experiences that formed the essence of his belief system. Some of his exceptional teachers were mystics and highly dedicated spiritual guides. As the information unfolded for him, the author had strong feelings that he had heard these words before and even though he was hearing them for the first time, he somehow felt that he already knew what he was hearing. At the same time, it was as if he had been waiting an eternity to hear what was being taught. What's more, he felt as if he had been with these particular teachers before. He was not alone in this feeling. Others in these groups had similar feelings as if they had all been together before. This is mentioned because it seems significant that the timing for the work we did was right; that we were in the right place at the right time.

That knowledge and those mystical feelings are now being shared with the readers of this book. The author's epistemological involvement with his teachers in the two closely-knit groups, Sequoia Seminar and Creative Initiative Foundation, helped form his metaphysical approach to the material. His need to know, together with his life experience, set him on the path that led to man

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